Chapter 5

RHYS

I paced to the filthy window and looked outside for the millionth time. My eyes felt like they had sand in them because I hadn’t slept much. My dreams had consisted of a hazel-eyed, black-haired wench riding me in different positions all over my bed. It had been hours since I’d given up trying to sleep but I was still hard as fuck. 

Thinking of Rae always did that to me. It was worse now that I couldn’t get her scent out of my head. The sweet vanilla and cinnamon stuck to me, and I couldn't get my head straight. 

Annoyance surged inside me as I turned away from the window and walked to the kitchen. Why did that have to happen now? I’d been okay for months, and then bam! She was in my head again, and all I wanted to do was fuck her. Fuck a ghost. That shit was messed up. 

I crushed the empty beer can in my fist and threw it to join the others in the trash before I opened the fridge for another. I’d gone out, hard-on and all, to stock up on food but had only gone down the alcohol aisle. I didn’t even know why I bothered. Wolves didn’t get drunk on that shit, and Easton was the last place I’d find a place to get the real hard stuff that would knock me out. If I’d known I would get fucked up like this, I’d have brought the strong stuff with me. 

“Get it together, Bourne,” I snarled. 

I had a job to do. As soon as the sun set, my head needed to be back in the game. I’d been surfing the news channels, and so far, I hadn’t seen any stories about mutilated bodies found anywhere in the city. The only story I’d seen was online a day before about a wolf spotted in the park. Nothing about attacks. That was a relief because Tyson would have been even more pissed off with me if that rogue had gone and murdered people. 

But it was also very out of character because I should have found at least a mention of something like that online. Kids recorded everything these days and had it all online before anyone could stop them. They made it hard to be a werewolf when exposure was just a click away. 

A rabid wolf should have caused a lot of panic in a town this small. Someone should have seen it, or a few people should have been in pieces already.

I wanted to believe it had run out of town after it sensed me or saw what I did to its friends, but my gut told me it was still there. Something was going on with those wolves that I hadn’t seen before. But I’d only been hunting them for four years. Maybe Tyson knew more about it than I did.  

I couldn’t stand being inside anymore, stuck with Rae’s ghost and memories I’d much rather keep buried in the hole I had dug for them years ago.

Spring was ending but it was still a little chilly. It didn’t bother wolves much, we ran a little warmer than humans, but I had to blend in. I grabbed my leather jacket off the back of the sofa and picked up my car keys from the coffee table. 

I paused at the door and took a deep breath before yanking the front door open.

Rae’s scent hit me right in the face. 

Fuck.

I had no idea why my head or my wolf was doing this to me. None of this was real. I was losing my shit and a step closer to Tyson locking me up again. I’d been fucked up too much the first couple of years after Rae died, so maybe all that shit I’d been holding inside had finally made my mind snap.

My eyes closed as I fought to stop myself from greedily taking in lungfuls of it as if it was a drug. Vanilla and cinnamon. I hated and loved the scent equally. The urges that had ravaged my body all day returned, and my body tightened up again as images of Rae filled my head. Her full, heart-shaped lips. The way her eyes had glazed over when she’d looked at me. The heat of her body as she welcomed me inside her over and over again. Being with Rae was an experience I would never get past. Ever. I had no say in that matter.

Fate had fucked me real good on that one.

My eyes snapped open and I growled as I forced myself to move. By the time I was in my car and heading towards the local park, I knew I was wasting my time. I wasn’t going to get anything done that night. My beast was distracted and longing for a mate who could never return to us. 

And even if she had been alive, she would not have been ours. She had made sure of that. 

The car rolled to a stop outside the park, and I clenched my fists. My anger returned. I was on a rollercoaster with my emotions all because of that woman who’d run out in front of my car like a raging lunatic.  

But what had she been doing there? Had she seen the rogues? I’d been stuck on how much she looked like Rae that I hadn’t thought that far. Why would such a young woman be alone in the park so late? But she couldn’t have seen those wolves because they would have ripped her apart before she could run. Drugs, maybe? Was she one of those who liked to meet random men and fuck in semi-public places for the thrills?

I pushed the woman out of my thoughts and got out of the car. If I could get this rabid wolf tonight, I could be gone by the morning and forget all about Eastown and doppelgangers. 

The rabid wolf had squeezed through a gap in the high hedges that went all around the park and then down through an alley between two derelict-looking buildings. I hadn’t been able to chase him because the road was too well-lit and the buildings were full of people. I couldn’t just assume no one would see me; I had to be sure before exposing myself like that. 

That side had all the ‘undesirables’ who didn’t fit in with the rest of the town. They didn’t pretend their shit didn’t stink like their counterparts on the other side. I walked down the alley and came out on the other side, and it was like looking at a different town. Kids were lounging around in a skate park, talking about shit they didn’t know much about and sneaking smokes. A few homeless people sat or slept in corners. There were cafes and shops open, but the rats feeding openly near the overfilled trash cans didn’t give me much confidence about the quality of the food they served.

“Look at that dickhead,” one of the kids whispered. “The fuck is he doing here?”

I turned and looked directly at the kid. He didn’t look any older than fifteen or sixteen but was clearly the group's ringleader. Tall and gangly, pimply and still going through puberty.

The little shit quickly lowered his head as his fake bravado disappeared. Humans could always sense a predator, even when they didn’t know what I was. The kids whispered to each other and then threw their half-smoked cigarettes to the ground before they walked out of the skate park on the other side. They disappeared between a couple of buildings without looking back.   

