Finding Kendall

Chapter 11

Chapter 11:

"Kat!" Finnian yelled, his voice rough. He was barely able to stay in his human form, making his voice sound more beast than man. "Kat!" He called again in desperation.

He managed to shift back just in time to catch Kendall before she fell. He cradled her body close, all thoughts of her being anyone other than his mate flying from his mind. He felt a panic that he hadn't felt since the day she left him. A panic that only she had ever been able to cause. He knew it well, since all he did was worry about his mate before everything happened. She seemed to attract trouble rather easily.

Finnian had been hesitant to believe that she was his mate. The second he laid eyes on her... it was like his world started spinning again. It was like his universe, which had been cold, dark, and void of anything, was finally illuminated. She brought peace and warmth and color back into his life.

Then she uttered her name. That broke the spell that seemed to draw them together, a spell that only mates experienced together, and it lifted his walls immediately. His mate was gone. She was dead. He felt her die. He couldn't bear the thought of her being alive all that time and him not looking for her. How could he possibly live with himself if that were the case?

She also seemed like his Kendall, but at the same time she didn't. First, she smelled like a human. If he was honest with himself, deep under the human scent, she still smelled like herself. Still smelled sweet, clean, a fragrance that was purely, uniquely Kendall. He had missed that scent.

On top of her not quite smelling the same, she also didn't act the same. His mate was fierce. Nothing scared her, and when it did, she sure as hell didn't show it. She was strong, and brave. She followed her heart and never second guessed herself. The weeping girl he encountered wasn't that. She was fragile and weak and scared.

But he couldn't quiet that little voice in his head, likely his primal wolf half, that she was only like that because she had experienced something no one else could understand. It killed him to think that she was possibly just a shell of the amazing woman he loved.

Despite the discrepancies, she also felt like his mate. His wolf called to him, but he wasn't wild. For the first time in months, he felt completely in control of himself. He didn't feel on the verge of shifting constantly. He didn't feel like he was a shell of the man he once was. There was sparks, there was electricity. It was palpable in the air, the attraction drawing him into her. 

Deep down, he felt truly ashamed for how he had reacted to her. He hated himself for scaring her after everything she had been through. He wasn't even sure why he did it, just that he was almost paralyzed with fear at the thought of it not being her, at the thought of losing her again.

Yet, that seemed to be the direction things were going.

He hadn't even planned on coming in her room. His wolf urges overpowered him – a norm for him as of late, although it was a different kind of urge – and he ended up watching her sleep like some stalker. He had to have been sitting in the corner, just staring at her for at least an hour. At first, she had been sleeping peacefully. Then, it became glaringly obvious that she was having some sort of dream. She kept moaning, which was something that he didn't panic over since she used to always make noises in her sleep. But then she started moving. She had been reaching out, like she was trying to touch something just out of her grasp.

Then she sat upright with a gasp. She hadn't noticed him at first – he just sat quietly, listening to her racing heart eventually slow. When she noticed him, she was surprisingly fearless. He knew that Kat had told her about werewolves. He listened to the entire conversation, unable not to be fully tuned into everything she was doing since he laid eyes on her.