Page 165 of The Werewolf’s Wrong Mate

Our eyes met. For once, there was no argument between us because the same fact stood on both sides. Tonight, law would not be enough.

Ronan turned to Cassie. “You remember the course?”

“South gate, inner lane, bad air, dry creek if I can reach it, avoid moss, do not cross the boundary unless I want every ancient wolf in a five-mile radius to become even more annoying.”

Cormac’s voice came from the doorway behind Ronan. “A nearly flawless summary.”

Cassie closed her eyes for one second. “Of course you’re here.”

“I would not miss this.”

“That is not comforting.”

“It was not meant to be.”

Ronan stepped back. “We move.”

Cassie turned to me. I wanted to touch her face. I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to tell her again that no one would touch her, but the words felt too small for what waited outside.

She saved me from choosing. She reached up, gripped the front of my shirt, and pulled me down into a hard, brief kiss. A claim made in front of everyone who thought the word belonged only to wolves.

When she released me, her eyes were bright.

“Find me,” she said.

The wolf answered so fiercely the bond flared between us.

“I will.”

Then she turned toward the door and walked out ahead of me, limping slightly, terrified completely, and still somehow making every old law on the island feel like it should be the thing afraid of her.

Chapter 20:

A Spectacular Failure of Safeguards

Cassie

The south gate looked smaller than it should have.

That was the first stupid thing my brain chose to notice. Not the moon hanging low and bright over the dark line of trees. Not the council witnesses standing on the terrace in formal black, all solemn faces and old bloodlines. Not Evelyn watching from the east rise in a pale dress that made her look less like a woman and more like a funeral someone had taught to breathe.

The gate.

Small. Iron. Old.

The kind of gate that should have led to a garden where rich people drank wine and complained about the heat. Instead, it opened into the course where I was supposed to prove an accidental supernatural relationship had not been imagined.

“I hate this place,” I said.

Sava stood beside me, checking the tape over my bandage for the third time. “Good. Hatred raises focus.”

“That sounds medically suspicious.”

“It is emotionally useful.”

Ronan stood a few feet away with Lucien and two guards. Ian was not beside me. That had been one of the rules. He waited at the west gate, out of sight, because old law required the marked wolf not to watch where his mate began.

Mate.