Page 199 of The Werewolf’s Wrong Mate

No one stopped me on the way back.

The resort had become a countdown. Every hallway smelled of fear, silver, old polish, and decisions made by wolves who would never dirty their own hands. Guards stepped aside before I reached them. Some bowed their heads. Some watched me with the flat, wary eyes of men trying to decide whether loyalty would survive the next order.

It would not.

When I reached the suite, Sava was seated outside the door with a book open in her lap and a blade resting across the page. She looked up once, and the book closed.

“You look calm,” she said.

I didn’t answer and her face changed. Sava had seen too many dying men to mistake calm for peace.

She stood. “Ian.”

“Is she awake?”

“No.”

“Fever?”

“No.”

“The mark?”

“It darkened once after you left. Settled again when I sat with her.”

I reached for the handle but Sava stepped in front of the door.

My wolf growled.

Sava didn’t move. “Do not make that sound at me. I have been growled at by better men in more convincing states of collapse.”

“Sava.”

“What happened?”

“Move.”

“No.”

I looked at her then. She looked back. Smaller than me. Older than my rage. Unimpressed by both.

“Whatever you are carrying,” she said, “ask yourself if she deserves to wake under the weight of it.”

“She will not.”

Sava went very still. She heard the shape of the answer.

The third goodbye waited there, and I hated that she heard it before I could hide it. Sava, who had stitched me together more times than I could count. Sava, who had called me an idiot at sixteen while setting my broken hand. Sava, who had threatened silver in my spine because Cassie needed care and I was too feral to understand help.

Sava, who would try to save me if she knew. I could not afford that kindness.

“She was never supposed to be part of this,” I said.

“No,” Sava answered. “She was not.”

“They made her into a handle.”

Her eyes closed for one brief second. So she knew, enough of it anyways.