Chapter 41
Noa
It’s been two days since everything came apart in my nest and then, impossibly, stitched itself back together into something truer—whole—but it’s a shape I’m still learning how to inhabit.
Two days since my heat came out of nowhere, igniting flames that burn with a ferocity that has you doubting they can ever be extinguished.
Two days since Rennick’s bite tethered my soul back into my body and I returned the favor, healing the bond between us and opening the door for it to do the one thing it’s been patiently waiting nearly eight years to do.
It shattered the spell work my mother embedded into us, the binding threads she’d woven the night she’d traded her life for mine.
Two days since the truth came rushing in and we were guided throughout missing memories by my mom’s own gentle hand from the other side.
As if she’d been waiting there, in the in-between, for the moment we were finally ready to see. To understand.
Rennick’s recounts told me what he was shown mirrored what I saw, only from his own vantage point. He got to be a spectator to those moments that were stolen from him and by doing that, he learned that everything that was taken from us was done in a desperate bid to protect me.
Along with the truth of that night being forced back into me, my head straining under the onslaught of memories and knowledge being crammed into every available space, I woke to even more revelations waiting for me.
The first is that being bonded to your fated mate really does bring a sense of rightness that’s hard to describe without sounding like some dramatic, lovesick ninetieth-century poet.
It’s not loud or dramatic. There aren’t fireworks igniting in my chest every time his eyes find mine.
It’s quieter than that. Deeper. Just the feeling of my soul finding what it’s been waiting a very long time to reunite with. Its other half.
I’m officially mated to Rennick Fallamhain.
Completely. Permanently. Irrevocably. His.
And I’m grateful for this in a way that nearly hurts. I can call him mine and know it’s true in every sense that matters.
The second thing I learned is that the lore was right.
A healed, complete bond well and truly is the cure for rejected mate syndrome.
I don’t just feel better, I feel strong.
As if my body has remembered how it’s supposed to function instead of constantly fighting itself—and losing.
And with my health returning, another feeling stirs beneath it.
One I’m almost scared to fully claim when we now know the threat from the past and one we’re bracing for today all wear the same face.
It all goes back to the missing omegas and the people behind their disappearance.
Tanith. Her dark Coven. And their supporters who made it all possible to keep going. Men like Merritt and his partner.
But still knowing all of this, even feeling their breath on our necks as we wait for their next move, it doesn’t smother the feeling stirring underneath it all. Happy. I feel…happy.
Sometimes the guilt over that happiness sneaks up on me. I never let it linger long enough to take root. I shove it away and remind myself of what it cost to get to this point. The pain. The sacrifices. We didn’t survive all of that just to let the fear and looming threat steal it from us.
Our inner circle would never begrudge this happiness either.
When we told them we were mated, their excitement was immediate.
Siggy had been thrilled, hugging me tight and whispering in my ear about how this officially made me her packmate.
Rhosyn and Seren both cried. Rhosyn cried openly, smiling through the tears brought on by her joy.
Seren’s tears were quieter, but her relief was palpable.
They ran down her cheeks like they were the physical representation of her fear over losing me leave her body.
Thirdly, I learned that your heart stopping in the middle of your super heat is, apparently, a very effective way to end it early.
That discovery came when I surfaced from the fog and the relentless dry heaving finally stopped, allowing me to take stock of my shaking body.
I’d been expecting to find that ruthless, all-consuming need still tearing through me.
Instead, I found it quiet with only a faint ember left glowing.
The lingering flames licking in my veins and the pulsing ache in my core were sated by Rennick when we were finally steady enough to make it to the shower.
He fucked me in long and punishing strokes, never rushing.
It was like he was committing the feel of me to memory again after thinking he’d lost it forever.
I wrapped myself around him, holding on, making sure he understood I was still here.
That I wasn’t leaving him again. He knotted me against the marble shower wall, and while he stayed locked deep inside me, stretching all those dedicate and sensitive places, he tended to his mating bite on my throat.
