Chapter 124

Ella

The moment we entered my childhood bedroom, an overwhelming sense of nostalgia washed over me.

Nothing had changed since I last lived here—literally. I hadn’t lived in this penthouse since before college, and yet my parents never changed a thing.

Band posters were still tacked to the walls, their colors somewhat faded but nonetheless holding the spirit and angst of my teenage years. Stacks of old novels, their spines well-worn from my anxious fingers, lined the bookshelf. Even my vanity was still covered with haphazard jewelry and makeup from my ‘emo’ days.

I felt exposed, as if Logan was unwittingly peering into a window of my past life. It was funny, how this room felt perfectly normal to me. But now that someone else was here, in my teenage self’s space, it suddenly felt cringy and weird.

“So, this is your old stomping ground, huh?” Logan asked, a playful smirk settling on his lips as he wandered around the room. His eyes seemed to linger on every little detail, which only made me feel even more vulnerable.

“What’s so funny?” I asked, trying to sound indifferent even though my heart was racing.

“Nothing,” Logan assured me. He cast me a look over his shoulder, and it was genuine. “It’s just nice to see this side of you.”

“Yeah, well…” I paused, stopping in front of my vanity, where various pictures of boy bands were taped to the edges of the mirror. “This part of me doesn’t exist anymore.”

“Why not?” he asked. “Teenage Ella seemed cool.

Truthfully, I didn’t have an answer for him. I watched as he picked up a book from one of the stacks, a girly teenage romance novel that I had devoured years ago.

“Ah, teenage love at its finest.” He flipped it open to a random page and began reading aloud, his voice dramatically husky. “‘His eyes met mine, a blaze of untamed desire. The magnetic pull was irresistible. ‘Melissa, you are the moonlight to my darkness.’’”

I felt the heat rush to my face, my blush surely a deep crimson color. Suddenly, I felt rather like Daisy when I was teasing her earlier. “Hey, give that back!” I lunged for the book, but he danced away, his laughter echoing in the room.

“You can’t be serious, Ella. This is gold!” He jumped onto my bed to evade my next attempt to grab the book, reading another passage. “‘As our lips met, it was as if the heavens themselves parted, blessing our everlasting love.’”

“Oh my god, stop!” I yelled, my wolf cringing in mortification alongside me. “That was a private indulgence from a different time. It’s not for you to mock.”

Laughing, Logan held the book high above his head, just out of reach. “Oh, come on. Don’t you want to hear how Melissa and Brad overcome their insurmountable challenges to find eternal happiness?”

My patience snapped. “Not. Another. Word.”

Ignoring my own reluctance—and the nagging voice in my head that questioned why I was so defensive—I lunged at him, determined to reclaim my book and my dignity.

Logan tried to dodge me, but this time my reflexes were quicker. I collided into him, and we both tumbled onto the bed, a heap of tangled limbs. The book slipped from his fingers and floated to the floor, landing with a soft thud, its pages splayed open.

For a split second, as we lay there entangled, his eyes met mine—a blaze of something I couldn’t quite name but felt to my very core. My heart hammered in my chest, drowning out everything else.

“Got you,” I said breathlessly, a surge of triumph rushing through me.

He chuckled softly, his eyes not leaving mine. “Yes, you did,” he whispered, his voice low and tinged with a sincerity that sent shivers down my spine.

The realization hit me like a train: I had fallen right on top of Logan, and his hands had instinctively found their way to my waist. The awkwardness of the situation drenched me like a sudden rainstorm.

Here we were, tangled on my childhood bed, surrounded by remnants of my past. How on earth had we ended up like this?

“Huh, it’s sort of like a scene from one of your romance books,” he murmured, his voice low, tinged with amusement but also something else—something deeper, more electric.

I felt it then, the pull. It wasn’t just a teenage infatuation or a fleeting moment of attraction. My wolf nudged me from inside, her message a a potent mixture of trepidation and burning desire.

“Kiss him,” she commanded, and this time, I couldn’t resist. I couldn’t deny her or myself any longer.

As if guided by an unseen force, my lips found his. The kiss wasn’t gentle or tentative; it was a full-on collision, a mingling of pent-up emotion and unspoken yearnings.

My wolf practically howled in euphoria, the sound reverberating through my bones. For a few heart-stopping moments, everything else faded away—the room, the past, the teenage novels lying scattered across the floor.

Logan’s hands tightened around my waist, his fingers digging into my flesh, pulling me closer as if he wanted to fuse us into one. His mouth moved hungrily against mine, his urgency matching my own. My hands found the nape of his neck, my fingers threading through his hair, each touch lighting a fire I had no idea how to extinguish.

But as quickly as it had spiraled out of control, reality crashed back down on me.

“Wait,” I gasped, pulling away as if I had been burned. I disentangled myself from him in a flurry of movement and stood up, suddenly hyper-aware of what we had just done. “We can’t do this,” I said, out of breath. “Not here. Not now.”

He lay there, his eyes dark, clouded with a mix of confusion and understanding. Then that signature smirk slid back onto his face, and he propped himself up onto his elbows. “So, later then?” he asked, the words hanging in the air like a challenge, a promise.

“You’re unbelievable,” I said, rolling my eyes for good measure, even though my heart was pounding like a drum.

As I walked away, I felt his eyes on me, burning a hole through my defenses, igniting something inside of me that I hadn’t been wanting to notice for the longest time.

“Ella,” my wolf mused, “you can walk away now, but you can’t deny it forever. It’s inevitable; it’s fate.”

I paused at the door, my hand lingering on the knob, and glanced back at him. His gaze met mine, and we both knew. Words were pointless; they had no place here, not when the chemistry spoke volumes, not when my wolf practically cried out in ecstasy when our lips met.

For a moment, I opened my mouth to speak, to say something, anything, to Logan. But I couldn’t. Without a word, I pulled the door open and slipped out of the room.

“Ella, just admit it. You’re hopelessly attracted to him,” Ema taunted, but I shoved the thought aside. Now was not the time.

But when? When would the time come? Would it ever come, or would I keep pushing it away forever? Those were the questions that gnawed at me as I walked away, my feet heavy and my heart even heavier.