Page 50 of Primal

A sliver of the precious thing I thought I’d destroyed still lives inside me, and I’m too much of a coward to ask why. And just as selfish, because I won’t do the smart thing—the right thing—and bury it deep where I’ll never find it again. I can’t. I’m not strong enough to give up my remaining piece of her.

And neither is my wolf.

I’m thinking about what a bastard I am when my phone, glass screen now full of fresh cracks from when I’d hurled it across the room after reading Canaan’s text, vibrates on the desk before me.

Speaking of bastards.

Cathal.

I’ve been screening his calls since the night I got home.

I knew if I picked up, the fury simmering just beneath my skin and the resentment clawing at my ribs were going to encourage me to say something I can’t afford—my omegas can’t afford—so I’ve kept my distance, choosing silence over a mistake I can’t unmake. I learned from one of Oswin’s visits to my office door that Talis left the morning after arriving home from Ashvale. She’s temporarily gone back up to Canada where she belongs. This is the only reason Cathal hadn’t ordered her to hunt me down and pass along whatever message he has.

Knowing this plan isn’t sustainable, and that it will ultimately backfire if he decides to send Talis back down here so soon after she left, is the only reason I finally stop avoiding his calls and pick up.

“What?” I bark, putting the phone on speaker and leaning back in my chair, trying to put as much physical distance between me and his disembodied voice.

“I don’t appreciate your tone, boy,” Cathal snaps, voice oily with condescension and the smugness he’s passed down to his daughter. “What would your father think if he were here and learned you’d spoken to another pack Alpha like that?”

My patience is hanging by a prayer, and three days without sleep and this soul-crushing torment have stripped me down to something raw and razor-edged.

“Which version of him are we talking about, McNamara? The one he was eight months ago before a pair of sharp teeth put him out of his misery? Because that man was too far gone to care about mytone. He was feral. Delusional. Screaming at shadows and threatening the moon like it owed him a blood debt.” I lean forward slightly, voice dropping into something deadly. “But if we’re talking about the man he was before the sickness—the one who raised me, the Alpha we both respected—then we both fucking know he’d be disgusted by what I’ve tolerated. He’d call me a disgrace for letting your bloated ego stomp aroundmyterritory unchecked and under the guise of allyship. He’d remind me exactly who the hell I am. He’d remind me that I don’t bow to weaker alphas, and I sure as shit don’t answer to some manipulative cunt who hides behind the image of being a righteous champion for omegas, when webothknow you’re exploiting their pain to get exactly what you’ve always wanted. Your daughter as my Luna. Which will hand you more influence and leverage. It’s just a trophy for you to parade around while you try to sink your claws into a power that will never be yours. So, no, my father wouldn’t have had anything to say in regard to my tone.”

The second the words leave my mouth, a brutal silence follows, but there’s no regret. I’ve been biting my tongue for months now, chewing on the truth until it bled, keeping a death grip on my temper in the name of diplomacy. Walking that thin line between holding the alliance together and latching on to what little pride I had left.

But Noa shattered that balance. Or maybe I shattered it myself the second I opened my mouthin that clearing and ignored every instinct begging me not to do it.

I can’t pretend anymore. I can’t keep playing this game like I don’t see exactly what Cathal’s doing. Hiding behind his big talk and his concern for omegas when all he really wants is leverage. Legacy. Power. A daughter on a throne that doesn’t belong to her. And a leash wrapped around my neck.

He needs to know that I see him. Every calculated move. Every veiled threat. Every smug fucking smirk he’s worn since the moment I let this deal infect my pack. He needs to understand I’ve never respected him, not even when I was a boy forced to shake his hand. Whatever tolerance I had for him is long gone, burned to ash by the guilt I carry like a second skin, by the sound of Noa’s body hitting the ground like I struck her myself, by the hollow silence she left behind.

I’m done playing the game.

Cathal’s silence is long enough to almost pass for a retreat, but I know better. His quiet is never submission—it’s calculation. And right on cue, it breaks.

“That all may be true, pup,” he says, his voice coated in smug satisfaction. Where he should sound ashamed, he’s proud. “But it doesn’t change the fact that you need me. Your precious omegas need me. They need my guards on your borders if you want any hope of stopping them from being picked off one by one.”

His words hit like a gut punch because there’s some truth in them. Ugly, manipulative truth. He’s not wrong. My peopledoneed the extra manpower while we sort out who’s taking our omegas and how the hell they keep slipping through. I’d be a bigger fool than I already am if I let pride blind me from the threat still clawing at my territory’s edges.

As much as I hate the bastard breathing down my neck, I won’t risk another omega ending up like Carly.

But this arrangement? This reliance on him? It’s not forever.

Not anymore.

Because I’ve made a decision. One that’s been a long time coming, but I was too blind to accept it. I’m going to do the thing Rhosyn and Canaan have been begging me to do since the moment this cursed treaty slithered its way across my desk.

I’m going to find another way. One that doesn’t cost me everything or hand power to a man who thinks he can treat lives like bargaining chips. I thought if I told myself enough times it was necessary, that it was about my duty as Alpha, the pain would dull and settle into something that resembled numbness.

But that was before her.

Before I watched her break before me and I could do nothing but watch as she convulsed in pain. I told myself I could make the sacrifice. That offering up my own future was enough. Butsomewhere along the way, I did the unthinkable and convinced myself that sacrificing hers was necessary, too. I was willing to burn myself for this cause, but I never should’ve dragged her into the flames with me and expected her to survive it. To carry pain that was never hers to begin with. I told myself she’d endure it like I have to.

It was agonizingly unfair, and crafted from delusion, because I was wrong. Dead fucking wrong. I can’t live with this. I can’t breathe knowing I chose to break her. That I sacrificed the one thing I was supposed to protect most.

She’s my other half, my scent match, and I’ve spent three days pretending I can exist in a world where she’s not mine, but it’s a lie. One I can’t keep telling myself because if I do, it’s going to eat away what little remains of my soul. And I need those pieces. I need them if I have any hope of making right…of fixing what I broke.

So, for a while longer, I will play Cathal’s game.

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