Page 12 of Primal (The Prey Drive #1)

Chapter 11

Noa

“ E verything in here is brand new, or if it’s not, it’s been thoroughly washed with scent-neutralizing detergent.” I push the door open to what we call the nesting closet. The sheer size of the space makes it the furthest thing from an actual closet, but the name’s stuck nonetheless. All four walls have built-in shelving units that are stocked to the brim with various color-coded nesting supplies. In the middle, we have bins that are stuffed with more fabric and pillows. “Like I told you before, you’re welcome to anything here. You can take as much or as little as you want. This is your space—your nest—and you need to be comfortable in it, and if twenty-seven pillows and thirteen blankets is what you need to accomplish that, then so be it.”

After five nights with us and countless gentle offers from Seren and me, our new Nightingale has finally chosen to make her new room her own. This is so much more than simply decorating. It’s deeper than that. For an omega, curating a nest is something that borders on ceremonial. It’s sacred. The fact she feels safe enough to take this step is a testament to her resilience. Having access to a genuine nest of her own will only aid her healing process here. There is nowhere an omega feels safer than in her nest.

And who knows when Siggy’s next heat will hit? More than once, simply being in a safe, stable environment has triggered a heat cycle in one of our Nightingales. Once their bodies are no longer trapped in a constant state of fight or flight, they can finally relax, allowing nature to resume its regularly scheduled programming. It would be detrimental to Siggy if she didn’t have a proper nest ready in time.

Stepping into the room, I look over my shoulder to make sure she’s still with me, but she remains three feet before the open doorway. The panic-stricken look in her big blue eyes tells me everything I need to know.

“Siggy.” I softly say her name to redirect her attention to me. Yesterday, during a quiet moment at breakfast, she’d found her voice and whispered her name. I’m still trying to uncover her last name and where she comes from, but, for now, just knowing her first name feels like a victory. Calling someone “omega” for too long starts to feel impersonal, bordering on dehumanizing. Siggy deserves more than that. “We don’t have to do this today. This is all at your pace, love. No one will mind if you want to wait a few more days.”

Her head shakes, her thick wheat-blonde hair falling forward into her face. We’d spent a good hour the day before last detangling the strands and then trimming the dead ends away. She’s still far from looking healthy, but it’s incredible what a good shower and the safety of a warm, secure place can do for the body.

“It’s not that.” Her voice is still painfully soft, just an octave above a raspy whisper. “A week before I was taken, I presented. I never even had the chance to try making a real nest as an omega. I have no idea where to start…what if I mess it up?”

With plenty of sleep and a steady diet, Siggy’s broken fingers have healed, but that doesn’t stop me from being overly gentle when I reach out and grasp them in mine. “You can’t mess this up because it’s yours . Your omega instincts will guide you, showing you exactly what you need and where everything belongs. All you have to do is trust yourself and listen.” I give her hand the faintest squeeze. “Okay?”

“Okay.” She takes a deep, soothing breath, her attention flicking between all the varying shelves and bins. We try to keep the basics stocked here, but if there’s something specific a Nightingale wants, we have no problem ordering it for them. We shuffle into the room, and I grab her one of the empty rolling bins. The whole thing will be like a little shopping spree, but without the price tags for her.

Siggy’s quiet for a moment while she explores the first shelf, thin fingers dragging over the soft materials that are all in different shades of blue. I stay back, leaning against the doorframe, letting her process this however she needs to. My role here is to support her in whatever capacity she needs me, but nesting is such an intimate process, there’s not much I can do other than lend her my silent reassurance.

She glances at me over her shoulder. “Noa?”

“Yeah?”

“What does your nest look like?”

Her question has me shifting on my feet, a long-buried yearning flaring in my chest. An inaccessible instinct itching beneath my skin. “Oh,” I start, standing up straighter, my movements feeling awkward. “Well, I don’t have one. I have a really cool room, though. It’s the attic of the manor and it has these kick-ass vaulted ceilings and windows on every wall…”

This has her turning fully around to face me. “You don’t have a nest? Why not?”

