Page 23 of Primal (The Prey Drive #1)

Chapter 22

Noa

O ur Nightingale needed time alone in her nest after learning about her best friend. Not that any of us could blame her. If I’d found out Seren had been discarded, left bloodied and broken, I don’t think I’d be able to get out of bed for a month. Minimum.

Edie had come over to take Ivey as well, leaving Seren and I alone with the Fallamhain Pack’s mated pair. A heavy silence we all knew wouldn’t last long fell over us as everyone worked to clean up after breakfast.I’d tried to get up and help, but one sharp look from Seren had me plunking my tired, aching ass right back down. No words, just that stare that told me if I even thought about moving, she’d tackle me. It made me inwardly wince for teenage Ivey.

At some point, Canaan quietly placed a protein shake in front of me. We don’t keep them in the fridge, so I knew right away he’d bought it specifically for me. It was a gesture that made something deep in me soften, a flicker of warmth in the cold ache that hadn’t let up since the clearing. Some quiet, instinctive part of me stirred, tickled pink by the idea of being cared for by an alpha.Even if he isn’t my alpha.

He even poured it over ice and stuck a pink bendy straw in it, like that would magically make the chalky sludge more appealing. It was sweet. Almost endearing. But one sip told me it was a lost cause. The second the thick, chocolate-flavored liquid hit my tongue, my throat closed up like it was protesting the entire idea.

Nice try, though, buddy.

Now, his hazel eyes are equal parts sad and concerned when he catches me nudging the full glass of protein shake farther away from me on the antique kitchen table.

“This won’t be sustainable much longer, Noa,” Canaan says quietly, finishing the last of the breakfast cleanup. In a way that feels painfully domestic, he tosses a striped dish towel over his broad shoulder and comes to sit across from me.

“I know,” I admit, my voice small. The truth tastes worse than the shake.

Rhosyn brushes past him, giving his arm a gentle nudge as she drops into the chair beside him. “Give her a break,” she says. “It’s only been a couple days. She needs time to adjust from the…from what Rennick did.”

The way she not-so-gracefully stumbles over the word “rejection” isn’t something that goes unmissed. By me, or Seren, from across the room, another damn cup of tea in her hand, no doubt intended for me. My best friend rolls her eyes.

“There’s no reason to pussyfoot around it,” Seren says as she strides over and places the tea beside the untouched shake. My nose crinkles as the peppermint and lemon scent hits me. Emotional distress reliever, my ass. I might have to do some rebranding. “Rennick rejected her. It was cruel. A top-tier dick move. But it’s done. Now we need to focus on making sure Noa heals from the fallout. And she will. She’s going to get through this.”

Goddess, how I want to believe her. I want to wrap myself in Seren’s unwavering belief, let it stitch me back together from the inside out. Borrow her strength until I remember what it feels like to have my own. Because today, I’ve been faking it. Hiding the winces. Swallowing the whimpers clawing at my throat. I’ve been sitting here pretending I’m surviving, putting on a brave face, all the while I can feel it growing. The rot stems from the vacancy he tore into my chest. The bond he severed left an invisible wound, wide open and festering. And the infection is spreading. I can feel it—this slow, merciless deterioration—and I still have no idea how to stop it.

What could possibly cure something like this? I’ve spent years learning the art of healing, but how do you treat an injury you can’t see? There isn’t a salve or antibiotic that can treat a wound that is soul-deep.

And that terrifying realization leaves me staring across the table at my best friend, wondering how the hell she’s still standing. How she made it through her own rejection over a year ago. How she smiles. How she thrives.

Was her rejection that different from mine?

“Speaking of Rennick.” I can’t help but flinch at the way she so easily throws his name around. I can’t recall if I’ve had the strength to say his name aloud since I woke up from my…episode. “We never finished our conversation of why he rejected her. We were in the middle of it last night when Siggy walked in and we took that much-needed but depressing little detour.”

Canaan’s words from last night resurface, their weight settling heavier now that the truth about Siggy—and poor Carly—has been laid bare.

