Chapter 19
Noa
Time passes easily inside the healer’s cabin.
The space hums with soft chatter and movement, fifteen people spread throughout the open-concept layout. Many of us are huddled around the long, worn workbench or in chairs pulled together in different corners of the room.
Everyone’s got a task.
One group knits blankets for nests, their yarns piled in soft mounds of various color.
Another hand presses bath bombs with herbs meant to relax tense bodies.
A few omegas, including Elio and Hattie, bustle in the kitchen, assembling packets of special brew loose-leaf tea.
Everyone seems content to be here, happy even, and that quiet sense of communal purpose makes the cabin feel warmer than the fire burning in the stone hearth ever could.
At the far end of the workbench, the half-filled heat kits sit waiting—neat little bundles of comfort tucked into folded cloth and soft tissue paper.
They look harmless. Sweet, even. Each one a quiet promise of relief.
My hands pause in their task and for a moment I just…
stare. I’ve always been the one handing them out, the caretaker, the crafter of remedies.
And I love that, I really do. It’s my calling, but I can’t help wondering what it would feel like to be on the receiving end for once.
To open one and know every element was made with me in mind.
A kit built for my needs. The thought alone feels foreign, indulgent in a way I can’t explain.
My own heat is closing in. I think I caught a glimpse of it the other morning when Rennick touched me, when that impossible, consuming need tore through me like wildfire.
I’ve been too afraid to call it what it was, but deep down, I know.
It was the beginning. The first spark of something far bigger than I’m ready to face.
My first heat spike. A precursor for my super heat, as Zora so fondly called it.
The title sounds cursed. Prophetic in a way that almost makes you want to laugh.
I could drown myself in every salve, oil, and tonic on this table and it still wouldn’t matter. No kit in the world could ease what’s got its sights on me. The only thing that could save me is Rennick’s claiming bite.
And that’s the one thing I’m still too scared to ask for, let alone want.
I pull myself from my dark, wandering thoughts.
Rhosyn, true to her word, is tying velvet ribbon around an assortment of silicone dicks.
Why the dildos need bows, I don’t know, but I can’t help smiling at the sight of it.
There’s something oddly sweet about the decoration, like the absurdity of it will outmatch the possible embarrassment of being on the receiving end of getting that kind of gift.
Rhosyn said it was oddly wholesome, and she was right, if not in an utterly obscene way.
I sit a few seats down, working on a muscle relief balm I could make in my sleep, every step of the process familiar.
It’s the same recipe I make for my Nightingales back at the sanctuary for their heats, and it’s already the second batch I’ve made today.
Whatever I didn’t already have in my canvas pack I found by scavenging Zora’s stores.
When I’d asked if she had what I needed, she’d flicked a lazy hand in the direction of her healer room like she couldn’t be bothered to supervise my snooping.
Rifling through her jars and bundles felt grounding and familiar.
It was muscle memory, like I was back at Potion & Petal working on a regular’s order.
Across from me, Siggy spoons the finished mixture from my first batch into the small glass jars Rhosyn brought. Each one has been boiled to sterilize and neatly labeled. She senses me watching her and glances up, her deep blue eyes bright even in the shadowy cabin light.
“I like this,” she hums. Her voice barely rises over the background noise, but I manage to hear her.
“Like what, love?” I ask. “Being back with your pack?”
She shakes her head, wheat-colored hair tumbling over her shoulders and a small smile tugging at her lips. “No—I mean, yeah, that too. I just meant…I like learning about this stuff. The herbs and whatnot. It’s fascinating hearing what they can be used for.”
That pulls a real smile from me because I will never not sidestep an opportunity to talk about this kind of magic—the kind that grows from the soil below our feet or clings unassumingly to tree branches.
“Crazy, isn’t it? How something so small, so easy to overlook, ends up being useful. You just have to know where to look for it.”
“I wouldn’t mind learning more. Would you teach me? Maybe we could go out one day to forage, and you could show me what grows around here?” She scoops another portion into a new jar as she passes me a shy but hopeful look.
“I’d love to.”
I just pray my body will hold up and allow me to go. I’ve reached the point where my skin itself is starting to ache in the same fashion as my joints and muscles. A single touch other than Rennick’s has me cringing inwardly.
