Page 12 of Shadow of Fury

Wren sniffed at the air again, breathing in a lungful of that powerful, masculine scent, and then she turned down a street that wasn’t normally on her route and followed it. The burning she’d been feeling in her legs earlier in her run faded to a distant memory. The plans she’d been making had gone right out the window. There was only the driving need to follow the scent, find her mate, and complete the bond.

She cut through an alleyway as the scent grew stronger, focusing only on the magnetic pull that tugged inside her chest now, towards someone and something she had never expected for herself. She didn’t even realize she was running full speed until she rounded a corner and collided with something that felt like a brick wall but was warm and moving.

She stumbled again but this time there were big hands there to grab her by the shoulders. The scent of her mate surrounded her and she closed her eyes to soak it in, to relish the feeling of heat that washed through her from the simple contact of his rough fingers on her skin. When they stopped shuffling from the collision, her back was against the cool brick wall and she opened her eyes to look up at the mate that fate had chosen for her.

The feeling of hope that had begun to fill her popped like a balloon stabbed with a knife as soon as she recognized the face looming over her.

It wasn’t a stranger. It wasn’t someone new to town or just passing through. It was someone she knew and had hoped to never, ever see again.

“Logan?” She felt his name rip from her lips in a broken curse and he blinked his beautiful hazel eyes at her as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

He was even more handsome now than he’d been at nineteen. His dark brown hair was longer and fell over his forehead with sun kissed highlights that she remembered from long ago summers. He’d grown into his features, no longer the lanky teen but a thick, muscular man. His jaw was dusted in dark stubble that emphasized a full mouth that she should never have noticed just like she shouldn’t have remembered the way his dark lashes were enviably long and thick, framing his gold-flecked eyes perfectly. He was all rough, square angles offset by the softness of his full mouth and those mesmerizing eyes that she would know anywhere.

“Lark?”

It was the sound of her sister’s name that broke the spell and sent pain shooting through Wren and shattering everything inside of her. Because of course he was looking at her like that because he thought she was Lark. He had loved Lark. He had loved her and lost her, just like Wren had. But she shook that thought away because no, that wasn’t right. That was the bond, the mating heat, trying to make her soften for this man who she hated. He hadn’t lost Lark. He had killed her or he knew who had and yet he was gripping her shoulders so tightly she knew there would be bruises tomorrow, all because he thought she was his dead teenage girlfriend.

Wren shoved him as hard as she could and he stumbled back, likely more out of surprise than her actual ability to overpower him, “Don’t touch me.”

He blinked again, slowly, as if he was fighting through the fog of the mating heat too. He looked her up and down, slowly, from top to bottom, and Wren fought a shiver of awareness. He met her gaze again and this time she saw the same look of horror that must have been displayed on her own face.

“Wait… Wren?” He looked as lost as she felt. “No. It can’t be?”

The words sliced through her, as sharp as a blade, even though they were the same ones running through her head. Wren told herself the pain was only because of the bond. It was already there, burning through her veins, burrowing under her skin, forming despite her hatred for this man. It made her long for his touch even as her stomach twisted and she felt sick.

She’d always thought that if she came face to face with Logan Kemp again that she would shift and let her wolf rip him apart, shred him to pieces the way he deserved. But now her wolf was lunging for the surface and it was taking everything in her power to hold the animal at bay because she didn’t want to rip him apart at all. Her animal side only wanted to sink her fangs into his skin, to claim him and to be bonded to him forever. All because fate had decided something she never would have chosen for herself.

Logan Kemp was their mate and she, apparently, was his.

CHAPTER FIVE

For one horrible, amazing, impossible moment, Logan had truly thought that she was back. He’d thought Lark was here, with him, within reach. He’d wanted the past six years to be nothing but a horrible nightmare, so much so that he had actually let himself believe it was her.

Because that was the only way the mating bond sparking to life inside of him made sense. It had to be Lark. It had always been Lark.

But then reality had hit him as squarely as the shove to the chest and his brain had kickstarted enough to notice all the differences in the woman before him and the woman he had loved and lost.

She was taller for one, only a few inches shorter than him, and she wasn’t curvy like Lark had been. She was thin, with an athletic, runner’s body, showcased by the black tights and gray sports bra she wore. The outfit left little to the imagination, hugging every inch of her long legs and leaving what seemed like miles of her warm, golden brown skin on display. Her hair was jet black, just as Lark’s had been, but it was pulled into a sleek ponytail and the strands around her face had escaped and curled with the heat and sweat of her workout. Her face, a portrait in sharp angles, was flushed red, either from exertion or anger, and somehow he thought it only made her prettier when her dark as midnight eyes flashed gold at him.

His wolf growled at that glimpse of his other half, wanting to be set free, wanting his mate, not knowing or caring that it was Wren, not Lark.

Logan hated himself for the attraction that he still felt towards her even after the realization. Hated that he had even noticed how beautiful she was. He hated that fate had tricked him and he hated that he could already feel the need for her creeping inside of him and making him yearn to touch her again. And he hated that she looked like she might throttle him if he tried.

Wren. This was Wren. Lark’s younger sister. The middle sister of the Culvert family. The one who had sometimes tagged along with Lark when they went out with their friends or covered for her big sister when she snuck out to see him. This was Wren Culvert, but not the doe-eyed kid he remembered at all, instead she looked wary and angry all at the same time and he couldn’t blame her for the reaction to him any more than he could stop feeling guilty for his own.

Fate had a cruel sense of humor if she thought he and Wren would make a good pair. It wasn’t just unlikely. It was impossible, or it should have been. Because Lark had been his mate, it was a fact he’d known all his life, clung to for the past six years, and couldn’t shake even as everything inside of him yearned to move closer to Wren and his wolf clawed at his insides wanting free in order to claim her as his mate once and for all.

His mate? Wren? No, that couldn’t happen. He would not let that happen. No matter what fate was up to, he was still a man and he could still make his own decisions. He could control his wolf. He could control himself. And he would not tie another Culvert woman to him or his fucked-up family.

“I’m sorry.” He stepped backwards, trying to put space between them. “I’m so sorry. I… I’ll go.”

His wolf was not on board with that idea and roared inside his head. Distance was the last thing the wolf wanted but he continued to backpedal. He needed to get away from her, from this place. Coming back had been a terrible decision and this only proved it.

He would go back to the house. He would grab Vivian just as he had six years ago, and he would leave town. He would leave and this time he would never, ever, come back. It didn’t matter that his father was dying. It didn’t matter that the pack needed him. It couldn’t. Because he needed to save himself, and Wren, from fate's foolish games.

“I have to go.” He started to turn away but the snap of her voice at his back made him pause.

“That’s right. Run away. That’s what you do best.”