Fated Hearts (Echoes of Darkness Prequel)

32

Logan

“ W ould 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?”

Nothing.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“I’m coming for you, baby,” I tell her.

Still nothing.

Immediately, I push the bodyguard out of my way. He lets out a sound of protest and grabs my shoulder to stop me. As Malik warned him before, it is a horrible decision on his part. Blinded by the fear of not getting to Ava in time, I send my fist flying in an uppercut. His eyes bulge out of his head in surprise, and before he can make a sound, his body is sent backward into the air, slams into the side of a parked SUV, and his head smashes the passenger window. He instantly blacks out, falling in a heap on the asphalt, blood pooling beneath him. Malik swears loudly, jogs to get to the bodyguard, and crouches next to his unconscious body to check for a pulse. I don’t stay around to find out if I killed him or not. I need to find Ava.

Ripping open the door, I start running, turning right toward the stairs leading to the backstage room. In my desperation, I almost miss her vanilla and caramel scent. With how strong it is, I can tell she’s been here only minutes before. I turn on my heel and follow it back into the club, pass the back door I entered through, and make a beeline to the bathrooms on the underground floor.

A horrible feeling churns in my gut as I barrel into the women’s bathroom and take in the blood smeared on the dented tiles in front of me. I don’t have to get close to know it’s Ava’s. I can smell it from here. What I assume is her phone is smashed to pieces on the floor, and I catch something in the corner of my eye. It’s a message scribbled in Ava’s blood on the mirror.

‘Eye for an eye. Heart for a heart. How does it feel to know I have her?’

My knees buckle under me, and the blistering fear that I will find Ava in the same state as Josh seeps into every crack and crevice of my chest until I choke on it.