Her ears flick at her name, her head tipping slightly as she watches me. She doesn’t come closer, but she doesn’t run either. Progress. Her ribs are still too visible, her coat dull, but compared to the half-dead creature sedated in that transport cage, she’s something closer to whole—physically at least. That has to count for something.
Her gaze follows every movement, golden eyes catching the faint sunrays as I drag a shaky hand across my cheek. The tear I catch surprises me. I hadn’t felt it fall. Maybe it slipped free somewhere between thinking of Rennick and her arrival.
I sniff once and offer Juno a brittle, watery smile. “You might’ve been onto something,” I murmur. “Sometimes it’s just too hard to be human.”
Juno lowers herself onto the frost-bitten earth, chin to her paws, eyes locked on me with the unblinking patience of a hunter. Or a friend. I can’t tell which when it comes to her.
I reach inward, searching for that strange thread that had connected us once before. A faint vibration hums at the edge of my mind. Unsure of what I’m doing, I latch on to it anyway. For a long moment, there’s nothing but silence and the rush of blood in my ears. I’m starting to give up hope when her head snaps up.
Juno?I try, tentative and hopeful at the same time.
Her reply comes like it’s nothing more than a whisper carried to me by the cool wind.If the Goddess had mercy, she wouldn’t let it hurt this much.Her voice trembles through my head, each syllable frayed and hopeless.Finding your mate isn’t supposed to bring pain, but that’s all I feel.
Her pain settles in me like it belongs there. Because I know it. I’ve lived it. Istillam.
My heart splinters. “It’s not supposed to,” I murmur my sad agreement, the rest of the words spilling silently between us.But somehow, nothing has ever hurt more.
Her head dips as if in agreement, her grief mirroring mine.
For a while we just stay like that. Still and silent. We sit there like two fractured halves in the cold woods, bound by the same invisible wound. I don’t know her story, not fully, but I at least now understand the source of her suffering. The ache left by a bond. A mate. An alpha who isn’t here with her.
Time passes and her ears start to twitch. She rises, body tense, eyes scanning the dense trees. When she turns to leave, I don’t stop her. I can’t force her to stay with me when she’s not ready to face the painful reality she’s fallen into.
Her voice brushes against my mind once more as she disappears into the shadows.I’ve watched you both, from afar. The way your alpha looks at you, the pain he causes…it isn’t on purpose. It breaks him every time it breaks you, Noa.
And then she’s gone.
I’m still staring at the spot where she disappeared when the air shifts again. It’s heavier this time, threaded with something older, more powerful. When I turn to my left, Amara steps through the thicket like she’s made from the forest itself. Her black shawl wraps around her elegant shoulders, the edge of it drawn over her head like a hood to guard against the cold.
“I felt you cross the boundary of my ward,” she says before I can speak. Her tone is even, but there’s an edge beneath it that makes me feel small, like a child caught somewhere I shouldn’t be.I crossed the boundary? That’s news to me. Whoops.Her obsidian eyes sweep over me, steady, precise, taking in more than I want her to see. “What are you doing out here, Noa?”
I lift a shoulder in a small, half-hearted shrug, my attempt at a smile collapsing before it has a chance to form. “I don’t know,”I murmur, the words rough as gravel. “I couldn’t breathe. I just needed to get away. I didn’t realize how far I’d gone.”
She studies me for a few long seconds before something subtle softens in her face. It’s not pity, exactly, but it’s close enough to sting. Then she extends a pale hand toward me.
“Come along now.” There’s no command in her tone, but we both know my refusal isn’t an option. I slip my hand into hers, her grip warm and steady as she draws me up from the moss-covered log. “Walk back with me. I think it’s time we discuss some things.”
Chapter 20
Noa
“Zora was right when she said you’re an oracle.”
The creek trickles quietly beside us, its steady song coupled with the crunch of our boots pressing into the earth threads through the trees as we follow its winding path. It’ll spill out near the main road soon, the one that cuts through the heart of the territory and leads straight to Rennick’s house. The thought of crossing that threshold again, breathing air heavy with his scent, makes something cold twist in my stomach. But I can’t avoid it forever.
“What you’ve described to me,” Amara continues, her voice smooth but distant in that way that is so uniquely on brand for her. “Hearing the thoughts of others—I will say that it’s an uncommon breed of an oracle gift.”
We’ve been walking for a while now, and somewhere along the way, I stopped guarding my words. The conversation we’d been avoiding since the attack on Ashvale finally found us. I told her everything—laid it all out like a prayer, hoping she might be the one who could make sense of it. The intrusions into other people’s minds, the strings of thoughts echoing in my head like they were my own, how they’ve only gotten stronger since being back with Rennick, even what happened with Malvina…all of it.
I even brought up the utter fuckery about my mom, and the ways she’d twisted my bond and my wolf until I barely recognized either.
And the familiar way Amara had listened made something in me, still raw with grief, pull taut. It reminded me of how itused to be with my mom before everything came undone, before I learned the truth of what she’d done. When she was here with me, she’d pull me close and just let me talk, like she could hold the whole world steady just by listening.
Amara feels too much like that, and I don’t know whether to be comforted or wrecked by it.
“All oracles are blessed with the gift of sight,” she explains as we continue our path. There’s something wraithlike in the way she moves, her black shawl flowing behind her like a trail of smoke. “Most can see what lies ahead, others what’s already long been buried.” She smiles faintly, almost like she’s in on a secret.” But you, dear Noa…you were never fated for ordinary.”
This should sound like a compliment. It doesn’t. Dread drips through me like ice water.
