Instead, I’ll let Elio’s and Hattie’s happiness feed my aching soul and pretend it’s enough for a moment.
I haven’t seen Rennick since dinner last night and I’m currently feeling the full effect of our distance. Another communal meal at his table meant another round of pretending I wasn’t aware of his eyes on me, watching me closely, searching for more cracks in the healthy façade I wear, or the way his thigh continued to press against mine.
Just like I have every night since I arrived here, I returned to my borrowed bedroom and locked myself within. The quiet moments before sleep captured me were spent refusing the pull to go to him and beg for the relief I know only his touch can give me. And this morning, when I’d emerged from my room feeling like a semitruck had used me for target practice and stiffly made my way into the kitchen, he was already gone. Out on his patrol shift.
I keep telling myself and everyone I’m fine when they cast me worried looks. It’s the same lie I’ve been nursing since I woke from the three-day haze that followed his rejection, but it’s becoming clearer to me that I can’t pretend forever. My body simply can’t sustain it. Not with it showing more signs of deterioration each day.
Being forced to look my mortality in the eye is a gut punch. The kind that laughs while you’re doubled over, gasping for air.
Seren’s arrival tugs me out of the spiral I’ve been riding like a merry-go-round. She claims the open space on the boulder beside me, her shoulder brushing against mine as she settles in. The jostle is small, something I’d normally hardly take note of, but in my current fragile state, my teeth grit against the ache that flares in my bones.
“So, what’s the play here, babe?” she says, feigning at a casual approach, though the tension in her eyes betrays her. They sweep over my face, steady and knowing. “Am I supposed to pretend I don’t see it? That I don’t see how sick you really are?You’ve got a pretty smile, Noa, but I can see through the one you’ve been forcing.”
“Ser, I’m ok?—”
She doesn’t let me finish. “Don’t. Don’t say it. If you try to sit here and tell me you’re okay, I swear I’ll drag your stubborn ass off this rock and toss you straight into the lake.” Her elfin face hardens. “Test me. I dare you. We both know I’ll do it.”She’s right, I do know this. “You’re not okay. You’re not fine. You’resick. And it’s time we stop pretending otherwise. We’ve been letting everything else going on take priority, butyou’rea priority for us too, Noa. And you’redying.”
Her words slice clean through me.
I try to hold steady, to keep their effect from showing on my face, but I flinch anyway, and Seren sees it. She isn’t being cruel. She’s scared. And maybe it’s time I stop lying to myself about how scared I am. I’m terrified of my life ending too soon, of it being cut short before I’ve even figured out how to live it properly. I’m horrified by the way my body has turned into a traitor, of how I no longer fully recognize it as mine. Every day it feels more foreign, more brittle. It’s as though I’ve been shoved from my skin and I’m now forced to watch everything from a distance.
“I know,” I manage at last, forcing the words through a throat that feels too tight to speak. “I know how sick I am.”
Seren’s face crumbles at the admission, and she reaches for me immediately, her hand sliding into mine, her grip fierce and trembling at the same time.“I’m begging you,” she croaks. “I’m begging you to tell him the truth. Let Rennick help you.”
“It’s not that simple…”
“Yes, it is,” she argues back instantly, but there’s no real heat in it. No anger. Just the hollow edge of desperation. “His claim can save you—can repair the bond. That’s all that matters right now.”
The laugh that slips is raw and tastes bitter on my tongue “You think I should just hand my life over to the same man who ripped our bond apart when he sacrificed me? How do I do that? How do I trust Rennick to keep me alive when I can’t even trust him not to break my heart again?” My voice frays with exhaustion. “Be honest, Ser, couldyoudo it? Could you standin front of the man who rejected you, beg him to save you,and believe he’s no longer capable of destroying what’s left of you?”
Seren goes still, color draining from her face. I’ve never brought up her own rejection before. Never dared ask about the alpha she rejected right back. The man who fathered Ivey but knows nothing of her existence. She’s only mentioned him once, liquor prying his name free, and I’ve always respected her silence on the matter.
Until now, apparently, when I’ve thrown the words so unfairly at her and can’t take them back.
“It’s not the same,” she finally murmurs. “G—” She stops short, making a choking sound instead of uttering the name she still refuses to speak aloud. “He isn’t here fighting for me. He’s not actively trying to win me back and fix our bond.Rennickis, though, babe. I see it. He’s not backing down from this fight. The only problem with this little dance you two are partaking in is he’s got time to spare. He’s willing to play the long game, but you, my love, do not have the luxury of that kind of time.”
The sharpness of her honesty cuts into me for a second time, and this time I can’t hide how it wilts me. Bitterness lingers at how easily Seren turns the mirror back on me, how quick she is to strip me of the excuses I cling to.
“Tell me the truth,” she starts, before I can formulate my next sentence. “How bad is it?”
I don’t need her to clarify what she’s asking.
“Bad,” I whisper, the single word catching. “When I’m apart from him, I can feel the rot spreading from where his bond was carved out of me. It’s like I can feel the life draining from me. But when he’s close, close enough for me to reach out and touch him, I’m okay. Better than okay. I almost feel like my normal self.” Another broken laugh leaves me. “It’s a cruel joke, isn’t it? That the man who broke me is also the only one who can make me whole again.”
Seren gives me a smile that’s sad and small, but full of understand. “You just have to be willing to let him try, babe.”
“Yeah,” I murmur, staring out but not really seeing anything. “Sounds so easy and lovely in theory.”
“Seems to be a common occurrence in life, I’m afraid.”
Silence falls heavy between us and for a long moment, we both just sit and watch Elio and Hattie. We allow their contagious joy to fuel us.
“He’s still betrothed to someone else.”
And that slices deeper than I’ve allowed myself to fully face. Every declaration, every heartfelt vow Rennick utters to me is shadowed by Talis McNamara—by her standing there when he ripped his bond from me, by the venom she spit and the way he let her do it. The idea he once imagined a life with her—wanted or not—that he’d been willing to take her mark, to let her carry his children, sinks like stone in my stomach and sours every breath I take.
“I’ll give you that one,” Seren concedes with a deep sigh I feel in my soul. “Another woman laying claim on your mate? That’s the kind of thing you choke one every time you think about it.”
