Chapter 9 Kit
Kit
Iknew something was wrong with Felix from the moment I heard his footsteps in the lobby. Too quick. Quicker than usual, like he was running from something.
By the time he’d pounded down the basement stairs, I’d already leapt to my feet.
“Felix? What’s wrong?” I sounded fraught, and I cringed at myself. “I mean, good morning. Are you alright?”
He stood in the basement, chest rising and falling in shallow bursts. His eyes darted around the room like he expected someone to jump out from behind the furniture. Something was definitely off—this was beyond his usual nervous energy.
“Is Priya here yet? She’s not in the kitchen.”
“Rory sent her to Fat Cat’s. What’s the matter?”
Felix started pacing, tearing at his hair with both hands. The black strands stuck up at odd angles, and two bright spots of colour adorned his round cheeks. He almost looked like he was on the verge of tears.
My wolf stirred restlessly. Something was threatening our mate.
I stood, wanting to move closer, but stopped myself. After the other day—touching his face, stroking his goddamn lips—I couldn’t trust myself not to get carried away again.
“Can you sit down, Felix? I promise you, whatever it is, it’ll be okay.” And I meant it. Whatever had put that look on his face, I’d fix it. If someone had hurt him, I’d kill them. Simple. “Has…” I swallowed hard. “Has something happened with Wren?”
My wolf perked up, shamefully hopeful. If Wren had upset Felix, the bastard would pay for it.
“What?” Felix stopped pacing long enough to stare at me like I’d grown a second head. “Wren? This has nothing to do with him.”
I deflated like a punctured balloon.
“It’s about Priya.” Felix looked me dead in the eye, and I saw real fear there. “I think I’ve messed up really bad.”
He was physically trembling now, his whole body vibrating with anxiety. Every instinct I had screamed at me to pull him into my arms, to wrap him in my cardigan and tell him everything would be fine. Instead, I clenched my fists as tightly as I could.
Felix erupted into rambling—more words than I’d ever heard him speak in one go. A bizarre tale about Emma ringing him last night, about questions and suspicions and lies unravelling faster than he could patch them up.
“So you see,” Felix said, gesturing wildly with both hands. “She basically knows Priya’s lied to her now. I didn’t do anything to convince her otherwise. I basically confirmed her beliefs!”
I couldn’t resist any longer. I reached over and touched his arm, feeling the tremor running through his muscles.
His eyes widened in surprise, and I found myself gazing into them—those dark, expressive depths that always gave away every emotion he tried to hide.
Right then they were full of guilt and terror, and it made my soul ache.
“Felix. This isn’t your fault. Priya will not blame you for what happened. It’s going to be alright. We’ll tell her together.”
“Do you think?” He looked so trusting, so relieved at my reassurance that I nearly broke my own promise to keep my distance.
“Absolutely.” I dropped my grip before I could do something stupid like stroke his cheek again.
The sound of footsteps echoed down the staircase. Priya appeared in the basement, armed with our usual morning coffee haul from Fat Cat’s. She looked between the pair of us, taking in Felix’s dishevelled appearance and my obvious concern.
“What’s going on?” she asked, dumping the coffees on the table.
Felix looked at me, fear flooding back across his face.
“Do you want me to tell her?”
He shook his head, took a deep breath, and recounted the entire phone call again. Every detail, every stumbled excuse, every moment where he’d failed to convince Emma that everything was normal. Priya listened in complete silence, her expression growing more still with each revelation.
“Okay,” she said at the end of it all. “Thank you for telling me.”
That was it? I stared at her in disbelief. “Priya, are you not going to apologise to Felix for him having to endure that call from your girlfriend?”
Priya frowned. “Sorry, Felix. If she calls again, don’t answer it.”
“That’s it?” My voice grew in volume. “That’s your strategy here? It sounds like she’s going to go to the police, Priya! Our cover is blown. You need to address this.”
“And I will!” Her voice rose to match mine. “I’ll sort it. I just… need to do it in my own time.”
I stared at her. “I don’t think you have any more time.”
Something cracked in her composure then. The careful mask she’d been wearing slipped, revealing the pure panic underneath.
“You don’t understand,” she said, her voice breaking slightly.
“Emma and I—we have something perfect. Something real. I love her more than I’ve ever loved anyone in my entire life.
