Chapter 26
Noa
Rennick Fallamhain, Alpha of the Fallamhain Pack.
On his knees.
Head tilted
Throat bared.
For me.
I don’t breathe. I. can’t. fucking. Breathe.
The light spilling through the lodge’s windows catches on his hair and shines on the white fabric drawn across his broad shoulders.
It illuminates the air around him in a gilded haze, but it’s a glow that feels too soft for the intensity of this moment and too warm for the tension thrumming between us.
Kneeling before me, Rennick looks divine.
Like some kind of fallen god that’s still worthy of being worshiped, even in his ruin.
I’d braced for this day like it was going to be the one that broke me—the day my nightmare came true, where I was forced to watch him stand beside Talis McNamara and claim a future with her.
I’d pictured myself watching it happen, swallowed by a second dose of humiliation, bleeding out my pride and what’s left of my broken heart until there was nothing left to hold me here.
But that isn’t what happened here.
The man I thought was betraying me, again, has burned the great lie down to ash instead.
I see it all for what it truly is now. The ruthless brilliance of it, the artful cruelty aimed at those who deserved it.
He gathered every person who helped wreck us and made them witness the moment he tore the alliance apart and built a pyre out of the remains.
Every move, every word, was meant to dismantle what had chained him. What had chained us both.
And now he’s here. Submitting.
He’s waiting for me to decide what comes next. To accept him or condemn him. To forgive or finish what he started that day in the clearing. The power of this choice should scare me, but it doesn’t. Not when I know that condemning him would mean condemning myself too.
But no matter how much I need Rennick, I will always want him more.
I’ve always wanted him. Even when it hurt to admit it. Even when wanting him felt like pressing my hand to an open wound just to feel the blood drip through my fingers.
I’d already started to forgive him before all of this—before the secrecy, before this party, before my power lashed out and forced him to live his worst nightmare.
One of the biggest things that has held me back from succumbing to him was her and the claim she had on him still. He’s erased that now, torn it out by the root in front of everyone.
Suddenly, the only thing left standing between us is…
me. And my fear. But I’m so fucking tired of feeding that.
Tired of carrying it like it’s some fragile thing that might shatter if I breathe wrong in Rennick’s presence.
I don’t want to live like this anymore—I can no longer bear the burden of it.
Mentally or physically. And I also can’t keep letting it pull me back from accepting the future fate has always intended for me.
The weight of the stares in the room press sharply into my skin, but they don’t matter right now. My heart stumbles once before steadying itself through sheer will alone.
His hand has stayed wrapped around mine. The warm solid hold is steady in a way that keeps me anchored. With my free hand, I reach for him.
My fingers brush the open collar of his button shirt, tracing the line of his corded throat where I can feel the hum of his pulse.
His breath hitches at the delicate touch.
Slowly, I trail my fingertips upward over the rough edge of his beard, along the firm line of his carved jaw, and across his cheek until I find his temple.
I press gently, a silent request.
Turn to me.
He does.
When his eyes meet mine, the world stills.
All that’s left is him and me, and the rhythm of our shared heartbeat.
With our drastic height difference, he’s not that much shorter than me when on his knees.
He looks at my face, restless, almost pleading in his search for whatever answers he thinks I might give away there. He’s terrified of what I’ll say.
My thumb traces the corner of his mouth.
If I cared about retribution, he’d just handed me the perfect opening.
I could spill every truth about what these days have been like.
The pain, the conflicting desire to find a way to carve his name out from where it etched itself into my ribs.
I could make him carry the ache of the invisible bruises he left on me, if only for a moment, just long enough for him to understand.
But evening the score, tallying the scars on my heart and marking them onto him so we match in our pain isn’t what I crave.
I crave the peace waiting for me on the other side once I let it all go—the fear, the doubt, the instinct to keep him at a distance, all the things I convinced myself I needed to make sure I never shattered again.
It’s a wild free fall, like stepping off a ledge and trusting he’ll be there at the bottom waiting to catch me.
But I choose to take the step anyway.
“I believe you.”
