Page 182 of The Werewolf’s Wrong Mate

“No. The bond did.”

“I killed those wolves.”

“Because they touched her.”

“Because they tried to murder her!”

“And if the council decides she is the reason you cannot be commanded? If they decide removing her restores you? What then?”

My voice dropped. “Then they die.”

Cassie’s eyes closed for one brief second.

Ronan stared at me. There was no triumph in his face. Only the bleak confirmation of every fear he had carried into the room.

“That is what I am trying to stop,” he said. “You are proving their case every time you speak.”

“I will not stand here and make her death sound reasonable so frightened old men can sleep.”

“Neither will I.” His control cracked for the first time. “Do you think I want her dead? Do you think I have enjoyed threatening her, containing her, lying to her family, watching her walk through our laws while they sharpen around her neck? I am trying to keep an impossible situation from becoming a massacre.”

“She is not the massacre.”

“No, she is the match!”

The room went silent.

Cassie’s voice came soft from the bed. “I’m right here.”

Ronan looked at her.

She had managed to sit up despite Sava’s visible displeasure, one hand pressed near her bandaged hip, her face drawn with pain. The blanket had slipped around her shoulders. She looked human in the most devastating sense. Tired. Bruised. Mortal.

Alive.

“I know,” Ronan said.

“No, I don’t think you do.” Her voice shook, then steadied. “You keep talking around me like I’m a political weather event.”

“You are a marked human in a wolf pack.”

“I am Cassie. I am bleeding on your very expensive sheets. I am tired enough to consider murder if someone does not bring me water. I am also done listening to powerful men explain how many practical reasons there are to dispose of me.”

Sava crossed to the table and poured water without a word.

Ronan’s expression tightened. “I am not disposing of you.”

“Good. Put that in writing.”

Sava handed her the glass. “Small sips.”

Cassie drank, eyes still on Ronan. My chest hurt with wanting her. With fearing for her. With the knowledge that Ronan was right about the shape of the danger and wrong about the only conclusion that mattered.

Ronan turned back to me. “The bond is false, Ian. Warped. Unnatural. Whatever was done in that circle is not real.”

“Do not use that word for her.”

“I am using it for the magic.”