“Nesting is something omegas do, and I’m not an omega.” My shoulders shrug in a falsified show of nonchalance.

Dark blue gaze, wise beyond her eighteen years, scrutinizes me before she makes a surprisingly sassy huff. It’s a small thing, but it’s wonderful to see traces of her personality coming back to life. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“Oh? And why’s that?” I chuckle, thoroughly enjoying the moment of levity between us.

The past five days have been hard and heavy. Between the chaos at the Fallamhain territory and tending to Siggy, it’s been a lot. I haven’t stopped moving since I got home, and I know why. Deep down, I’m afraid of what will happen if I give myself even five minutes to think about him . It’s hard enough ignoring the persistent tugging in my chest, the beckoning pull in my heart. My poor imprisoned wolf has been beyond restless within her glass cage. If I stop and focus on him—his stormy gunmetal gray eyes and his effortlessly messy dark hair—that fissure that formed five days ago will only deepen, tearing apart a piece of me I never even knew was there.

And on top of all of that, I’m still trying to get to the bottom of why I’ve been able to hear a handful of other people’s thoughts. So, yeah , to say I’ve had a few things on my plate would be a freaking understatement.

“Noa, I’ve spent a lot of time around omegas these past months.” Some of the lightheartedness that’d graced her face only a second ago falls away, memories of the horrors she’s recently escaped—horrors she’s yet to share with me—no doubt filling her poor head. Siggy blinks rapidly, head shaking ever so slightly as she attempts to disrupt whatever darkness that’s crept in from her subconscious. “You’re built just like one of us.”

One of us. That’s the thing. I’ve never fully belonged anywhere. I exist on the edges, close enough to brush against acceptance but never quite fitting in. I’m a wolf shifter without a wolf. The daughter of a charmer living among witches, yet powerless myself. My life is devoted to the care of omegas, though I don’t bear that title either. Always close, always almost , but never enough.

Caught between worlds, never truly a part of any.

“Maybe I’m just short,” I deflect, but the blank stare I get in return tells me she’s not buying it. Okay, fine . “We’re supposed to find out our designations during our first shifts. But, as you know, that never happened for me. Alpha, beta, omega…whatever I was destined to be, I’ll never know.”

But she’s right. Of those options, omega is the most likely. I can stand up for myself and others when it matters, but I don’t thrive in confrontation. I can lead and take charge when needed, but “dominant” isn’t a word I’d ever use to describe myself. Deep down, at my core, I’m a nurturer. And, shit, I do love my collection of fluffy blankets—not that this is the be-all and end-all of being an omega, but, let’s be real, comfort items are kind of their thing. Any genuine omega instincts I may have are locked away with my wolf.

Siggy’s pale hand waves me off. “You’re definitely an omega.”

“Perhaps, but we’ll never know for sure.”

I don’t think she consciously knows she’s doing it, but she reaches for an incredibly soft pillow in a shade that matches her irises almost perfectly. Her fingers stroke the fabric for a heartbeat before she tosses it into her empty cart. Siggy’s just selected the first item of her nest and the action has me silently applauding her. I know the second she realizes what she’s done because her body locks up and she glances between the pillow she’s selected and the shelf she pulled it from, as if she’s trying to figure out how it got there in the first place. Slowly, her focus lifts back to me, a flicker of shy excitement breaking through the dullness still lingering in her features.

“You’re the one who told me to listen to my instincts.” With more gumption, she selects a matching pillow in a lighter shade and enthusiastically adds it to her collection. “Maybe you need to take your own advice and listen to yours.”

“She feels lighter,” Seren murmurs softly behind me as she watches over my shoulder. “There’s obviously a lot she still needs to work through, and we’ll get there but, right now, she’s not drowning in the darkness the way she was when she first got here. Don’t get me wrong, she’s still scared shitless, but who could blame her?”

“Not me,” I utter back just as softly so we don’t disrupt the Nightingale who’s diligently placing her new nesting materials around her room.

