Chapter 25 #3
Eventually, the last vow leaves the lips of the final wolf before me.
The councilwoman’s head stays bowed, shoulders trembling, and something in my chest finally settles.
It isn’t peace—I’m not na?ve enough to call it that—but it’s close enough.
For the first time since I ascended as Alpha, I know where the lines are drawn.
I know who stands with me because they chose to, and who walked out because the rot in them already swore allegiance somewhere else.
Dismissing them with a nod, they drift back into the crowd.
My dominance eases again, but still not fully, not enough to release them.
The wolves outside hold their positions, a silent message to McNamara and his followers that I can hold them here until I command otherwise. They won’t be escorted out of this building, or off my land, until I’m certain my lesson has settled deep.
But I’m not done yet.
Because this was never just about them.
It was always about her.
Every calculated step leading up to today—every safeguard I set, every title I stripped, every risk I knew might blow back on my head—was for one purpose.
Noa. I ripped the noose off my throat. Tore apart the ugly corrupt thing Cathal looped around us.
Cut out the rot his influence bred inside my own pack.
All of this to clear the path that would lead her back to the place that’s been hers since the first time I breathed her name—and to make sure she’d be safe when she finally claimed it.
My Luna. My mate. The only future that makes breathing worth the effort.
I look to her.
Still between Siggy and Seren, she stands rigid, eyes wide and wild with too much feeling.
The day’s events carved into every line of her face.
The shock. The hurt. The sympathy, because her heart is too kind.
And a fragile kind of hope that doesn’t quite trust its own footing.
She looks like someone who’s braced for the floor to give way again.
I lift my hand toward her, palm open, the invitation clear.
But the choice is still hers.
“Noa.” Her name leaves me softer than anything I’ve said today, thread with a reverence I’ll never carry for anyone else. I don’t care that the room hears it. Let them. Let them know, with a single spoken word, that this woman holds everything I am. The start and the finish of me.
Come here, sweet one. Please let me make this right.
I push the request out where only she might find it and pray she catches it.
When her lips part on a small, silent gasp, my chest tightens. And then releases just as fast.
She heard me.
She doesn’t move at first, wariness making her hesitate.
A reaction I’ve more than earned. I have given her every reason to doubt me.
Every reason to think this could be another cruel twist. Another spectacle pulled at her expense.
Her legs look locked in place, those haunting eyes flicking from my hand to my face, like she is weighing whether the risk of stepping forward is worth it.
“Please, baby.”
It’s Siggy and Seren who save me, both of them giving Noa a soft, but reassuring, nudge in my direction. Whatever Seren whispers in her ear before she lets go of her has Noa inhaling a breath that looks like it hurts before her—sock covered?—foot lifts.
Noa moves toward me, her steps stiff, unsure, like her body doesn’t yet trust what her heart is insisting.
She weaves through the sea of guests while every eye tracks her.
The lodge, which moments ago felt like it might tear itself in half from the tension, now holds still as if afraid to breathe and break the moment.
When she nears the foot of the stage, I don’t make her climb to me.
Keeping my hand extended, I descend the two steps and meet her at the bottom.
Up close, I see the tremor in her fingers, the way her breath catches as she looks up at me.
Her throat works like all of this has become too large for her to swallow.
She hesitates again, a single breath held too long, before she accepts my offering. Noa’s skin is cool against my palm as I curl my fingers around hers, careful, like I’ve been trusted with something breakable, and guide us back up the steps.
Side by side.
Exactly where we should’ve been all along.
Her fingers still shake in mine, and I can’t help myself. I lift our joined hands, and press my lips to her knuckles. Just one kiss that’s a promise in its own right.
There’s no longer a reason to shield it from their eyes. I forced them to show me where their allegiances stand, now I’ll show them where mine will always stay.
She stares up at me, brows pulled together beneath the shorter hair of her bangs, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. She flicks a quick glance toward the crowd, sees the wall of eyes staring back, and the color drains a shade further from her face.