“He thinks he’s doing right by his pack.”

The same bitterness and disappointment I saw on both of their faces when we last spoke about their Alpha’s betrothal returns. Rhosyn’s usually bouncy curls seem to deflate whenever Talis McNamara is mentioned, as if even her hair can’t pretend through the bullshit.

“Yeah…” she says with a heavy sigh as she props her head up with her fist on the table. “The man’s heart is in the right place, but he’s too blinded by duty or guilt or…whatever the hell else is clouding his judgment to see what an idiot he’s being.”

My mind is still fighting with one hand tied behind its proverbial back, but the pieces begin to fall into place anyway, one miserable domino at a time. The way he looked at me with poorly concealed remorse and nausea-inducing guilt while simultaneously his unspoken, mental plea— Forgive me, sweet Noa. Please. Forgive me— plagued me is something I’ll ever forget, but I think I now understand why.

“It’s the omegas,” I murmur, my voice steadier than it’s been since I woke up soaked in sweat and pain. “More than just Siggy and Carly have gone missing, haven’t they?”

They don’t answer right away, but they don’t have to.

With the work I’ve dedicated my life to, I’m well aware of the rise in missing omegas. It’s something we’ve been tracking closely—us here at the sanctuary, the witches, and the pack of she-wolves.And the fact that most of the missing population is originating from the states that share borders with Idaho is also something we’re acutely aware of.

It never occurred to me that my birth pack’s omegas would have been targeted. Which, in hindsight, is naive—maybe even foolish—but I think it just proves how deeply I conditioned myself, in the name of survival, to stop thinking about Fallamhain altogether.

It’s Canaan who confirms my suspicions with a grave incline of his chin. “Yeah, they have.”

Seven.

That’s how many omegas Canaan and Rhosyn say have gone missing from Pack Fallamhain in the past year. All presumed kidnapped. Trafficked. My stomach turns as I absorb the weight of that number, which includes both Siggy and Carly, and the horror behind it, but what has me swallow back bile is when they tell me about Cathal McNamara’s offer for an alliance. And how he dangled the promise of additional guards to patrol the Fallamhain borders like a lifeline, knowing Rennick was desperate enough to take it. But it’s the next part that knocks the air out of me. The condition. Rennick had to agree to take Talis as his mate in exchange for McNamara’s help. And fuck, it makes sense. I remember the way Merritt Fallamhain and Cathal pushed their kids together during those exasperating visits. It was obvious, even then to my adolescent brain, they wanted their children mated—to tie their packs together permanently. But the plan went to shit when Talis presented as a beta. And everyone knows—whether they admit it or not—that alphas only take omegas as Lunas if they want to preserve the bloodline. Omegas birth heirs. Betas don’t. That made Talis worthless. Until now. Until her father found a way to make her valuable, by exploiting dead girls and desperate measures.

“And Rennick agreed to this?” The question flies out of me, like if I don’t say it quickly, I’ll choke on it. My mouth floods, warning me too late that the nausea isn’t a creeping possibility, it’s surging. I press my lips together hard, trying to swallow it down, but my body’s already decided this is too much. I’m not going to win this one.

Even if I were at full strength and my legs could carry me there without screaming their complaint, I wouldn’t have made it to the powder room down the hall. It’s crude and humiliating, but all I can do is shove back in my chair and put my head between my knees. Seren moves fast, but not fast enough to gather my hair away from my face. Her hands have just barely landed on my distraught body when my painfully empty stomach heaves and expels nothing but bile onto the hardwood floors at my feet.

The sad truth is, I think it would’ve been easier if he’d rejected me because he was in love with someone else. Love is irrational, all-consuming. A beast that doesn’t answer to logic. If that had been the reason—if his heart had truly belonged to Talis—I think, eventually, I could’ve accepted it. Could’ve mourned what we were supposed to be and found peace knowing that, fated or not, his soul had already chosen someone else.

But this?

This is harder.

