Page 171 of The Werewolf’s Wrong Mate

My breath broke. Under all that rage, Ian was terrified.

“I’m alive,” I said again, and my voice cracked on it. “Ian, I’m alive. You found me. Now come back.”

His claws dug deeper into the stone.

“I need you,” I whispered. “Not the thing they made out of you. You.”

That reached him. The gold in his eyes flickered like something under deep water. His mouth closed. His breathing changed. The shape of his hands shifted first, claws dragging back through skin with a sound that made him shudder. His shoulders followed, muscle and bone fighting their way toward human.

He didn’t move off me. I didn’t ask him to. Not yet. I kept my hand on his face and felt him come back by degrees, each one brutal.

His eyes found mine.

“Cassie,” he said.

My name sounded ruined in his mouth.

“There,” I whispered, because if I said anything else I might fall apart. “That’s better.”

Behind him, Sava released a breath that sounded like it had cost her. Ronan didn’t move. Neither did the guards. Everyone on that course had just seen the truth. Ian Holloway, pack enforcer, Alpha’s brother, the weapon they aimed when law failed, had gone somewhere no Alpha order could follow.

And I had called him back.

Ian’s hand moved toward my side, then stopped before touching the blood. “May I?”

The question, in that voice, after all that violence, almost broke me.

“This feels like a weird time for manners,” I said.

His eyes stayed on mine. “May I?”

“Yes.”

He pressed his palm carefully over the wound.

I hissed. “Enthusiasm, Ian.”

“I know.”

“Then consider applying less of it.”

A sound moved through his chest. Not quite a laugh. Not quite a sob. Something alive enough that I held onto it.

Sava approached slowly, hands visible, gaze locked on Ian like he was a bomb with a pulse.

“I need to treat her,” she said.

Ian’s body tightened over mine.

I touched his cheek again. “Let her.”

The words went into him through the bond. His jaw flexed. Then, inch by inch, he shifted enough for Sava to reach me.

He didn’t leave or uncage me fully, but he let her touch the wound.

For the moment, that was civilization.

Chapter 21: