Page 39 of Primal

I can barely sense my wolf.

The presence that has been a part of me since birth is so painfully quiet it takes immense effort to follow the frayed thread that keeps us tethered.Only the ghost of him lingers. The bond between us has been stretched so thin, I can’t be sure if there’s anything left to mend.

Without him, I have no choice. I will have to endure the long ride home.

If Talis has even a shred of self-preservation left in that head of hers, she’ll get rid of that smug grin before we’re sealed in a car together. Because if I have to sit beside her for hours while she basks in the delusion that she’s won something—wonmeor myheart—then the fragile grip I’ve kept on my fury is going to shatter.

She might be the face of this farce, but the real puppeteer is her father. Cathal McNamara, master manipulator, opportunist,bastard. He’s the one yanking the strings, the one holding thelives of my omegas over my head like bargaining chips in a dirty game of power.

He knows exactly what he’s doing, using my sense of duty and my desperation against me. I’m not an idiot. I see it for what it is. Manipulation in its most polished form. And yet, I have no move to make that doesn’t end with more souls being stolen or returned to us in torn-apart and bloodied pieces.

And I fucking hate him for it.

I hate myself for

Hate even more that I need him, because I can’t see another path to protect the most vulnerable members of my pack. He knows that. That’s why it was so effortless for him to back me into this corner, why he got exactly what he wanted. He’s the one who pushed me to commit the worst betrayal a mate can make.

He’s to blame just as much as I am for the pain currently gnawing on Noa’s soul.

And if I didn’t need him, if my omegas didn’t need the strength of his pack watching our borders, I’d already be ripping him apart at the seams. I don’t need my wolf for that. Just my hands, and the rage burning through them.

I nod stiffly, robotically, my mind returning to Canaan's last comment. “Keep me updated.”

His scoff is cold, slicing with expert precision. “I’ll let you know when we’re on our way back.”

He has no intention of sharing anything about Noa. Whatever he learns by staying behind with Rhosyn will remain between them, kept out of my reach. Not even the smallest scraps of information, crumbs I know I would devour like a starving man, will be shared.

And the truth is, I don’t have the right to ask.

Noa isn’t mine.

I have no claim on her, no place in her life, no right to know if she heals from the pain my rejection has inflicted. I made mychoice, made my sacrifice, and as the witch said, I have to live with the consequences.

Canaan approaches the wind wall and cautiously presses his palm against it. It gives way to his touch immediately, making it clear the witch’s spell is only intended to keep me away. Over his shoulder, my second glances at me, and for the first time today, I catch a flicker of sympathy in his hazel eyes. It’s brief, almost reluctant, but it’s there. “Good luck clinging to your denial now, Nick. There’s no running from it anymore. Not after this. What just happened…it only confirmed what we’ve been trying to tell you for days.”

I exhale slowly, forcing my voice steady. “Confirmed what?”

“She’s yours. Your fated mate.”

I don’t bother telling him I knew the second I looked into her eyes. That every atom in my body recognized her as mine in that moment. There’s no point in saying it now. Instead, I turn around and mumble so quietly, so brokenly, I’m not sure if he hears me.

“Not anymore.”

Chapter 17

Seren

Between the craptastic hand I’ve been dealt in life and the nifty little gift the Goddess so graciously bestowed upon me, I’ve endured every form of emotional pain there is. Most of it was my own hurt and what wasn’t was what I’d taken from others. Pain I absorbed, carried, and lived through as if it had always been mine.

None of it has ever compared to what it feels like to live through a rejection—the severing of a fated mate bond. This pain is the kind of thing I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy, and that is saying something because I really hate that bitch.

Watching Noa, my heartbreakingly generous and too-kind-for-this-world best friend, be torn apart by the man who was meant to love her, is like witnessing someone’s heart being ripped straight from their chest only to be devoured by the very teeth that should have been used to protect her.

With all the shit Noa has been forced to suffer through,this, being rejected by her scent match, is so impossibly unfair that I want to scream. Athim, at the Goddess herself for choosing him in the first place, at the fucking sky, atanyonewho will listen.

But I can’t break down right now, not on her behalf and certainly not because of my own resurfacing hurt.

No.

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