I sighed and continued my search. Something told me that if I asked anyone if they had seen anything suspicious, none of them would tell me. 

The rabid wolf’s horrible scent had long disappeared in last night’s breeze and I didn’t catch a hint of it as I walked further into the neighbourhood. I ignored the looks but kept my ears focused on the whispers in case anyone mentioned anything. If the rogue had murdered anyone on this side of town, it might not have made the news. Even in a small place like Eastown, people sucked the same.

I didn’t smell any blood or catch any whispers about murders, even with all the curtains that twitched as I walked past. How could the wolf disappear so quickly when it smelled so bad? Rabid wolves lost their ability to shift back into their human forms, so it had to be somewhere. Something didn’t add up.

I turned back on myself and headed back to my truck. That had been a waste of time but at least I’d got out of that apartment and pushed the thoughts of Rae aside. But with the sun about to set, my body vibrated with the urge to hunt for that doppelganger. Just to make sure. I’d do my job better if I ruled out all the crazy theories that were going around in my head. 

We never found her body. All we’d had to go on was the trail of blood that started near my cabin and the severed bond with her Alpha. She had lost too much blood to have survived whatever had happened to her, even if she had tried to shift and heal. In the first year, I’d—

I pulled my thoughts away from that before they could suck me in. 

I had to deal with facts. Rea was dead, but there was a doppelganger in this town. I just had to find her.

I walked to the park exit she had run out of and looked around. The park was still busy but there was a sense of urgency in the air as the humans made their way out. The news article about the wolf sighting popped back into my head. Most of these humans would do the right thing and stay away from the park at night but I knew from experience that there would be a few thrill seekers who’d want to hang around and see if it was true. Maybe people like those kids in the park who had nothing better to do or people who’d set up cameras to be the first to sell the story. That would make my job more difficult.

I sighed and looked in the direction the woman had run in last night and then across the busy road to a cafe still open. There was nothing that stuck out about it but something pulled me towards it. I always trusted my gut when I was hunting. 

I crossed the busy road and looked through the windows. The place was packed, meaning it probably opened until very late, but there was nothing inside of any interest. I was standing near the door when a couple of customers walked out, bringing with them the scent of coffee, cakes, pastries—and Rae. 

Fuck me. 

Couldn’t I catch a break just this once?

I turned away from the shop and marched towards the town centre. All thoughts of hunting the doppelganger disappeared as I tried to control my body. It felt too much like the first time I’d seen Rae when the urge to mate had turned my life upside down. I walked without a thought until I saw a club with a queue around the block. 

I didn’t join the queue. I walked right up to the bouncers as if I was somebody and waited for one of them to lift the chain. They were huge guys, but I was bigger. And I wasn’t in the mood for anyone to fuck with me. Maybe that was why they lifted the chain without any questions. 

Before I even made it to the bar, I knew I’d fucked up. That scent drove me crazy; even a bottle of the club's most potent drink wouldn’t get rid of it. Unlike at the apartment, Rae’s vanilla and cinnamon scent had been defiled by all the other smells around me; all the sweaty humans with their strong perfumes, the alcohol, and the drugs. That didn’t seem right. I wanted to get rid of the scent but not like that. I turned around to walk back out but stopped dead in my tracks. 

The doppelganger.

The doppelganger was on the dance floor. My heart stopped and the beast inside me tried to force its way out. The woman looked more like Rae with that smile than she had the other night. She was moving to the music—whether she was dancing or trying to summon a demon, I couldn’t tell. 

I had only ever known one person who was that shit at dancing. Many other people had no rhythm, but Rae had been in a league of her own. 

And now that woman.

My heart raced again as I pushed my way to get closer. But there were too many people between us, and she somehow disappeared into the crowd.

I saw some stairs heading up to the balconies so I pushed my way over to them. Two hulking, bald bouncers in suits stood on either side of the stairwell, but they blocked my way the second I was close enough.

“VIP only,” one growled.

“He’s with me,” a voice said behind me.

I looked back at a half-drunk blonde woman as she came up to link her arm through mine. Too much perfume. My overheated body cooled down immediately, as it always did when any other woman got close to me. My curse. My parting gift from Rae. I couldn’t even touch anyone else like that. 

But I smiled at the woman and walked up the first flight of stairs with her.

“So, what’s your name?” she asked, squeezing my bicep.

“Not interested.”

So I was a dick. Sue me.

I untangled myself from her arm and took the rest of the stairs alone. The VIP section was a different world from the one below, but I had no interest in what was going on in the shadows. I headed straight for the rail and looked down.

I spotted the woman straight away. She was back on the dancefloor in a world of her own, but she clearly didn’t give a fuck. I watched every movement she made. The similarities were so uncanny. The way she moved. Those full lips. The wide smile. 

The eyes looked slightly different than they had when I’d almost run her over, and maybe her movements, as bad as they were, were not as smooth as Rae’s. 

Was she—

No.

That couldn't be the woman who’d rejected me and then gone on to die. The woman who’d made everyone call me a killer. The woman who’d stolen my life.

Impossible. 

She walked away from the wall, the smile gone from her face as she looked around the club. My fists clenched at my sides. That scent was all over the club and the doppelganger was in front of me. If that was Rae... 

My beast came to life in a way he hadn’t since that night. 

My anger returned just as those eyes met mine. 

It was her.

It was Rae.