Because he didn’t walk away from me out of lack of want or because he didn’t feel the unmistakable connection between us.

Rennick rejected me because he felt he had no other choice. No other option but to sacrifice himself, and me , for the lives of his omegas. And that’s how I know the universe has a twisted sense of humor, because, somehow, we’ve both dedicated ourselves to the same fight. Devoted to the same cause. A cause that, in another lifetime, we might’ve stood side by side for. We could’ve battled it together, but instead, here we are, sacrificing each other in its name.

Something that’s happening because he never bothered to have a single conversation with me before making this decision for us both. If I’d known, I may have been able to help him, but now we’ll never know because he took that possibility away.

And the worst part? I don’t have it in me to hate him, not because I don’t want to, but because I can’t .

The strength I have left is spent just trying to breathe. Just staying upright feels like a battle I’m losing by the second. I don’t have the energy to spare to hate him. Not even a flicker of it. And Goddess, I wish I did. I wish I could scream, rage, let the fire of betrayal burn through me until it sears the ache clean out of my chest. Because that would be easier than this. So much easier than this slow, gnawing pain that never lets up. And after what he did in the clearing, after what he said—after what he let her say to me, and how he stood by and let her humiliate me—hating him should be easy. Second nature. But I’m too fucking tired. The marrow-deep exhaustion left behind by his rejection has stripped me bare, drained every last spark from my body until there’s nothing but the weight of what’s missing pressing down on me.

In his mission to save his omegas, he ripped me apart and then left me lying there with integral pieces missing.

And if I’m honest with myself, a part of me understands and that only makes this harder.

Because being able to understand his reasoning, to sympathize with it, doesn’t make the hurt go away. If anything, it just makes the pain sharper—heavier—because now I’m carrying our heartbreak for the both of us.

“ Seren ,” I choke.

“I’m here, Noa,” she reassures me instantly, the hand that doesn’t have my hair gathered in it glides down my spine in a soothing manner. “I’ve got you.”

“I’m going to pass out.” I’m slurring my words now, but I feel it’s only fair I warn her. “Don’t you dare…take my pain while I’m…out.”

I can’t be sure of what happens next because the darkness stirring at the corners of my vision consumes me.

I wake to the all-too-familiar, awful throb behind my eyes.

For a split second, I forget where I am—or how I got here—until the dull ache in my chest reminds me. Right . Kitchen floor. Puking bile. Falling apart. Again. Awesome …

The attic ceiling I know well stares back, and I blink against the fog clouding my vision. My mouth tastes like death. Everything hurts, but it’s not the same sharp pain from before, it’s deeper now, a worn-in ache that settles into my bones like it belongs there. Like my body’s finally too tired to protest and has slumped into quiet, miserable acceptance.

Déjà vu hits me hard. I’ve done this before. Forced myself out of bed when my muscles are protesting the very thought of holding weight and my head is swimming with dizziness, both things threatening to knock me back on my ass as I shuffle toward the bathroom with a steadying hand on the wall.

It’s the same as it was when I woke up yesterday, but now I’m not drowning in the question of , Why? I know exactly what pushed him into reaching into my chest and yanking out a piece of my soul.

And somehow, the knowledge just makes everything worse.

I manage to take care of things quickly on the toilet before moving to the vanity to wash my hands and brush my teeth. I’m standing with my palms pressed to the cool marble countertop, waiting for a new wave of nausea to subside long enough that I can lift my head.

When I finally do, I wish I hadn’t.

Somehow, I look worse than I did last night. Which, frankly, I didn’t think was possible, but yikes . My skin is pale—gray—and my eyes, a feature that has always stood out on my face, are dull and full of barely-concealed anguish. The dark circles below them are nothing but puffy bruises. The strands of my long, dark hair, usually something I can count on looking decent thanks to Mom’s epic hair genes, are tangled and knotted.

