Page 57 of Primal

When I finally do, I wish I hadn’t.

Somehow, I look worse than I did last night. Which, frankly, I didn’t think was possible, butyikes. My skin is pale—gray—and my eyes, a feature that has always stood out on my face, are dull and full of barely-concealed anguish. The dark circles below them are nothing but puffy bruises. The strands of my long, dark hair, usually something I can count on looking decent thanks to Mom’s epic hair genes, are tangled and knotted.

Grimacing, I turn on the tap and quickly wash my hands and scrub the foulness out of my mouth before moving on to washing my face with trembling fingers. Out of bed for no longer than ten minutes, and already, my fatigue is setting in. Canaan is rightabout the food thing. I’m going to have to find a way to push through this new aversion because dehydration and the mild case of starvation I have going on right now is not sustainable. Not if I want to keep fighting my way through this.

And I do want to do that, right? Yeah, of course I do.

I think?

I’m almost finished rinsing out the small amount of shampoo I used, when I feel it. Someone behind me. Heart tripping over itself and against my rib cage, I spin around, hands still tangled in my hair.

“Shit, Siggy!” My raspy shout bounces off the subway tiling of my bathroom.

The young omega stands just outside the doorway, red-rimmed eyes and messy braid making her look as worn down as I feel. Her expression is soft, but there’s weight behind it. A weight I’m not sure will ever fully ease now that I know the full extent of what she’s survived for the past seven months. Trauma, of any degree, doesn’t just vanish. It leaves a scar that we can’t erase with time or a really good therapist. It lingers. You don’t get rid of it, or simply move on from it, it's something you learn to carry. You learn how to navigate around it while you simultaneously relearn how to live your new normal.

“Sorry!” She offers me a quick smile before looking over her shoulder, and says with a casualness that sounds forced to my ears, “So this is your nest?”

“I don’t have a nest,” I answer automatically as I get the last of the soap residue off my face. Reaching for the small hand towel I keep folded next to the sink, I use it to dab my skin dry.

Stepping out of the bathroom, I herd us farther into my room. The late afternoon sun streaming through the big windows tells me how I’d been knocked out for a good chunk of the day. You’d think that would mean I feel more rested,stronger, but I’m starting to learn that sleep can’t fix this soul-deep exhaustion.

Watching me rummage through my closet, Siggy waves me off like she anticipated my quick, knee-jerk denial. “You’re an omega, Noa. You even smell like one now.”

This makes me blink and stare numbly into the hanging clothes in front of me. Robotically, I grab a fresh sweatshirt, this one a dark gray that definitely doesn’t remind me of anyone’s specific eye color, before turning around to face the Nightingale.

I don’t need a mirror to know that confusion is written so glaringly across my face that it might as well be a neon sign. Siggy’s wheat-colored brows lift with a quiet question.

“What? No one told you?” she asks. “Your scent’s changed. When I first met you, you didn’t even smell like a wolf, but you do now. I picked up on it last night, too. You’ve always smelled sweet, sugary, but now there’s something else layered under it. That distinct omega sweetness.”

She’s right. Omegas do smell sweet. But it’s not a sweetness you can easily place, like caramel or berries. It’s its own thing entirely. Unique. Unmistakable. Innate. The kind of scent that settles into your senses and whispers,Omega.

I don’t say anything. Just wordlessly replace my stale, hoodie with my new sweatshirt. When I’m done, hands smoothing out my now staticky hair, I finally tell her, “I don’t understand why that’d be.”

She shrugs, her narrow shoulders bunching up in her own three-sizes-too-big sweater. An omega will sacrifice fashion for comfort every single time and I learned quickly that there is nothing Siggy loves more than soft, oversized clothes. One day, when she finds her mate, I have no doubt that she’ll have a field day stealing their clothes for herself.

“It’s probably because you met your mate.” She offers this answer so painfully casually, I find myself flinching. “An omegacoming into contact with their scent match does all kinds of crazy shit to their bodies. Hormones are wild.” When she looks away from the window that’s grabbed her attention mid-conversation, she turns back to me and offers a sympathetic smile that makes a pit form in my stomach. “Seren and Rosie told me what happened. With Rennick. Don’t worry, they weren’t gossiping or anything like that, but when I came back upstairs to find you, they told me you’d passed out and were up here momentarily dead to the world. I kinda…freaked out on them.Again.” Her button nose wrinkles as she cringes with guilt.

“I’m fine,” I say automatically, and as I shuffle across the room and collapse onto my bed, I wonder, just for a second, if repeating“I’m fine”enough times might actually convince my brain and body to believe it. Wishful thinking, clearly, because my muscles tremble with effort as I try to shift into something resembling comfort on my oatmeal-colored bedding. It smells like fresh detergent, because of course it does. Seren strikes again. Somehow, in the middle of everything, she managed to wash my sheets.She really is superhuman, because how the hell did she manage this domestic sorcery? Either way, it proves just how far from fine I am, because“fine”people don’t need other people to wash their freaking sheets.

Siggy appears to not believe my little fib either because she gives me a look reeking of skepticism. She hesitates at the edge of the room, uncertain, and clearly trying to show proper omega etiquette by not intruding on my space. Like I’ve told her, this isn’t my nest. She doesn’t need to ask to come closer. I pat the spot beside me and give her a tired nod. She crosses the room and sinks down, keeping her movements careful and slow.

“You’re not fine, Noa. Seren told me about the rejected mate syndrome.”

The words clang in my ears.

Rejected mate syndrome.

I’ve heard the phrase before. Who hasn’t? It always sounded like one of those exaggerated warnings thrown around by overdramatic shifters. Like when people say heartache caused by a bad breakup feels like dying and you laugh because it’s dramatic, not because you think it’s true.

But this? This isn’t some tragic breakup sob story.

This is rot.A slow decay.

This is what it feels like to be severed from someone you were created for.

For someone who’s spent so much time around omegas, it’s embarrassing how out of the loop I was on this—on the process of rejecting a mate at all. Like I said, it’s so rarely done that no one really talks about it. And when they do, it’s in hushed tones, like saying too much might summon it into your own life. Honestly, it feels like a taboo. A quiet, unspoken rule: don’t name the nightmare unless you’re ready to live it.

Way to pay attention to the important shit, Noa.

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