Chapter 27
Noa
By the time we reach Rennick’s driveway, my skin feels too tight for my body.
The sensation isn’t painful, just wrong, as if its ill-fitting and pinching in strange places, pressing me toward something I still don’t have a name for.
That low coil of feeling, that need I still can’t name, began during Rennick’s fight with Cathal and has wound tighter with every mile I’ve put between us.
My head feels floaty, too—not dizzy or lightheaded, just unanchored—while that hum behind my eyes keeps droning on. It’s like my system is trying to tune itself into a frequency I’ve been deaf to for years.
Parking and cutting the engine, I send a silent thanks to whatever deity decided to cut me some slack today because getting us home without landing the Jeep in a ditch feels like a miracle in itself.
My legs lead me out of the car and to the covered front stoop. I’m vaguely aware of Seren and Siggy following me.
Seren might be the one who opens the door, or maybe I do—it’s hard to track.
All I know is when I cross the threshold, all thought abandons me as I’m swallowed whole by his scent.
His home has always smelled like him, that perfect blend of vetiver, leather, and mint, but right now it seems stronger.
Or maybe it’s just me and the state I’ve fallen into, the one that’s left me feeling overly sensitive. To everything.
His scent wraps around me in a warm embrace that toes the line of being suffocating, but I don’t mind.
Feeling greedy, my ribs expand, and I draw in a deep inhale like it’s something I’ve been starving for.
Then I do it again. Relief spreads through me with every inhale, soothing nerves that feel stripped bare.
Yes, this is what I needed, I sigh internally.
But just as quickly, another thought rises just as fast.
It’s not enough.
I need more. More of him. Closer. Pressed against me. Surrounding me completely.
I don’t know if it’s my wolf or my omega instincts or maybe both braiding together to whisper in my head, but the message is clear.
Go to his room.
It’s exactly what he ordered of me before he left my side to run after the McNamaras.
The reminder of his absence is enough to have a thin, instinctive whimper climbing up my throat.
I snap my teeth shut around it to keep it trapped.
I don’t know what’s happening to me or why reflexes I thought were long buried are suddenly scrambling forward with a frantic kind of energy, like they sense blood in the water, and they know it’s their turn to feed.
I could fight it, put up another wall, and pretend I’m fine and nothing is shifting under my skin, but I’m so fucking tired of fighting.
Tired of fighting to ignore the pull of what I want.
Tired of fighting to ignore the pain that demands to be felt with every heartbeat.
Tired of fighting the way my body has been subtly changing since I walked back onto this land after nearly eight years away.
So, I just let go.
I mumble a dazed goodbye to Siggy—she looks pale but steady enough now that she’s away from the chaos—and Seren gets a sharper look from me, or as sharp as I can manage at the moment.
It’s a look that tells her we’ll absolutely be discussing whatever the hell she told Rennick behind my back.
Just…not now. I can’t. Not when I feel like I might snap in an unrepairable way if I don’t get upstairs.
I drift through the foyer on autopilot, leaving the two omegas near the front door. I think one or maybe both of them asks if I’m okay. I slur something along the lines of “Not sure” over my shoulder and start climbing the staircase.
The hum in my head pulses with each step.
When I finally reach the double doors of his bedroom—doors I haven’t dared to step through since I arrived—I freeze. My fingers curl against the smooth wood.
My wolf shoves me forward. Inside. You need to be inside.
Without really understanding why, I hold my breath and brace as I twist the handle and step inside.
The air trapped in my lungs escapes in a single harsh punch.
The room is delightfully him. Vaulted ceilings.
Dark wooden beams. The back wall is nothing but glass all the way up to the peak of the roofline, giving the illusion we’re suspended up in the trees.
There’s a sleek stone fireplace across the right wall that I know would be perfect on a snowy night.
And then there’s his bed, positioned to face the wall of windows.
Simple with a rumbled white down comforter and the cognac-colored blanket thrown across the end, but inviting and cozy-looking nonetheless.
That blanket is mine now, an overly confident voice in my head declares.
The haze in my head clears just long enough for me to recall that he hasn’t been sleeping in his bed. Not since I agreed to stay here. He’d been sleeping outside my door instead. Until he wasn’t. Until I let him in.