Once Siggy chose that first pillow, there was no stopping her. It was like flipping a switch. She moved through the space in a trance-like state, picking out more items without hesitation. Her omega instincts took over completely, even driving her to scent mark a few things before adding them to her ever-growing collection of goodies. It was cute as hell.

“She said earlier that she spent a lot of time around omegas. With everything else we know, I’m starting to think she was trafficked.” I don’t have to verbalize the rest. We’re both already thinking it.

Sex slavery.

When I think of hell on earth, I picture the underground networks that buy and sell omegas like cattle, stripping them of their freedom, humanity, and dignity. The very thought of it and its growing prevalence makes my skin crawl and my stomach roll with nausea. And knowing that Siggy might have lived through that kind of nightmare? It’s nothing short of horrifying.

“Have you been able to…” When Seren’s question trails off, I glance over my shoulder at her with my eyebrows lifted in silent question. “You said you heard her thoughts that first night. Just like you did with you-know-who. Have you picked up on anything else that will help us piece together her story?

Of course, after I’d said good night to our new Nightingale that first night she was here, you can bet your ass I ran straight to Seren to tell her what had happened for the second time that day. If you start hearing voices in your head, common sense says you should tell someone, unless you’re aiming for a one-way ticket to starring in your own psychological thriller. Things like that can spin out of control, fast , and the only thing that stopped me from panicking about the health status of my mind was reminding myself that I am, in fact, riddled with dormant charmer DNA.

Seren, ever the trooper, sat with me for over two hours while I tried to tune into her thoughts. She’s a saint, not just for putting up with my silly late-night experiment, but for believing me even when I couldn’t make it happen again. While I’d continued to set up camp in the land of denial, Seren had waved me off with a scoff. “You are the daughter of one of the most powerful charmers on record. Did you honestly think you’d never manifest gifts of your own, you cute but delusional dingbat?” were her precise words.

The question is, why would I be manifesting gifts of any kind now ?

Neither of us had an answer for that one.

My head shakes. “I haven’t heard anything else. I’ve tried to stay open or whatever, but it’s not like I was purposely eavesdropping on them before. It just…happened. I don’t exactly have control over it. Who knows? Maybe it was just a fluke. One of those one-time-only kind of things.”

Seren ponders this for all of three seconds, lips pursed in contemplation, before she comes to a decision. “Nope, not buying it. You’ve got royal charmer blood in your veins, babe. Randomly developing a gift as rare and revered as telepathy isn’t something that just pops in for a day for a casual visit. There’s more to it, and you know it.”

“Yeah…” I sigh, palm rubbing at my chest. “I was worried you were going to say that.”

We fall into a heavy silence, our attentions returning to the omega who is currently debating the placement of a dove-gray faux mink blanket in her bed. All the rooms down here are equipped with beds that are sunken into the floor with a four-poster canopy over them, both of which aid in giving an omega that enclosed atmosphere they crave. Siggy has woven soft fairy lights into the sheer blue fabric she’s hung between the bed posts. There was a minute there when she was struggling to connect the ends, but I made no move to assist her. Until she invites me into her space, I am firmly planted on this side of the doorway. This room is officially her nest now, and you don’t enter an omega’s nest without an explicit invitation. I can count on two hands how many times I’ve stepped foot in Seren’s room in the house, and she’s basically my sister at this point. Respecting an omega’s nest is something that should always be taken seriously.

Siggy finally decides where she wants the blanket. Her gaunt face peeks over her shoulder, that unsure expression from earlier once again grips her.

I don’t need to be able to hear her thoughts to understand her unspoken question. “Siggy, it looks amazing in here. You should be proud of yourself, love.” My big, genuine grin almost hurts my face as I give her a horribly cheesy thumbs-up. I’d prefer to offer her a hug, but I can’t do that from here. “We can look at rugs online later like we talked about.”

“Okay.” She nibbles on her bottom lip, her uncertainty still clear, but she doesn’t offer more insight into where her head’s at and I don’t pry. Siggy will tell me when she’s ready. “Thanks, Noa.”