A few stools down, a young omega with a messy, bright orange pixie cut looks up from her crocheting. Socks, I believe.
“Can I come too?” She blurts, then flushes pink when both Siggy and I look her way. “If…if that’s okay? I’ve always wanted to learn about this kind of thing but…” she lowers her voice to a whisper. “Zora kinda scares me.”
Rhosyn’s bark of laughter cuts through the air. “Fiona, the scariest thing about Zora is her wardrobe and interior decorating skills.”
I’ve been deliberate about not looking too closely at the cabin, never giving my surroundings more than a cursory glance when I move through the space.
Eyes down, I made a conscious effort to focus on my task only because I knew if I let them wander, I’d be hurting my own heart by discovering the walls that raised me now wear someone else’s aesthetic.
But at Rhosyn’s sarcastic quip, my restraint slips.
My gaze lands on a painting so chaotic it looks like the aftermath of a bad trip. And I almost laugh. Almost.
Rhosyn keeps going. “Zora would probably jump at the chance to mentor you, but full disclosure, learning from her is going to be a full-contact sport. She teaches like she decorates: colorful and a little unhinged. And there’s a fifty-fifty chance you’ll end up talking to toads from accidental magic mushroom ingestion halfway through your first lesson.
I mean, if that’s your speed, then all the power to you and enjoy the ride, but if you want to avoid communing with forest animals, Noa is probably your better choice for a teacher.
Plus, she runs her own apothecary, so she comes with solid credentials.
” She winks and goes back to tying a green velvet bow around a bright pink vibrator.
I shake my head, fighting a smile, before flicking my attention back to the orange-haired omega. “I’d be happy to teach you, Fiona,” I say, adding a few drops of wintergreen essential oil to my glass mixing bowl. “And of course you’re welcome to join us anytime.”
My attention slides to Siggy, silently urging her to show her acceptance of Fiona joining us, knowing that my Nightingale is still struggling with being around people in general. Even if these people are her pack members.
She clears her throat before lifting her head and nodding. “Yeah, sure. It’ll be fun. We can make it like a girls’ day or something.”
Bless her heart, she’s trying and I’m proud of her for it.
Fiona’s round face brightens like someone flipped on her internal light switch. “Do you think I can ask a few others to come too? I know they’d love the chance to learn from you.”
“Of course,” I say easily, though her words hit somewhere deep. Acceptance from these pack members is something I never expected to experience again—let alone want—and it stirs up something fragile. “Anyone’s welcome.”
Fiona makes a delighted sound and darts off toward her friends by the hearth. I can’t help watching her go, a small smile tugging at my mouth. But Rhosyn’s staring at me with a knowing expression when I turn back that immediately sets me on edge.
“What?”
She lifts her shoulders in a light, easy shrug that doesn’t fool me for a second.
“Nothing.” She twiddles a piece of ribbon between her fingers.
“It’s just good, that’s all. Seeing you here.
Watching you slip back into place with everyone.
They needed this—the chance to reconnect with you.
To know you as more than a name they toss around over their morning coffee while they gossip about the Alpha’s disastrous love life. ”
Suspicion prickles up my spine. I turn to Siggy, and the conspiratorial glint in her eye confirms it. They’re up to something.
“Well, it’s not like Noa’s hard to like,” my Nightingale offers with a smirk.
“Right? It’s actually a little terrifying how easy it is to like her.” Rhosyn waves her fingers my way as if sprinkling invisible glitter. “She’s got to be using some witchy shit on us. Hexed us when we weren’t looking because no one’s this effortlessly lovable without magic.”
I blink at her, deadpan. “Well, damn, you’ve found me out. I’m actually harvesting souls for the coven. Friendship’s just step one into luring you into my trap.”
“I knew it!” Siggy crows, leaning forward, eyes alight with that bright, unguarded humor that still feels new and a little breakable.
She’s still healing, still stitching herself together one laugh at a time, maybe not into who she was, but into whoever she’s meant to be now.
“You even got my mom to like you, and she doesn’t really like anyone. ”
Rhosyn snorts, flicking the ribbon toward Siggy. “She’s got a point. I really do adore Yrsa, but no offense, Sig, your mama always looks like she’s been sucking on lemons.”