Chapter 7 #2
Actually, I still have no clue how the meeting ended last night. I didn’t run into anyone when I crept out of Mom’s office and slipped upstairs on soft feet half an hour ago. I don’t know if I’m avoiding people or the decision they’re all waiting on me to make.
The dim and lonely silence of my room is interrupted when my door creaks open and quiet footsteps pad across the hardwood floor. Staying where I am, I look over my shoulder to find the intruder.
Siggy doesn’t say anything at first, just flops on her stomach across the end of my messy and unmade bed. The sheets are still stained from the grime that had transferred yesterday from my clothes to the bedding. Luckily, she picked a relatively unsoiled space to occupy.
Siggy rests her chin in her palm and watches me.
She doesn’t look quite as haunted as she did yesterday, though the weight of her past—the abuse she escaped, the terror she lived through—still lingers in her eyes.
Trauma doesn’t let go easily, not when it’s had months to root itself deep.
Seeing even that small shift loosens the knot in my chest. Everything around us might be spiraling into grief and fear after the attack, but her health, her steps toward healing, will always be a priority.
She doesn’t let the quiet linger for too long. “So, what’s the over under we can just hide up here all day?”
“I’m not hiding,” I lie.
Her mouth tilts, and instead of uttering a sarcastic comment or snort I more than deserve for my fib, she simply hums. “Ah, okay. Then neither am I.”
“I’m processing,” I correct with a wrinkle of my nose as I reach up to redo the clip I’d contained my waist-length hair into when I’d changed.
I remembered to wear something white this time.
An over-sized sweater that hangs off one shoulder.
It’s the least I can do for the dead I know we’ll be putting to rest at sunset.
“Processing takes the time it takes. Trust me, I get that better than anyone, but if it helps to have company while you do it… I’m here.” I’m once get unnerved by this role reversal, not liking that she thinks she needs to help prop me up.
“I’m trying…”
She picks at a loose thread from the woven cream blanket on my bed, quiet for a moment, letting me have space to breathe in. Then, softly, “Okay. Do you want to know what happened after you disappeared on us last night?”
The word ‘disappeared’ makes me flinch, but I don’t argue it. It’s true. I just…walked out on them. I owe everyone an apology at some point today.
“Fifteen members of the coven have agreed to come to Idaho. Seren thinks more will agree to go if or when Amara finds her ability to speak again. But we’re still holding out for that to happen.
” Siggy lays it all out for me. “The Craddock Pack is split, but you already knew this. One side is backing Lena and want nothing to do with Pack Fallamhain. The rest are team Cerys, but that means they’re actually waiting on you. ”
And I still don’t understand why.
I move away from the huge window and drop into the cream boucle chair. My muscles are quivering, and I don’t know if it’s from the crushing weight of responsibility or from sickness, but either way, it hurts.
The ache is worse when I’m away from him.
That’s been more than confirmed over the past day with his on and off proximity.
I almost feel like myself when I’m within touching distance of him, but when his skin is actually against mine?
I’m fucking golden. And it pisses me off because it all but confirms what Zora told me.
Siggy continues talking, dragging me back to the matter at hand. “Rennick called in reinforcements last night. My mom, Zora, a few others, they’re headed this way as we speak to help organize things here but also drive people back to our territory.”
Hearing this, a wave of homesickness I haven’t felt in a very long-time washes over me.
My memories are still working their way to the surface, whatever manipulation Mom had done to my mind easing with each passing day, but despite her interference, I never forgot the selflessness and generosity of the people in my childhood pack.
Their warmth was a complete contrast to the old pack Alpha’s coldness. Merritt Fallamhain. Ren’s dad.
“I’m sure your mom will be over the moon to see you,” I tell Siggy, meaning it. “She’s wanted you home since the second she found out you were safe.”
Siggy’s mouth pulls into a frown. “Yeah, well, she might just have to deal. If you’re not going back with me—with everyone—then I’m not going either.”
“Sig…”
“I mean it,” she cuts in, her voice taking on a slightly panicked lilt. “If you stay, I stay. But what are we going to do? The new omegas…where are they going to sleep? There’s only a couple extra spare bedrooms in the actual house, and you know omegas sharing nests doesn’t bode well for anyone.”
