She knows about the rejected mate syndrome, but I don’t think Rhosyn comprehends how deep its claws are in me. She doesn’t understand that if I don’t accept Rennick, this won’t end in heartbreak—it’ll end in another pyre. There won’t be custody battles or visits. Just ash and the memory of me carried off by wind.
And the last thing I want is to end like that. I don’t want to die. I’m not ready to become a memory people cling to because there’s nothing left of me to hold. But even I can admit this refusal to speak—this fear I’m gripping so tightly—is tipping into something resembling recklessness.Still, I keep holding out, at the detriment of myself, by keeping the truth of this sickness tucked away from Rennick. And I will until I know without question or doubt that I can trust him with both my heart and my life.
Still, I indulge Rhosyn, matching her smile when she turns it on me.
“As if Canaan would let you leave him behind, even for just a weekend,” I retort with a huffing laugh. “He’d find you before sundown.”
There’s a beauty in what they have that people tend to overlook. Everyone’s always chasing their fated mate, their perfect scent match. But Rhosyn and Canaan are proof that love doesn’t need the Goddess’s stamp of approval to be real. They found each other on their own and held fast. There’s something deeply peaceful in that—in waking up every day and still choosing the same person, not because fate said you have to, but because your heart does.
“And I could never let you leave with me, Rhosyn. This territory would burn itself down if you weren’t here, andRennick and Canaan would be standing around, thumbs in their asses, wondering where the water bucket is.”
Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating just a little since Ren and Canaan are both more than capable adults, and she knows this as well as I do, but it’s fun to pick on the boys.Someone needs to keep them humble.
“Well, we don’t have to tell them it’s an empty threat. It won’t make them squirm if they know we’re bluffing,”she teases, her brows doing that wicked little dance before her face softens. Her gaze drifts over the frost-touched pines and the granite mountain peaks looming over the treetops. “I really would hate to leave this place. I didn’t even want to come at first, but Cane swore I’d love it here. He was right—don’t tell him I said that, though, it’ll go straight to his fat head. But it’s scary how a place that felt foreign not that long ago somehow became home.”
It’s even scarier to come back to a place you thought had cast you out and find it only takes a handful of days to start feeling like you belong again.
Chapter 19
Noa
Time passes easily inside the healer’s cabin.
The space hums with soft chatter and movement, fifteen people spread throughout the open-concept layout. Many of us are huddled around the long, worn workbench or in chairs pulled together in different corners of the room.
Everyone’s got a task.
One group knits blankets for nests, their yarns piled in soft mounds of various color. Another hand presses bath bombs with herbs meant to relax tense bodies. A few omegas, including Elio and Hattie, bustle in the kitchen, assembling packets of special brew loose-leaf tea. Everyone seems content to be here, happy even, and that quiet sense of communal purpose makes the cabin feel warmer than the fire burning in the stone hearth ever could.
At the far end of the workbench, the half-filled heat kits sit waiting—neat little bundles of comfort tucked into folded cloth and soft tissue paper. They look harmless. Sweet, even. Each one a quiet promise of relief. My hands pause in their task and for a moment I just…stare. I’ve always been the one handing them out, the caretaker, the crafter of remedies. And I love that, I really do. It’s my calling, but I can’t help wondering what it would feel like to be on the receiving end for once. To open one and know every element was made with me in mind. A kit built for my needs. The thought alone feels foreign, indulgent in a way I can’t explain.
My own heat is closing in. I think I caught a glimpse of it the other morning when Rennick touched me, when that impossible, consuming need tore through me like wildfire. I’ve been too afraid to call it what it was, but deep down, I know. It was the beginning. The first spark of something far bigger than I’m ready to face. My first heat spike. A precursor for mysuper heat, as Zora so fondly called it. The title sounds cursed. Prophetic in a way that almost makes you want to laugh.
I could drown myself in every salve, oil, and tonic on this table and it still wouldn’t matter. No kit in the world could ease what’s got its sights on me. The only thing that could save me is Rennick’s claiming bite.
And that’s the one thing I’m still too scared to ask for, let alone want.
I pull myself from my dark, wandering thoughts.
Rhosyn, true to her word, is tying velvet ribbon around an assortment of silicone dicks. Why the dildos need bows, I don’t know, but I can’t help smiling at the sight of it. There’s something oddly sweet about the decoration, like the absurdity of it will outmatch the possible embarrassment of being on the receiving end of getting that kind of gift. Rhosyn said it was oddly wholesome, and she was right, if not in an utterly obscene way.
I sit a few seats down, working on a muscle relief balm I could make in my sleep, every step of the process familiar. It’s the same recipe I make for my Nightingales back at the sanctuary for their heats, and it’s already the second batch I’ve made today. Whatever I didn’t already have in my canvas pack I found by scavenging Zora’s stores. When I’d asked if she had what I needed, she’d flicked a lazy hand in the direction of her healer room like she couldn’t be bothered to supervise my snooping. Rifling through her jars and bundles felt groundingand familiar. It was muscle memory, like I was back at Potion & Petal working on a regular’s order.
Across from me, Siggy spoons the finished mixture from my first batch into the small glass jars Rhosyn brought. Each one has been boiled to sterilize and neatly labeled. She senses me watching her and glances up, her deep blue eyes bright even in the shadowy cabin light.
“I like this,” she hums. Her voice barely rises over the background noise, but I manage to hear her.
“Like what, love?” I ask. “Being back with your pack?”
She shakes her head, wheat-colored hair tumbling over her shoulders and a small smile tugging at her lips. “No—I mean, yeah, that too. I just meant…I like learning about this stuff. The herbs and whatnot. It’s fascinating hearing what they can be used for.”
That pulls a real smile from me because I will never not sidestep an opportunity to talk about this kind of magic—the kind that grows from the soil below our feet or clings unassumingly to tree branches.
“Crazy, isn’t it? How something so small, so easy to overlook,ends up being useful. You just have to know where to look for it.”
“I wouldn’t mind learning more. Would you teach me? Maybe we could go out one day to forage, and you could show me what grows around here?” She scoops another portion into a new jar as she passes me a shy but hopeful look.
“I’d love to.”