Soothing the last traces of the burning sting left by his teeth with his tongue.
I did the same for him.
My wolf had chosen the placement for her claim without hesitation or shame.
High and nearly at the front of his neck, just slightly off-center.
No shirt short of a turtleneck will be able to hide it.
At first, when I finally saw it clearly, remorse had twisted in my gut.
Most wolves place their marks neatly where the neck and shoulder meet.
Where it can be tucked away and hidden if needed.
But if I’m being honest, the guilt didn’t last long, and when I tried to apologize, Rennick felt the truth through our bond. He cut me off and ordered me to stop saying sorry for something I so clearly feel a deep sense of satisfaction over.
I like knowing that anyone who looks at him will see it immediately and know. That he’s mated. That he’s mine. Rennick kissed me soundly then, murmuring against my lips that he liked it for the same reason.
Ren called Amara and Zora in later that day.
The pack healer and the High Priestess will never not be a visually interesting pairing, their drastically different aesthetics clashing and painfully obvious when they’re standing side by side.
At his near-panicked insistence, they gave me a complete workup and thoroughly checked me over.
He stayed close the entire time, not even pretending to keep the residual fear off his face, and he kept his hands buried in his jeans pockets, like that was the only way he could think of to stop himself from snatching me back and holding me against his chest where he knew I was safe.
Something broke in him, something I don’t think will ever fully heal, when he felt me almost die in his arms.
No, not almost.
I did die.
He had to fight for me to come back to him, and that knowledge still sits heavy between us.
It was Zora who threw out a theory about my vanishing super heat.
Between the heat starting, my heart stopping, the bond locking into place, and my mother’s magic finally releasing its long hold, my body has no fucking idea which way is up, and which is down.
Zora’s guess is that it’s a self-preservation measure of sorts.
One that had my heat ending early. But only temporarily. Postponed.
Neither Zora nor Amara believe I’ve dodged this bullet. They were very clear on that part. This heat will be back, and it will be intense, long, and miserable.
But for the first time since I learned about the super heat, hearing doesn’t terrify me.
I’m nervous—I would be a fool if I wasn’t—but I’m not scared anymore. Not with Rennick’s mark on my throat and the bond humming steadily and complete between us.
And finally, the fourth thing I learned is maybe the most comforting of them all.
The mate bond is more than just echoes and impressions of his emotions, or the faint thrum of his heart next to mine if I concentrate hard enough.
It’s walking around with living proof he’s here.
That he’s breathing. Uninjured. Safe. Feeling him so easily in my chest, knowing that with certainty, brings a comfort I didn’t realize just how desperate I’d been for until it settled into me.
All I have to do is lean into the connection, follow the link that binds us, and I know.
It’s with that same steady pull in my chest, that constant need to be near him, I can also let it guide me straight to where he is. A kind of homing beacon. We haven’t had the chance—or the reason—to test whether distance weakens it or if it holds no matter what.
That’s what I’m doing now. Letting the bond guide my feet toward him and pretending it isn’t turning me into a stalker or stage five clinger.
I can’t bring myself to feel bad about it.
Not when Rennick’s emotions have been bleeding through the bond since we left the nest and at this point, they’re pigmented enough to leave a stain.
Guilt, heavier than anything I’ve seen from him before. Anger riding right alongside it, pulsing and growing by the minute, to the point I fear it will consume him.
As it is, I know he’s not sleeping. Every time I stir at night and reach for him, he’s already there, awake and alert.
He pulls me closer and holds me tight enough to leave me feeling safe enough to fall back under.
But through the bond, I can feel the storm in his mind cycling, the way the weight of it refuses to ease its grip on him.
I follow the pull in my chest out the back door of the house and down the slope that leads to the lake below. The water gleams in the late morning sun, deceptively inviting and beautiful enough to draw you in. I know better, know just how unforgivingly cold it can be this time of year.