Chapter 16
Noa
People love to say a good night’s sleep fixes everything, as if rest is some kind of cure-all for decay. What are you supposed to do when the ache in your bones won’t quiet long enough to let you drift under? When every turn in the bed feels like a punishment?
I’d fought it for hours, rolling, shoving at blankets, searching for a position that didn’t make me flinch, before finally giving up and dragging myself from the bed.
It’s been an hour, maybe more, and the exhaustion still sits heave behind my eyes.
I’d give anything to slip into oblivion for a while—into the weightlessness of unconsciousness—because maybe there, I could get a respite from the constant pull of this sickness gnawing at me from within.
Instead, I stand in front of the window with my temple resting against the black metal frame.
I watch the lake below and the way the half-moon above makes the water’s surface look like mercury.
The chill bleeding through the glass barely competes with the chill that’s already made itself at home beneath my skin.
The way my muscles tense and constrict with each violent shiver only makes the relentless ache seep deeper and become sharper.
Once again, my layered clothing does little to nothing to help insulate me.
My thick sweats and socks paired with Rennick’s sweater—the one my hand had reached for and stolen from the banister before my conscious mind even knew what we were doing—are useless soldiers in my fight against the cold.
Even my blanket cocooned around me is little more than a fuzzy decoration at this point.
My mind drifts to the last time I felt warm. No, not even just warm. Hot to the point of overheating.
The phantom caress of Rennick’s touch ghosts across my skin. His mouth, his hands, the heat of his body pressed against mine. Every inch of him felt steady, immoveable. Strong enough to carry me, to protect me from anything, warm enough to melt the frost from my bones.
It’s funny how easily the body confuses comfort for cure.
His touch had done that to me—tricked my body into thinking it was whole again.
Made it forget for that stolen moment that it’s dying.
But then Rennick leaves, and it all comes back.
Harder. Crueler. Like it’s punishment for experiencing a sliver of relief.
Rennick’s been stretched thin the last two days between patrol rotations and planning whatever celebration the pack insists on throwing this weekend.
Still, he finds me. Always does. A hand at my back, a brush of his fingers against mine.
Those small touches chase the worst of the sickness away for a heartbeat or two, but never long enough. Not like that kiss.
That had felt like resurrection.
Movement near the tree line catches my attention and draws me out of the depression spiral I’ve been stuck in since I limped to this spot.
My pulse stutters as a small wolf steps into the open yard. Their body is low to the ground, ears twitching at every sound, head jerking side to side as if expecting an attack at any moment.
Her name forms silently on my lips, but my heart answers before my mind does. I reach for her the only way I know how. It’s wordless, but instinctual.
Juno!
I don’t expect anything to happen. The morning Rennick and I went to check on her and I tried to find her like this, there was nothing but dead air between us.
Now, she stumbles to a uneasy stop. Her head lifts.
She looks straight up at my window as if she felt the silent call brush against her fur.
The moon turns her eyes metallic gold, and they’re still edged with something feral that makes something below my sternum twinge.
I test the thread again.
Juno? Can you hear me?
Her head tilts.
I stop breathing as my stomach flips, nerves and hope colliding. I don’t know what to say. There are too many things and none of them feel important right now, so I choose the only truth that matters.
My name is Noa. I’m here to help you, Juno. Whenever you’re ready to come back—to let your human half breathe again—I’ll be here waiting.
For a heartbeat, she doesn’t move. Then her whole body shivers.
I see the way her legs tremble, the cautious step she takes forward.
My throat tightens. She holds my gaze for a long, strained moment and then bolts for the patio, toward the back patio where her door still sits cracked open.
I’ve continued to keep it stocked with fresh food and clothes on the silent hope this happened.
I press a hand to the glass and wait.
And allow myself to silently hope. That she walked inside with the intention to stay. Maybe she’s standing in front of the mirror now, blinking at a face she hasn’t seen in months.
I start to turn—ready to go down to see if my hope was in vain—when she reappears.
