Page 79 of Primal

It’s not a dramatic release. Not some whimsical undoing. Just a small, quiet shift. One I don’t try to stop. My hand moves slowly, brushing along his jaw, over the edges of his ears, across the soft fur at his temple. His purr deepens, thrumming through my chest like a lullaby made just for me.

I can feel sleep pulling me under now, heavier with every breath. My eyes fight to stay open, but they’re losing. I let them. My last thought before the dark takes me is a selfish one. I wish this could last.

I wish he was mine to keep.

I wish I could stay whole.

Chapter 28

Rennick

It happened in a blink. One moment I was sitting in my office, barely holding it together in front of my second and his mate, and the next, I was gone. His anguished howl tearing through my mind at a deafening octave was the only warning I got. There was no time to brace myself, no moment to prepare.

My wolf didn’t rise slowly or ask for control. He detonated.

There was no growl of protest. No building heat. Just a violent, consuming shift that ripped through skin and bone like I was nothing more than a barrier in his way. I didn’t shift, I was conquered. He forced his way out, and I became a spectator inside my own body, helpless as he seized full control.

I’d never surrendered to him before. Not completely. Not like that. We’d always moved in harmony, a shared cadence, mutual understanding. But this? This was something else. This was a primal instinct. Desperation and rage rolled into one.

And he was running.

One destination, one singular goal in mind.

To get to her.

His omega. Our fated mate.

I was just a passenger, unable to do anything but hold on while my wolf tore across the terrain like if he moved fast enough, he could outrun my mistakes. My crimes against her. Trees and mountains whipped by in a blur of shadow and earth as he charged east, toward the quaint Washington town on the other side of the state line. He didn’t stop, rarely slowed, the gut-wrenching truth spoken by Rhosyn his motivation—the thing that fueled his overexerted muscles, and the thing made him abandon his self-imposed isolation in the first place.

Rejected mate syndrome.

I’d heard the phrase in passing before, a rare and brutal condition. But I’d never known what it looked like. Never thought I’d be the one to cause it.

Now it was another thing I was going to have to find a way to fix—to heal—whatever it takes.

The streets of Ashvale were quiet and still by the time we reached the sleepy town. Which wasn’t surprising given the late hour. My wolf moved fast, traveling through the wooded edges of the town until we found it. The dark burgundy Victorian home that sat at the end of a street, set back into the trees and the narrow river down below.

Her scent hit us before we reached the manor.

It acted as a beacon, calling us in.

But as we approached the front walk, my wolf lifted his nose to the crisp air and breathed in deep. Her scent wasn’t coming from inside the house like it should have been, though. No, it was coming from out back.

The fence wasn’t much. Ornate ironwork, tall but decorative—easy to clear even in my wolf form. I landed silent on the other side and padded through the backyard, keeping to the shadows as best I could. I hadn’t been expecting it to be so big. It felt more like a garden than a yard, with winding stone paths, raised beds,bare vines twisted up wooden trellises. I imagined it would be beautiful come spring, full of color and scent.

But it was the far corner that stopped me cold.

There she was.

A listless shape, tucked beneath thick blankets, curled so small it barely looked like a person at all. Seeing her like that—out in the cold instead of inside where it was warm and safe—made something crack open in my chest at the sight of her. My wolf went deathly still. The sight before us had been so wrong, it made my skin pull too tight and my stomach twist to the point of pain.

And then, like the absolute idiot I am, I’d thought,Why is she out here? What happened to put her here like this?

The answer was instant and brutal.

You did, you fucking dumbass.

I’d caused this. My rejection. My cowardice. My stubbornness. All of it had driven her out here. In the dark. In the cold. Alone.

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