Page 181 of The Werewolf’s Wrong Mate

The single word stopped me more cleanly than Sava’s warning. Ronan watched it happen. Something grim moved through his expression.

“There it is,” he said.

My hands curled. “Careful.”

“No. We’re past careful.” Ronan’s voice stayed even, which made it worse. “The council watched my command fail in front of every pack with an interest in weakening us. They watched a human woman do what Alpha blood could not. Do you understand what that means?”

“It means they owe her their lives.”

“It means they will call her a leash.”

The word landed foul in the room. Cassie went very still.

I took one step toward him. “Do not call her that.”

“I am telling you what they will call her.” Ronan didn’t move back. He never did. “A leash. A weakness. A weapon already attached to the most dangerous wolf in my pack.”

“She is a person.”

“I know that.”

“Then start speaking like it.”

“I am speaking as the Alpha who has to keep her alive through the next hour, then the next day, then whatever comes when every elder in that hall realizes she has more hold over you than I do.”

“You mean control.”

“I mean survival.”

Sava crossed her arms. “You both are doing beautifully at having the worst possible conversation beside a patient with blood loss.”

Neither of us looked at her.

Ronan’s jaw flexed. “You bonded further with her.”

Cassie’s breath caught.

I didn’t answer.

Ronan’s eyes went flat. “Do not insult me by denying it. I can smell it on both of you.”

A flush rose along Cassie’s throat. Anger followed it. “Well that is a hideous thing to say out loud.”

“Yes,” Ronan said, and for once there was weariness beneath the steel. “It is. Everything about this is hideous now.”

My wolf rose at the shame in her scent. I shoved him down.

Ronan saw that too.“You are binding yourself deeper to a human woman who has to die in every version of the story the pack knows how to tell.”

The words hollowed the room. Cassie’s face lost color. I heard the change in her heartbeat.

Ronan’s gaze didn’t leave mine. “If the bond is false, they will call her death mercy. If the bond is real, the council will never allow a human marked mate to live freely. If she leaves knowing what we are, she is exposure. If the bond sets fully, every enemy we have can use her to break you, then break this pack through you.”

“Enough,” Sava said.

“No,” Ronan said. “He needs to hear it before he decides tenderness can rewrite law.”

“Tenderness didn’t kill those wolves.”