Page 112 of The Werewolf’s Wrong Mate

“Did you kill anyone?”

Ronan answered. “No.”

I looked back at Ian. He was still watching me like the answer should matter more from him.

“No,” he said.

I breathed out. Sava looked between us, quiet and sharp. Ronan saw it too. He stood near the door, Alpha and jailer and brother, and understood at the same time I did that something had shifted while Ian was gone.

Ian had left bloody and afraid, and some part of me had felt it from across the resort. Now he stood ten feet away, refusing to bring that blood to my bedside unless I allowed it. My body wanted him closer.

My mind on the other hand, was not ready to want anything.

So I gave us both the only middle ground I could manage.

“There’s a bathroom through that door,” I said. “Wash your hands before you come near me.”

Ian’s face changed, grateful in a way that made my chest hurt. He nodded once and went. The bathroom door closed and water started running.

Ronan looked at me.

I met his stare, exhausted and shaking under the blankets.

“What?”

His voice was quiet. “You can feel him at distance.”

“You already knew that.”

“What else can you feel?”

I looked toward the bathroom door. The water ran steadily. Ian’s blood would be circling the drain. His hands would be braced on the sink. His head might be bowed. I knew that last part without seeing it.

Or maybe I only imagined it.

That was the terrifying thing now.

The line between knowing and wanting to know had begun to blur.

I looked back at Ronan. “I can feel enough to know you’re both worried.”

His expression didn’t change. Ronan, for the first time since I had met him, gave me no immediate answer.

Good. Let him feel what it was like to be the one being read.

The water shut off and Ian came back with clean hands, clean jaw, and a fresh black shirt pulled from some secret werewolf bathroom stash.

He stopped by the bathroom door and waited. I held his gaze, then I nodded pointedly toward the chair beside the bed.

“Sit down,” I said.

He did. Not close enough to touch but close enough for my body to stop searching the room for him.

Ronan watched us both and said nothing.

Outside the locked windows, dusk darkened the glass.

We were one day closer to the full moon.