I wave her off and smile when she gets busy attacking more blankets.

Knowing she’ll be busy for a while longer, Seren and I slip away down the short hallway into the kitchen. Because she knows me better than anyone alive, Seren immediately gets to work on making a fresh pot of coffee. I’d prefer to head upstairs to the manor’s kitchen where our beloved espresso machine lives, but you know what they say about beggars and choosers. If I’m really honest, I think I’d sip caffeine straight out of a dirty puddle if I were desperate enough. We all have our vices, right?

“She’s chosen you,” Seren declares, leaning against the butcher block countertop. She doesn’t have to elaborate further. We both know what she means. Every Nightingale who comes to us receives support from everyone involved in the sanctuary, but, in the end, an omega almost always chooses one person to be, well…their person. For Edie, that someone was Lowri. The pack Alpha took her under her wing almost immediately. “I’m trying to decide if I should be offended since, you know, I was actually the one here when Siggy arrived. But then again, I guess I’m at a bit of a disadvantage these days seeing as I can’t fucking read minds like you can. Hard to compete with a damn mind reader.”

I roll my eyes and mirror her lighthearted teasing, “That’s rich coming from the girl who can not only sense everyone’s emotions but can also soak up all the negative ones like some kind of empathic Dyson. Don’t stand there and try to paint yourself as some basic bitch. It’s beneath you.”

Seren tries her best to pout, but it’s hard to take her seriously when she looks less like a sulking child and more like someone’s fan art for one of those smutty fairy romance books. Minus the pointy ears, of course. No, my girl’s got badass pointy fangs and claws instead. She’s about two inches taller than the typical omega, but she’s got those curves that are synonymous with the fairer designation. Siggy is adamant I’m built like an omega and while there’s no arguing that I’m short as hell, I wouldn’t classify myself as being overly curvy. Like everything else in my life, I can break myself down into all the ways I almost fit and all the ways I never quite do. And honestly? It’s an exhausting game to play.

“Ha!” Seren barks out a laugh. “Touché, pussycat. I am pretty amazing, something you would know if you’d let me help you.” Her fingers waggle at me, her silent offer hanging between us.

“I don’t need you to take any of my hurt for me to know that you’re awesome,” I tell her. “Siggy may have chosen me now, but I chose you as my person a long time ago, Ser. That’s not going to change.”

Wordlessly, she leaves her post beside the gurgling coffeepot and comes around the narrow kitchen island where I’m seated on a barstool and wraps her arms around me from behind. Her grip borders on too tight and her defined chin digs into my shoulder, but I don’t care. I lean into the soundless show of support.

Our quiet moment shatters as two sets of determined footsteps echo from the hallway leading to the cellar entrance. Seren steps back, giving me just enough space to slide off my seat and stand beside her. I don’t need shifter senses to feel her anxiety as it’s a perfect reflection of my own.

Eldrith, our favorite hooch-brewing crone, appears first. Edie, with Ivey settled on her hip, is only a step behind her. The concern and confusion on their faces only make my inner worry increase. Seren moves first, her mom instincts no doubt on high alert with the sudden shift in the air. She scoops her daughter up from her favorite babysitter and holds the fair-haired infant tight to her chest.

“What’s going on?” I ask, already running through our emergency evacuation procedures in my head. The thought of uprooting Siggy so soon, just as she’s beginning to trust this place, makes my stomach twist. But if it means keeping her safe, then so be it. A nest can be rebuilt. Her safety comes first.

“Amara sent us to get you,” Eldrith explains, her aged and sun-weathered face tight. The way she dresses, you’d never guess she’s pushing seventy. She always looks like she’s one step away from heading to a rock concert, and today’s no exception. Her eighties hair band graphic tee is just another testament to her unapologetically eccentric style. I can only hope I’m as cool as she is when I’m her age. “Someone— multiple someones—passed through her wards.”

“Who?”

“Wolves,” Edie says, hands ringing nervously in front of her. “And it’s not the Craddock Pack.”