Grimacing, I turn on the tap and quickly wash my hands and scrub the foulness out of my mouth before moving on to washing my face with trembling fingers. Out of bed for no longer than ten minutes, and already, my fatigue is setting in. Canaan is right about the food thing. I’m going to have to find a way to push through this new aversion because dehydration and the mild case of starvation I have going on right now is not sustainable. Not if I want to keep fighting my way through this.

And I do want to do that, right? Yeah, of course I do.

I think?

I’m almost finished rinsing out the small amount of shampoo I used, when I feel it. Someone behind me. Heart tripping over itself and against my rib cage, I spin around, hands still tangled in my hair.

“Shit, Siggy!” My raspy shout bounces off the subway tiling of my bathroom.

The young omega stands just outside the doorway, red-rimmed eyes and messy braid making her look as worn down as I feel. Her expression is soft, but there’s weight behind it. A weight I’m not sure will ever fully ease now that I know the full extent of what she’s survived for the past seven months. Trauma, of any degree, doesn’t just vanish. It leaves a scar that we can’t erase with time or a really good therapist. It lingers. You don’t get rid of it, or simply move on from it, it's something you learn to carry. You learn how to navigate around it while you simultaneously relearn how to live your new normal.

“Sorry!” She offers me a quick smile before looking over her shoulder, and says with a casualness that sounds forced to my ears, “So this is your nest?”

“I don’t have a nest,” I answer automatically as I get the last of the soap residue off my face. Reaching for the small hand towel I keep folded next to the sink, I use it to dab my skin dry.

Stepping out of the bathroom, I herd us farther into my room. The late afternoon sun streaming through the big windows tells me how I’d been knocked out for a good chunk of the day. You’d think that would mean I feel more rested, stronger, but I’m starting to learn that sleep can’t fix this soul-deep exhaustion.

Watching me rummage through my closet, Siggy waves me off like she anticipated my quick, knee-jerk denial. “You’re an omega, Noa. You even smell like one now.”

This makes me blink and stare numbly into the hanging clothes in front of me. Robotically, I grab a fresh sweatshirt, this one a dark gray that definitely doesn’t remind me of anyone’s specific eye color, before turning around to face the Nightingale.

I don’t need a mirror to know that confusion is written so glaringly across my face that it might as well be a neon sign. Siggy’s wheat-colored brows lift with a quiet question.

“What? No one told you?” she asks. “Your scent’s changed. When I first met you, you didn’t even smell like a wolf, but you do now. I picked up on it last night, too. You’ve always smelled sweet, sugary, but now there’s something else layered under it. That distinct omega sweetness.”

She’s right. Omegas do smell sweet. But it’s not a sweetness you can easily place, like caramel or berries. It’s its own thing entirely. Unique. Unmistakable. Innate. The kind of scent that settles into your senses and whispers, Omega .

I don’t say anything. Just wordlessly replace my stale, hoodie with my new sweatshirt. When I’m done, hands smoothing out my now staticky hair, I finally tell her, “I don’t understand why that’d be.”

She shrugs, her narrow shoulders bunching up in her own three-sizes-too-big sweater. An omega will sacrifice fashion for comfort every single time and I learned quickly that there is nothing Siggy loves more than soft, oversized clothes. One day, when she finds her mate, I have no doubt that she’ll have a field day stealing their clothes for herself.

“It’s probably because you met your mate.” She offers this answer so painfully casually, I find myself flinching. “An omega coming into contact with their scent match does all kinds of crazy shit to their bodies. Hormones are wild.” When she looks away from the window that’s grabbed her attention mid-conversation, she turns back to me and offers a sympathetic smile that makes a pit form in my stomach. “Seren and Rosie told me what happened. With Rennick. Don’t worry, they weren’t gossiping or anything like that, but when I came back upstairs to find you, they told me you’d passed out and were up here momentarily dead to the world. I kinda…freaked out on them. Again .” Her button nose wrinkles as she cringes with guilt.

