Page 174 of The Werewolf’s Wrong Mate

“It already is,” Cassie said.

“You understand what just happened out there?”

“I understand that three wolves tried to murder me and Ian killed them. I’m tired, Sava, so if there is a lecture about the finer points of pack optics, I would enjoy bleeding less before we begin.”

Sava’s mouth pressed flat, but her eyes warmed. “Good. You still have teeth.”

“I’ve had a very educational week.”

I leaned forward, unable to stop myself. “Cassie.”

She looked at me then, and the humor thinned. Underneath it was the hunt. The mud. The teeth. The moment she had been pinned beneath another male’s claws while I was too far away to stop him from touching what was mine.

No. Not mine. Hers.

Hers, and alive, and lying in this bed because she had called me back when every law in my body had wanted blood until nothing moved.

“I know,” she said softly.

She didn’t, but she knew enough.

Sava finished cleaning her hip and pressed a folded pad over the worst of it. “Hold this.”

I reached before thinking.

Sava’s hand snapped up. “Gently.”

Cassie’s palm covered the back of my hand and guided it into place. “Here.”

The pressure had to be firm. Not too much. Not too little. My hands knew how to break bone, close around throats, drag enemies backward into the dark. They were less certain with gauze and a woman who had trusted me while terrified.

Cassie watched my face while I held the pad to her skin.

“You came back,” she said.

My throat closed.

Sava’s hands slowed for one beat.

I looked at the bandage instead of Cassie’s eyes. “You called.”

“Ronan called too.”

“I heard him.”

“And?”

“And nothing in me cared.”

The truth sat there, ugly and bare.

Outside the suite, voices rose and cut off. Ronan’s, low and lethal. Another elder, old enough to think age could protect him from consequences. A door shut hard somewhere down the corridor. The pack was moving around the shape of what had happened. They would be counting bodies. Assigning blame. Measuring the distance between Alpha command and the thing I had become when Cassie’s blood hit the air.

They had feared my wolf for years. Tonight, they had learned my wolf had one chain left in the world, and it was wrapped around a human woman the council already wanted dead.

Sava bandaged Cassie’s arm, then her hip. She checked Cassie’s pupils, her pulse, the mark, the bruises around her wrists. Every touch was professional. Every breath out of me had to be measured.

At last Sava straightened. “You need sleep. Actual sleep. No council. No interrogation. No brave nonsense.”