Three words. That’s all it takes. But they hit him like salvation, sinking into him as if he’s been waiting a lifetime just for this moment. His shoulders loosen, his breath slips out in a rough, shaking exhale. The strain that’s held him captive unspools, then slips away entirely.
Spectators watched him reject me once, and now they’ll watch me reclaim him.
I lean down and kiss him.
It isn’t desperate. There’s no frantic edge in it, no frenzied rush to close the space between us.
It’s a soft press of my lips to his, more a vow than carnal hunger.
Acknowledgement and acceptance wrapped into one.
A quiet promise that I see what he’s done here today, that this public and brutal offering wasn’t wasted on someone unwilling to understand what it could have cost him if the risk didn’t pay off.
When I pull back, my mouth hovers just over his. My voice drops, my whisper only meant for him to hear, though I know some of the closer pack members will catch it.
“You can get off your knees now, Alpha.”
He’s moving before I finish the sentence, rising in one fluid motion and taking me with him.
His arms catch my waist easily, lifting me against his chest so my socked feet dangle uselessly.
The small gasp that slips out of me is all the invitation he needs.
His lips find mine again, and this time, the kiss is deeper.
More certain and leaving no room for doubt.
It’s another bold and unapologetic public claim, showing everyone exactly where his heart has chosen to stand.
When he finally lets me go, the world is tilting and I’m breathless. My feet hit the stage and my knees nearly buckle. His arm hooks around me, holding me upright and close enough to his side that I can steal the warmth from his strong body.
“My submission belongs to you alone, my Luna,” he murmurs, voice low and rough.
If his vow wasn’t enough to make my wolf feel like she might combust in her cage and take me out with her, the title finishes the job. Heat rolls through me as my chest tightens, but not in the aching way I’ve grown accustomed to.
In a way that feels settled, feels like something right has finally fallen into place.
Against my will, and much to my annoyance, my gaze cuts to Talis.
She’s still by the wind cage containing her seething father, her chronically pinched face twisted even tighter than usual.
There’s another shadow of emotion sitting beneath them, though.
Grief. I know better than to believe it’s for the loss of Rennick.
It’s for the lie she’s been spoon-fed her entire life that she swallowed whole and believed.
The promise that she’d own the title of pack Luna someday.
The moment she finds me watching, her mask snaps into place, anger blazing through every line of her angled face.
I don’t give her anything to feed on. My expression stays calm. Still.
My wolf, though, isn’t so subtle. She stretches within me, almost lazy in her smugness over her victory, as she pushes images at me that makes my heart rate climb.
Along with them comes the fierce and territorial desire to claim Rennick right here and now.
My head fills with thoughts of dropping to my knees before my alpha on this stage and taking him down my throat—marking him as mine in such an unmistakable way while Talis can do nothing but stand there and watch.
Heat crawls up my neck, and I force myself to focus. This isn’t the moment to indulge the sudden, feral urge to see just how far I can push my untested gag reflex.
Rennick’s gravelly and commanding voice cutting through the air once more pulls me fully from the fantasy.
“I told you if you couldn’t stand with me as your Alpha, I wanted you gone,” he reminds the room.
“The same goes for Noa. If you have a problem with her being your Luna, get the fuck out now. Leave with the rest. I won’t ask my mate to live among people who won’t accept her. ”
My mate.
Those two words used to unravel me. They would ignite a war between dread and longing every time he said them. But now they fall differently, softer, because I finally trust them.
I hold my breath, waiting to see if anyone will step over the line he’d just drawn on my behalf.
No one moves.
I exhale.
Rennick scans the room once more, making eye contact with his pack.
Whatever he finds there satisfies him. He nods and checks the expensive watch on his wrist. “Pack McNamara, and any wolf of mine who has chosen to align themselves with you,” he says, voice level.
“You have fifteen minutes to remove yourself from my territory. Or we will remove you ourselves. Your escort is waiting for you outside.”
Fifteen minutes sounds like a large grace period, but Fallamhain land is vast. The front gates are miles away from here. They’ll need every second of the time he’s given them.