Chapter 3
Kit
The stalking had to stop.
Three streets. That was my limit.
That was my limit. The first few times, at least.
Not that I was calling it stalking, obviously.
Stalking was what twisted bastards did to innocent people.
This was… protective surveillance. Security work.
The kind of thing any responsible person would do when someone they cared about insisted on wandering around London at all hours with nothing but headphones covering their ears, an oversized hoodie, and a concerning lack of street smarts.
Felix brought it on himself, really.
Oh, who was I kidding? I could frame it all I liked as a “protective patrol,” but as soon as it escalated into me standing under a bus stop gazing into Felix’s flat from across the road, it was just plain stalking, let’s be honest.
I reasoned with myself that Felix had no idea how dangerous London could be, even though he’d grown up here and had firsthand experience of the kind of darkness that lived in London’s shadows.
I knew it was wrong. I knew I was going too far. Every rational part of my brain screamed at me to stop. Felix wasn’t some helpless damsel who needed a bodyguard trailing him through South London. He was brilliant and capable.
But knowing something and actually acting on that knowledge were two entirely different beasts.
I’d lived two whole years knowing Felix was my mate.
Since that day in Seb’s office. The day my boss called me in there to formally introduce me to Felix, the newest member of our team.
I’d stared at the young man. Warm golden skin, high cheekbones, jet-black hair falling into his eyes like he was deliberately hiding behind it.
Wire-thin frame swimming in a giant hoodie that made him look even younger.
He’d been studying the carpet as if it held the secrets of the universe, shoulders hunched like he was trying to disappear into himself.
Then something had made him glance up—maybe Seb clearing his throat, maybe just instinct—and Felix’s impossibly dark eyes had locked onto mine.
Mate, my wolf had roared. Mate, mate, mate!
I’d almost stumbled back with the strength of it. The shock of it. That this random twenty-one-year-old man, who’d apparently agreed to become our tech specialist after hacking into our systems, was somehow my mate. Something I’d given up expecting to find once I’d hit thirty.
And then followed two years of agony. Two years of my heart skipping beats when he entered a room.
Two years of barely being able to string two sentences together in his presence, feeling too overwhelmed by the bond to function like a normal person around him.
Two years of unbearable pining, until I finally went completely insane and started following him.
Of course, each time I’d say to myself it was the last time.
Yet there I was again, lurking beneath the broad canopy of a lime tree like some sort of deranged lunatic, watching Felix standing under the light of a lamppost across the road. My enhanced vision allowed me to see him nibbling on his bottom lip as he bobbed his head to his music.
I should have turned around. Walked away. Gone back to the hotel and dealt with the kitchen like a normal person. Priya and Rory had probably left five mugs each scattered around, and someone needed to load the dishwasher before Seb’s passive-aggressive notes started appearing on the counters.
But the ache in my chest wouldn’t let me.
It was this horrible, gnawing thing that had started the moment Felix disappeared from view.
Hours of being near him at work, catching glimpses of his profile, staring at his screens, hearing his quiet, nervous laugh when Rory said something especially ridiculous—and then he was suddenly gone, and my body had revolted.
Like someone had reached inside and twisted something vital.
I’d managed exactly three minutes before the pull became unbearable. Before I knew it, I was grabbing my coat and charging towards the front door.
Tracking him was always pathetically easy.
Our mate bond might have been incomplete, one-sided, but I still felt that tug.
That invisible thread connecting us. Not to mention I’d become completely attuned to his scent—a mixture of the vanilla syrup he loved in his coffee, warm wool, and sunshine—that made my wolf pace restlessly under my skin.
Even easier than that, I knew his route home.
His Tube journey to Battersea Park. How he walked to the very end of the underground platform to get on where it was least crowded.
How on Fridays he took a detour to the corner shop for snacks.
How on Wednesdays he joined his family in Ealing for dinner—if Seb didn’t have him working late.
How he always paused at this exact lime tree on his way to the station.
Never for long—just a moment, like he needed to stop and breathe.
Sometimes he’d look up through the branches, face tilted towards the waxy leaves.
Other times he’d just stand there, hidden in the shadows beneath the canopy, before continuing on his way.
