Chapter 3
THREE
RENARD
I told myself I was going to the park for my routine. The fact that I might see Julian was beside the point.
My wolf called me a liar. You want to see him. Admit it.
I didn't respond. There was no point arguing with my beast when he was right.
The park was filled with families with strollers and a group of teenagers taking selfies near the water. I scanned the paths automatically, looking for a familiar figure with an armload of leashes.
There he is. My wolf perked up.
Julian was near the benches with three dogs circling around him.
Even from this distance, the unhurried way he moved was as though the space around him adjusted to fit.
He was laughing at something one of the dogs did and he was wearing the same too-big hoodie.
The afternoon sun caught in his hair making it sparkle.
He kept glancing down the path, checking his phone before looking back toward the parking lot. Was he waiting for someone?
Jealousy hit me so hard I had to stop walking. I didn't want him being with someone else. He was mine, even if I couldn't claim him.
Go to him, my wolf urged. Talk to him.
I should have. That would have been the normal thing to do. Walk over, say hello, maybe actually have a proper conversation. Instead, I stayed where I was, half-hidden behind a cluster of trees.
This was ridiculous. I was a grown man lurking in the bushes, watching my fated mate from a distance because I was too hesitant to face him.
You're trying to protect him, but my wolf didn't sound convinced.
That was the lie I'd been telling myself. Staying away from Julian was noble and I was sparing him from the complications of being with a shifter. He'd have to keep secrets, and there’d come a time when he'd discover what I was and have to decide if he could live with it.
I'd seen it happen with my cousin Patrick. He'd mated a human who loved him until the first shift. The fear in that man's eyes had destroyed them both. Patrick still wasn't the same.
I hated imagining Julian’s sunshine personality dimming when he discovered I had a wolf inside me. It was better to walk away before either of us got hurt.
He's our mate, my wolf snarled. You're being ridiculous.
Maybe, but I was also being realistic.
Julian checked his phone again before looking down the path in my direction. For a moment, I thought he'd spotted me. My heartbeat stumbled then raced because it was caught between hope and dread.
One of his dogs pulled toward the water. He crouched down to untangle a leash. The dog that had caused the tangle licked his face. Julian laughed and patted the dog’s head.
I wanted to be close enough to hear that laugh and to see if his eyes crinkled at the corners. Needing to catch his scent again had me take a step toward him. No, I couldn’t. I should leave and finish my walk somewhere else. I needed to get my head together before the game. But I couldn't move.
Watching him was painful. He looked so comfortable handling the dogs with the kind of ease I'd never had. One of them—the golden retriever—leaned against his leg, and he absently scratched behind her ears while he scrolled through his phone.
What would it be like to be that relaxed and to not calculate every interaction?
You could be, my wolf said quietly. With him.
That was the cruelest part. My wolf was probably right. Julian had this way of making things seem lighter When he'd looked at me in the park the other day, I'd lowered my guard enough for the tension to ease.
Julian stood and gathered the leashes. He started down the path, heading toward the parking lot. In a few minutes, he'd be gone, and I could finish my walk and pretend this hadn't happened. But he turned.
Our eyes met across the distance. We were too far for conversation, but he raised his hand. It wasn’t quite a wave, but more of an acknowledgment.
I froze. I wanted to go to him. My wolf was practically howling, demanding I close the distance between us. But I thought about Patrick and the fear in his mate’s eyes. There were so many ways this could go wrong and I walked away.
What are you doing? My wolf pleaded with me to rethink my decision.
The rest of the walk was mechanical as my mind returned to the moment when Julian had made that tentative wave. His expression had been hopeful before I'd crushed it by walking away.
By the time I got to the arena, I was wound so tight I thought I might be sick.
"You okay?" Derek asked when I came into the locker room. "You look like shit."
If only he knew. My wolf was sulking, making my skin itch with the need to shift. He kept telling me to go back to the park and find Julian and damn the consequences.
"Just focusing on the game."
The game was a disaster from the opening faceoff.
I was slow, not physically, but mentally. Every shot seemed to come half a second before I was ready. Plays I should have read easily, I didn’t see coming. I was in my own head, replaying that moment in the park on an endless loop.
The Eastport Eagles scored twice in the first period. I should have stopped both shots. The second one trickled through my pads, and the crowd groaned.
This is what happens, my wolf said, when you fight what's meant to be.
The second period wasn't any better. I let in another goal, this one on a slap shot from the point.
I committed too early and watched it sail past me.
I could have stopped it if my head had been in the game.
If I hadn't been thinking about brown eyes and a smile that hadn't dimmed even when I'd walked away.
Coach called a timeout. When I skated to the bench, his expression was grim.
"What's going on, Conley?"
"Nothing. I'll fix it."
"You'd better. Because right now, you're costing us this game."
The worst part was, I couldn't tell him that my fated mate was a human dog walker who I'd just walked away from in a park, and now my wolf was sabotaging me from the inside.
In the third period, I let in two more goals. Both were clean shots that I had no excuse for missing.
Coach pulled me with eight minutes left in the game. Raul took my place, and I sat on the bench watching him make the saves I should have made.
Final score: 5-1.
In the locker room afterward, the silence was worse than any shouting would have been.
My teammates stripped off their gear while a few offered halfhearted "tough night" comments. Mostly they avoided looking at me. I’d let them down.
We'd been fighting for a playoff spot, and I'd handed the Eagles an easy win.
Coach called me into his office. "I've been coaching for twenty years." He leaned back in his chair. "I know when a player's injured, when he's in a slump, when he's dealing with something personal. So which is it?"
"Personal."
"Can you handle it? Because if not, I need to know now. Raul played well tonight. I can't keep putting you in if you're going to play like this."
The threat was clear. Fix whatever was wrong, or lose my starting position.
"I'll deal with it."
"You'd better. We've got another game Friday. I need you ready."
I drove home with my wolf silent for the first time all day. He wasn’t sulking anymore, just defeated, which was worse.
The house was dark and quiet. I stood in the shower until the water ran cold, trying to wash away the memory of that game and of Julian's face when I'd walked away. I couldn’t get the image out of my head of how he'd looked in the afternoon sun with his dogs around him and that infectious smile.
I wanted that smile directed at me, his hands on me whether they were gentle or rough and if he'd taste as good as he smelled.
You can't keep doing this, my wolf said quietly.
I knew that. Something had to change. I couldn't keep fighting the mating bond and expect to function. But I also couldn't drag Julian into my world without being honest about what that meant.
Eventually, I'd have to tell him the truth and hope he stayed.