Well, just as much as you guys. But my job here at Killigrew Street has forced me lie to her for months, made me sneak around like some kind of criminal. ”
Priya yanked the band from her ponytail, hair tumbling loose around her shoulders, then immediately started gathering it back up again with shaking fingers.
“So now she’s going to think I’m a mastermind liar, not the sort of person you want to commit to for the rest of your life!
And that’s not even mentioning the whole ‘learning about the supernatural world’ curve ball.
She’ll run for the hills!” She turned to Felix suddenly.
“If she does send the police to the door, all the paperwork is in place, correct?”
Felix nodded quickly. “I’ve got building permits, renovation contracts, insurance documents—everything’s set up to make it look like we’re actually restoring the hotel. Historical preservation grants, architectural surveys, the works.”
“Good.” Priya’s attention shifted to me. “And it’s your job to make it look like we’re actually doing construction when they come, right? With the equipment and everything?”
I nodded sheepishly. Years ago, we’d run drills for exactly this sort of situation, but we’d all grown complacent. I was going to have to talk to Seb about reinstating the protocols.
“And Felix,” Priya continued, her tone becoming more businesslike. “You’ve also still got that alert system set up, haven’t you? The one that flags any police reports mentioning our names or Killigrew Street Hotel?”
Felix’s fingers automatically went to the drawstring of his hoodie. “Yeah, it’s all in place. Any keyword combinations involving the hotel, the street, it all gets pinged straight to my inbox. I’ve got it monitoring police databases, incident reports, the lot.”
“Good. It’s all fine, then.” After snatching up her coffee from the table, Priya stormed towards the staircase, then paused at the bottom step. “I’m going out for the day, but don’t forget what I messaged the both of you about last night. You know, the leftover quiche?”
I narrowed my eyes at her. I hadn’t realised she’d said the same thing to Felix as well. “You seem bizarrely concerned about this quiche.”
“I don’t like food waste!” she spat, stomping up the stairs, and leaving Felix and me in an uncomfortable silence.
“Um…” Felix said, fidgeting in the armchair. “Okay. I’m going to get to work now.”
I moved away from him as if my presence nearby was preventing him from leaving the chair.
“Sure.” Then, because I clearly had issues, and lots of them, I picked up Felix’s coffee—the one with the star on the lid—and offered it to him, just in case our fingers happened to touch when he took it from me. “Don’t forget this!”
Felix managed to snatch the coffee from me without any skin contact at all.
Then he scurried off to his lair, slamming the door behind him.
I scrubbed at my face with my hands.
I really was doomed if my master plan amounted to passing my mate things with the hope that our fingers might touch.
I slumped back into the armchair Felix had vacated, still warm from his body heat, and let the weight of my situation crush down on me.
Wolves mated for life. One person, one bond, one chance at that perfect connection that poets wrote about and others spoke of in hushed, reverent tones.
Some wolves never met their mate at all—they found love with others, built families, lived full lives without ever experiencing that soul-deep recognition that screamed mine when you first locked eyes across a crowded room.
I used to think those wolves were the unfortunate ones. Now I envied them.
Because meeting your mate and having them not know? Watching them date other people while you lurk in the shadows like some lovesick stalker? That was a special kind of hell I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.
And I’d had practice with hell. Greywatch had made sure of that.
The memory slammed into me, in full technicolour glory—me, strapped to that chair in the medical wing, electrodes attached to my temples while they tried to force my wolf to shift.
The taste of my blood when they’d split my lip during “enhanced interrogation training.” The cold steel of the examination table where they’d taken tissue samples to understand how shifter healing worked.
That had been torture. But this? This was almost worse, because at least at Greywatch I’d known it would end eventually.
Either they’d discharge me or I’d die trying to escape.
But Felix would be part of my life for as long as we both stayed at Killigrew Street.
Which could be literal decades. Watching him fall in love with someone else, maybe even marry them, build a life that would never include me except as the pathetic bastard who hung around the edges, desperate for scraps of attention.
Was I doomed to be tortured one way or another for the rest of my life?
“Bloody hell, Kit,” I muttered to myself, scrubbing my hands over my face. “Pull yourself together, mate.”
I dragged myself up the stairs, forcing my spine straight and my expression neutral. If Priya was right and the police did come sniffing around, I needed to make sure our security was airtight.