Page 37 of Never Submit

There are still some blank spots in my memory, but coming face to face with that greasy-haired asshole who kept me chained, well, I’ve got a feeling that will stick with me.

Within less than thirty minutes, an omega nurse comes and examines me, as promised.

“The cuts and bruises are almost all healed already,” the woman says softly.

“It supports our theory that she’s a shifter now,” Noble replies.

It’s all very unsettling to me, the knowledge like a seed lodged in the back of my mouth. Something I can’t expel no matter how hard I try.

I’m not trying hard, yet. I’m as still as a mouse under the watchful gaze of a hawk. It doesn’t matter how kind or gentle the omega is as she skims her fingers over me. How she delicately pushes my hair to the side.

I’m not a shifter.

Am I?

I saw the fur, the claws. That kind of stuff would be stupid to deny.

The Moonstone did something to me; it changed my physical body into something unique. Like Torin said, I probably shouldn't exist. The only one of my kind.

What will it mean?

And man, am I tired of being special. It’s not the picnic everyone thinks it is when they dream of it. It’s isolating and uncomfortable and awkward.

Renee Wexler, alive when she shouldn’t be, a shifter when she was born a dead human.

Life just doesn’t make sense anymore.

Chapter 9

Ren

Even the exhaustion has begun to dissipate, as though my system is working overtime to get me healed and whole.

I’m not sure I’ll ever be healed again, not mentally, not with everything that’s happening.

“Thank you,” Noble says to the omega.

She keeps her head ducked down on her way out of the room, and then it’s just the two of us.

Alone.

In a room that smells like him.

“Do you feel well enough to take a shower? I’d be happy to help you if you need it.”

I lift my gaze to stare at Noble, the curious tilt of his head, the way his auburn hair falls over a face of angles and sharp planes.

“I wouldn’t turn down an offer of help.” I run my tongue over my teeth, my mouth going dry.

He notices the motion and his attention zeroes in on my lips, heat pooling in his eyes.

It’s always been that way with him. As much as I triedto tell myself it wasn’t there, the chemistry between us lived and breathed under my skin, off the charts.

That’s how it feels with all of them, in fact.

But there is something unique about Noble. I knew it that day on the mountain and it's impossible to ignore it now.

Noble takes control and peels my clothes off of me. “It really is a lovely tattoo.” The pad of his thumb draws a line around the wolf on my stomach. “You didn’t have this before. I’d remember.”

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