Rennick gives a small nod—barely there, a dip of his chin so subtle I almost think I imagined it. Greeting? Signal? Fuck if I know. I’m too strung out right now to read between delicate lines.
Before I can attempt to make sense of it, he leans toward Talis. His mouth moves. What he says to her is lost to me, but whatever it is has her painted smile tightening a fraction.
Then he’s stepping away.
Turning toward the stage, he prowls up the two steps with a predator’s grace. My wolf purrs at the sight of it, pleased by this version of him. Steady, commanding, and sure. The room has already fallen silent by the time he reaches the microphone. He doesn’t have to demand anyone’s attention, his presence does that for him. The silence that follows isn’t emptiness, it’s anticipation itself holding its breath, waiting to see what Rennick does.
“Thank you all for being here,” he begins, his tone even, his posture deceptively relaxed. “Having members of our two packs under the same roof—it’s something that’s been long overdue.”
There’s warmth in his words, but something else lives beneath them. An edge. A quiet, deliberate bite that has me frowning before I even understand why. His words sound genuine, but the way they’re delivered feels...coded. Like he’s speaking two languages at once, and only a select few understand the hidden message.
His gaze slides from Cathal to Talis and back. My skin crawls. I hate that she’s earned even a sliver of his attention, hate it in a way that feels violent.
“I also want to thank the McNamaras for making the trip,” he continues. “I hope the party has lived up to your expectations. It’s an important day, after all, and we made sure every detail reflected the...significance…of the occasion.”
Once again, his words sit politely on the tip of a knife’s blade—whose blood he intends to draw with it today, I still don’t know. And for that reason, heat pricks down my spine and sweat gathers at the base of my neck, as if my body understands what my brain hasn’t reached yet.
My wolf, alert and pacing her cage, urges me to listen.Watch. Let him show you.
More eyes, from every direction, have started to slide toward me. The curiosity from before has shifted into pity. A few of them even grimace before catching themselves, forcing smiles like they’re masks to hide the discomfort. I can feel it—the collective urge to turn me into the party’s sideshow. And maybe they’re right to try. Crashing the betrothal party of the man who rejected me and his smug red-haired arm candy isn’t exactly a portrait of sanity. The secondhand embarrassment rolling off them could drown me if I let it.
I look away before I turn to salt beneath their stares. Across the crowd, I find Cathal McNamara. Even from here, the twitch in his jaw gives him away. His skin has gone dark with anger, blood burning hot beneath the surface. He can sense the shift, too. Whatever Rennick’s planning, it’s veering from whatever script they’d agreed upon. Cathal knows it. So do I.
“Talis,” Rennick calls, and he lifts a hand in a gesture that looks like an invitation but sounds like it’s laced with command. “Join me.”
The hit lands hard, right in the gut, but at least it knocks something loose.The frozen spell I’ve been under cracks. Fight or flight finally comes back online, decides a direction andshovesme. I pivot, ready to vanish through the same doors I came in, to pretend I never stepped foot in this room—never saw him invite her to stand beside him like a king crowning his queen.
I make it one step.
Two sets of hands catch me.
I flinch, breath punching out of my lungs, then look up into familiar faces. Siggy. Seren. For a heartbeat my stomach drops right through my shoes. Betrayal hits first, bitter and familiar. I hate that it does. I hate that, like a knee-jerk reaction, my body reacts faster than my heart, that suspicion comes before reason when I look at the women I love and trust like sisters.
Seren’s gaze keeps me still, unyielding in its calm.Siggy’s eyes are softer, guilt shadowing the dark blue edges. Neither of them looks like a traitor…because they’re not. They look like a butterfly net, open and waiting, ready to catch me before I shatter into broken pieces and float away in the wind.
“Breathe,” Seren murmurs at my ear, her tone gentle and grounding but leaves no space for me to argue. “Let him fight for you.”
What? Let him?—
Her earlier request, the one she spoke to me this morning in my room, slips through the turbulence racking my head.
“Do me a favor and don’t bury him before he’s finished fighting for you.”
I open my mouth to ask her if she knew, if she’d been in on…whateverthisis. I want to know if everyone else in this room also understands what’s happening and I’m the only one who’s been left in the dark. But the words never make it past my lips. They disintegrate before they can touch air.
Stay with me, sweet Noa.
My body locks in place.
The words echo like a pulse, repeating, thrumming through my chest and head.
Stay with me, sweet Noa.
Stay with me, sweet Noa.
Stay with me, sweet Noa.
Rennick.
