Page 47 of Primal

One sly look across the table at Seren and the barely-there shake of her head tells me exactly what I’ve been wonderingsince I first found Rhosyn in my bedroom. Somehow, my best friend has kept what lies beneath our feet a secret from the mated pair. No doubt she’s been waiting for me to decide whether they can be trusted with that information. As if I needed another reason to be endlessly grateful to her. On top of protecting our sanctuary, I’m sure she’s been handling everything else in my absence—including Siggy.

The second I can slip away from the table without raising concern, I plan on heading downstairs to check in on my Nightingale. The thought that she might believe I’ve abandoned her, especially after she finally decided to trust me, makes something inside me twist.

On top of helping some at the apothecary, Seren also noted how Rhosyn and her mate had jumped headfirst into helping her with Ivey when Edie couldn’t take her. Something my best friend seems completely fine with. Over the last few whirlwind days, it seems Seren has been building her own friendships with the pair, a fact that makes me silently thrilled.

I’d already been blessed with the visual of the hulking beast of a man cradling the five-month-old baby when I’d first entered the kitchen, but their rapid-fire recap had only added more imagery for my emotionally frazzled brain to latch on to. And, of course, it triggered something deep in that instinctive part of me. I’ve never given babies much thought. Never really imagined motherhood for myself, mostly because my wolf’s long-standing unease for the entire male population kind of made that a logistical impossibility. But even I’m not immune to the way something tugs low in my gut when I see a massive, intimidating man be gentle andsillywith the baby. It’s enough to make your ovaries twitch and yearn, whether you want them to or not.

It was Rhosyn who did most of the talking. Her mate, who, yes, is somehowstillhere and sitting two feet to my right, only chimed in to confirm certain things or fill in the gaps.

Seren matches and maybe rivals my drained and worn-down appearance. From across the table, with a sleeping Ivey against her chest, her exhausted eyes watch my every move, my every inhale. I think she knows I’m hanging on by a thread and on edge, waiting for the moment she might have to jump in and catch me. Again.

Apparently, Rhosyn and Canaan had only planned to stay for a couple hours. Long enough to show some support and see with their own eyes that I was okay. But when it became obvious I wasn’t going to just bounce back, Rhosyn had insisted they stay.

Her reasoning, as she’d explained just moments ago with her chin lifted and a fire in her green eyes, was that Seren had a business and baby to care for, and while we had plenty of people willing to help with everything,Rhosyndecided thatsheneeded to be here too.

She said she feltcompelled,like some kind of gut instinct, and it wasn’t up for discussion.Which is wild, considering she barely knows me and doesn’t owe me a damn thing.

According to her, the longer she stayed and watched my body fight against the effects of Rennick’s rejection, the less inclined she felt to rush home to Idaho. Home tohim. Rhosyn explained that being a front-row witness to my suffering had only fueled the fire of her anger toward her pack’s Alpha. Just as she’d sounded in my bedroom, she made no attempt to hide her disappointment and bitterness, and when she spoke his name, she spit it out like a curse word.

“We went to the Walmart in the town one over from here and picked up the basics, and we were good to go,” Rhosyn says with an easy wave, like it’s no big thing. Like dropping everything, crossing state lines, and stepping into someone else’s heartbreak, is just another Tuesday. But it is a big thing. It’s massive.

My eyes burn but no tears fall. I think I used them all up these past few days, or the other more likely option is I’m incredibly dehydrated and my body simply doesn’t have a drop of moisture to spare.

I bring my cup to my chapped lips and my body immediately rebels, stomach twisting the second the tea hits it, but I manage to force down a few mouthfuls of the lukewarm liquid. When Seren said I’d have to fight, I didn’t think that would include the simple, automatic things—like hydrating, eating or fucking breathing. Turns out even the most basic acts of survival are going to be part of this uphill crawl toward something that vaguely resembles normal.

