Page 116 of The Werewolf’s Wrong Mate

“That is not an answer.”

“Yes. Chair only. No more than an hour. If the mark flares or fever climbs, I remove her whether she objects or not.”

“I will object,” Cassie said.

“I assume that,” Sava replied.

Twenty minutes later, I pushed Cassie’s wheelchair into the private corridor behind the east salon. This time she didn’t ask if I was pushing, she just let me. That did something dangerous inside my chest. Not triumph or ownership. Trust, maybe. Small and unwilling, but real enough that I felt the wolf go quiet around it.

The east salon had been built for humans to see luxury and wolves to see power. Dark paneling. Tall windows. Heavy doors. Long table. Enough exits to control a fight and enough space to survive one.

The council gathered before Ronan called them. That told me enough. Wolves didn’t move early unless they smelled blood, weakness, or opportunity. That morning, the east salon had all three.

Ronan entered first. I pushed Cassie’s chair through the adjoining study and stopped where she could see through the open double doors without being seated at the council table. Sava stood behind her with one hand on the chair and the other near the medical kit she had refused to leave upstairs.

Cassie’s face was pale. Too pale. The mark at her shoulder was covered by black fabric and clean bandage, but I felt it anyway. Warm. Awake. Listening through both of us.

Evelyn stood beside the far window with her father’s man behind her. Silas Thorne had not come himself, which meant he wanted distance from what she was about to do. Smart. Cowardly. Effective.

She wore gray today. Soft mourning gray, as if she had already lost something and expected the room to comfort her for it.

Malrec sat at Ronan’s right, thin hands folded over a black cane. His eyes went first to me, then to Cassie. He didn’t look at her like a woman. He looked at her like a problem waiting for a permanent solution.

Ronan took the head of the table. “Speak.”

No welcome. No courtesy. No illusion that this was anything but a room full of teeth held behind manners.

Evelyn lowered her head. “Alpha Holloway, I come with grief and concern.”

Cassie muttered from the study, “Always a promising start.”

Sava made a very quiet sound.

Ronan’s eyes flicked toward the study.

Malrec’s mouth tightened. “The human should not be present.”

“The human is why we are meeting,” Ronan said.

“She is also why the rite failed.”

I turned my head slowly toward him.

Ronan said my name without looking at me. “Ian.”

I held still. Barely.

Evelyn looked toward Cassie then. Her expression softened in a way that made the wolf dislike her more.

“Ms. Morgan,” she said. “I am sorry for your suffering.”

Cassie sat straighter, though I knew it cost her. “That sounds rehearsed.”

“It is sincere.”

“Those are not mutually exclusive.”

Evelyn’s mouth tightened before she smoothed it away. “You are human. You were never meant to carry wolf magic. What happened to you was violent and unnatural.”