Page 111 of The Werewolf’s Wrong Mate

“Something happened.”

“Describe it.”

“Ian.”

She went still. “What about him?”

“He’s afraid.”

Sava’s expression changed but the door opened before she could speak.

Ian came in first and he was covered in blood.

For one second, the room dropped away. Then I saw the way he held his hands out from his sides, palms open, body rigid with restraint.

Not his blood.

Ronan entered behind him, face like stone. Lucien followed, pale beneath his usual calm.

Ian stopped inside the door and didn’t come closer, but the mark reached for him so violently my whole body arched.

Sava caught my shoulder. “Cassie.”

“I’m fine.”

I was not fine. I was staring at the blood on Ian’s shirt, on his forearms, in a streak along his jaw. His eyes were dark. Human. Too controlled.

That frightened me more than gold would have.

“What happened?” I asked.

Ronan answered. “Brenner woke.”

Ian’s gaze stayed on me. I could feel him holding himself back. The blood had changed him. Not into the wolf, exactly. Into the man who had learned to stand still while violence tried to finish moving through him.

“He said a name,” Ronan said.

The room seemed to draw tight around the words. Ronan looked at me, then at Ian.

“Evelyn,” he said.

The mark pulsed once, hard and cold, but Ian still didn’t move toward me. That was when I realized the blood on him had started drying. He had stayed away long enough to come back under control. He had come to the door instead of the bed because he knew how he looked. Because he knew I would be afraid. Because even with blood on his skin and a wolf under it, he was still choosing what reached me.

My throat tightened.

“Ian,” I said.

His eyes closed for one second and the mark warmed with relief. His relief…and maybe a little of mine.

When he opened his eyes, I saw the effort it took him not to cross the room.

“Are you hurt?” I asked.

“No.”

“Is Brenner alive?”

“Yes.”