Chapter 19 Felix #2
I stared at Kit, mind churning over White—this mysterious government figure who’d plucked Seb from his lowest point over two decades ago and given him purpose.
I’d always pictured her as some sort of shadowy Bond villain, sitting in a leather chair stroking a snow-white Persian cat.
The reality was probably far more mundane—a civil servant in a grey suit with a clipboard and terrible breath.
Aside from Theo, none of the rest of us had ever met White. Seb found his own team after she’d given him Killigrew Street.
“It wasn’t White who connected you with Seb, was it?” I asked. “Once you reached London?”
Kit shook his head. “No. Once I got here, I started looking for a new pack to join. I found it… difficult.” He ran a hand through his beard, eyebrows knitting together.
“After Greywatch… I was finally free, but I had a tough time adjusting. Had severe PTSD and ended up getting into a few scraps with other wolves. Seb tracked me down, took one look at me, then adopted me.”
He was joking, but there always was bright light in his eyes when he talked about Seb. I’d noticed it.
“So do you think White might have known about Greywatch this whole time? Or not?”
Deep frown lines etched themselves across Kit’s forehead.
“Seb thinks possibly. When you think about it, it makes sense that she’d be easily overruled.
” His voice turned bitter. “Black ops military unit doing all the government’s dirty work on the down low versus some woman trying to keep London’s supernatural underbelly under control?
She wouldn’t stand a chance, even if she is as high up as Seb thinks she is.
” His hands clenched into fists. “But by God, anyone who’s allowing Greywatch to continue should burn in hell. The things they did…”
I nodded, not knowing what to say but wanting him to keep talking.
“I always think about Moira. About when she recruited me.” Kit stared at his hands.
“I felt special at the time, but…” He shook his head.
“She must have recruited dozens of us. Vulnerable young wolves who wanted out, or who’d already broken from their packs.
” His lips pressed together tightly. “I was already pulling away from my father—our alpha—by that point.”
“What made you want to leave so badly?” I asked softly.
“My father was… vile. Sorry, is vile, apparently.” He inhaled, one long sharp breath.
“Anyway, growing up, I watched him destroy Rory bit by bit. The belt, the ‘lessons,’ the constant criticism. And I just… I let it happen. I was supposed to be next in line—the future alpha—but I felt this horrible pressure to be someone I wasn’t sure I really was.
Someone like him. I couldn’t bear the thought of becoming that kind of leader, but I was too much of a coward to fight him from within.
So when Moira came along, offering me a way out… ”
He trailed off, lost in the memory.
“She saw exactly what she needed,” he continued, voice turning bitter.
“A conflicted young wolf desperate to escape his legacy. My Highland pack background made me the perfect candidate for them. Strong. Obedient. Perfect soldier material.” He scoffed.
“She lied to me. About what I’d be doing.
Obviously. God knows how many others she’s lied to.
She’s even somehow brainwashed Isla—her twenty-year-old daughter—into working with her. ”
His hands clenched tighter, white-knuckled against his thighs.
I stared at them, wanting nothing more than to pry those fists open, to thread our fingers together until the tremor in his voice stopped.
My hands twitched but wouldn’t obey, paralysed by the weight of everything unsaid between us.
But if I could somehow draw all that old pain out of him, take it into myself where it couldn’t hurt him anymore, I would.
“It’s great you managed to get out eventually,” I said quietly.
Kit’s laugh was hollow. “Others weren’t so lucky.
I tried to escape quite a few times. Never worked.
They’d often use the camaraderie within our team against us—thinly veiled threats, blackmail against our families.
Or they’d command other wolves to stop us.
” He pointed to his eyebrow, at the faint scar that split it open.
“This was my prize from my first attempt to leave.”
“How did you finally get out?”
Kit was quiet for a long moment, staring at the trees opposite us. “Near the end, I fell in love with another wolf in Greywatch. A female soldier—Cara.”
The world slightly tilted beneath me—the news shocking me to my core. Maybe it was because Kit was so private, I’d never heard him mention anyone at all, past or present.
“Oh. Was she…” The rest died in my throat.
Kit shook his head. “No, nothing like that.” He gave me a half smile. “We can still fall in love with other people, even if they’re not our true mate.”
“Of course,” I said too quickly. “Sorry.”
