Chapter 20 - Connor
I’m already shifting before she finishes saying his name.
The phone clatters to the ground as my body transforms, bones reshaping and fur sprouting across my skin.
My wolf explodes into motion the instant the change completes, and my paws tear up the earth as I race through the streets of Silvercreek.
Five minutes. I told her five minutes. In this form, I can make it in two.
Nic. I push the thought through the pack bond with everything I have. Fern’s ex broke into her cottage. He’s trying to get through her bedroom door.
The Alpha’s response comes back immediately, alert despite the hour. Dylan and Thomas are closest. I’m sending them now.
Tell them to follow the scent trail when they arrive. I want this bastard found tonight.
Done. Go get your mate.
I push harder, and my lungs burn as I sprint through back alleys and across yards. The cottage comes into view, peaceful from the outside, and I shift back to human form as I hit the porch steps. I don’t slow down for even a second.
I don’t even bother checking if the front door is locked. One solid kick, and the frame splinters inward.
The living room is empty. The kitchen, too. I sweep through the ground floor with my senses on high alert as I search for any trace of the intruder. His scent is everywhere, thick and sour with aggression, but the rooms are clear.
“Fern!” I call up the stairs. “It’s me. It’s Connor.”
A moment of silence. Then the sound of a deadbolt sliding back, and her bedroom door creaks open.
She appears at the top of the stairs, pale and shaking, still in her pajamas. Her eyes go wide as they travel down my body, and I remember belatedly that I’m completely naked.
“He’s gone.” I climb the stairs and stop a few feet from her. “I checked every room. He must have heard me coming and ran.”
“Are you sure?” Her voice wavers, though I notice she’s trying very hard to keep her gaze on my face.
“I’m sure. His scent leads out the back. Dylan and Thomas are on their way to track him.”
Fern sags against the doorframe, and I close the distance between us and pull her into my arms. She stiffens for just a second, probably realizing that I’m not wearing a stitch of clothing, but then she buries her face against my chest and lets me hold her while the trembling slowly subsides.
“You came,” she whispers against my skin.
“Of course I came.” I press my lips to the top of her head. “I told you I would.”
We stand like that for a long moment. Eventually, I ease back and tip her chin up so I can see her face.
“You okay?”
“I think so. A little shaken up.” She manages a weak smile, then glances down and quickly back up again. “You’re, um. You’re very naked right now.”
“Shifted on my way here. Faster than running on two legs.” I shrug and add, “Are you hurt?”
“No. I hit him with a lamp.”
“You what?”
“When he came at me. I grabbed the lamp off the end table and swung it at his head. Got him pretty good, too. He was still staggering when I made it up the stairs.”
A laugh escapes me. “That’s my girl.”
She doesn’t correct me. Doesn’t pull away or remind me that she’s not my anything. Just shakes her head and lets out a nervous giggle.
“Let me find you some pants before we continue this conversation.”
She disappears into her bedroom and returns a moment later with a pair of grey sweatpants. They’re too short and too tight across the thighs, but they cover what needs covering. I tug them on and follow her downstairs.
The kitchen is a mess. Broken glass covers the floor beneath the window he used to get in, and muddy footprints track across the tile. I guide Fern to the living room instead and settle her on the couch before going back to clean up.
By the time I finish sweeping the glass into a dustpan and boarding up the window with a piece of plywood I find in the shed, Dylan has reached out through the bond. They picked up the trail. It leads toward the eastern border, away from town. They’re following it now.
I relay the update to Fern as I join her on the couch. She’s curled into the corner with her knees drawn up to her chest, looking smaller than I’ve ever seen her.
“They’ll find him,” I promise.
“And if they don’t?”
“Then we’ll keep looking until we do. He’s not getting away with this. Not after tonight.”
She nods, but I can see the doubt in her eyes. The fear. This isn’t the first time Robbie has found her, and some part of her believes it won’t be the last.
“Can I ask you something?” I question. “About him. About your past.”
She picks at a loose thread on her pajama pants. “What do you want to know?”
“How did you end up with someone like that? You’re smart, Fern. You’re a therapist, for God’s sake. You know all the warning signs. How did he get his hooks into you?”
For a long moment, she doesn’t answer. I wait.
