Page 145 of The Werewolf’s Wrong Mate

“That says terrible things about the island.”

Cormac stood near the terrace steps with one hand on his cane and a look of open enjoyment. “She is not wrong.”

Ronan ignored him, which was one of his more common leadership strategies.

Sava checked the monitor clipped to Cassie’s wrist. “You are not running today.”

Cassie glanced at the broken walls, the hedges, and the dark mouth of the grove. “That was not my first concern.”

“You are hiding.”

Cassie looked at me, and the mark warmed beneath my skin in answer.

It had been doing that since the kiss. Every time her gaze touched my mouth and slid away again, every time I remembered her hand on my chest, every time her anger flared because I had stopped and I knew she had been right to be angry, the mark answered before either of us could pretend not to feel it. Last night had not gone away. It had settled into both of us, unfinished and dangerous, a live coal under every careful word.

Cassie looked away first. “Hiding I can do.”

Ronan stepped down from the terrace. “The exercise is simple. Cassie has five minutes to choose a hiding place inside the marked boundary. Ian waits behind the lower gate until Cormac gives the call. He finds her. Sava ends the exercise if the mark destabilizes.”

Cassie lifted a hand. “Question.”

Ronan looked at her.

“If this is practice for the official hunt, and the official hunt is supposed to prove he can find me, why does everyone look like they expect me to politely hide behind the first decorative shrub?”

Cormac’s smile sharpened.

Ronan’s eyes narrowed by a fraction. “No one expects that.”

“Good. I’ve been underestimated enough this week, and I would like to diversify.”

Pride moved through the bond before I could stop it. Cassie felt enough of it to glance at me, and the brief satisfaction in her face nearly cut through my control more cleanly than fear ever could.

Sava’s mouth tightened. “Diversify carefully.”

“I have never hidden recklessly in my life.”

“That is not reassuring.”

Cassie turned toward the ruins with Sava beside her. Her steps were careful over the uneven ground, though she tried to make them look casual. She favored her left side when the path dipped, and the bandage beneath the sweater pulled when she misjudged the first rise of stone. She hid the pain well from everyone watching.

Not from me. The urge to follow her hit hard enough that I took one step before Ronan’s voice stopped me.

“Gate.”

I turned slowly.

My brother met my stare without blinking. “You agreed to the rules.”

“I agreed because she did.”

“And you will keep agreeing for the same reason.”

The lower gate opened behind me. I stepped through, and iron closed between me and the training ground with a sound that made the wolf push against my skin.

Cassie looked back once from the ruins. Only once. Then she disappeared behind a broken stone wall, and the mark tightened as if something inside my body had been tied to hers and pulled across the ground.

Five minutes should not have been difficult. I had waited longer for kill orders. I had stood beside my brother through council sessions that lasted until dawn. I had held my shift under silver smoke while old wolves tested whether my control could be used against me. None of that mattered while Cassie moved through broken stone with a half-healed wound, the day before wolves would call her false if I failed to bring her back.