He took a shaky breath. “Anyway, a group of three of us were assigned to take out this young woman in Pakistan.” He glanced at me. “You know what I mean.”
I nodded.
“We’d been fed a load of lies, all of us completely brainwashed by this point, so we did it without questioning.
But much later I found out it was part of some complicated political plot.
The woman was having an affair with a politician, and their rival ordered the hit as some sort of revenge, or message or something.
A senseless death, pure and simple.” Kit paused for a moment, his voice dropping low to confess, “Zara Siddiqui. I still see her face sometimes. When I close my eyes.”
The urge to touch him—to somehow absorb even a fraction of that pain—hit me so hard I had to grip my own knees to keep still.
Kit looked devastated, lost in memories that were clearly eating him alive.
Part of me wanted to say it wasn’t his fault, but the words stuck in my throat.
What comfort could I possibly offer against that kind of guilt?
“We didn’t have the right intelligence. Or, all the intelligence. After we… eliminated the target, it turned out her husband was connected to a local gang. A top dog, in fact. Had bodyguards and everything. They heard the disturbance and came to investigate.”
Kit brought his hands together, interlocking his fingers. “Cara took too many gunshot wounds. Machine gun fire. The extraction team got us out. We all had injuries, but Cara…” His voice broke completely. “She died in my arms.”
“Kit,” I whispered.
“And that was the final straw, for me. My superior—the man who’d physically stopped me from leaving before—he finally let me walk away. I think he knew Cara’s death would break me beyond repair.”
The forest around us fell completely still. Even the birds had stopped singing. Kit sat hunched forward, lost in memories I couldn’t begin to imagine.
I started to understand.
After losing someone he cared about in such a brutal way, watching someone he loved die in his arms, of course Kit would become paranoid about keeping those he cared for safe.
Of course he’d want to try and control every variable, monitor every threat.
The weight of that trauma, the hypervigilance that would surely come from surviving something like that…
His earlier words came flooding back—what he’d said to me when he tried to explain why he’d stalked me. How he’d become consumed by this feeling that the one time he chose not to follow me would be the night something happened to me.
When he’d said it, I’d been too shocked and angry to really process what he meant. Now it made heartbreaking sense.
If I was being honest, I hadn’t really been harbouring much resentment towards Kit over the stalking.
Once I’d processed it all—once the initial terror had faded—there’d been an odd sort of relief in discovering it had just been him all along.
Not some unknown threat. Just Kit, trying in his broken way to keep me safe.
“I think I understand now,” I said quietly. “Why you… why you felt like you had to watch over me. After what happened to Cara.”
Kit’s shoulders tensed, but he nodded slowly. “It’s not an excuse for what I did, Felix.”
“I know. But it helps me understand.”
We sat in silence for a moment, listening to the rustle of leaves overhead.
“And…” I began. “I’ve been meaning to say… I’m sorry it’s me. Your mate, I mean.” I kept my eyes fixed on a particularly large knot buried within a tree. It was true, though—surely Kit felt cheated by fate that his mate was me of all people. “I mean, I’m not even a wolf.”
“Well, we know from Rory and Theo it doesn’t always work that way,” he said.
Another loaded silence descended. I could sense Kit wrestling with something, words forming and dissolving on his lips before he swallowed them back down.
“Just say it,” I said. “It’s okay if you’re annoyed.”
Kit’s eyes met mine. “It’s just… Ach, fucking hell, I’m not annoyed, Felix.
Not upset. And I’m not sorry. This isn’t a glitch.
Not a mistake. These feelings—they’re overwhelming.
Like being caught in a riptide, dragged under by something so much bigger than myself.
But I can’t imagine anything else. When my wolf saw it, recognised you, it was like everything clicked into place.
Like I’d been living my whole life slightly out of focus and I didn’t even know it.
And suddenly the world became sharp.” His voice dropped down low.
“I hate the idea of you feeling sorry for me. You’re brilliant and kind and funny.
I’m the one who should feel lucky that fate chose you. ”
My chest went tight. My mouth dried completely, any hope of words forming impossible. Kit thought he was lucky? Kit thought I was brilliant, and kind, and funny? My brain refused to process it.
Kit cleared his throat. “I mean, Wren is the luckiest man in the world to have you.”