Still as a wolf.
A large piece of food from her tray is clamped in her jaws. She looks up at me again, ears flattened to her skull, and even though I can’t hear anything through the glass, instinct tells me she just loosed a small, unhappy sound.
But then I do hear her. It’s not in spoken words, but inside my head. Her voice is hollow and trembling, like it’s spilling out of an empty shell that used to hold not just life but light.
It hurts. So much. I can’t…I’m not strong enough to face this as a human.
The admission hits me like a physical blow. Before I can reach for her again, she’s gone, disappearing into the trees and swallowed by shadow.
The ache in my chest twists tighter. I press my forehead against the cold glass and breathe through the sting gathering in my eyes.
The echo of Juno’s pain lingers inside me, bleeding into my own until I can’t tell where hers ends and mine begins.
My body already feels brittle, and now the emotional weight threatens to crush what little strength I have left.
I know what would help, knew it before I came to the window and tried to fight against the pull and inevitability.
Rennick.
Going to him could make this all stop. Even just temporarily. Long enough for me to sleep and get the rest my body so desperately needs. Our moment by the creek was one thing, but if I go to him now and ask this of him…it feels different. It’s intimate in a way that terrifies me.
It also feels a little bit like admitting defeat, even if I’ve never been truly na?ve enough to believe I can really make it through this without his aid.
But if I slip across the hallway and into his bedroom and find my way to his bed and slip into that spot beside him that the Goddess fated to be mine, it will open me up to a conversation I’m still not sure I’m ready to have with him.
The honesty we shared the other day was good for us.
Especially if we’re to have the future together that Rennick swears he’s going to give me.
But I’m still just not ready for him to know the extent of the effect he has on my body when he’s near. And what that means for his claiming bite. That it’s the cure he keeps promising he’s going to find me.
I just can’t bring myself to do that when he’s still promised to another woman. A reality that presses down on me with quiet cruelty.
My pride fights to keep me standing here, to stay wrapped in the pretense of strength. But my body has already decided for me. The next wave of pain buckles my knees, and a broken sound catches in my throat before I can swallow it whole.
My body decides before my mind catches up.
I turn from the window, my blanket trialing behind me, and start for the door, stiff and slow.
I’m thinking through how to ask for something without telling him what it really is, how to plead for his warmth while keeping the rest of my secrets safe when I take half a step into the hallway.
I freeze in place.
Even in the dim light, I know that shape. Broad shoulders. The long legs bent awkwardly in front of him. Hood pulled over his head. Ren.
For a beat, my heart lurches. He’s so still that my first thought is that something’s wrong, that maybe he collapsed there.
From pain or illness. But when I look closer, that theory falls apart.
He’s dressed in soft gray sweats and an unzipped hoodie with nothing underneath—like he’d made a deliberate effort to be comfortable on that stop on the floor.
To stay there. Back pressed to the wall, arms hanging loose across his knees.
Not an accident. Not exhaustion or pain. He put himself here.
My jaw is slack as I stare at him.
The second I’d stepped through the doorframe, his head had snapped up.
I can’t tell if he’d been sleeping and his heightened senses still caught on to me or maybe he hasn’t closed his eyes at all tonight, but either way, he’s already watching me when I find him.
His gaze holds mine in the dark, and for a heartbeat, neither of us moves.
“Rennick?” My voice cracks around his name.
He’s on his feet in one fluid motion, the hood slipping back just enough for me to see it—the remorseful wince. The great Alpha of Pack Fallamhain looks embarrassed. His hands lift like he’s surrendering before a fight even starts.
“I can explain,” he says quickly.
“What the hell are you doing out here?” I question at the same time, my voice a rasp whisper. “Why are you on the floor?”
The words fall out of me, but the truth hums low in my chest before he answers. My wolf already knows. She paces behind my ribs, tail high, smug in the way a lovestruck idiot can be. Our mate stayed. He guarded.