Page 69 of Primal

Her hand reaches out like she’s going to place her palm on my shoulder. I don’t know what comes over me, but I jerk away before she can make contact. And it’s not because I don’t want the physical reassurance from her, it’s because I don’t want her to touchit. His sweatshirt.Oh, Goddess, what the hell is wrong with me?

Zora’s lips purse as she eyes me, my dramatic move clearly not going unnoticed by the healer.

“He broke his side of the bond,” she shocks the hell out of me by saying, because hello? Has this hippy chick been paying attention, or did she smoke too much before I showed up here, because with a single glance at me and the state I’ve been left in, she’d know the bond is very much severed. “But yours? Unless I heard wrong, you didn’t reject him back. That means your side of the bond is still very much alive within the Alpha.”

My blood turns to ice.

“What are you saying?”

She stares at me like she’s shocked I don’t know. “Until you formally reject Rennick just as he did you, your side of the bond will remain tethered to him. The only problem with this is one half of the bond can’t survive without the other. It starts to rot away…” She trails off, but the unspoken implication is clear. “Rejected mate syndrome presents itself in a few ways, but as I’m sure you’ve discovered, this is the worst of it. As the surviving bond shrivels and dies a painfully lonesome death, it tries to take the owner with it. And sometimes it succeeds.”

Nearly suffocating under the severity of her words, I sway in my seat. “Did…did Rennick know about this when he?—”

I don’t think I’d be able to take it on top of everything else, to learn that he knew what would happen. The ground beneath my feet that has been tumbling away like quicksand would vanish completely and take me with it. Swallow me whole.

“Based on the wrecked state he’s been in for the past week, I find that highly doubtful.” Zora tries to sound hopeful, as if for the two of us, but it has little effect on my fragile grasp on sanity. “It’s ridiculous, but this pesky little loophole is something many aren’t aware of, and causes all kinds of problems. I swear, if people were more honest about what happens during a mate bond rejection, people would know how to avoid this kind of thing. But, alas, people turn all waspy and keep it to themselves, acting like it’s some scandalous affair for some fucking reason.”

She’s right, I had no clue that breaking the bond went both ways.

But Seren would have known.

Of all people, she would have known what would happen and she should have warned me, but for reasons I can’t begin to fathom, she stayed silent. She didn’t say a word while she watched me suffer, watched me wither away until I resemblenothing but a raw, exposed nerve. She, of all people, would know the process of dissolving a fated mate bond. She’s lived through it herself. I think back to when I’d woken up, her hand running a cool rag over my fevered skin. I remember the way her voice faltered when she said,“My situation was…different. It wasn’t just him rejecting me. I rejected him too. We both severed the bond.”

She’d looked uneasy, guilty, even. And if I hadn’t been in too much pain to think straight, I might’ve caught the meaning behind her words then.

She knew. And she didn’t tell me.

Butwhy?

Swallowing down the burn of betrayal, I frantically look to Zora for more answers. “If I reject him now, if I sever my end of the bond, will I stop feeling like…this?” Like I’m decaying from the inside out? Mind, body, and soul?

The pained, guilty look that crosses the healer’s face answers the question before she ever opens her mouth to speak. “It would have…if you’d rejected him when he rejected you, but now…” She falls silent, before continuing on after a heavy pause, “It’s too late for you to break your end of the bond. The damage has been done.”

“So, that it? I’m just left to rot away?”

Zora sits up straighter in her chair, wincing with regret. “Not necessarily.”

I motion impatiently with my hand, urging her to cough up whatever morsel of information she might have that will get me out of this fucking mess.

“The only thing that’s going to save you now, is the thing that broke you in the first place. Him. Rennick.” She says it like she’s bracing herself for the fallout, but I’m too far gone for rage. At this point, it barely even surprises me that Rennick Fallamhain is once again the answer to every catastrophic twist in my life.My long-standing theory that I pissed off some very powerful divine being in a past life creeps back into focus and pulls up a chair, smug as hell. Its taunting smirk making me want to growl.

“Specifically, his claiming bite,” the charmer clarifies. “It’s the only force strong enough to reconnect you to what’s left of the bond—the only thing capable of reviving it. Once that happens, it won’t just restore the bond. It’ll reviveyou,too. Because that kind of claim isn’t temporary. It’s binding. It will tether you to himandto life.”

“That’s bullshit!” I want to sound mad, affronted, but I’m sad to report, it comes out sounding more like a distraught whine.

Zora arches one brow at the innately omega sound I’ve embarrassed myself by making, and it’s not judgment I see in her eyes, but something worse. Pity.

“I’m inclined to agree.” Once again, she falls silent, and I know before she opens her mouth again that I’m not going to like what she has to say. “There’s something else we’ve been overlooking. You’re already presenting more omega traits,” she explains carefully, like she’s trying not to spook me. “And as your wolf continues to break free of the binds that hold her, those traits will only get stronger. You’ve got nearly eight years of suppressed instincts ready to slam into you without an ounce of remorse.”

I look at her with an unashamedly perplexed look, not catching her meaning.

“Noa, you’ve had seven years of suppressed heats. Whether you knew you were an omega or not. And now, all that built-up need, all that strain your body’s secretly withstood, it’s about to break through,” Zora says, her voice carefully measured, though the tension beneath it is impossible to miss. She’s trying to be gentle, but her worry seeps through every word. “An omega in peak condition would struggle under that kind of hormonal ambush. But you?” She exhales, shaking her head. “In yourstate, dear girl…when I say I’m concerned for you, it’s a gross understatement.”

Oh.

Oh, fuck…

My stomach flips and my brain shifts into overdrive, already trying to form a plan, a strategy,somethingthat might prepare me for what’s coming. At the sanctuary, we’ve guided dozens of omegas through heats. But those were normal.Manageable. Standard heat cycles that still wrecked them for days. And even then, the herbal blends we gave them were just enough to dull the edge, to take the teeth out of their need. The knotted toys we offered were a joke compared to what their bodies were really begging for. Safe nests, soft lighting, calming voices, it all helped, sure, but it never trulyeasedthe ache.

---