Page 25

25

KENDALL

I don’t move for a long time.

Not even after Callum lets go of my hand and steps back like he’s afraid to push. The night settles thick around us, quiet except for the wind brushing through the trees and my own pulse thundering like a war drum in my ears.

Fated.

The word feels too big in my mouth. Too final. Like a sentence I didn’t get to plead against. I keep repeating what he said in my head.

One person. One connection. That’s it. Forever.

Who the hell decided that for me?

And why does it feel so terrifying and safe at the same damn time?

“Are you cold?” Callum asks gently, almost like he doesn’t expect an answer.

I nod, even though I’m not sure if that’s what this is. It’s not the kind of cold that seeps into your skin—it’s the kind that coils under it. In your chest. Your bones.

He shrugs out of his jacket and hands it to me. I slip into it without thinking.

It smells like stale smoke and pine, even over the overwhelming factory smells of the city. Something that feels like him .

We sit on a fallen tree, not touching, but not far apart either. A space where the silence isn’t awkward. It’s just heavy.

Callum glances sideways at me. “You okay?”

“No,” I say. “But I don’t think I’ve been okay in weeks, so.”

He huffs a small laugh. “Fair.”

“I’m trying to be chill about all this,” I admit. “But you dropped the equivalent of a magical soulmate nuke and now my entire nervous system is doing backflips.”

“Yeah. That tracks.”

“Do you ever shut up?”

“You’re the one who came looking for me.”

“Touché.”

We fall quiet again.

I trace a crack in the bark with my thumbnail and try not to spiral. “I don’t know if I’m ready for all of this.”

“Like I said, you don’t have to be,” he says.

“But it’s already happening.”

“I know.”

“And you—” I pause, looking at him. “You feel it all the time?”

He nods slowly. “Yeah. Since the second I saw you.”

“Jesus.”

“I know.”

I shake my head. “It’s not that I don’t… feel it. I do. I just… I’m not sure where the line is between me wanting you, and whatever this bond is making me feel.”

He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t look hurt. Just leans forward, elbows on his knees, voice low and even.

“I can’t answer that for you. But I know what’s mine. And I know it wasn’t made in a lab. Or a prophecy. Or a fucking pack doctrine. It’s just there. Quiet and loud at the same time. Like gravity.”

I look at him.

And everything inside me stumbles forward all at once. I don’t think. I don’t plan. I just move. One breath. One heartbeat. And I kiss him.

It’s not like the cabin when adrenaline fueled me and the near-death experience as well as the trauma from shifting. This is clumsy at first. Too fast. Too needy. Like trying to hold onto something that keeps slipping between my fingers and I’m much more aware of it.

But his hands find my waist and steady me, and then everything clicks.

His lips are warm. Familiar. The same and different from the other night. Like I’ve been here before in dreams that I can’t remember when I wake up. And for one second—just one —it feels like maybe this isn’t the worst thing. Maybe being pulled to someone like this isn’t a death sentence.

Maybe it’s a lifeline.

But then my brain catches up. I break the kiss, stumbling back, breath ragged.

Callum freezes, hands still hovering like he doesn’t know if he should let go or hold tighter.

“Kendall—”

“I’m sorry,” I breathe. “I didn’t mean to— I just—fuck.”

He stands slowly, expression unreadable. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“You wanted to.”

“Maybe,” I whisper. “Or maybe I just wanted to feel normal again for five seconds.”

Silence. Heavy. Suffocating.

“I’m not ready,” I say again. “For what this means. For what you mean. I mean, I know we’ve already gone there, but–this… this is different.”

He nods once. “Then I’ll wait.”

I look up at him.

“Why?” I ask. “Why would you put yourself through this?”

His voice is quiet. “Because I don’t think you’re just mine, Kendall. I think I’m yours, too.”

That does rip through me. I blink back the burn behind my eyes and take a shaky breath.

“I should go,” I say.

“I’ll walk you?—”

“No,” I cut in. “I need a minute. Alone.”

He doesn’t argue. Just nods again, slow and careful, like a man trying not to scare off something fragile.

I turn and head for the trail. My hands still tingling. My lips still burning. And for a second, just before I disappear around the bend in the path, I swear I feel something else.

Something watching.

Something not Callum.

The hairs on the back of my neck rise, but when I turn, the woods are quiet.