This time, Noa lowers the tray closer to the bed. Her movements may be steady, but the wild thrum of her pulse in her throat betrays her. She’s shoving her fear aside and giving everything she has to Juno. And all I can think as I watch is how much I admire her for it but in the same breath, I want to throw her over my knee and keep her there until she remembers she’s not expendable.
I don’t get long to dwell on either option.
The strike comes quick. A flash of black and brown, the gleam of fangs too close to Noa’s pale skin.
Instinct takes over me, and in less than a heartbeat I’ve lifted her off the floor and pulled her behind me, my arm braced firmly across her hip as I hold her tight and shield her with every inch of my body. The snarl that tears from my throat is vicious, bordering on ugly, and laced with the kind of authority that makes the word fall silent. Pack Alpha dominance, pure and unrestrained, fills every corner of the room.
Juno succumbs immediately, her defensive growl cracking in her throat and collapsing into a pitiful whine as she begins to retreat. Regret twists sharp inside me as I watch the feral brightness drain from her wide eyes, submission dimming them before she fully disappears beneath the bed.
Only then do I whip around to Noa. “Are you okay? Did she hurt you?” The words tumble out, too quick, too frantic. I catch her hands, rough thumbs sweeping over soft skin in search of puncture marks or blood. Only when I find none do I breathe again.
“I’m fine.” It’s not bravado. Not dismissal. Just something automatic that leaves her mouth, as though she doesn’t even notice she’s said it.But her posture tells a different story. Shoulders slumped, eyes distant, she looks…dejected.Like Juno’s sudden lunge was a failure she now pins on herself. “I thought I’d be able to reach her,” she whispers, voice breaking low to match the sorrow etched across her features. “I tried…I was just hoping she’d hear me.”
“Hear you?” I echo, because I was right there beside her the whole time, and unless I’ve lost my grip on reality, she never spoke aloud.
Noa stiffens, a faint wince pulling at her features like she’s said more than she meant to.
It presses into me like a bruise, raw with the reminder that she’s still keeping parts of herself out of my reach. I can’t resent her for that. I don’t deserve her secrets, not yet, but the ache ofwanting them is constant. What I already have of her consumes me—it’s obsession wearing the mask of reverence.It’s left me half wild, and I know the more of her I discover—the scars, the laughter, the hidden layers—the more I’ll be undone.She isn’t just my mate. She’s the wonder I’ll spend the rest of my life falling into.
If she’ll let me.
Her eyes flick between mine and the bed where Juno hides, a silent war playing out behind them.It ultimately ends with her choosing silence over explanation and with a low sigh, she steps around me. I’ll let it go, for now. Her priority is the feral omega, and I won’t stand in the way of that.But I won’t forget the crack in her guard. I’ll find a time to circle back to it.
I scrub a hand down my face, trying and failing to shake the vision of teeth flashing in Noa’s direction. The knowledge that if she’d walked in here alone, she could be bleeding right now gnaws at me.
Rattled still, when I speak, my question lands harsher than I mean it to. “Well, what do we do now?”
The truth is this isn’t my arena. This is Noa’s gift, her domain. And standing useless beside her without answers leaves an acrid taste in my mouth. Inadequate is the word clawing up, whether I want to own it or not.
Noa doesn’t turn to answer me. Just walks to the other side of the room, deliberate in every step and her shoulders tense under the thick wool sweater. At the far wall she drags the white curtain aside, uncovering the sliding glass doors, and pulls one half open. Cool autumn air seeps in, brushing over my skin and carrying her scent with it. Brown sugar and spiced fig. It hits me the same way it always does, until the undercurrent reaches me. There’s a trace of something sour buried beneath the sweetness. It’s faint, barely there, but it’s enough to twist my gut and send a chill of fear down my spine. It shouldn’t be there. Not in her.
The bitter note, coupled with the way her fingers shook and her skin looked ashen when she’d come into the kitchen this morning, drives the truth home like a blade. It’s all undeniable evidence of what I’ve done.
Rejected mate syndrome.
The snarl that rakes through my head comes from my own wolf, his teeth bared at me. We’ve made a fragile peace, he and I, but his fury hasn’t faded. Neither has the sting of my betrayal. He sees her pain, and he lays it at my feet like a fresh kill where it belongs.
I vow again—to him, to myself—that I’ll find a cure, though the promise tastes hallow under the burden of guilt.
When my focus drags back to the room, my brows pull tight. Noa doesn’t step out onto the patio like I thought she would. She only leaves the door half open, a clear path out, before returning to my side with deliberate calm.
“You’re letting her go?” My confusion slips out before I can swallow it.
“I’m not her jailer, Ren,” she says softly, but she sounds resolved with this decision. “I want to help her. More than anything. But if she believes I’m just another person trying to hold her captive, she’ll never trust me. If she’s ever going to feel safe here, she has to know she can leave. That she isn’t trapped again in another version of a cage.”
My jaw locks, straining against the instinctive protest clawing up my throat. The alpha in me howls that granting Juno this freedom is dangerous. That the world is still crawling with the same predators who took her and so many others like her. “How are you sure she won’t just run off and fall right back into the hands of those sick fucks?”
Noa’s mouth tightens, troubled shadows flickering across her face. “I’m not,” she admits. The simplicity of her honesty leaves me staggered.Her gaze drops for the briefest moment thensteadies again.“But I can’t force a Nightingale to want my help. They have to choose it. I can only hope that somewhere inside Juno, whether it’s the wolf or the woman, she knows I’m here. That we’re all here. And when she’s ready, she’ll know where to come.”
Her words unravel me. Again. Every time I think I understand the depth of her heart, she proves me wrong. She speaks with the kind of conviction that can’t be taught or faked. I’m fairly certain that her soul is a thing carved purely of compassion. And to think my careless actions nearly stole that from a world that desperately needs that kind of grace. That I’d failed to protect such a gift. Shame claws up my throat until it burns.
How she can still stand here and pour herself into others, after everything I’ve put her through, and everything she’s still carrying because of me, is beyond my comprehension.
I follow her out of the room in silence, my chest heavy with the ache of more unspoken apologies. My wolf paces, torn between the swell of reverence for her and the self-hatred that won’t let me breathe. I’m so lost inside the haze of it that I nearly miss the sudden chill of her frigid fingers wrapping around my wrist, halting me mid-step.
I look down, startled, to find her already scowling up at me, her delicate features hard with a fire that takes me aback.
“If you ever growl at one of my Nightingales again,” she warns, voice low and lethal, “I’ll kick you in the balls so hard you’ll taste the leather of my boot, Fallamhain.”
