Page 4 of Glitched Fates & Stolen Mates

I held my breath. Didn’t move. Didn’t even blink.

His eyes slid past without stopping. He went back to his phone.

What was going on? It was Tuesday. He should have been heading straight home, maybe stopping for a hot chocolate if he was feeling adventurous. But instead he was just standing there, checking his phone like he was waiting for something…

Or someone.

I didn’t put the pieces together until Felix spotted someone coming down the street and waved.

I couldn’t stop my sharp inhalation of breath. Every muscle in my body tensed.

I hadn’t realised he was meeting him after work today.

Wren.

The man who had ruined my life.

I’d never forget last Christmas Eve. Emma, Priya’s girlfriend, had been teasing Felix, saying her colleague Wren wanted to take him on a date. The words had barely left her mouth before I lost complete control—stood up and drove a knife through the dining table in front of everyone. The splintered mahogany. The horrified silence. Felix’s wide eyes staring at me across the wreckage.

Everyone thought I’d had a Christmas-cracker induced PTSD episode. Let them think that. Better than admitting the truth—that I’d wanted to stab myself with that knife as punishment for waiting so long to claim Felix that I’d allowed him to be snatched away from me.

Now, watching Wren greet Felix with a colossal bear hug—even though I’d never seen him willingly hug anyone at Killigrew Street—I couldn’t help but wish I had stabbed myself. Because seeing them together for the first time hurt more than any wound I’d endured during Greywatch.

Pain lanced through my ribs like someone had taken a crowbar to them. My chest constricted, making each breath feel like swallowing glass. Watching them together, seeing how easily Felix melted into Wren’s arms, how his shoulders relaxed in a way they never did around me…

Then Felix laughed. Actually laughed. That rare bright, genuine sound I’d only heard a handful of times, usually when he’d finally cracked some impossible bit of code. The sound cut right through me, because I couldn’t recall a single time I’d ever made him laugh.

My wolf lost its mind.

The beast surged forward, claws scraping against the inside of my skin. Every instinct screamed at me to shift, to charge across the street and tear Wren’s throat out. To rip that stupid shiny long blond hair right off his skull. To show him exactly what happened to people who touched what was mine.

Mine, the wolf snarled. He’s touching what’s mine!

Except Felix wasn’t mine, was he? That was the whole bloody problem.

My bones began to ache, the shift threatening to tear through whether I wanted it or not.

I slammed my palm against the tree trunk. Bark bit into skin. The sting of it helped—barely. My vision tunnelled, edges going dark except for Felix and Wren in sharp, brutal focus.

Breathe. Just breathe.

Another tremor rolled through me. I dug my fingernails into my palms until I felt the skin break, pressed my spine against rough bark until it hurt.

Wren pulled back from the hug, but his hands lingered on Felix’s shoulders. Too long. Too familiar. Like he had every right to touch him.

A growl built in my chest. I swallowed it down. It took everything in me not to cross the street and snap those hands clean off.

They started walking together, Wren’s hand still resting on Felix’s shoulder as they moved down the street. Away from the Tube station. Away from Felix’s usual route home.

I should have walked away then. Should have gone home and had a cold shower and pretended this never happened.

Instead, like a complete masochist, I found myself stepping out from underneath the lime tree.

Maybe this was a sign. Maybe seeing them together would finally kill the last shred of pathetic hope I’d been nursing. Maybe watching Felix be happy with someone else would teach my wolf to shut up and accept reality. Maybe hearing them use whatever pet names couples used would be the shock to the system I needed. “Babe” or “sweetheart” or whatever nauseating endearments people threw around when they were besotted with each other.

My wolf snarled in protest, but I told him to stuff it. This was for his own good. For both our sakes.

They were walking slowly, heads tilted towards each other in conversation. Wren gestured with his free hand as he spoke, animated about something. Felix nodded along. I couldn’t help but imagine that small smile playing at the corners of his mouth—the one that made my heart do stupid things.