Page 2 of Primal

As I do every time I come out of this reoccurring, prophetic dream, I wait for the frenzied and agitated energy racking my body to pass, and, more importantly, I wait for the debilitating weight of feeling like I’ve lost something imperative to dissipate.

But just like the dream, this time it’s different.

My wolf, who’s just as restless and volatile as he was when we stood in the mist, hasn’t calmed either. Pacing and clawing, he begs me for something I don’t know how to give him. Something Ican’tgive him until I remember whatever the hell it is that’s been taken from us.

“It’s time to remember.”Her honeyed plea repeats in my head as I rake my fingers through my hair. The slight pain that comes from tugging on the strands helps marginally bring me back to reality.

The longer I sit here, heart pounding and chest still heaving with every breath, the more I come to the realization I’m not missing awhat.

I’m missing awho.

Chapter 1

Noa

Inever wanted to go back, and I thought my mother had agreed with me on this, but as it turns out, the notorious and powerful Thalassa Alderwood had every intention of one day coming home.

In one shape or another, she was always going to return to Fallamhain Pack territory. I just wish she had been the one to tell me this and not some estate attorney with a unibrow and a weird curly hair growing out of the tip of his nose. Grooming habits aside, Mr. Miller must be good at his job because my mother was the least trusting person I’ve ever met, and she bestowed him with some fairly important tasks. It was this lawyer, whose name I’d never once heard before, that not only oversaw the deed transfers of our beloved Victorian house and the apothecary to my name but was also the one who conveyed her final wishes.

Wishes I never saw coming.

Thalassa’s last earthly request was to be reunited with her long-passed mate. His remains have resided in the Fallamhain Pack cemetery since his death over two decades ago. The instructions left for me in her perfect cursive writing were thatI spread her ashes over his grave. A sentiment I may have considered to be romantic—if not in aslightlymorbid kind of way—under different circumstances.

“Are you sure you want to do this today?” Seren’s lyrical voice comes through my SUV’s speakers. It’s barely been an hour and a half since she watched me pull away from the house. “You’ve been putting this off for, what? Eight months now? No one would blame you if you needed more time. Hey! Halloween is in a couple weeks. Here’s an idea, come home and we can pop some googly eyes on her urn. Maybe a tiny hat. It was Thalassa’s favorite holiday. You know she’d get a kick out of us dressing her up one last time.”

At the mention of my mother’s urn, I risk taking my eyes off the winding Northern Idaho mountain pass to glance at the pewter vessel buckled into my passenger seat. Yes, I buckled my mother in. Safety first, folks. Don’t want her going through a windshield for the second time in a year, you know?

“We could have gotten her a matching costume with Ivey. Now that’ssomething Mom would have really enjoyed,” I allow myself to muse along with my best friend, a mere hint of a smile curving on the lip I’ve been relentlessly chewing on since I left the safe haven of my small Washington town. It still makes me sad that mom never got to meet Ivey. The baby was born almost three months after mom’s accident. Having to navigate a world without my mom and learning how to help take care of a newborn was a wild time for both Seren and me.

If there is something I’ve learned in these difficult months it’s that humor, no matter how dark or macabre, is the only way forward when dealing with deep, debilitating grief. If I hadn’t had Seren there to hold my hand and find the humor in the small moments with, I don’t think I could have made it through this horrific transition in life. The reality of losing the childlikenaivety that your mom will always be a constant presence in your life is a pain I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

I never saw myself being a packless orphan at the age of twenty-five. Without Seren and her daughter, and the small community my mother has built for us in Ashvale, I would be facing the weight of the responsibilities left to me by Mom completely alone, and the thought of that is unfathomable. Handling the official day-to-day duties of our little shop, Potion & Petal Apothecary, is a lot to juggle all on its own, but to also take on the mantle of the less “legitimate” dealings we also secretly run through the business is enough to make me want to flee for the hills. I won’t, of course. Those dealings are vital for so many people, and while dangerous, it’s been my greatest honor to assist those in need of our help.

While the learning curve hasn’t been necessarily smooth and has more resembled being dropped into the deep end of the pool with my hands tied behind my back, I’m proud of the way both Seren and I have stepped into our new roles. I like to also believe Mom is pleased with the way we have been able to keep what she built flourishing.

At the mention of Seren’s five-month-old daughter, Ivey’s babbles echo through the vehicle’s speakers. “Yes! See? That’s the spirit. Even the baby’s into it. Thalassa loved a new outfit. Now, turn your cute little ass around and we can go shopping.” She’s trying hard to mask it with manufactured lightheartedness, but the distinct and sharp sound of Seren’s worry is hard to miss. “I think this is a much better plan. We can postpone your little quest for another day when we’ve had time to fully think this through.”

“Seren—”

“You should have at least waited for a day I could go with you instead of lone-wolfing-it. If you’d given me some notice, I would have asked Edie to babysit,” she interrupts before I canattempt to explain the rash decision-making. “I just really don’t like the idea of you going there alone, Noa.”

The drawn-out breath I exhale is to buy myself a little time and to calm the nerves that have been on fire since I first opened my eyes this morning. “If I waited any longer, I don’t think I ever could have done it. When I woke up, I just knew in my gut it needed to be today. It’s literally the last thing I want to do, but it’s also thelastthing my mom asked of me, and I can’t let her down. For her I can do this. I can face this.”

I can facethem, the pack who rejected and exiled me and my mother almost eight years ago.

And I guess when it comes down to it, that’s the real mystery at hand with this shitshow I’ve found myself in. Why in the ever-loving fuck would Mom insist on me going back to the Fallamhain Pack and asking their Alpha this favor knowing how we parted ways all those years ago? And why would she want to be officially laid to rest in soil owned by the very people who rejected her daughter for something out of her control.

Being a latent wolf shifter is obviously something I’d never choose for myself, but that didn’t matter to the pack Alpha. Alpha Fallamhain refused to allow a “weakness” like a latent wolf to be part of his pack. That’s what my mother explained to me the night she told me we had to leave the only home I’d known. That chaotic and fateful night is merely a blur in my head these days. Just vague memories from another life. Memories I try hard not to linger on due to the sharp pain they cause my suppressed wolf.

Seren knows this story and the history I share with my birth pack, and that’s why she’s upset I’ve decided to travel alone to the Fallamhain territory that’s nearly two hours away.

Is it the smartest thing I’ve ever done? Perhaps not, but it’s something I know I needed to do by myself. Which is what I told her this morning when she caught me walking out the front doorwith my homemade latte in one hand and the urn in the other.You know, just my everyday essentials.

My wolf had also fully agreed with my impulsive plan.

Being latent doesn’t mean I don’t have a wolf. It just means I can’t shift. For years, I tried to find a way to access the animal I share the very fibers of my soul with, but nothing I tried brought her forward. On the best of days, she’s a trapped beast pacing the impenetrable glass cage she’s confined to. On the worst days, she’s nothing more than a ghostly presence within my being. When I try to grasp her, she slips through my fingers as if made of smoke.

When I’d fully accepted today would be the day that I was brave, she had perked up more than she had in years. The closer I get to Silverthorne, Idaho—the town closest to where the pack resides—the more antsy my wolf within becomes. The more she bangs against those indestructible walls she’s trapped behind. I can’t think of another time she’s been this…present.

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