She lifts her champagne flute and takes a delicate sip, her polished smile never faltering. “I cried for three days straight when I presented as a beta,” she says, like it’s nothing more than a casual conversation starter.
It’s such an odd thing to hear her admit that it catches me off guard. Without meaning to, I turn my head fully toward her, but she’s still watching the attendees.
She doesn’t wait for me to respond before continuing. “My whole life, my father told me that I’d be your mate one day. That I’d be your Luna. He’d bring me with him when he visited your dad, said it was important you grew used to me. That you’d eventually grow to care.” A quiet laugh slips out of her, soft and sharp all at once. “Didn’t work, though, did it? You never looked at me. Not really. Even when our fathers forced us to spend time together, you acted like it was a punishment. But whenshewas around…” Her words fade as her gaze cuts toward me. “You looked at her like she was a star torn from the sky and brought to life just for you. Or something equally nauseating.”
The memories of those weeks when I was forced to endure Talis’s company come easily. Long summer afternoons that seemed to stretch forever, her constant boredom bleeding into everything I tried to share with her. But when I dig deeper, I hit something solid. A barrier, faint but deliberate, holding back thetruth behind the memory. I press against it, testing its strength, and feel it loosen, like a knot slipping free. It unravels the same way it did when Noa told me of Thalassa’s manipulation and made me remember our day at the creek when we played hooky as pups.
The rest comes rushing in. Noa had been there for much of those visits, too.While Talis pouted, always looking sullen and unimpressed, Noa was light. Her laughter came easy, her smile unguarded. It was a time when I didn’t have to fight to earn either like I do now.
Even back then, when the difference in our ages made her untouchable, I was drawn to her.
Talis mocked the comparison, but she was right. Noa has always been a piece of starlight. My North Star, like Edie once called her.
Talis takes another slow drink, her throat working around the swallow before she speaks again. “When I presented at eighteen, I thought my future was gone. No Alpha wants a beta for a Luna. We can’t give them what they need—alpha heirs to keep the bloodline going. I knew it, but my father made sure I never forgot it. He told me exactly how much I’d disappointed him.” She pauses just long enough to glance up at me through the fake lashes she wears for today’s festivities like pretty armor. There’s a flicker of desire in her eyes, but I know better.It isn’t me she wants. It’s the position she was raised to believe she deserved. “But then something almost poetic happened. Your pack’s healer ran off with her daughter and vanished into the night like a dirty thief. And I started to think maybe fate had decided to give me another chance.”
The hope in her voice feels poisonous. It thickens the air between us until breathing tastes bitter. I fight the instinct to flash my teeth. Noa’s absence was never an invitation. It was a gaping wound, not a door for Talis, or anyone else, towalk through.Because even stripped of memory, some part of me always knew who I belonged to. On a soul-deep level, I remembered and remained loyal to my mate.
“I waited almost eight years,” she says. “And then everything fell into place. Your alliance with my father. You rejecting that girl. Today’s celebration. It feels like the Goddess has finally rewarded me for my patience. For my faith in her plan for me.”
I can’t decide if she’s delusional or just willfully blind. Either way, her words make something violent crawl beneath my skin, a reaction I swore I would never let loose on a female.
“Is that what you thinkthisis?” I ask, my words come out dark, barely more than a contained snarl. “Destiny?”
She meets my gaze head-on, brown eyes illuminated by a breed of conviction that makes my blood boil. “After everything that’s happened to bring us here, what else would you call it?”
“Opportunistic manipulation.” The words leave me without thought or hesitation.
It’s the truth, one I should have seen a long time ago. First it was both my father and Cathal, scheming to tie me to Talis under the guise of pack unity. Then it was only Cathal, dangling the safety of my pack’s omegas in front of me like bait on a lure. His offer of protection had felt impossible to refuse at the time. It was when I was still learning what kind of Alpha I wanted to be. What kind of Alpha Icouldbe.
But being Cathal’s lapdog, and his daughter’s plaything, was never the legacy I wanted to forge for myself.
For the first time, the façade falters. The corners of her mouth twitch before she masks it again. Whatever venom sits on her painted lips dies when the double doors to the lodge slam open. Cold air sweeps through the space and it carries a scent that is a soothing balm to my frayed soul.
Brown sugar and spiced fig.
Noa.
She’s here.
Chapter 24
Noa
He doesn’t look away.
From across the crowded room, over the hum of conversation and clinking champagne glasses, his gaze pins me in place. There’s something in it that I can’t define, a tension coiled beneath the calm exterior, like the charged silence that hangs between a flash of lightning and thunder’s arrival.
Every nerve in my body has jolted awake. My insides twisting, instinct screaming at me to go to Rennick and tear him away from the redheaded parasite who appears to have glued herself to his side. The same woman who thinks she has the right to stand there, who thinks she has claim on what’s always been mine.
Mine,my wolf repeats with a growl, the sound curling through my ribs like smoke.
No matter how fragile our bond currently feels, or how deep the string of his latest betrayal runs, seeing him stand beside her like they’re two halves of the same perfect image pulls something dark and possessive out of me.
I can’t act on it, can’t move. I’m rooted to the floor, suspended in indecision as my instincts war with each other. I want to run and stay all at once. My pulse thrums so hard, I swear it could be seen through my shirt.
For a long, heavy second, I’m little more than a rabbit caught in the sight line of a wolf. The world has narrowed to only him and the heat of his stare.
But then he releases me.
