Page 110 of The Werewolf’s Wrong Mate

Minutes passed. Too many. The pull became a low ache behind the bite, then spread beneath my ribs. I tried to read the messages on my phone after Sava gave it back under supervision, but Dad’s texts blurred. Tessa had sent seven apologies and one picture of Henry asleep on her lap, looking smug enough to survive a monarchy. Aunt Linda had sent a single message that said, “Still not arrested.”

I should have smiled.

Instead, I kept checking the locked door.

Sava noticed.

Again.

“Cassie.”

“I know.”

“What do you know?”

“That I’m looking for him.”

She sat in the chair beside the bed. “And how does that make you feel?”

I turned my head slowly.

“If you therapize me while I’m poisoned, I will become difficult.”

“You are already difficult. Answer anyway.”

I looked back at the ceiling.

How did it make me feel? Angry, obviously. Violated. Afraid. Humiliated by my own body. All the reliable words were still there, but they no longer filled the whole room.

Under them was something quieter. The memory of Ian stopping when I said his name. The way he had looked at Grant’s letter like it was filth and still let me decide what happened to it. His hand under mine. His back turned while I dressed. His voice telling me I didn’t have to answer when Ronan asked what he things felt like.

The way the mark had gone calm when I touched his wrist, and he had listened.

“I don’t know,” I said finally.

It was the most honest answer I had.

Sava accepted it. “Good.”

I looked at her. “That was not good.”

“It is better than naming something too early.”

That shut me up, for about thirty seconds anyway. Then a sharp pulse tore through the mark and I gasped and grabbed the sheet.

Sava stood immediately. “Pain?”

“No.”

It was fear, and it wasn’t mine.

Ian.

The fear hit again, hard and controlled, buried under violence so quickly that if the bond had not caught the first flash, I would have missed it. Something had happened. Something bad enough to frighten a man who looked like fear usually belonged to other people.

I tried to sit up.

Sava pushed me back with one hand. “No.”