Page 26 of Primal

Last night, when I stumbled in here and collapsed on this sofa—a piece of furniture I don’t recall ever using in the past seeing as this room is rarely touched—her sweet and slightly spicy scent had bloomed from the fabric and wrapped around me. Bottle of Angel’s Envy in my right hand, I’d laid here and allowed myself to just breathe her in.

It was taking everything in me to not open the message I received from Mercer. The one that informed me of Noa’s location. I knew if I learnedexactlywhere I could find her, I wouldn’t have the strength to stay away. Through my internal battle, I found solace in the fact that I had one of my most trusted men watching over her. My wolf, however, did not share that viewpoint. He didn’t, and still doesn’t, trust her safety in anyone else’s hands but his.

I thought drinking would take the edge off, but it wasn’t until I allowed myself to succumb to Noa’s scent clinging to this room that I found any semblance of peace.

With the last ounce of liquor burning down my throat, I’d fallen asleep with my brain wrapped in thoughts of her.

Noa.

Mine.The possessive growl comes instantaneously from my wolf.

Canaan nods, a quiet understanding and sympathy rolling off him, grating my exposed nerves.

The way he’s shifting anxiously where he stands finally catches my attention. Like a switch being flipped, I go from groggy and hungover to sharp and alert. My wolf perks up, his borderline sulking behavior ceasing. His focus narrows, scanning for threats.

“What’s going on?” I question as I drop the shield I’d placed to block my connection to the pack last night. The panic coming from my people is immediate, slamming into me like a freight train. I’m on my feet before my next breath, my wolf so close to the surface I know my eyes have shifted to his pale orbs.

“Enforcers found something on their patrol,” he admits, sounding and looking alarmingly grim. “It’s not good.”

There aresounds in life that stick with a person. A father’s voice the first time he tells his kid he’s proud of them. A lover’s laughter. A baby’s first earthly cry. All emotionally impactful in their own ways, but none compare to the sound of a mother’s anguished scream when she’s told her missing child has been found.

Or, more accurately, what is left of her daughter has been found.

Carly vanished at the same time as Yrsa’s daughter. They were best friends. Where one went, the other followed, and for that reason, we had briefly contemplated the possibility the two wild spirits had run off. That theory went up in smoke when my enforcers tracked their scents to the western side of the lake where they were taken. There’s an inlet there that has always been popular with the pack’s teen population. There were notable signs of a struggle left behind in the sandy shoreline and a bloody earring that looked like it’d been ripped out in the skirmish. We’d done our best to track them, but any trace of them disappeared about two miles away from their abduction site and we ended up losing the trail. That, coupled with the fact their captors didn’t leave behind any scent markers of their own, left us to believe they’re using military-grade scent-neutralizers to conceal themselves. I’ve also been silently pondering the possibility of a witch or charmer assisting this band of bastards and their cause. The way they are able to wipe away any evidence of their presence on my land is borderline magical. The direction they were headed in before we lost them was clear, though. North. Toward the border.

It was after this that I banned omegas, mated or not, from going anywhere without escorts. Until I can figure out how these assholes have been able to slip past our patrols and move about our territory without notice, I can’t risk it. The very fact that I can’t seem to keep my people safe in their own home is a weight I don’t know how much longer I can bear.

I thought I’d found a solution by allying with McNamara, but now as I stare at the abused and mangled body of one of our missing omegas, the realization I’m still failing my people nearly brings me to my knees. The grief and pure, liquid anger are eating away at me. It’s hardwired into an alpha’s very DNAto protect and care for omegas. It is, at our core, what we were put on this planet to do. That is why fated scent matches are a phenomenon shared between just alphas and omegas. Our existences go hand in hand. And yet, I’mfailingat it.

It's a battle to momentarily tune out the heart-wrenching and guttural sounds coming from Carly’s mother so I can focus and determine what our next moves are.

“Canaan,” I bark, my attention still locked on the remains. The remains we only know belong to Carly because of her scent. Her once memorable facial features are indistinguishable from whatever horrors she’s been forced to suffer through these past months.

The crunch of snow at my left alerts me to my second’s presence. “Alpha?”

“Assemble two teams of enforcers. Have them sweep the surrounding areas and track down any trace of the ones responsible. I need to know how they got onto our territory with her body and how they left without anyone noticing.”

“Consider it done.” He dips his chin. “I already sent a couple guys back. They’re going to drive one of the side-by-sides out here. It’ll make transporting her—Carly—back easier.”

“No.”

Canaan’s brows shoot to his hairline. “No? You don’t want to bring her back? Nick, her mother and siblings are going to need time to properly say goodbye?—”

Hand rising, I cut him off. “I’ll carry her home. There’s no need for the side-by-sides.”

He holds my gaze, the silence between us heavy with grief and a simmering rage we can’t yet act on. Not here. Not now. With a single solemn and understanding nod, he turns and strides toward Rhosyn, who kneels in the snow beside Carly’s mother. She’s trying desperately to console her, but how does one mend the soul of a mother shattered by unimaginable loss?Her world has just been ripped apart at the seams and there are no words that we can offer her that can repair it. Canaan whispers something in his mate’s ear that has her bloodshot green eyes shooting to where I stand. Not looking away, she reaches for the extra flannel blanket she’d brought and hands it to him.

Something pinches in my chest when I observe the tender way he presses a kiss to her temple. I don’t currently have the time nor the mental bandwidth to try and identify what that emotion is.

Canaan returns and passes me the blanket before tucking his hands into the front pockets of his worn jeans.

“Do you need help?” he asks, keeping his voice low. It doesn’t matter if he’d yelled the question, we can both already feel the loitering pack members’ attention falling on us.

I don’t bother with a response. Words feel empty in the face of this. Back straight, shoulders squared, I force myself forward, each step heavier than the last as I approach where Carly has been unceremoniously left. No one deserves an end like this. Cold, discarded, stripped of their dignity. But the thought that this is how a bright, bubbly nineteen-year-old’s life was stolen from her is a dagger to the gut.

I kneel beside her, my hands trembling despite the tight grip I keep on my emotions. The flannel blanket is soft, a painful contrast to the broken, bloodied body I carefully wrap inside it. I try to be gentle, though I know it doesn’t matter now, but it’s all I can offer her in this moment and she deserves it. Lifting her into my arms, I nearly falter. She’s too light, too fragile. Another painful reminder of all she endured before death stole her.

My throat tightens, but I manage to whisper, “Okay, honey, let’s bring you home.”

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