“I’m fine,” I say automatically, and as I shuffle across the room and collapse onto my bed, I wonder, just for a second, if repeating “I’m fine” enough times might actually convince my brain and body to believe it. Wishful thinking, clearly, because my muscles tremble with effort as I try to shift into something resembling comfort on my oatmeal-colored bedding. It smells like fresh detergent, because of course it does. Seren strikes again. Somehow, in the middle of everything, she managed to wash my sheets.She really is superhuman, because how the hell did she manage this domestic sorcery? Either way, it proves just how far from fine I am, because “fine” people don’t need other people to wash their freaking sheets.

Siggy appears to not believe my little fib either because she gives me a look reeking of skepticism. She hesitates at the edge of the room, uncertain, and clearly trying to show proper omega etiquette by not intruding on my space. Like I’ve told her, this isn’t my nest. She doesn’t need to ask to come closer. I pat the spot beside me and give her a tired nod. She crosses the room and sinks down, keeping her movements careful and slow.

“You’re not fine, Noa. Seren told me about the rejected mate syndrome.”

The words clang in my ears.

Rejected mate syndrome.

I’ve heard the phrase before. Who hasn’t? It always sounded like one of those exaggerated warnings thrown around by overdramatic shifters. Like when people say heartache caused by a bad breakup feels like dying and you laugh because it’s dramatic, not because you think it’s true.

But this? This isn’t some tragic breakup sob story.

This is rot. A slow decay.

This is what it feels like to be severed from someone you were created for.

For someone who’s spent so much time around omegas, it’s embarrassing how out of the loop I was on this—on the process of rejecting a mate at all. Like I said, it’s so rarely done that no one really talks about it. And when they do, it’s in hushed tones, like saying too much might summon it into your own life. Honestly, it feels like a taboo. A quiet, unspoken rule: don’t name the nightmare unless you’re ready to live it.

Way to pay attention to the important shit, Noa.

I guess while I’ve been focused on other things—like scrambling for a perch that resembles a will to live—I’ve been officially diagnosed by those around me.

Rejected mate syndrome.

“All right,” I relent with a burning throat. “So, I’m not fine right now , but I have every intention of being fine sometime soon.” It’s a shaky promise at best, I don’t know if I believe it myself, but I say it anyway. Siggy chose me as her person, and I can’t let her think I’m going to fade away on her now, even though internally, I know it's a distinct possibility. “Enough about me. You obviously came up here for a reason. What’s on your mind?”

Her smile wavers but she still tries her best to appear as lighthearted as possible. Even attempts to tease me by asking, “What? You can’t read my mind?”

I try my best to match her energy, rolling my eyes and chuckling softly, both things that make various parts of me hurt, but I refuse to show it. “Yeah, I’m still working on understanding that newly developed skill. Seems it comes and goes.”

“And it’s another thing that’s changed since reuniting with Rennick,” she reminds me with a pointed look.

Mom’s words from that cryptic dream—the one I haven’t had the time or the nerve to fully unpack—echo in my mind again.

“Reuniting with him is the first step. He’s the key to opening the door.”

It’s the way that dream lingers that gets me. Every second of it is carved into my memory like it was branded there. And that alone makes me think it wasn’t just some grief-fueled fever dream or my subconscious throwing shit at the wall. No, this felt like a message. A carefully woven thread planted by Mom. Something meant to be found when the time was right.

Zora told me when I met her, in her frustratingly vague way, that Mom had a plan for everything. Perhaps this was one of them?

If that’s true, and if what Rennick said, that Mom was behind my severed connection with my wolf, is also true, then what the fuck was she planning?

Why would she do that to me? Me . Her daughter.

The bitter truth? Of all the powerful people I’ve crossed paths with over the years, Thalassa Alderwood is the only one who could’ve actually pulled something like that off.

And I hate how much that makes sense.

And really fucking doesn’t at the same time.

Shit, my brain hurts .

“Noa?”