The memory of that morning blooms behind my eyes, and I can almost feel the weight of him pressed into me and the heat of his hands on my bare skin. It flares through my veins, deepening the restlessness already clawing at me.
I take in another deep lungful of the heady air, and I don’t recognize the sound that escapes me. It’s a mix between a gasp and a whimper, something more animal than human.
Now standing frozen in the center of the room, pulse thudding so hard I can feel it in my fingertips, I try to figure out what I’m supposed to do. I know I need something—something I can’t name—and that it’s close. Close enough to tug at me with invisible hands.
My feet move before my hands can catch up.
The cracked open door of his walk-in closet beckons me like a magnet.
It’s spacious by closet standards but still enclosed and dark enough that just stepping inside, that agitated buzz beneath my skin starts to settle.
And better yet, the clothes that line each wall of the long, narrow space, are so suffocatingly saturated in Rennick’s scent that my eyes nearly cross when I breathe in.
This.
This is what I need.
There’s no conscious decision. One second I’m standing there, the next I’m gathering things—sweaters, hoodies, T-shirts, anything soft enough to satisfy the frantic pull.
Somewhere in the haze, I drift back out into his bedroom and snag the blanket I already called dibs on.
Then I take the comforter. Then the sheets.
The entire bed ends up in my arms, which is wild since I genuinely can’t remember stripping it.
Each item I collect gets pressed to my cheek, not to just check for softness but also scent. Some carry almost no hint of him and get tossed away like they’re worthless. Others are drenched in him and have my knees nearly buckling.
I’m not fully present for any of it. I keep slipping in and out, catching flashes of what I’m doing only when I manage to break through the surface.
At some point, I’m kneeling at the far end of the closet, organizing my loot with painstaking precision and delicate care.
Laying shirts just so, fluffing blankets and pillows—where did I get those?
—so they create little ridges and walls.
It’s like I’ve done this a hundred times before, my hands work with a familiarity that shouldn’t exist within me.
I’m nesting, a distant voice whispers.
Then louder, I’m actually nesting.
Not a just a little or cautiously
Fully. Completely. Out-of-my-mind nesting.
But what I have still doesn’t feel like…enough.
So I run, barefoot and a little frantic, across the hall to my room and grab his clothes Seren had bundled around me this morning.
And while I’m here, I hastily rip off my own bedding.
Yes, this is right. I need to combine both our scents.
The pile ends up being so big, it nearly topples me on the way back.
My arms shake under the weight, but I bring it all back to the closet and start weaving it into the existing structure.
Once the last pair of sweats is placed, I find myself standing and stripping off my pants.
Left in nothing but one of Rennick’s stolen crew-neck sweaters and my black thong, I dive into the mess of fabric.
Tucking beneath the layers of blankets, I pull them over my head and curl on my side around his pillow like it’s my buoy in this storm.
And then, I just…breathe.
The panic that had been chewing at my nerves lets up. The trembling in my bones eases, my chest loosens.
Better. This is better.
The fog lifts just enough for me to revel in the relief.
And then absurdity hits.
I’ve spent almost eight years learning how to help Nightingales through instinct storms and hormone surges.
I’ve prided myself on reading their needs before they can voice them, on knowing exactly how to guide and protect them.
I also know the two things that calm an omega’s nervous system best: their alpha’s purr—if they have one—and their nest. Which is why it’s so important they’re given space to build one.
But I never once believed any of that applied to me. How could it? My wolf was locked away. And yet here I am, curled on a closet floor in what is essentially a pile of fucking laundry, while my awakening omega instincts praise me like this is the first thing I’ve ever done right.
It’s almost funny. Almost.
I don’t know how long I lie there, drifting between awareness and somewhere warm and softer, when I hear the bedroom door push open.
My wolf perks up immediately.
Mate.
Two seconds later, embarrassment slams into me. He can’t see me like this. He can’t. I’m not ready. I don’t even fully understand why this is happening to me now, and if he walks in—
He’s going to think I’ve lost my damn mind.
His steady footsteps move toward the closet door. I squeeze my eyes shut and brace for something I’m nowhere near prepared for.
There’s faint rustling right outside the door, then a gentle knock is followed closely by his velvet-wrapped gravel voice.