Chapter 34
SOMEONE
Werewolves say wereball is violent.
The events after the match are no less bloody. Maybe worse. Anything can happen in the post-game, when the adrenaline is still howling under the skin and claws are itching to settle scores.
But not rejection.
Not there.
Not anywhere.
Why did I do it, then?
Because I was busy chasing something bigger than love and a soulmate.
Because my life’s goals didn’t have room for another heartbeat next to mine.
Because the world demanded sacrifice for a greater purpose. For research. For the common good.
My goals were crystal clear, like freshly filtered water.
The second our eyes met, everything I’d built—every plan, every wall, every promise I’d made to my dying parents—collapsed.
When my eyes got lost in that syrupy golden gaze, recognition hit my brain, producing an indelible tattoo of every detail of his angular face. Sparks burned logic to ash, and I couldn’t let that happen.
“I reject you as my mate.”
Never had I witnessed such a storm of emotions all at once. Shock, fury, sadness, bitterness, disbelief. I could almost feel the pieces of his heart roll onto the bloody ground.
The werewolf boy literally crumbled at my feet. I was a Medusa; I had petrified him with my presence, my rejection the club that had hit him, breaking him into a thousand pieces.
Eyes dripping reddish tears, his body shook like he was about to shift, both hands clutching his wide, bare chest. Yet his words slipped out soft and low and sure.
“I accept your rejection.”
This time, I disintegrated.
When Tiziano brushed my arm, I barely recognized his touch. My eyes lingered on my former soulmate. On the other half of my heart.
I always thought I would die of cancer, like my parents. Dad had never managed to teach me to drive a car like he’d promised; Mom had never managed to come to my graduation ceremony as she’d assured. Years and years without them, simply because there was no cure. Yet.
Little Ian wasn’t far from the same fate; the thief was different, but the final destination the same. For Ian, it was even worse. He knew he would die from his first breath. The disease was born within him, like an extra organ.
Since my parents’ death, getting into medical school and fighting, fighting, fighting was all I’d ever wanted.
“Are you sure?” I heard my roommate’s voice as if he were very far away. My eyes remained fixed on the receding figure. As the distance increased, my heart rate slowed.
My only response to my mate, after he had accepted my refusal, was a sob.
But his wolf must have heard it, as he paused just a second, stiff and tense. When he turned, all I saw were tears that refused to leave his eyes, proud and breathtaking.
He roared when he saw Tiziano touch my shoulder, but then he shook his head, kicked a car door, and stormed away.
From my life.
When I heard someone cry, I didn’t realize it was me. When the ground moved and hit me hard, I didn’t understand right away that my legs had abandoned me, as if they were holding a grudge against my own stupidity.
“Come on, baby, let’s go home. He left.”
Arms wrapped around my limp form and lifted me.
“What happened to her?” Lachlan was right there. His hand on my forehead was all I’d ever wanted…until today.
Because he couldn’t give me sparks. That had always been the problem between us.
“Hey! Stay with us! Amaia, goddamn it!”
Yes. Amaia was my name. My whole self. No need for anyone else.
But all I wanted was my mate.
The one thing I couldn’t have. The one thing I couldn’t afford.
Life was too short.
And I had no time.
YVAINE
“Hello, Bunny Doc.”
A strange sense of calmness overwhelmed me upon hearing that voice. As had always happened since I’d first spoken to him.
Rudolph had come to see me, to meet me for the very first time. Lucien—that was his real name.
He had to be the presence I sensed behind me.
When I wheeled around, ready to greet my phone friend, ready to smile at him for the very first time in person, I saw only werewolves fighting, scattered everywhere. Some gawked at us.
My father was in an intense, violent conversation with Logan’s dad. Hands and arms were gesturing, spit flying. Thunder boomed above, lightning spearing through the sky, having its own celestial fight.
My eyes went back to my mate. He was there, his lips swollen—my kiss had done more damage than the game there. My mark of possession, my territory.
Stephen, his lashes looked fake. Dark blond but thick. And his skin was as soft as rippling muscles and rocks could possibly be.
The weird thing was, he had this look on his face that I couldn’t quite decipher.
He was studying me intently, as if he expected me to turn into a witch and fly away on an imaginary broom.
I followed his slowly rising hand, the bulge of the muscle flexing as he scratched his neck. His markless neck.
When he opened his mouth, only silence and a cloud of breath came out.
Then he closed it again and took a deep breath from his nose, his chest gathering air and courage.
