That had felt like resurrection.
Movement near the tree line catches my attention and draws me out of the depression spiral I’ve been stuck in since I limped to this spot.
My pulse stutters as a small wolf steps into the open yard. Their body is low to the ground, ears twitching at every sound, head jerking side to side as if expecting an attack at any moment.
Her name forms silently on my lips, but my heart answers before my mind does. I reach for her the only way I know how. It’s wordless, but instinctual.
Juno!
I don’t expect anything to happen. The morning Rennick and I went to check on her and I tried to find her like this, there wasnothing but dead air between us. Now, she stumbles to a uneasy stop. Her head lifts. She looks straight up at my window as if she felt the silent call brush against her fur. The moon turns her eyes metallic gold, and they’re still edged with something feral that makes something below my sternum twinge.
I test the thread again.
Juno? Can you hear me?
Her head tilts.
I stop breathing as my stomach flips, nerves and hope colliding. I don’t know what to say. There are too many things and none of them feel important right now, so I choose the only truth that matters.
My name is Noa. I’m here to help you, Juno. Whenever you’re ready to come back—to let your human half breathe again—I’ll be here waiting.
For a heartbeat, she doesn’t move. Then her whole body shivers. I see the way her legs tremble, the cautious step she takes forward. My throat tightens. She holds my gaze for a long, strained moment and then bolts for the patio, toward the back patio where her door still sits cracked open. I’ve continued to keep it stocked with fresh food and clothes on the silent hope this happened.
I press a hand to the glass and wait.
And allow myself to silently hope. That she walked inside with the intention to stay. Maybe she’s standing in front of the mirror now, blinking at a face she hasn’t seen in months.
I start to turn—ready to go down to see if my hope was in vain—when she reappears.
Still as a wolf.
A large piece of food from her tray is clamped in her jaws. She looks up at me again, ears flattened to her skull, and even though I can’t hear anything through the glass, instinct tells me she just loosed a small, unhappy sound.
But then Idohear her. It’s not in spoken words, but inside my head. Her voice is hollow and trembling, like it’s spilling out of an empty shell that used to hold not just life but light.
It hurts. So much. I can’t…I’m not strong enough to face this as a human.
The admission hits me like a physical blow. Before I can reach for her again, she’s gone, disappearing into the trees and swallowed by shadow.
The ache in my chest twists tighter. I press my forehead against the cold glass and breathe through the sting gathering in my eyes. The echo of Juno’s pain lingers inside me, bleeding into my own until I can’t tell where hers ends and mine begins. My body already feels brittle, and now the emotional weight threatens to crush what little strength I have left.
I know what would help, knew it before I came to the window and tried to fight against the pull and inevitability.
Rennick.
Going to him could make this all stop. Even just temporarily. Long enough for me to sleep and get the rest my body so desperately needs. Our moment by the creek was one thing, but if I go to him now and ask this of him…it feels different. It’s intimate in a way that terrifies me.
It also feels a little bit like admitting defeat, even if I’ve never been truly naïve enough to believe I can really make it through this without his aid. But if I slip across the hallway and into his bedroom and find my way to his bed and slip into that spot beside him that the Goddess fated to be mine, it will open me up to a conversation I’m still not sure I’m ready to have with him. The honesty we shared the other day was good for us. Especially if we’re to have the future together that Rennick swears he’s going to give me.
But I’m still just not ready for him to know the extent of the effect he has on my body when he’s near. And what that meansfor his claiming bite. That it’s the cure he keeps promising he’s going to find me.
I just can’t bring myself to do that when he’s still promised to another woman. A reality that presses down on me with quiet cruelty.
My pride fights to keep me standing here, to stay wrapped in the pretense of strength. But my body has already decided for me. The next wave of pain buckles my knees, and a broken sound catches in my throat before I can swallow it whole.
My body decides before my mind catches up.
I turn from the window, my blanket trialing behind me, and start for the door, stiff and slow.
