Page 58 of Primal

I guess while I’ve been focused on other things—like scrambling for a perch that resembles a will to live—I’ve been officially diagnosed by those around me.

Rejected mate syndrome.

“All right,” I relent with a burning throat. “So, I’m not fine rightnow, but I have every intention of being fine sometime soon.” It’s a shaky promise at best, I don’t know if I believe it myself, but I say it anyway. Siggy chose me as her person, and I can’t let her think I’m going to fade away on her now, even though internally, I know it's a distinct possibility. “Enough about me. You obviously came up here for a reason. What’s on your mind?”

Her smile wavers but she still tries her best to appear as lighthearted as possible. Even attempts to tease me by asking, “What? You can’t read my mind?”

I try my best to match her energy, rolling my eyes and chuckling softly, both things that make various parts of me hurt, but I refuse to show it. “Yeah, I’m still working on understanding that newly developed skill. Seems it comes and goes.”

“And it’s another thing that’s changed since reuniting with Rennick,” she reminds me with a pointed look.

Mom’s words from that cryptic dream—the one I haven’t had the time or the nerve to fully unpack—echo in my mind again.

“Reuniting with him is the first step. He’s the key to opening the door.”

It’s the way that dreamlingersthat gets me. Every second of it is carved into my memory like it was branded there. And that alone makes me think it wasn’t just some grief-fueled fever dream or my subconscious throwing shit at the wall. No, this felt like a message. A carefully woven thread planted by Mom. Something meant to be found when the time was right.

Zora told me when I met her, in her frustratingly vague way, that Mom had a plan for everything. Perhaps this was one of them?

If that’s true, and if what Rennick said, that Mom was behind my severed connection with my wolf, isalsotrue, then what the fuck was she planning?

Why would she do that to me?Me. Her daughter.

The bitter truth? Of all the powerful people I’ve crossed paths with over the years, Thalassa Alderwood is the only one who could’ve actually pulled something like that off.

And I hate how much that makes sense.

And really fucking doesn’t at the same time.

Shit, my brainhurts.

“Noa?”

“I’m here,” I tell Siggy, my voice still thick with that far-away quality. “Just taking the scenic route to my downward spiral, that’s all.” With a sound I can’t be sure is a sigh or groan, I pullmyself together and turn my head to look at the omega curled up on the other side of my queen mattress. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

Deep blue eyes lock with mine, a mixture of anxiety and guilt shining back. “There’s a couple reasons I didn’t just go home after I escaped,” she says, voice low like she’s afraid someone will overhear her. “Part of it was shame. I don’t want to see the look on my mom’s face when she realizes I’m not the same daughter she lost seven months ago.”

She pauses, glancing down at her hands like they hold the rest of her confession.

“Another reason was I no longer feel safe there. It’s the only home I’ve ever known, I was born there, but I was also taken from there. I don’t know how I can ever go back there and be at peace like I once was. It’s tainted now.”

She’s not looking for reassuring words right now, only a listening ear, and that’s what I give her.

“I get it,” I offer.

“But the biggest reason I didn’t go back…” Her voice wobbles. “I was ashamed to return home alive. Changed. Kind of broken. But breathing. And have to tell Carly’s mom that I left her behind. That I didn’t go back for her.”

Again, my gut response is to argue. To tell her she isn’t being fair to herself and reassure her that she did the right thing. Carly’s mom will see that, too, but I stay quiet and let her get whatever this is off her chest. I have an inkling of where it’s going and my own anxiety is spiking at the very notion of it, but still, I stay quiet.

“But?”

“But…” Her straight teeth gnaw on her bottom lip for a second before she admits with tears forming, “But Carly’s already home. For good or bad, we no longer have to wonder anymore. I don’t have to tell her mom I don’t know whathappened to her after I got away and she didn’t. We know. I wish we didn’t, but we do. Canaan said they already had her funeral and pyre, but she has a headstone there and I need to go say goodbye. And that I’m sorry.” Siggy’s tears finally fall as she adds on a choked-back sob, “I also really want to see my mom.”

I reach out and gather her hand in mine. “Are you saying you’re ready to go back, Sig?”

Her head shakes immediately. “Not move back. Not yet. I’m not ready for that. I’m not ready to leave here. I don’t know if I ever will be. I feel…safe here. With you; with Seren.”

“You can stay here as long as you want, love, you know that.”

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