Why the hell does he seem so familiar?
His eyes, I have seen his eyes before.
But where?
“Um, this is the women’s bathroom. What are you doing here? Did something happen?” My eyebrows pull together in concentration as I’m racking my brain, trying to remember where I have seen him before.
He smirks, and a wolfish grin curves his lips. His eyes are like two icicles as his gaze rakes over my body lazily. “I’m here for you, little wolf,” he mocks, using the pet name Logan likes to call me.
My heart slams violently to a stop.
Those eyes. He’s the rogue.
Adrenaline gives my eyes a fuzzy edge while I frantically scan the room for an escape route, but there isn’t one. If I want to get out, I have to pass by him.
He stalks forward and backs me into the tiled wall. I widen my stance, my fists at the ready. I don’t exactly know how to fight aside from the brief self-defense lessons I received from Ben, my mother’s boyfriend, but I can be a scrappy bitch if needed. He shoots out his hand and grabs my upper arm, his fingers digging viciously into my skin.
“Let me go!” I snap, cock my fist, and send it flying at his face.
He easily dodges and barks out an amused laugh as if I’m no more than an annoying fly. He grabs my wrist and twists it painfully. “Now, where would the fun be in that?”
I let out a strangled cry of pain, and then I dip. My teethelongate in my mouth, and I sink them as hard as I can into the meaty part of the hand gripping my wrist. I feel his skin breaking and the taste of copper floods my mouth. The rogue lets out a sharp curse and lets me go for a flitting second. That’s all I need to drive my knee into his crotch.
“You stupid bitch!” he spews, his features twisted in a grimace as he grabs his junk protectively.
My victory cry is short-lived because the moment I try to push past him, he grabs me by the throat and slams the back of my head into the wall so hard I feel the tiles shatter and something wet and sticky coat the hair at the nape of my neck. My world tilts upside down.
I try to contact Logan through our mental link.“Logan, the rogue, he’s—”
Before I can finish my sentence, blankness washes over me.
32
Logan
“Would you stop pacing already? You’re giving me a fucking headache,” Malik says with a bored expression, leaning on the side of my truck.
I scowl at him and check my new phone’s screen for the umpteenth time. Fifteen minutes have passed since we were escorted outside the club, and Ava still hasn’t come out. “What the hell is taking her so long?” My breath plumes in front of my face with how cold it is, but I don’t feel it. The anger burning through me is red hot and all-consuming.
He shrugs. “I don’t know. She might smooth things over with that dickbag. He could press charges against you.”
My jaw ticks at Malik’s words. “Fuck it, I’m going after her,” I grit out and stalk toward the back entrance of the club.
“I can’t let you go in,” one of the asshole bodyguards who escorted us earlier says, blocking the entrance. He crosses his arms in front of his chest and squares his shoulders. He does it like it’s rehearsed, like it’s worked on many people before. Sure, he’s big and muscly, but he has nothing on my frame and still has to look up when he addresses me. Even though he tries to play it off as if he isn’t afraid, I don’t miss the way his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat when I throw him a scathing glare.
“Just give her five more minutes,” Malik tells me from my back, tone coaxing. “If she doesn’t show up, we’ll go back inside.”
I snap my eyes shut, willing patience to come to me, but it’s futile. I’ve been running on fumes since the moment I saw that goddamn photo. And then the universe had to take a step further and make me witness that piece of shit kissing her right in front of my eyes. It filled me with such rage, such contempt that I was ready to kill every single person in that room, consequences be damned. My wolf had gone off the deep end, and if I didn’t have Ava in my arms, tethering me to reality, I would have shifted right then and there and left a blood bath in my wake.
Even after everything, my chest is still an open wound, the sting of jealousy burning brighter and cutting deeper than anything I have ever felt before. I clench and unclench my fingers to pass the brutal time, my bloody knuckles screaming in protest.
All of a sudden, dread fills my veins. It coils beneath my ribcage and wraps around my lungs until I can no longer breathe. It’s pure, unadulterated fear, and it takes a few seconds for my mind to catch up and realize that it’s not mine; it’s Ava’s. I can feel it through the mating bond as if it were mine.
Then I hear her voice in my head:“Logan, the rogue, he’s—”She doesn’t finish the sentence. Terror grips me by the throat with sharp claws.
“Ava, baby, what happened?”I send back to her.
She doesn’t answer.“Ava?”
