Chapter 263

Hannah

I told him everything.

Everything.

Even the stuff that I didn’t want to think about ever again.

Over the next twenty minutes, I told Noah my entire story from beginning to end—from the moment I watched my baby’s embryo in a puddle on the floor to this very moment here, now, in this courtroom.

I told him, too, about the three months of torture that he and Zoe had put me through before my death. About Zoe’s smear campaign, about the nights spent crying myself to sleep, about the worsening body image issues.

I told him about my pill addiction—how I was taking them to the point of killing myself.

“And… Maybe I wanted to kill myself,” I whispered, my hands trembling as I toyed with the hem of my shirt. “Maybe I just wanted it all to be over, subconsciously, which was why I took so many pills. I still don’t even know if it was the diet pills themselves or the contraceptives in them that did me in.”

I swallowed hard and continued. “But when I saw my baby—our baby—on the floor, a little red clump of blood and flesh, I knew I wanted to live. I wanted to live, Noah. But it was too late. I was already dying… Or so I thought.”

And finally, I told him about waking up on the bathroom floor three months before all of that had happened. The confusion, the uncertainty, the relief and the terror.

I told him how he stepped out of the shower, his dark hair falling into his eyes, and how I had thought that he was the most beautiful man I had ever seen and yet I hated him for what he had done before I’d died.

And I told him how, in those moments, I knew I needed to get away from him and Zoe if my baby was going to survive.

To my surprise, Noah listened. He didn’t interrupt once, didn’t mock me, didn’t challenge me the entire time I spoke. He just… listened while I recounted everything I could remember over the past year.

When I was finally finished, I was breathless and exhausted. Noah was still standing in front of me, his eyes wide and his face pale.

“And that’s my whole story,” I finished quietly, my voice trembling. “A year ago, I died after enduring three months of misery. But I came back. But here I am now. Alive and… changed.”

Noah was silent.

But I could see the disbelief creeping into his stunned expression, and panic began to rise in my throat. My hands began to shake, and I clutched at his arms, desperate for him to understand.

“Please,” I begged, “don’t think that I’m just messing with you or that I’m insane. I genuinely believe that the Moon Goddess gave me another chance for a reason, although…” I paused, biting my lip. “I don’t know what that reason might be yet. Maybe I’ll never know.”

Without a word, Noah slowly sat down on a nearby bench, his eyes wide and unfocused. He still didn’t speak for a long time, and with each passing second, my anxiety grew. The silence in the empty courtroom was deafening, broken only by the sound of my rapid heartbeat rushing through my own ears.

When he still didn’t speak for a long while, tears began to well up in my eyes, blurring my vision.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my voice cracking. “I’ll leave now. I think I’ve embarrassed myself enough.”

I turned to go, my cheeks burning with shame, but suddenly Noah caught my wrist. His touch sent a jolt through me, and before I could react, he pulled me back and kissed me deeply. His lips were warm and insistent against mine, and I melted against him—or maybe that was just my knees buckling with relief.

When we finally parted, I stared at him in shock, my breath coming in short gasps. “You... you believe me?” I asked, hardly daring to hope.

Noah hesitated for a moment but then nodded slowly, his hand coming up to cup my cheek. “I do. It’s... it’s hard to wrap my head around it, but I want to believe you, Hannah. Everything you told me… It makes sense, as crazy as it sounds.”

Relief washed over me, so intense it nearly made me collapse. Noah guided me to sit beside him on the bench, his hand still holding mine.

“You know,” he said after a moment, his thumb tracing circles on the back of my hand, “I always found it strange how you had such a sudden change in demeanor that night—on our… intimacy night. In the span of minutes, you seemed to go from a flippant and uncaring girl to a woman who had everything under control. I didn’t understand it at the time.”

I nodded, remembering that night all too vividly. The fear, the determination, the knowledge of what was to come, the new conviction settling in my heart.

“When I came back to life,” I said, “I immediately realized that I had to get my life under control before I died again—before I killed our baby again. I knew my life was in shambles and that I had to protect myself by any means necessary. I had to fix my eating disorder, get out of that awful, loveless marriage, and save my baby.”

As soon as the words about our marriage left my mouth, I regretted them. “I’m sorry,” I said quickly, wincing at my own bluntness. “I didn’t mean it like—”

“No, you’re right,” Noah interrupted me. “It’s true. And I’m proud of you for making that decision so quickly. You saved yourself, Hannah. And in doing so, you saved me, too.”

His words warmed me, and I felt a smile tugging at my lips. “I’m so relieved that you believe me, Noah. I can’t believe I went so long without telling you. I was so afraid you would think I was crazy.”

Noah chuckled softly, pulling me closer. “To be fair, I probably wouldn’t have believed you before. Especially not with my mind so… addled by Zoe. So you picked a good time. And after everything we’ve been through, I guess a little time travel doesn’t seem quite so far-fetched.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle wryly in response to that. “You can tell me that again,” I mused, momentarily thinking back on all of the steaming piles of shit we had both endured over the past year.

But all of that stuff… It was over now. I hoped.

We sat in comfortable silence for a moment. Now that the weight of my secret had finally lifted from my shoulders, I felt like I could finally breathe. Viona was right—it wasn’t all that bad. I just needed to talk to him.

Really talk to him.

To my mate.

“You know,” Noah said suddenly, breaking the silence, “at the Full Moon Festival, you said that you weren’t cut out to be an Alpha. But maybe you are after all. I can see that now. It takes incredible strength to go through what you did and come out the other side even stronger.”

His words, though unexpected, filled me with a warmth that spread throughout my entire body. For so long, I had doubted myself, questioned whether I was truly fit to lead a pack. And maybe I wasn’t. Maybe this would all be so much easier if I cut my losses and gave up my title as Alpha and went back to being a Luna and let the experts take over.

But hearing him say that, at least for the time being… It helped. Even if only a little.

“Thank you,” I whispered, squeezing his hand. “That means so much more to me than you know.”

Noah smiled, but then a mischievous glint appeared in his eye. “You know, since I believed your incredible time-travel story without question, then I think you have to give me something in return. It’s only fair.”

My eyebrows shot up at that. “Oh? And what might that be?”

Noah’s smirk widened into a grin.

“Be my girlfriend, Hannah. Officially.”