5. Kedi
Kedi
The downpour had the outer layer of our fur drenched in seconds, but that didn’t matter.
Nothing did. Because as the rain kicked up the soil, filling the air with the smell of earth and leaves, still that familiar scent remained.
Conroy. It wasn’t just my imagination. It wasn’t a memory.
I knew it, because now, it was accompanied with something else, a new dimension to it that hadn’t existed when we were children… And my wolf was fully invested.
Mate.
My beast didn’t hesitate before taking off across the clearing at a full sprint. All our grief, overwhelming as it was, took a backseat to the immediate need for our mate. Conroy was here! He was alive!
There were gaps in the timeline. How did the Alpha’s son, my best friend, go from point A to point B?
From missing and presumed dead to alive and well?
There would be time for answers, but now was not that time.
Not when we found him standing just inside the tree line, eyes closed and face tilted back to the sky, rain soaking his clothes and clinging to every dip and curve of his torso—of which there were many. Wow, Conroy grew up.
Without second-guessing the situation we now found ourselves in, I took my skin, reaching for him out of instinct. But when I stepped on a twig, Conroy snapped to attention, his familiar green eyes blazing as they locked on me. I let my hand drop back to my side, startled by his strange intensity.
We stared at each other, trapped in this suspended moment.
His eyes ate me up, head to toe, and my skin heated, regardless of the freezing rain coursing down my body.
But then my attention drifted to what he held in his hand.
A long wooden bow, and over one shoulder I could see the fletching of arrows.
If he wanted to hunt, why not take his fur?
The rain cut off suddenly, the clouds parting, and in the brief glimpse of moonlight, I took a better look at the man before me.
My mate. I’d spent too many nights wondering where he would’ve been, what he’d be doing if he’d lived, what he would’ve looked like, but my imagination hadn’t done him justice.
He was so beautiful. Several inches taller than I was, with plenty of packed muscle.
His dark hair was shorn close to the scalp on the sides, and his jaw had squared off and was rough with reddish stubble.
There wasn’t much left of the child I’d known.
Even his eyes, while similar, seemed to be missing their light.
I wondered what he’d been through in all these years.
Had I always known on some level that he was made for me?
“Conroy?” I stepped forward again, offering a tentative smile, but he staggered back to keep distance between us. He frowned in confusion, his mouth opening and closing without sound. It felt like my soul was straining to reach his, but he clearly didn’t feel the same. “Don’t you remember me?”
I tried to close the distance again, eager to make a connection, but he flinched away, almost like he was… afraid. Was he scared of me? Had I made him feel that way?
He shook his head sharply, sending droplets of water dripping off his jaw. “No.” The one word was torn from his lips, barely more than a tortured whisper, before he turned on his heel and ran.
I was too startled to react right away, but as soon as it sank in that I’d found my fated mate, alive after all these years, only for him to flee, I jolted into motion. “Wait!” I shouted, giving chase. “Please! Talk to me!”
He was easy to follow because of the racket he was making, a crash and clatter through the forest worthy of a charging bull moose.
But who needed to be stealthy when they were so damn fast!
I tried to keep up, but my feet were bare, and after the rain, the ground had become a sloppy, muddy mess.
By the time I handed the chase over to my wolf, I’d nearly lost sight of Conroy.
My wolf was able to close the distance, pushing himself hard, but by the time we emerged on the road at the far edge of the forest, it was to see a set of taillights disappearing around the bend.
Exhausted and panting, my wolf retreated, leaving me naked and shivering.
“No,” I whimpered, helpless to follow. I stomped my bare foot in the mud with a squelch.
“So much for walking beside me,” I grumbled, plonking myself down on the side of the road, gravel digging into my ass.
It took me an hour to find my way back to my car.
While I would’ve appreciated a little more rain to clean me off, the weather had not worked in my favor.
The mud had mostly dried on me, making my skin itch, and I reluctantly pulled my clothes back on over top.
Better to do a load of laundry than having to get the car detailed for Trey.
Nothing to be done about my shoes, though, mud still caked between my toes.
I dropped into the driver’s seat with a sigh.
Going home felt like giving up, but I wasn’t sure what other option I had.
It wasn’t like I could just stay out here in the hopes that he might have a change of heart and come back for me.
I had a job I needed to be at in the morning, and my human boss wouldn’t exactly take “waiting for fate” as an excuse to miss work.
Driving home in a daze, it wasn’t until I stumbled into my dark apartment that I truly let myself consider the worst-case scenario. Was I being rejected? Was that it? Was I now cursed to live out the rest of my life aching for a future I could never have?
The grief from earlier surged in my veins, mixing with fear and doubt and rage.
Years of waiting for him, a lifetime of being broken, for what?
All of it piled on top of me, building higher and higher until all I could see was red.
How fucking dare he walk away without even telling me why!