Swallowing hard, twice, since some of it tried to come back up, I shake my head in wonderment at Rhosyn. “I don’t know what to say. Your kindness and generosity…I haven’t done anything to earn it.” I cut her mate a glance too. “From either of you.”

Rhosyn reaches across the round, four-person table and takes one of my cold hands into her warm and steady grip. “The problem is thinking you have todosomething to be worthy of compassion. That it is somehow a transaction. It’s not, or it shouldn’t be.” She gives me a small, almost sad smile. “Sometimes, people just show up for you because you’re hurting, and theycan. And while that wholeheartedly applies to this scenario, we’re also here because neither Cane nor I agree with Rennick’s choices. His dumb fucking choices.”

“He thinks he’s doing right by his pack,” Canaan interjects over the rim of his coffee cup, which looks comically small in his hands.

Rhosyn rejects his half-hearted defense of their Alpha. “And I never argued with that. I just don’t agree with how he refused to see there could have been another way to do it. We tried for days to talk him out of doing what he did—from doingthis…”My heart bangs painfully against my sternum as she gestures at me, her unspoken implication glaring. “But he couldn’t hear us.Wouldn’thear us. That man’s sense of duty is matched only by his stubbornness and that damn willingness to sacrifice himself before considering all the alternatives. Mark my words, this is just the start of it. If he keeps it up, it’s going to end up costing him even more and it will end up being the death of him.”

Seren and I exchange a look, both of us realizing the same thing. Rennick never gave a reason for breaking the bond we share. He just created the wound and then left me bleeding. But the way Rhosyn talks about “sacrifice” makes me think it wasn’t as simple as him just choosingher.

Which is exactly the question Seren voices on my behalf, because I don’t have the strength to ask it myself. Truth is, I don’t know if I have the strength to even hear the answer. “So, he didn’t reject Noa because he’s in love with that redheaded bitch? Tilapia bitch or whatever the hell her name is.”

Both Rhosyn and Canaan react to the McNamara female’s name the same way. With open disdain and disgust. Their opinion on the beta Rennick has chosen as his Luna clear as day.

It’s the alpha male beside me who cracks first, his voice low and biting. “Fuck no. Before all this, that spoiled brat couldn’t get Nick to look at her twice, even if she lit herself on fire and danced in front of him naked.”

This is exactly how I remember it during those obnoxious visits she and her father would make from British Columbia. In the memories that have started crawling their way back—memories I’m quietly starting to question, especially after that dream starring Mom—I can see Talis doing everything in her power to get Rennick’s attention. Flirting, pouting, throwing little tantrums for drama. And Rennick? He was always polite, as any well-trained Alpha heir should be, but never anything more. Much to the beta female’s dismay, no doubt her inflated egomaking it hard to comprehend, Ren never gave her more than basic courtesy.

Which is exactly why it’s been so hard to wrap my head around the fact he chose her. It’s not like Talis has suddenly become someone new. A better person. Her attitude hasn’t changed, if anything, the brief encounters I’ve been forced to suffer through proved she’s only grown more insufferable with age. And yet, Rennick looked me in the eye and told me I wouldn’t make a good Luna. So, what is it aboutherthat makes her a better choice?

“Then why did he?—”

Seren’s follow-up question cuts off mid-sentence at the sudden bang of a door slamming open somewhere in the house.

The sharp sound echoes, followed immediately by the low murmur of voices; soft, too quiet to make out, but urgent. My spine straightens, every nerve in my body flaring to sluggish awareness. The floor creaks under a set of approaching footsteps. No, two sets. Quick. Deliberate.

It takes my scrambled senses a second too long to realize the sound is coming from around the corner.

From the hallway that leads to the cellar stairs.

As far as I know, the only people down there right now are Edie and Siggy. And as far as I know, Siggy hasn’t wanted to leave the solitude or safety of the basement dwelling since she arrived. I’d offered to sit outside on our covered patio the day before my world turned upside down, but she had refused me. Still too raw, too on edge. If she’s come up here…something’s wrong.

The whispers grow louder, the footsteps more determined.

---