Chapter 2

RHYS

“Have you got them?”

I cradled the phone on my shoulder while I pulled my jeans on. The large trees in the woods kept me hidden, but I already knew no one else was around. Nobody in Eastown stayed out that late unless they were up to no good, like me. 

Unless I counted that crazy woman who’d run out of the park in front of my car.

My heart pounded against my chest when that face flashed through my mind again. It was the face I saw every night in my fantasies— or my nightmares, depending on the day. 

But she was dead! I’d mourned her. Our love had burned for a short time, but I’d paid the price. I was still paying six years later; my scars and fucked up head were proof of it. There was no way that woman had been Rae. My mind must have been playing tricks on me again.

“Rhys!”

My thoughts returned to the conversation as I zipped up the bags I’d laid at the tree's base.

“Yeah. Sorry, I’ve still got my hands full, Tyson,” I answered. 

“How many?”

“I got two. One slipped through the cracks,” I snarled.

Nothing ever slipped past me, but my head wasn’t in the game. I knew who to blame for that. The ghost of the woman who’d so cruelly ripped my life apart.

But could it be true? Was she back from the dead, or I’d almost run over someone who just looked like her? A doppelganger? 

My heart pounded again like I’d had a shot of adrenaline through my heart. My hands shook as I gathered all my tools. I didn’t know if I needed to sit down or go for a run to work it off. If that had been Raechel—shit, I didn’t even want to think about that. 

My mind was already seriously messed up. It was an impossibility that I shouldn’t have even entertained.

“You have to stay until—”

“I know how to do my fucking job,” I cut in with a snarl. I instantly regretted it when there was silence on the other end. I could imagine Tyson’s fury at the blatant challenge.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I tried to sound sincere even though Tyson could probably hear that I was bullshitting. 

“I want an update tomorrow night,” Tyson growled.

The line went dead. Fuck. Tyson was the last person I needed to piss off. I was only alive because of him, and I was pretty sure he was already sick of me. I slipped the phone back into my pocket and looked at the mess I’d made. Black, gloopy blood had splattered everywhere and the smell still hadn’t dissipated. I had to move before the early walkers and joggers invaded the park and caught me with two dead bodies stuffed in the bags.   

I pulled my t-shirt and leather jacket on before picking up the two heavy bags. My beast lived for hunting but cleaning up after myself was another story. Even when I wrapped the bodies up before putting them in the bags, I always ended up with blood in my fucking truck. And the smell was another thing. Rabid rogues smelled like ass on a good day, but dead ones were a million times worse. 

If we had been somewhere deep in the wild, I would have left the bodies to decompose in nature. But the rabid rogues had somehow found themselves in a human town, something I’d not seen happen before. It was the reason Tyson had sent me to investigate. But to be honest, I'd been thinking of this town a lot lately. 

I didn’t know why, because I hated the place. Rae had pointed it out on a map once after she’d fucked my brains out and told me she wanted to run away with me. Hearing the name made me want to kill something, so every stop I’d made here was quick.

I may have been drawn here by the same thing that had attracted the rogues. Most rogues got moon madness from being cut off from their packs, but I’d never pledged myself to an Alpha, so I would never have that problem. Once that link to their Alpha was severed, some wolves lacked focus and control, among other things. The loud sounds of a city should have been too much for them; it should have been a natural deterrent, yet they seemed to have formed a cluster. I didn’t want to call them a pack because that would mean they had somehow organised themselves, and that wasn’t possible.

But the one that escaped from me had not looked confused or unaware of himself or his surroundings. He seemed to know the city well enough to find shadows to hide in; even his scent had led me to dead ends. 

I would find him, though. There was a reason Tyson had trusted me with such an important job. 

I threw the bags into the bed of my truck and closed the tailgate before I looked down the street. That woman had run down there. I should have tracked her. I should have confirmed that she was not Rae before I’d started the hunt; then I wouldn’t have missed one. 

My fists clenched as the need to go and hunt her rose in my body. 

‘Find her.’

“Fuck off,” I snarled.

My beast’s urges welled up inside me, but I had a job to do and hunting the ghost of the dead wasn’t part of it. That wasn’t the first time I’d seen that face in the last six years. She had haunted me since that night. In the beginning, I’d seen her on every corner and every street. I’d seen her face on every woman I met. When I had healed and my wolf came back to me, I’d seen her more. When I ran. When I hunted. When I tried to fuck someone else. When I closed my eyes and when I opened them. Everywhere. Sometimes I even imagined I could smell her sweet scent, and that always fucked me up. That flayed me until I was raw. 