“I’m here,” I tell Siggy, my voice still thick with that far-away quality. “Just taking the scenic route to my downward spiral, that’s all.” With a sound I can’t be sure is a sigh or groan, I pull myself together and turn my head to look at the omega curled up on the other side of my queen mattress. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

Deep blue eyes lock with mine, a mixture of anxiety and guilt shining back. “There’s a couple reasons I didn’t just go home after I escaped,” she says, voice low like she’s afraid someone will overhear her. “Part of it was shame. I don’t want to see the look on my mom’s face when she realizes I’m not the same daughter she lost seven months ago.”

She pauses, glancing down at her hands like they hold the rest of her confession.

“Another reason was I no longer feel safe there. It’s the only home I’ve ever known, I was born there, but I was also taken from there. I don’t know how I can ever go back there and be at peace like I once was. It’s tainted now.”

She’s not looking for reassuring words right now, only a listening ear, and that’s what I give her.

“I get it,” I offer.

“But the biggest reason I didn’t go back…” Her voice wobbles. “I was ashamed to return home alive. Changed. Kind of broken. But breathing. And have to tell Carly’s mom that I left her behind. That I didn’t go back for her.”

Again, my gut response is to argue. To tell her she isn’t being fair to herself and reassure her that she did the right thing. Carly’s mom will see that, too, but I stay quiet and let her get whatever this is off her chest. I have an inkling of where it’s going and my own anxiety is spiking at the very notion of it, but still, I stay quiet.

“But?”

“But…” Her straight teeth gnaw on her bottom lip for a second before she admits with tears forming, “But Carly’s already home. For good or bad, we no longer have to wonder anymore. I don’t have to tell her mom I don’t know what happened to her after I got away and she didn’t. We know. I wish we didn’t, but we do. Canaan said they already had her funeral and pyre, but she has a headstone there and I need to go say goodbye. And that I’m sorry.” Siggy’s tears finally fall as she adds on a choked-back sob, “I also really want to see my mom.”

I reach out and gather her hand in mine. “Are you saying you’re ready to go back, Sig?”

Her head shakes immediately. “Not move back. Not yet. I’m not ready for that. I’m not ready to leave here. I don’t know if I ever will be. I feel…safe here. With you; with Seren.”

“You can stay here as long as you want, love, you know that.”

“Yeah, I know,” she agrees, returning my hand squeeze in a silent sign of gratitude. “I’m not ready to move home, but I think…I think I’m ready to visit.”

It’s a huge step. One I’m so fucking proud of her for.

“Okay,” I nod, “Rhosyn and Canaan are probably heading back soon. You could tag along?—”

“No!” The terrified edge of her voice has my heart lurching in my chest and my head zinging, the abrupt change in octave making my headache flare. Wincing, I force my stiff frame to sit up a little so I can get a better look at the now panicked-stricken omega. “I can’t…I can’t do this without you there. I know it’s unfair to even ask you to go back there after what happened with Rennick, but I won’t be able to face being back there without you.”

Of all the omegas I’ve helped, of all the times I’ve thrown myself into someone else’s healing, I’ve never regretted it. Not even when I got clocked in the jaw by an omega mid-night terror.

But right now? As her tear-filled eyes plead with me to walk back into the very territory that shattered me?

Right now, the part of me that’s barely holding on—the selfish, trembling part clawing for any kind of self-preservation—is screaming in regret.

And worse?

It’s screaming yes anyway.

Because, like Rennick, I’m willing to put the well-being of the omegas in my care above everything else. Above my own sanity and, apparently, above the still bleeding mess that used to be my heart.

“All right, Siggy,” I say, the words landing like a nail in my coffin—which is fitting, really, since I’m pretty sure I’m already halfway to death’s door. “Go find Canaan. He’ll need to give your Alpha a heads-up. I don’t think showing up there unannounced is an option for us.”

Hell, for all I know, they’ll slam the gates in my face.

And a large part of me thinks that might be a mercy because I don’t know how I’m going to survive being in Rennick’s territory again, let alone facing him head-on. Not when the last time nearly killed me. But Siggy needs me. So, for her, I’ll show up, even if it destroys what little remains of my…everything.