Page 11 of Primal

“It got marginally easier when I found out you’re the Alpha these days. Facing your father…” She shakes her head like she’s trying to dispel a bad memory. “Frankly, he scared the shit out of me. The idea of coming here and asking him for a favor while knowing how he felt about me…Well, if I didn’t know any better, I would think my mother was punishing me for something.”

I don’t think you know better, Noa, and it’s going to break your heart when I tell you the truth.

Stowing her remark about my father feeling a certain way about her for later, I press for more information. “What is it that she asked of you, Noa?”

This is the first time I’ve spoken her name aloud. As it rumbles out of my throat, my wolf all but purrs—mind you, I haven’t purred a day in my fucking life—and Noa’s body seems to sway forward. Just as I clamp down on my wolf’s behavior, she gets a grip on herself and returns to sitting rigidly in her chair.

She sighs, conveying how emotionally exhausted she is by this whole ordeal. “My father is buried here in your pack’s cemetery.” The way she says “your pack” isn’t lost on me. “Mom’s wishes were to be cremated, and, in her will, she requested I bring her remains here and spread them over her mate’s grave so they can finally be reunited on this earthly plane.”

Earthly plane…words that would only be used by a witch or a powerful charmer like Thalassa Alderwood. Seems Noa’s picked up on the jargon. Not entirely surprising if she truly hasn’t been living amongst another wolf pack and has just been with her mother. Then again, she has the scent of a female wolf on her, so she’s been spending time around at least one other shifter.

I went into this unexpected meeting without a single hint about its purpose, but never in a million years did I think it would pertain to Thalassa.

Part of me wishes Noa came here asking for something else, anything else, because it would have been easier. She could have showed up and asked to rejoin the Fallamhain Pack, and I would have said yes in a heartbeat. She might not technically have access to her wolf, but at her core, Noa is a shifter, and shifters need a community to thrive. Butthis? Imploring me to allow her to return Thalassa to our land? Well, that isn’t as easy. A pack’s territory is sacred, and permitting a traitor like Thalassa entry—in one form or another—would be considered a disgrace. A desecration to our very soil.

“I know it’s a lot to ask, especially since it’s coming from me, but I beg of you to let me finally put my mother to rest.” The way Noa’s voice cracks has my wolf rushing forward once more, testing my resolve. His complete devotion to supporting her turbulent emotions is baffling. “I’ll do it as fast as possible. You can have a guard, or guards, if you insist on more than one, escort me to the grave site—I really don’t care. After, they can follow me to the front gates, and I’ll willingly leave. I promise I won’t come back, so your pack will never have to be insulted by the presence of a latent wolf again.”

A latent wolf? That’s what she thinks…

That does it.

The cracking of my control is earsplitting, I’m almost certain anyone within a hundred feet can hear it. The raw fury and dominance of my animal half rushes through my veins, driving me to my feet as he fights against me, shoving against the now fragile veil barely holding him back.

A surge of panic crashes over me, entwining with the wrath already burning within. The panic is for two reasons. The first, and some could argue the most important, is that the council isdue to arrive any minute and if they see me losing control of my beast, the fragile faith they have in me will shatter. I’ll be back to square one with those self-important bastards. The second reason, the reason I find more imperative than the former, is the fear that losing this battle for dominance will result in somehow hurting her in the process. Sweet Noa.

That can’t happen.

What is she doing to me? She has the bloodline of powerful witches in her veins, maybe she’s weaved some kind of magic over me? Don’t be fucking ridiculous, Rennick, if she had magic you’d be able to smell it on her.

My skin ripples, black fur sprouting with a wave of goosebumps, and my claws replace my blunt fingernails, the eight sharp points slicing into my palms as I turn my hands into fists. The howls of fury and the wrathful growling coming from my barely contained beast are deafening, effectively rendering everything else around me silent.

Everything inside me is chaos, a storm on the verge of consuming the parts of me that remain human. Then there’s the gentle brush of her palms against my chest and in an instant, the world stills, shrinking to a single point where nothing exists but her—her touch, her presence, her quiet command over my storm.

Eyes flying open, my hands snap up and wrap around her wrists—to push her away or bring her closer, I can’t say. She recoils from the sudden contact, her lips parting in a breathless gasp that lingers between us, but she doesn’t pull away. Though unsure and rightfully wary, Noa stays rooted where she stands, her dainty face lifting as she examines the predator still lurking within my irises.

“Hi,” she whispers. The sound is so soft, so sweet, it has my wolf howling with a desperation I’ve never felt within myself. It’s his eager, echoing response that clues me in on what’shappening. Noa’s gentle greeting isn’t for me, it’s for him, and he is delighted to be acknowledged by her.

By the skin of my teeth, I’m still wearing my human form, but it’s my wolf who leads this exchange and that is why I’m powerless to stop him when he commands my head lower. Noa goes utterly still, her breath trapping in her chest as my nose brushes along her temple before sliding down to skim across the warm flesh of her throat. Her sugary and warm scent invades my senses. I thought I had already memorized all the varying notes that make up her enchanting perfume, but my wolf was right earlier. Taking her scent in this close, right from the very source, is unparalleled.

What happens next is completely out of my control.

I’m nothing but an observer as my life changes before me.

Her scent deepens, the intensity of it borderline overwhelming, and it consumes me until it’s all I can focus on. Taking in those greedy gulps has the sweet nectar all but engraving itself into my bones and the pleasure my beast takes from that is what sets off the rumble in my chest. Never in my life have I made this sound before because never have I met a person my wolf deemed worthy of it. The purr climbs from behind my ribs into the base of my throat. Noa’s body, which is still locked frozen in my grasp, forces her lungs to expand once more. The shuddering, uneasy air she expels has my wolf amping up his placating rumbling.

And the final nail in my preverbal coffin is the way my name slips from her mouth on her next exhale. I already knew I adored the sound of it on her lips, but this is my undoing.

“Rennick…”

Like a dusty door being unlocked within my brain, a single thought—a single word—is released and pushed to the surface, silencing everything else. It’s a thought that nearly brings me to my knees in both denial and bewilderment before this female.

“Mate. Mate. Mate. Mate. Mate!”

It comes from my wolf and his unrelenting howling demands that I hear him, that I acknowledge what he’s been trying to tell me since he first caught her scent.

The lone word is all that exists, echoing through me, until Noa’s pink lips part, her voice laced with the same disbelief that grips me,“Mate.”

The gravity of her mirrored,veryaudible, declaration is like a punch to my sternum, causing me to physically flinch from the blow.

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