Page 76 of Glitched Fates & Stolen Mates

He doesn’t believe me.

A tragic realisation struck me. There was no way Kit was going to kiss me. Not after everything that had happened. He wouldn’t let himself, wouldn’t cross that line. Too much guilt, too much fear of taking advantage, of being the monster he’d convinced himself he was.

But suddenly, desperately, I wanted to know what those lips would feel like against mine. What his beard would feel like scraping against my cheek. The thought sent the butterflies inside me frantic. Sent that heat through me again—unfamiliar and startling, but something I wanted to hold onto.

This is mad. I’d never felt anything like this before. This wanting that seemed to originate somewhere impossibly deep. Like every part of me was reaching towards him.

“So, just to check,” I said, picking at the moss beside me to give my hands something to do. “With the mate stuff, do wolves always feel attracted to their mate? Like… um… sexually?” My face may as well have been on fire. “Or can it be, like, platonic or something?”

Smooth, Felix. Really smooth.

Kit’s laughter rang through the trees, rich and warm. “Felix, are you trying to ask if I find you attractive?”

“Maybe?” I grimaced, praying that the roots of the trees would reach out and drag me into the earth.

Kit’s hand cupped my face, thumb stroking across my cheekbone with devastating tenderness. His gaze grew serious, almost reverent.

“You’re absolutely bloody gorgeous,” he said, his voice low, and deeply sincere.

What. My brain flatlined. Kit thought I was gorgeous? Me? That can’t be right.

“So beautiful it actually hurts to look at you sometimes. And I find it hard to stop looking at you. Even the little things, like the way the light catches in your eyes when you’re concentrating on your screens at work. That tiny smile when you solve a tricky problem. How you bite your bottom lip when you’re thinking or worried.” His thumb traced the line of my jaw. “It’s the way of the world, isn’t it? That the most lovely people never know how lovely they are.”

I swallowed, hard. The forest spun dizzying circles around us, Kit’s words making everything else fade to static. If it wasn’t for his hand on my face, I’d surely float away.

He’s been watching me. The thought should have been alarming, but instead it sent a warm glow flooding through me. He notices things about me. Not just the obvious stuff, but small details I didn’t even know I did.

“Since the day I met you, everyone else has been just… this colourless blur to me. Whereas you—” He stopped abruptly, his hand freezing against my skin. “You’re everything bright and real. You’re everything I never thought I deserved to want.”

Everything he never thought he deserved. There it was—that same self-doubt that plagued me, reflected back. How can he think he doesn’t deserve good things? Kit, who was brave and strong and had probably saved more lives than I could count. Who’d quietly looked after me from the moment I’d stumbled into Killigrew Street. Who made me feel safe.

I wanted to prove him wrong. Wanted to show him that he deserved everything good in the world.

And maybe I deserve something good too.

And then, because words felt inadequate for what I was feeling.

Because I needed him to know he deserved to be wanted just as desperately as he wanted me.

And because I couldn’t live another moment without knowing what his lips felt like against mine.

I kissed him.

20

Kit

Felix’s lips touched mine.

Soft. Warm. Real.

No, not real. Because I was dreaming. Had to be. The knowledge that he and Wren were just friends was still singing through my veins, almost a year’s worth of jealous agony finally lifting from my shoulders, and it had pushed me over the edge of delirium.

I’d imagined this moment so many times, but Felix Chŭng—brilliant, beautiful, untouchable Felix—couldn’t possibly be kissing me. Not after everything I’d done. Not after I’d stalked him and lied to him and terrified him with my confession on that street corner.

But then he pulled back with this tiny, breathless sound—part shock, part horror at his own boldness, perhaps—and his eyes snapped saucer-wide, pupils blown in the dappled forest light. Too real for any dream. Too perfect for my subconscious to have conjured.

He’d kissed me.