“Ren…” she breathes, and my name on her tongue sounds like a question and a plea all at once.
“It’s okay,” I murmur. “I’ve got you. I promise, Noa.”
I don’t let go of her hand. My thumb moves in slow, steady passes over her skin as I turn back to face the room.
“This woman,” I tell them, and inside my wolf stiffens, ready to lunge if I so much as speak her name wrong.
He’s waiting for the slightest misstep, ready to tear through me if I ever dare think to cross his mate again.
He remembers the last time I stood before a group like this with Noa—still wears the scars from having to crawl from the wreckage of my error.
“Is the one I was always destined for. The only one. And I almost lost her—that’s a mistake that will haunt me till my grave. One I won’t make again.”
The room is so quiet it feels like even the walls are listening.
“Noa Alderwood is your rightful Luna,” I tell them, my voice carrying the truth like a brand of absolution.
“She’s the only one meant to wear that title, the only one built to lead beside me.
Any future this pack has worth fighting for includes her, or it’s not a future I’ll claim.
You’d be lucky to have even a piece of her heart guiding you.
Lucky to stand under the kind of strength and mercy she carries.
Having her stand beside me will make me a better Alpha because she’s already made me a better man. ”
Noa’s breath hitches beside me and her fingers twitch in mine. I give them a quick, reassuring squeeze, letting her know I’m still with her up here. That I’m not letting go. Ever.
“I broke what was sacred,” I admit, and there is no disguising the fracture in my voice.
“I hurt her in ways a man should never hurt what’s his.
In ways I’ll never forgive myself for. And maybe it’s too late for me to fix us.
Maybe I’ll never be worthy of the calm compassion that’s woven into the fibers of her soul—the kind that makes broken things feel safe enough to grow again.
But I’ll spend every day I have left proving I can be better than the man who broke her. ”
Her hand still captured in mind, I turn to face Noa.
The crack of my knees meeting the stage cuts through the silence, loud enough to feel like something holy. It isn’t defeat. It’s an offering. The sound of a man choosing to kneel.
Most wolves will live and die without ever seeing a pack Alpha voluntarily submit. What I’m doing now—this act of surrender, this choice—they’ll call it weakness. I don’t care. Not about the optics. Not about my pride.
My chin tilts, and before everyone, I bare my throat to my mate.
“You are my everything,” I tell her, but I make sure they hear me too. “My heart beats for yours. It doesn’t know how to do anything else. Not anymore.”
Noa’s hand trembles in mine, my name on her lips little more than a breathless exhale. “Ren…”
I keep going.
“All that I have and am, is yours. My name, my heart, my soul. Do you want the same leash that once kept me chained? I’ll hand it to you myself. Wrap it around your fist, pull it tight until it hurts, baby. I’ll follow wherever it leads, because there is no life where I walk away from you again.”
That day in the clearing plays behind my eyes like punishment—the moment I let them take her limp body away while I stood there. Then the sound of my boots turning away from her. Guilt rises like bile, but I don’t let it win. I keep my gaze on her. My anchor and reckoning wrapped into one.
“I know what I did,” I tell her, the words trembling against the still air. “I know how deep the wound goes, how much of you I broke when I should’ve protected you. I don’t deserve your forgiveness or your trust, but I’m here on my knees, sweet Noa, begging you to believe in me anyway.”
My eyes lock with her and I breathe through the quake in my chest as I summon the words I should have said from the beginning. The ones I should have been on my knees telling her in that clearing, instead of the ones that brought us to our near ruin.
“I, Rennick Fallamhain, Alpha of the Fallamhain Pack, claim you, Noa Alderwood, as my fated mate. My scent match. My destiny. You are my rightful Luna. The only one ever meant to bear my mark or my children. From this moment forward, I am yours. Faithfully. Completely.”
The words leave me and take everything with them.
I stay there, on my knees, throat bared, her fingers in my grip, and wait to see if the woman I broke will let me be hers.