Tonight, I’d ducked under those same branches, using the low-hanging canopy as cover. The darkness swallowed me completely. Hopefully.
Felix stood under the amber glow of the lamppost, phone in hand, thumbs moving across the screen. The light caught the dark strands of hair falling across his forehead, and I had to grip the rough bark behind me to stop myself from doing something monumentally stupid.
He looked up from his phone.
My heart seized.
For one terrifying second, his wide-eyed gaze swept directly towards the tree. Towards the shadows where I was hiding like a creep. The low-hanging branches cast everything into darkness, but still—if he looked too hard, if he focused…
I held my breath. Didn’t move. Didn’t even blink.
His eyes slid past without stopping. He went back to his phone.
What was going on? It was Tuesday. He should have been heading straight home, maybe stopping for a hot chocolate if he was feeling adventurous. But instead he was just standing there, checking his phone like he was waiting for something…
Or someone.
I didn’t put the pieces together until Felix spotted someone coming down the street and waved.
I couldn’t stop my sharp inhalation of breath. Every muscle in my body tensed.
I hadn’t realised he was meeting him after work today.
Wren.
The man who had ruined my life.
I’d never forget last Christmas Eve. Emma, Priya’s girlfriend, had been teasing Felix, saying her colleague Wren wanted to take him on a date.
The words had barely left her mouth before I lost complete control—stood up and drove a knife through the dining table in front of everyone.
The splintered mahogany. The horrified silence.
Felix’s wide eyes staring at me across the wreckage.
Everyone thought I’d had a Christmas-cracker induced PTSD episode. Let them think that. Better than admitting the truth—that I’d wanted to stab myself with that knife as punishment for waiting so long to claim Felix that I’d allowed him to be snatched away from me.
Now, watching Wren greet Felix with a colossal bear hug—even though I’d never seen him willingly hug anyone at Killigrew Street—I couldn’t help but wish I had stabbed myself. Because seeing them together for the first time hurt more than any wound I’d endured during Greywatch.
Pain lanced through my ribs like someone had taken a crowbar to them. My chest constricted, making each breath feel like swallowing glass. Watching them together, seeing how easily Felix melted into Wren’s arms, how his shoulders relaxed in a way they never did around me…
Then Felix laughed. Actually laughed. That rare bright, genuine sound I’d only heard a handful of times, usually when he’d finally cracked some impossible bit of code. The sound cut right through me, because I couldn’t recall a single time I’d ever made him laugh.
My wolf lost its mind.
The beast surged forward, claws scraping against the inside of my skin.
Every instinct screamed at me to shift, to charge across the street and tear Wren’s throat out.
To rip that stupid shiny long blond hair right off his skull.
To show him exactly what happened to people who touched what was mine.
Mine, the wolf snarled. He’s touching what’s mine!
Except Felix wasn’t mine, was he? That was the whole bloody problem.
My bones began to ache, the shift threatening to tear through whether I wanted it or not.
I slammed my palm against the tree trunk. Bark bit into skin. The sting of it helped—barely. My vision tunnelled, edges going dark except for Felix and Wren in sharp, brutal focus.
Breathe. Just breathe.
Another tremor rolled through me. I dug my fingernails into my palms until I felt the skin break, pressed my spine against rough bark until it hurt.
Wren pulled back from the hug, but his hands lingered on Felix’s shoulders. Too long. Too familiar. Like he had every right to touch him.
A growl built in my chest. I swallowed it down. It took everything in me not to cross the street and snap those hands clean off.
They started walking together, Wren’s hand still resting on Felix’s shoulder as they moved down the street. Away from the Tube station. Away from Felix’s usual route home.
I should have walked away then. Should have gone home and had a cold shower and pretended this never happened.
Instead, like a complete masochist, I found myself stepping out from underneath the lime tree.
Maybe this was a sign. Maybe seeing them together would finally kill the last shred of pathetic hope I’d been nursing.
Maybe watching Felix be happy with someone else would teach my wolf to shut up and accept reality.
Maybe hearing them use whatever pet names couples used would be the shock to the system I needed.
“Babe” or “sweetheart” or whatever nauseating endearments people threw around when they were besotted with each other.