Page 71 of Glitched Fates & Stolen Mates

We trudged back to our bags, where I immediately collapsed onto the forest floor like a deflated balloon. The moss was surprisingly comfortable. Kit settled beside me, close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating from his body.

After I’d drained half my water bottle, Kit stretched his arms above his head again. “Right, I’ll shift in a second.”

I perked up despite my exhaustion. I’d seen Kit as a wolf before, but only a couple of times. I couldn’t help but find the whole thing fascinating. Not that I’d ever asked many questions about it. “Rory always talks about how it’s super painful.”

Kit’s face darkened slightly. He grunted, then said, “One of the only good things that came out of the shit I went through in GREY is that I don’t actually find shifting that painful anymore. Can do it a lot quicker now too.”

“Oh.” I tilted my head. “Well, that’s good. I mean, sorry. Not good. I know how bad Greywatch was.”

My bones chilled as I imagined some sadistic military scientist forcing Kit to shift over and over again until his body learned to endure it effortlessly.

Kit chuckled. “That’s one way of putting it.”

I picked at some weeds beside me, trying to find the right words. “How are you feeling about White stopping our Greywatch investigation? I mean, I guess we hadn’t gotten very far anyway.”

Greywatch clearly had access to vast resources. My attempts at penetrating government databases had yielded minimal results—if information was stored there, it was under obscure classifications I couldn’t crack.

Kit hesitated for a moment, lips pressed together as if he was deciding something. Then he said quietly, “Just between us—mainly because Rory really wouldn’t be able to handle this… but Seb spoke to me privately. He said White’s decision really concerned him.”

I stared at him, mainly stunned that Kit was trusting me with top secret information. “What?”

“Yup,” Kit said bitterly, kicking lightly at the ground. “He says something’s off about the whole thing. He thinks White has maybe had to bow to pressure. That she isn’t actually sorting it herself, but… is being forced to allow it to continue.”

“Oh… wow.”

I stared at Kit, mind churning over White—this mysterious government figure who’d plucked Seb from his lowest point over two decades ago and given him purpose. I’d always pictured her as some sort of shadowy Bond villain, sitting in a leather chair stroking a snow-white Persian cat. The reality was probably far more mundane—a civil servant in a grey suit with a clipboard and terrible breath.

Aside from Theo, none of the rest of us had ever met White. Seb found his own team after she’d given him Killigrew Street.

“It wasn’t White who connected you with Seb, was it?” I asked. “Once you reached London?”

Kit shook his head. “No. Once I got here, I started looking for a new pack to join. I found it… difficult.” He ran a hand through his beard, eyebrows knitting together. “After Greywatch… I was finally free, but I had a tough time adjusting. Had severe PTSD and ended up getting into a few scraps with other wolves. Seb tracked me down, took one look at me, then adopted me.”

He was joking, but there always was bright light in his eyes when he talked about Seb. I’d noticed it.

“So do you think White might have known about Greywatch this whole time? Or not?”

Deep frown lines etched themselves across Kit’s forehead. “Seb thinks possibly. When you think about it, it makes sense that she’d be easily overruled.” His voice turned bitter. “Black ops military unit doing all the government’s dirty work on the down low versus some woman trying to keep London’s supernatural underbelly under control? She wouldn’t stand a chance, even if she is as high up as Seb thinks she is.” His hands clenched into fists. “But by God, anyone who’s allowing Greywatch to continue should burn in hell. The things they did…”

I nodded, not knowing what to say but wanting him to keep talking.

“I always think about Moira. About when she recruited me.” Kit stared at his hands. “I felt special at the time, but…” He shook his head. “She must have recruited dozens of us. Vulnerable young wolves who wanted out, or who’d already broken from their packs.” His lips pressed together tightly. “I was already pulling away from my father—our alpha—by that point.”

“What made you want to leave so badly?” I asked softly.

“My father was… vile. Sorry, is vile, apparently.” He inhaled, one long sharp breath. “Anyway, growing up, I watched him destroy Rory bit by bit. The belt, the ‘lessons,’ the constant criticism. And I just… I let it happen. I was supposed to be next in line—the future alpha—but I felt this horrible pressure to be someone I wasn’t sure I really was. Someone like him. I couldn’t bear the thought of becoming that kind of leader, but I was too much of a coward to fight him from within. So when Moira came along, offering me a way out…”

He trailed off, lost in the memory.

“She saw exactly what she needed,” he continued, voice turning bitter. “A conflicted young wolf desperate to escape his legacy. My Highland pack background made me the perfect candidate for them. Strong. Obedient. Perfect soldier material.” He scoffed. “She lied to me. About what I’d be doing. Obviously. God knows how many others she’s lied to. She’s even somehow brainwashed Isla—her twenty-year-old daughter—into working with her.”

His hands clenched tighter, white-knuckled against his thighs. I stared at them, wanting nothing more than to pry those fists open, to thread our fingers together until the tremor in his voice stopped. My hands twitched but wouldn’t obey, paralysed by the weight of everything unsaid between us. But if I could somehow draw all that old pain out of him, take it into myself where it couldn’t hurt him anymore, I would.

“It’s great you managed to get out eventually,” I said quietly.

Kit’s laugh was hollow. “Others weren’t so lucky. I tried to escape quite a few times. Never worked. They’d often use the camaraderie within our team against us—thinly veiled threats, blackmail against our families. Or they’d command other wolves to stop us.” He pointed to his eyebrow, at the faint scar that split it open. “This was my prize from my first attempt to leave.”

“How did you finally get out?”