Page 65 of Primal

When I finally fall quiet, the silence between us stretches long enough that I start to regret saying anything at all.

Finally, he tells me, “Protecting omegas…it’s an incredibly noble cause.”

My already broken heart pangs, pumping a fresh wave of anguish through my veins. I barely manage to keep my wince off my face.

“Choosing to sacrifice everything for the vulnerable—for the weak—normally is.” I don’t have to spell it out. He knows exactly what I mean. The air between us constricts. Borders on suffocating.

He stares down at me, and this time, he doesn’t bother masking it. The guilt. The remorse. The kind of sorrow that sinks into a man’s bones and becomes a permanent resident there. It’s all over his face, lurking into every shadow, and my chest aches from the weight of it.

Because as much as I wish I could hate him, I wish he hated me.

I wish he loved her—Talis—and hated me instead. It’d be easier to carry. Easier to stomach his rejection if it were fortified with contempt instead of this. Instead of longing. This ache he wears when he looks at me, the ache I recognize because it mirrors my own, it breathes life into the slivers of me that still hope. And that’s crueler than anything.

He opens his mouth. I can see it coming. The explanation. The why. And I can’t let him say it.

“Please don’t,” I whisper, lifting a hand between us, fingers shaking, but not from the cold. “Just…don’t. It’s taking everything I have to be here today. Tolookat you. But if you try to explain—try tojustify—what you did to me…”It might break me.The lump in my throat rises but I push the words through anyway. “Because I already know. I know why you did it. You did it for them. For your omegas. If anyone was going to understand this, it was going to be me. I…getit.”

Saying it out loud feels like a lie, a rationalization that I have to keep repeating to myself so I don’t dissolve into dust.

“And that’s what kills me,” I continue, even when I just want to stop and turn away from him, but he needs to hear this. Rennick needs to know what a mistake he’s made in the name of what he thought was a noble cause. “You never gave me the chance. I might have been able to help you. I could’ve helpedthem. And maybe we could’ve done it together. But it never occurred to you to talk to me first. You just made the decision, and now we’ll never know because you broke…everything.”

He looks like with every word, I’ve stabbed him.

Rennick’s nod is resigned,defeated, as he murmurs his agreement.

“You’re right.”

Now it’s my turn to wince as if someone has just plunged a knife into my sternum.

“But have we passed the point of being able to fix it? Is there no repairing what I’ve destroyed?”

Even at my strongest mentally, I don’t think I would have been prepared. It’s the last question I expected to hear come out of him, after everything, and it catches me so off guard that I let out a laugh. It’s not pretty and it’s more like a sob catching in my throat. It lacks any real humor. It's a sad sound.

Beneath the oversized sweatshirt he draped over me, my hand runs down the front of my chest, I stop to grab the fabric of my own hoodie, right at the center, above where the bond used to live.

“Look at me,” I say, voice nothing but a broken rasp. “What do you see that makes you think there’s anything left to fix?”

Rennick lays his palm over his own chest, almost protective. “But our bond?—”

“Our bond is dead,” I cut in, sharp and final. It hurts to do it. “Carved out of me. There’s nothing left butemptiness.” The words leave a bitter taste in my mouth, but I don’t stop. “And even if it wasn’t—if by some miracle you were freed of your obligation to McNamara—how would I ever trust you to not hurt me again, Rennick?”

He can do nothing but stand there and listen, it’s as if our roles have reversed from that day.

“How could I ever look at you and not see the man who stood in that clearing and said those things to me? Who letherspeak to me like that. Who letherstand beside you like she belonged there.” My voice trembles, because the truth is, she does belong there. He chose her as his Luna and a Luna’s position is at her Alpha’s side. Always. “You made me feel unworthy. Of you. Of everything.”

His jaw flexes, chest rising like he’s about to interrupt.

“You used my mom against me,” I rasp before he gets the chance. “You accused her of binding my wolf.”

“Noa…I never wanted you to find out the truth that way—” he starts, strained.

“We don’t evenknowthe truth,” I say, stepping forward. “And if it is the truth, if she really did it, then I know there was a reason. Because she would’ve never done that lightly. Not to me. Not to her only child.” My stomach turns just thinking about it, but I push through. “You said it anyway. You said it to hurt me.”

He doesn’t deny it, because he can’t. He only nods, once, reluctantly.

The fire I’ve been running on sputters out just as fast as it sparked. The exhaustion hits all at once, dragging through my limbs like concrete settling in my bones. I pull his hoodie tighter around myself, burrowing deeper into it.

Sighing—more a whimper than breath—I meet his gaze one last time.

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