Fury erupted from me like a cataclysmic event.
Never in my life had I been so close to going rogue.
I could feel a wild urge to break free from the pack cresting like a tsunami inside me, threatening to drag me down.
I grabbed the closest thing at hand and hurled it across the room as hard as I could, throat tearing with a vicious roar, half man half beast. Glass smashed and scattered across the floor, and I stood there, eyes clenched shut, chest heaving to catch my breath.
A door opened, light spilling from Norman’s bedroom as he blinked blearily at me, rubbing the heel of his hand into his right eye, short brown hair in a chaotic rumple that made it obvious I’d woken him up. “Whassat? What happened?”
Gasping, I shook off the roiling emotions. “Nothing happened. Go back to bed.”
Norman frowned as he looked around the apartment, no doubt picking up the shards of glass. “Was that my water bottle?”
I winced with regret. “Sorry about that. I… slipped. I’ll buy you a new one.”
When he looked at me, I turned away to hide my face, but it was too late. “What’s wrong?”
“Everything is fine. Just go back to sleep. I’ll clean up the mess.”
“Doesn’t look fine. You’re crying.”
I was? I wiped at my face, and sure enough, my cheeks were wet. Dammit, I wasn’t a crier by nature, but I had to believe that my papa would’ve agreed with me that the occasion called for a few tears.
Norman shuffled awkwardly, as if he wasn’t sure what to do with this outward display of emotions. “You should call Joel,” he suggested stiffly. “He’s better at this kind of stuff. He’ll know the right thing to say.”
He wasn’t wrong. My current roomie was lacking in a few departments, one of which was any kind of personal bond between us. And as much as I hated to admit I needed help, I found myself pulling out my phone and dialing my bestie’s number.
He picked up on the fifth ring, right before it went to voicemail. “Who died?” he asked.
“No one. What are you doing right now?”
“Oh, you know, running a marathon. What else would I be doing at this time of night?” he grumbled, heavy on the sarcasm, and I could hear North in the background asking what was wrong. Why did everyone think something was wrong?
I glanced at the clock on the stove and saw that it was well past the bedtime for a father with a young child. “Shit, sorry. I didn’t realize how late it was. Never mind. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“No, Kedi. I’m awake now. Tell me what’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I’m fine.”
Norman arched a brow at me. “Not fine,” he said pointedly before retreating to his bedroom and shutting the door.
The apartment was once again blanketed in shadows, and I sighed into the darkness. “I met my mate,” I admitted, stepping carefully around the glass to sit on the couch, the cushion molding to my ass like a hug.
“That’s great news!” he squealed as quietly as he could with a baby sleeping down the hall. “Ohmigods, tell me everything! What’s their name? How did you meet? Are they as sexy as you deserve?”
I chuckled stiffly. “Uh, his name is Conroy. We met in the woods—you can tell North his tattoo was accurate, by the way—and yes, it is safe to say the man is hot.” Though we clearly disagreed over whether or not I deserved him.
There was a long pause down the line. Joel might not have been a shifter, but his best-friend radar was crazy accurate. He could discern the slightest wobble in my voice, read the exact tone of silence, pick up the flavor of my mood. “So why aren’t we excited?” he asked somberly.
I bit down on my lip before the whole story could come spilling out.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to hear his advice on how to handle this, but as my best friend, he was biased.
It was practically his job to deny any possibility that someone could reject me as their mate.
He would try to tell me there was some misunderstanding, that everything would work out in the end, and right now, I just…
couldn’t. I was too hurt, too angry, to find any room for hope.
It was way too soon for forgiveness, when I didn’t even know where things went wrong.
So, instead of telling him what really happened, I fudged the story a little. “Things are… complicated. I actually know Conroy from when we were kids, and I’m not entirely sure where we stand.” There, none of that was a lie.
“Well, you’ll just have to sit down with him and talk it out. As children, we tend to blow everything out of proportion. Whatever it was—a broken crayon or you didn’t share a toy—I’m sure you’ll be able to get past it. All you need is some mature, adult communication.”
My throat felt tight as I tried to swallow past the lump that had lodged itself in there. I’d never told him the story of my pack’s dark history, and the guilt was hitting me hard right about now. “Yeah, I’m sure you’re right,” I whispered.
We said our goodnights, and I tossed my phone onto the couch beside me. Staring at the dark TV, I tried to think of a word to describe how wrung out I felt. Like everything that made me me had been scraped out, leaving me a desiccated, empty shell. How the hell was I supposed to move on from this?
There was nothing to be done about it tonight.
I knew I should clean up the glass, have a snack, drink some water, make my way down the self-care checklist that Sierra had us follow until I felt some kind of balance.
Instead of doing any of the shoulds, I did the only thing I could.
I curled up on the couch and cried myself to sleep. And yes, every tear was worth it.