She was dead. I just had to accept that.

With a growl, I forced my urges and my beast down and turned back to walk into the park. That demon did not control me. How could I ever trust anything that had made such a colossal mistake before? Mates? I should have known better.

By the time I finished cleaning up the black blood and picking up the bits of flesh I’d left behind, it was dawn. I threw my kit into the car and hopped in just as the first pair of joggers went through the park gates. That was too close. A clean-up team would have done the job in half the time. Tyson had other people to do the shitty side of hunting; maybe I had to start acting like I was part of the team so that I didn’t have to do that shit anymore. 

But my mind rejected that thought before I’d even finished thinking of it. I was better off alone. People always disappointed me, whether they meant to or not. Everyone had a built-in dickishness that only came out when I was involved. People sucked; I would live and die alone. I didn’t have much of a fucking choice about that, anyway. 

I had been rogue for a reason—a lone wolf. And if Rae hadn’t happened, I would have happily died that way.

Even after I’d driven out of town to get rid of the bodies and then driven back to find the apartment I had booked online, my head was still a mess. My fists clenched as I walked into the dark lobby of the building, and the first thing that hit me was the scent I always tried to forget. 

The entrance was full of trash, with a homeless-looking guy leaning next to the elevator who looked like he’d pissed himself. It should have smelled like shit, but it smelled of cinnamon and vanilla. It always happened after I thought of Rae. I’d see her and smell her everywhere again for a while.  My mind was still trying to hold on to the memories that had broken me in the first place. 

I couldn’t shake the image of that girl out of my head. She was older and curvier than Raechel, and her black hair fell in unruly waves down her back instead of the short cuts that Rae had preferred. And she had been clearly human.

But those eyes... Those hazel eyes had been the same. Rae’s eyes had been a unique mixture of green, brown and flecks of gold that sometimes it had been like looking into my beast’s golden eyes. When my headlights flashed across that girl’s face, I had been looking into the same eyes.

It could have been a trick of the light or contact lenses. Young humans did a lot to change their appearance. I had to stop torturing myself by thinking about something impossible. 

The elevator arrived and the filthy man staggered in first. Rae’s scent was worse when the doors closed- like she was standing in the small space with me. 

“Dude, you reek.”

I looked at the man with his piss stain, filthy clothes and unwashed hair. Who the fuck was he to say anything to me? 

“Can you spare some change?”

The man came right up to my face. I didn’t need to smell him to know he wasn’t just drunk; he was high as a fucking kite, too. I shoved him away and tried not to breathe through my nose, but it didn’t help. Vanilla and cinnamon had burnt to my insides. 

“Do you know who I am?” the junkie yelled, coming to my face again. “You can’t touch me! I’ll have you—”

I shoved him again and clenched my fists. My face started to stretch as my anger welled up inside me. To be tormented by someone I loved and hated was a special kind of torture. I felt the hate more than anything else, but I’d yet to completely stamp out the other unwelcome emotions. 

I hated Raechel McCall. If she hadn’t been dead, I would have killed her myself. 

“Dude, your face.”

The elevator doors opened on the top floor, and I walked out before I ripped the man’s head off. For some reason, the scent strengthened. I marched down like the devil was chasing me and followed the sign to the door number. I pulled the key from where the apartment owner had said he had hidden it and almost ripped the handle off in my rush to escape.

But I knew there would be no escape. There never was. I had to ride this shit out. 

I could sense that most of the residents in the building were still sleeping, but I slammed the door anyway. My first stop was the fridge to check if the apartment owner had left any beer as a welcome present. There was nothing, not even any fucking water. 

I slammed that door again with more force than necessary and found the bathroom. A run would have been better, but it was too late now. I wasn’t in my little cabin where I could shift and run anytime I wanted. A shower was the next best thing. It would wash off the stench on my body from handling the rabid rogues and any lingering thoughts of Rae. 

I’d never once caught phantom scents in Eastown or seen any women resembling the one that had wrecked me. Last night caught me off guard, and I’d allowed a rabid wolf out of my sight. That wasn’t good for any human in town. But I’d have my head in the game tonight. I’d hunt that fucker and make sure I got the whole cluster. I’d have Rae shoved back to the back of my mind where she belonged by the time I woke up then I’d do the only thing that gave me purpose these days. Hunt.

Then I would finally get the hell out of town and forget about Rae’s doppelganger.