Page 236 of The Werewolf’s Wrong Mate

Ronan’s face changed.

I hoped it hurt.

“You could not believe he chose me,” I said. “You could not believe I survived because maybe your laws were wrong. You could not believe something ridiculous and accidental could still be real. You looked at Ian and saw a weapon. You looked at me and saw a problem. So when someone gave you a prettier explanation with old magic and control, you swallowed it whole because it let you keep being right.”

Rain ran into my eyes. Or maybe not rain. I grabbed the collar of my sweater.

Sava said, “Cassie.”

I didn’t stop. I pulled the fabric down over one shoulder and ripped the wet bandage off the mark.

Pain flashed so bright the courtyard tilted but I stayed standing.

Barely.

The mark shown under the the moon. It was black around the edges, raw, ugly, and swollen. Beneath all that damage, gold threaded through the bite like fire under skin.

Every wolf in the courtyard reacted. I felt the collective inhale. The sudden shift in the air. The old certainty cracking under the sight of a human woman standing alive under the full moon with a mark that refused to die.

I pressed my fingers around the edge of it.

“This is my mate,” I said.

The word sounded insane.

I said it anyway.

“However strange that sounds, and I do want credit for knowing it sounds extremely strange, I choose him. I choose us. Whatever dumb werewolf magic this is, it didn’t suddenly make Ian into more than you allowed him to be. He was always more. You were all just too busy using him and fearing him to see it.”

Behind me, Ian made a sound.

Low.

Broken.

Not wolf enough to be only a growl.

“If you are going to kill him,” I said, “then kill me too.”

The moon came fully through the torn clouds and the bond snapped back.

Not away.

Back.

It hit with such force that I staggered. Sava caught my arm, but she didn’t pull me away. Pain and gold and heat flooded through the torn place in my chest. All the ragged edges Ian had tried to carve apart blazed at once, and then the agony shifted. It was no longer being ripped open.

It was being remade.

No.

Claimed.

Not by magic alone. Not by old law. Not by accident.

By me. By him. By the choice I had just made with every wolf in the courtyard watching.

I turned slowly.