Chapter 27 #2
“Noa? Sweet one, are you in there?”
I turn to stone beneath the layers of blankets and swallow—the noise is loud in my ears.
“Y-yes,” I manage, voice cracking after an awkward stretch of silence. Perfect. I sound guilty as hell, like I’m thirteen and just got caught doing something I shouldn’t.
“Can I come in?”
I don’t know if I should laugh or cry at the absurdity of the question. Huffing, I attempt to sound casual as I tell him, “It’s your closet, Ren. You don’t have to ask for permission,” I know instantly that I fail.
But if he hears the wobble in it too, he doesn’t comment on it. “Okay,” he replies easily, instead. “But I’m asking anyway.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and draw in another breath of his scent from the pillow, like I’m fortifying myself for whatever comes next. My wolf is practically vibrating with delight at the idea of him joining us. My human half…not so much. She’s busy drowning in equal parts shame and panic.
Is this really my nest? I think, horrified.
I’ve seen omegas build better ones with two throw blankets and a prayer.
This looks like I dumped out my laundry hamper and got bored halfway through folding.
I fight my way out of the spiral as best I can, and mumble, “You can come in.”
The door is softly pushed open. His weight shifts on the hardwood, making it creak.
I wait for him to move farther into the dark space, but he stays put.
After what feels like an awkward eternity, curiosity gets the better of me, and I tug the blankets down my face until just my eyes peek out.
He hasn’t stepped fully inside. He’s crouched in the doorway, backlit by the sun pouring through his bedroom windows.
There’s just enough light for me to make out his face.
He watches me like I’m something tender to be revered instead of the hot mess I feel like.
It’s a look that has my heart faltering painfully.
“Hi,” I whisper, instantly hating how small I sound.
The corner of his mouth lifts. “That looks like a pretty cozy setup you got there.” His voice is gentle, void of any mockery or confusion. There’s only that patient understanding that makes me ache in places I didn’t know were fragile. “Did you make a nest out of things that smell like me, baby?”
My entire body goes rigid, as if bracing for judgment or irritation for tearing through his belongings before going and making myself at home in his closet. Once again, it doesn’t come.
“Maybe,” I manage to rasp. “I don’t…I don’t know…
” My words trail off, hands shaking under the blankets.
At this point, I’m almost positive my body is actively rewiring itself as we speak, and I’m just trapped inside it, scrambling to keep up.
“I guess it’s a nest. I think. It’s a pretty shitty one, if so. ”
Rennick’s head shakes once, immediate refusal. “I think it’s a wonderful nest, omega.” Something in my chest does a ridiculous little swoop at that—my designation uttered like a term of endearment instead of a label. “I love that you chose here. My closet. My space. That it felt safe to you.”
My wolf preens so hard at his praise I swear I can taste the sugary sweetness of it in my teeth. My human half is more reserved in its response with a deliciously warm flutter behind my ribs.
“It helps that it smells really good in here,” I mumble into the pillow, tightening my grip on it.
Even to my own ears, my admission is a little dazed-sounding.
“I don’t know what is happening to me. I’m being steamrolled by instincts and impulses I’ve never had to deal with, and honestly? I’m pretty sure it’s all your fault.”
“My fault?” He repeats it with a flicker of humor now, and I scowl at him over the edge of my knit blanket, daring him to keep it up.
“Yeah! Your fault. You stood up on that stage and told everyone I’m yours—that you choose me—and apparently those were the magic fucking words my needy omega half has been waiting for because now it’s decided to wake up and make itself a problem.
You shattered whatever box it was folded neatly in, and now I’m drowning in hormones with no idea of what the hell I’m doing!
” The last words come out too fast, too sharp.
Panic claws up my throat again. My heart is sprinting. My palms go damp.
He lifts his hands off his sweatpants-clad knees in a gentle, placating way like he’s trying not to spook me. I might find it adorable if I didn’t currently feel like I was ripping apart at the seams.
“Noa, baby, I need you to breathe for me. That’s it, just like that…
” He’s taking long, deep drags of air through his nose and I echo him.
My pulse calms. “This is just you finally becoming who you were always meant to be. You’re an omega and you’re long overdue to finally present as one.