I do, which is why I say, “They can’t stay here, I already know that. But neither can you, love. Not when our safety measures are in tatters.”
“So, what are you saying? You’re going to, what? Send us to Idaho without you?” Siggy’s voice cracks at the very idea of being separated from me, her faces leaching of all color.
My heart pinches at the sight, hating that I’m the cause of my Nightingale’s distress.
Pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes, I fight back tears and a groan. I need caffeine. Bad. My brain feels like it’s being pressure-cooked inside my skull. Nothing like a little emotional turmoil and a dependence on bitter bean water to really round out my morning.
“You’re right,” I admit after a moment of heavy silence where I manage to collect myself. “I know what the right thing to do is—what I need to do. I just don’t know if I can do it.”
My Nightingale blue eyes soften. “Because you’re scared of what will happen when you’re forced to be around him?”
I don’t answer right away because I don’t need to. The truth of my situation is clear as day.
“Yes,” I finally say as I lift my head.
Siggy’s mouth opens like she’s going to say something else, but then she freezes, head tilting suddenly. She looks over her shoulder at the empty doorway behind her. It’s not until a few beats later my weaker senses pick up on the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs.
The person in the doorway isn’t the one I was expecting. Or hoping for, apparently, if the drop in my stomach is any indication.
“Canaan?” Siggy asks from where she’s sprawled across my bed, her wheat-blonde brows scrunching together.
Rennick’s second-in-command looks unsure of himself as he takes one singular step into the room but makes no move to take another one. He just hovers there with a steaming coffee mug in his left hand.
“Good morning,” he offers, wearing the kind of easy smile that doesn’t reach his tired eyes.
We echo the sentiment, mine sounding thin.
My wolf has never done well with men. Any time one got too close, she snapped her teeth and sharpened her claws.
For a long time, I thought it was fear-induced, but I now know it was loyalty.
While my memory of Rennick had been manipulated, she never forgot.
But the first time I met Canaan Roarke, she bristled, sure, but had stayed quiet inside me otherwise.
I think she sensed the good in him, and watching how he is with Rhosyn since has only proved her hunch right.
His light-brown hair is still damp from the shower, the strands a few shades darker from the water.
The stubble on his face is more prominent than I’ve seen before.
Bothering with a razor is understandably low on the list of priorities today.
It looks good on him, though. He’s also dressed in jeans and a navy flannel with the sleeves rolled to his elbows.
Where he got those clothes, I have no idea, and I don’t ask.
“What can I do for you?” I ask.
His attention flicks from me to Siggy and then back again, but he still stays where he is. But then he sighs, the sound betraying how exhausted he is. “I was hoping I could talk to you.”
“Oh, okay…sure.”
Siggy watches the exchange like she’s courtside at the slowest tennis match. She lets the silence cling before finally pushing herself up. “All righty. I’m gonna go find Seren. See if she needs help with…something.”
She slips past Canaan before I can respond.
Canaan lingers at the threshold a moment longer then finally crosses the room.
When he’s close enough, he holds out the mug.
Steam curls up between us. “This is for you. Don’t worry, Seren walked me through how you like it.
Even gave me a full lecture on your relationship with caffeine.
” His mouth tilts faintly. “Codependent may have been the word she used.”
“That sounds like Seren.”
He steps back once my fingers are secure around the warm ceramic.
Espresso, cream, and vanilla curl into my lungs, and I almost moan with relief.
I swallow it down, resisting the call of the first sip.
This clearly isn’t just a latte. It’s some kind of loaded offering.
I wait for him to speak, but his silence stretches, his apprehension making him look like someone I don’t know.
The quiet gnaws at me until I can’t take it anymore. “Where’s Rhosyn?”
“I sent her with Nick to get the SUV we abandoned on the side of the road yesterday,” he tells me, stuffing his hands into his front pockets like he’s the poster child for forced nonchalance.
“We took shifts running patrols last night, too, but between the two of them and their restless energy this morning, I was worried they’d start chewing on your baseboards like poorly housebroken puppies if they didn’t get outside and run. ”