“My father,” she finally answers. “After my mother died when I was twelve, he just checked out. Stopped coming to school events, stopped asking about my day, stopped caring about anything except his work. I spent my teenage years trying to earn his approval, and nothing I did was ever good enough.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It is what it is.” She shrugs, but I can see the old hurt beneath the surface.
“The point is, by the time I met Robbie, I was desperate for someone to tell me I mattered. He was charming and attentive, and he made me feel like the center of his universe. I didn’t realize until much later that all that attention was just another form of control. ”
“The charming ones are always the most dangerous.”
“Spoken from experience?”
“In a way.” I lean back against the couch. “My mother used to say my father could charm the birds out of the trees. Everyone loved him. He was funny, charismatic, the life of every pack gathering. But when they were alone…”
Fern presses her lips together before she asks, “He hurt her?”
“Not physically. But he had a way of making her feel small. Worthless. Like nothing she did would ever measure up.” I keep my eyes on the ceiling. “She stayed with him anyway. Convinced herself that things would get better. They never did.”
“What happened to them?”
“Hunters. A group of humans who figured out what we were. They caught my father alone in the woods one night and put three silver bullets in his chest. My mother found him the next morning.”
Fern’s hand finds mine. She doesn’t say anything, just threads her fingers through mine and holds on.
“She lasted about six months after that,” I continue. “The healers said it was her heart. The grief just ate her alive. She couldn’t survive without him, even though being with him was killing her slowly anyway.”
“Connor, I’m so sorry.”
“I was fifteen. Nic’s family took me in after that. Raised me like one of their own. That’s why I’m the way I am, I guess. Overprotective. Overbearing. I watched my mother destroy herself over a man who didn’t deserve her devotion, and I swore I’d never let anyone I cared about suffer like that.”
“So you push too hard. Try to control everything.”
“Yeah.” I let out a humorless laugh. “Ironic, isn’t it? I’m so afraid of becoming my father that I end up acting just like him.”
Fern squeezes my hand. “You’re not like him. You’re not like Robbie, either. I know I said some things…”
“You said what you felt. I can’t blame you for that.”
“But I was wrong. Or at least, I wasn’t entirely right. You’ve made mistakes. We both have. But you’re not trying to break me down or make me feel worthless. You’re just bad at expressing yourself.”
“Gee, thanks,” I reply with a chuckle.
“I mean it.” A small smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. “You care too much, and you show it in all the wrong ways. That’s different from not caring at all.”
“Is that your professional opinion?”
“Consider it a free consultation.”
We sit in comfortable silence for a while, our hands still linked.
“I could stay,” I offer. “The rest of the night, at least. Make sure he doesn’t come back.”
Fern shakes her head. “No. Go help the others track him down.”
“Fern—”
“I mean it.” She pulls her hand free and stands. “I’ll feel better knowing you’re out there looking for him. Knowing you’re the one who finds him.”
“You shouldn’t be alone right now.”
“I’ve been alone for a long time, Connor. One more night won’t kill me.” She tries for a smile, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Besides, if he was going to come back, he would have done it by now. He’s running scared.”
I want to argue. Every instinct screams at me to plant myself on her couch and refuse to move until the threat is neutralized. But I can see the determination in her face, and I know pushing her right now will only drive her further away.
I rise from the couch and cross to where she stands. “Fine, but I’m having someone posted outside until we catch him. Non-negotiable.”
“Okay.”
“And you call me the second anything feels off. Anything at all.”
“I will.”
I gather her face in my hands and press a kiss to her forehead. She leans into the contact, just for a moment, before stepping back.
“Go,” she instructs. “Find him.”
The run back toward the eastern border gives me too much time to think. My wolf is restless, unhappy with the distance growing between us. He doesn’t understand why I left her. Doesn’t understand the complicated dance of human emotions that makes staying away the right choice sometimes.
Fern is human. That’s something I keep forgetting. She didn’t grow up with pack bonds and mate connections and the instinctive understanding that comes with being a shifter. For her, all of this is new and strange and probably terrifying.
She needs time. Time to process what’s happening between us. Time to trust that I’m not another man who’s going to hurt her.
I can give her that. Even if every fiber of my being wants to charge back to her cottage and refuse to leave.
This will take time. I remind myself of that with every stride.
But as I push deeper into the forest to join the hunt, I can’t shake the feeling that I should have stayed anyway.