And once again, I got lost in noticing every detail.
I wished I had a tape measure to check the circumference of his pectorals, or maybe how much his sculpted chest expanded when he breathed. For medical reasons!
My mind was whispering something to me, but in my mate-fuelled daze, I couldn’t hear it. It was the sparks’ fault—and that of the dominant presence of the creature in front of me.
But where is Rudolph?
“Lucien?” I called using his real name, peering behind my mate.
Again, there was no answer. There was no one.
“Lucien is the name of my wolf.”
My eyes finally fell on my mate when I heard that voice. The voice that had pestered me and bothered my sleep cycles for weeks. Except now, it was tight and controlled, like it was holding back a storm.
When sparks exploded in my hands, I looked down at them, my eyebrows arching. His rough but gentle hands had grasped mine, and he’d crouched down to be at my eye level.
“Yvaine…”
Rudolph was there again. Inside Logan’s mouth.
I foolishly grabbed his cheeks, flexing them. He had to be wearing a mask. But he wasn’t.
“I don’t understand.” My voice was calm, because surely this had to be a joke my old pal Rudolph had made up. But Christmas was still so far away!
Feeling a wave of irritation, I called for him again. “Come out now, Rudolph, it’s not funny anymore!”
I giggled nervously, involuntarily, though it sounded more like a dying duck than a genuine laugh.
“Yvaine.”
I shifted on my feet as chills ran down my spine.
“Listen, we need to talk. I—”
Anger flooded me, drowned me. Every inch of my body was mad.
I slapped his hands away as if he had hissing vipers instead of fingers.
“No, I have to find Rudolph. He’s hiding somewhere!” I began to cry and shake all over, but it quickly subsided into mad chuckles. “Because…because you can’t be him. You just can’t!”
Something clicked, then. It all made sense.
It always had.
For a moment, I cursed my family for the good values they’d instilled in me—for how na?ve I had to be to trust people this way. I had no time to doubt people, especially the new, mysterious friend I made over the phone…or my mate.
My heart staggered to a stop. My breath caught in my throat as I lost myself in those gray depths swirling with red flecks. My limbs fell loose, my body completely numb.
Logan is Rudolph.
Lucien is Logan.
Terminator, Logan, the future Alpha of Dark Diamond, Thor—they were the names of my mate, the owner of my heart and all its blood vessels.
And he was also Rudolph, the guy I’d been endlessly talking and writing to for weeks, telling him private things about me and my mate. Private things about himself!
He’d humiliated me!
“Oh, Goddess.” I clapped my hands over my mouth and shook my head. Shook the truth away from me, sending the whole day to the trash.
Logan was talking fast, lips moving, eyes sad and pleading. But I couldn’t hear him over the sound of his betrayal.
“Impossible,” I mumbled, my eyes filling with the product of my overwhelming emotions.
How one single individual could cause so much damage, and how another could retain so much… It would have to remain an unanswered question.
Before the last glimmer of hope that this was all a prank could vanish forever, three werewolves lunged at us from both sides, coming fast and hard.
I didn’t even have to scream in alarm or defend myself.
Logan pushed me out of reach of claws and fangs—and, Stephen, if he didn’t know just what he was doing!
A guttural curse ripping from his throat, he ducked left and grabbed one by the paws, flipping it to the ground. Before the wolf could get up, Logan stomped on his chest, nailing him down. The other attacker ended up in a suffocating grip, kicking and wriggling, unable to free himself.
They thrashed and foamed at the mouth, but Logan had them. A third wolf came at him.
And Logan?
He bit him. Right in the face.
Grim. Lethal.
His cool, calm expression disturbed me. I heard a disgusting snap before the third limped off, defeated.
Blood, broken bones—none of it ever bothered me if I was fixing someone up. But Logan?
Logan wasn’t fixing anything. He was the destruction.
I saw it, then: Logan in his element. So in control, so comfortable in violence.
I couldn’t look away from the tips of his fangs or the crimson streaks smeared across his face. His hair stuck to his forehead, damp with sweat or blood—maybe both.
His gaze swept back to me, fierce and unyielding.
When I didn’t move, just gawked, he took my hand in his bigger, violent one.
He yanked my arm forward, bent down, and pressed his lips to my knuckles as he gazed up at me.
His glowing eyes were intense, his irises red, the wolf’s blood dripping from his mouth.
He breathed deeply into my skin, and my scent hushed the growls that still rose from deep within him.
My anxiety spiked, and I pulled back.