This isn’t a bad thing. But I need you to hear me when I tell you this.
You’re safe and you’re going to be okay.
You’re not alone, baby. I’m right here and I’m not going anywhere, okay? ”
His words are sweet and I do believe them, but it does fuck all to stop the very real and very humiliating whine from ripping out of me anyway. “How are you supposed to help me when you’re all the way over there?”
He clearly doesn’t think the wail is half as embarrassing as I do because that soft look comes back, full force.
“Come on, sweet girl. We both know how this works. You want me to join you in your nest? You have to ask me first.”
My rational brain all but rolls its eyes at me, unimpressed that I’ve managed to forget a rule etched into my very bones.
I’m the one who enforces it with my Nightingales, the one who’d never let anyone—myself included—cross that sacred line without explicit invitation.
And yet, somehow, it’s slipped my mind now.
Maybe because, until just a bit ago when that first true wave of omega hormones hit me, it was easy to treat my designation like a technicality. I didn’t really act like an omega. I didn’t feel like one, either. Not truly.
Just like most days I don’t feel much like a wolf. I’ve spent so long with that piece of me locked behind glass that the title shifter feels like something I’ve stolen. A lot of times, human has felt more accurate. Simpler, at least.
But there’s no pretending now. My wolf is closer to the surface than she’s ever been, pacing beneath my skin, and my omega instincts are no longer whispering. They’re both rising fast and loud, demanding I make space for them, and refusing to be ignored.
“I built a nest,” I murmur. “I…I’m an omega.”
I don’t even know who I’m speaking to when the words leave me. They fall off my tongue like I’m trying them on. Sampling the truth of them and learning how to claim it.
“Yes, you are.” Rennick’s tender smile is so full of pride, it almost hurts to look at. Then his voice drops a shade, possession threading through it like a dark promise. “My omega.”
A spark races through me, lighting me up from the inside and making my body pull taut. My wolf throws herself against her cage with wild abandon, like this might finally be the moment the walls submit to her.
With shaking hands, I shove the blanket down from my face and open it for him. “Please come here,” I tell him, trying and failing to keep the need out of my voice. “I want you close.”
You’d think I’d just handed him the moon by the expression currently softening his too handsome features.
“Okay, baby. I’ve got you.”
He stands and moves toward me with careful, almost reverent steps. It’s like he’s worried about accidentally desecrating the now sacred ground of his closet. It’s official. He’s adorable.
Rennick’s just about to lower himself into the nest beside me when something inside me just…
snaps. A low rumble rolls into the air. It takes me a beat too long to register that it’s coming from me.
I jerk upright, blankets sliding off, my hand shooting out to his bare shoulder to stop him before he can step fully into the nest.
He freezes, eyes flaring with concern. “Noa?”
“Stop.” My voice comes out strange, edged with panic and anger I don’t think belongs solely to me.
I drag in a sharp breath, needing to confirm I didn’t imagine it. Nope. I didn’t. His scent is all wrong. Blood. Sweat. And something synthetic and too sweet tangled in with it.
Her.
“You can’t climb into my nest smelling like blood and her, Rennick!”
His gaze drops to his hand like he’s just now noticing the stain left there by taking hold of Talis earlier. “Shit,” he breathes, and there’s genuine regret in it. Which I appreciate. “I didn’t…”
Before he looks back up, I’m already moving.
The desperate need to fix this is like biting fire ants beneath my skin.
I scramble out of the twisted fabric of the nest and grab his bicep, tugging him up with me.
I’m not so delusional that I believe I’m actually strong enough to yank him around.
He’s moving because I want him to. He could pull out of my grip without even trying, but he goes with it, no fighting.
“You need to wash it off. You need to wash her scent off right now or I’m going to lose my fucking mind.”
I don’t slow down as I drag him out of the closet, across his room, and straight toward his ensuite bathroom.
He lets me pull him, all steady weight and obedience, even when I march him into the white marble walk-in shower big enough to fit eight people.
He only flinches when he realizes what I’m reaching for, but he’s too late to stop it.
My hand twists the handle, and a sheet of ice-cold water crashes on us from above.