Page 30 of Glitched Fates & Stolen Mates

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.

The weapons room called to me like a siren song.

I made my way through the hotel’s winding corridors, past faded wallpaper and dust sheets covering furniture we’d never bothered to move. The butler’s pantry sat tucked away near the old service stairs, its heavy oak door reinforced with steel plates I’d installed myself. Three separate locks, motion sensors, and a door that would automatically seal if the power went out.

The room itself was a thing of beauty—original Victorian craftsmanship at its finest. Thick stone walls that could muffle gunshots, built-in glass-fronted cabinets that had once held the hotel’s finest silverware, velvet-lined drawers perfect for storing ammunition.

I ran my fingers along the cabinet doors, checking each lock mechanism. Every weapon had its place, catalogued in the original hotel silver inventory ledgers I’d repurposed. Handguns in the upper cabinets, arranged by calibre. Silver bullets in their own section. Rifles secured in the tall cabinet that had once held serving platters. Knives nested in felt-lined drawers like sleeping serpents.

Nobody else was allowed in here without me present. This was my domain, my responsibility. And often, my sanctuary. When I wasn’t out in the field, I did most of my work from this room, curled up in the armchair in the corner.

By lunchtime, my stomach was rumbling like a thunderstorm. I’d spent the morning drafting new security protocols for police visits—contingency plans I should have updated years ago.

The protocols sat in neat handwriting across three pages of hotel stationary, covering everything from emergency equipment placement to evacuation routes. Each team member had specific roles, backup plans for backup plans. Felix would love the redundancy—multiple failsafes were his specialty, even if he didn’t know I’d been paying attention to his mumbled ramblings about system architecture.

Priya’s message last night asking if I’d be around the hotel for lunch today had confused me. Especially now I knew she’d also texted Felix about this same leftover quiche. I wasn’t quite sure what her scheme was. Maybe she thought I could deliver his portion to his lair? Not terribly helpful, Priya.

But whatever. Her food was always delicious.

I made my way to the kitchen. The room was empty aside from a collection of unwashed mugs scattered across the counter like abandoned sentries. With a sigh, I sorted through them, rinsing coffee stains and lipstick marks before loading them into the dishwasher. Someone had to maintain standards around here.

I opened the fridge and blinked twice. Nestled in a paper tray, an entire quiche sat on the middle shelf—possibly tomato and spinach from the look of it—with a yellow Post-it with heating instructions beside it.

An entire quiche? How did someone have an entire quiche “left over?”

I shut the fridge and carefully lifted the dish out, heading towards the—

“Umm… hi.”

The voice came from the kitchen doorway. My hands jerked, the quiche slipping from my grasp like a greased bar of soap.

Felix stood in the entrance, and he was wearing glasses.

Thin black frames that carved new angles across his face, turned his dark eyes into something that belonged in art galleries rather than messy kitchens. They sat on the bridge of his nose like they’d been waiting their whole existence for exactly that spot.

The quiche hit the floor with a surprisingly loud clack that echoed through the kitchen like a gunshot.

I couldn’t breathe. Those were the glasses I’d left on his desk Christmas Eve. The ones I’d agonised over for weeks, falling down internet rabbit holes of optical specifications and ergonomic reviews until I could recite blue light wavelengths in my sleep. The ones I’d wrapped in bright paper with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking, left on his desk without signing my name after I’d chickened out.

And here they were, all these months later, perched on his nose.

Felix stood frozen in the doorway, eyes wide behind the lenses, staring at the wreckage on the kitchen floor.

“Sorry!” I forced out a very strangled laugh. “Butterfingers.”