Page 30 of The Werewolf’s Wrong Mate

The answer moved through me without language. The wolf had the body because the wolf had chosen, and the man had failed to stop him. He didn’t trust me with her yet.

I didn’t blame him.

Her fingers twitched against the grass and every muscle in me locked. She made a small sound through her teeth, no longer a scream, worse than one because she had lost the strength to give pain its proper voice. The black veins had reached her collarbone. Sweat shone along her throat. Her skin had gone too pale beneath the flush of fever beginning to rise.

The mark was poisoning her.

My mark.

I had done that. I had bitten a human woman who had fallen into a rite she could not understand, and now old magic was moving through her blood with nowhere safe to go.

My wolf lowered his head toward her again.

No.

The word was mine, and this time I meant it for him. He wanted to lick the wound. Warm it. Cover it. Force the mark to settle because the beast knew only the brutal medicine of possession. I held him back.

Barely.

Ronan saw the fight. His voice lowered. “Brother.”

That almost broke me worse than the command.

Malrec tried to edge around him and I snapped my teeth at the elder.

Ronan didn’t look away from me. “No one touches her.”

Malrec hissed, “Alpha, the law is clear.”

“The law can wait until I ask for it.”

“The bite will kill her.” Malrec objected.

“Then you have no need to hurry.”

The elder’s face went hard. I marked that. Later, if there was a later, I would remember every wolf who looked disappointed when Ronan denied them a corpse.

Silas Thorne stepped forward at the far edge of the circle, his silver-lined coat untouched, his mouth set in a careful line of concern.

Careful men made me want to open them and check what they hid.

“Alpha Holloway,” he said, “surely Elder Malrec speaks from caution. The girl is human. Whatever has happened here cannot be allowed to endanger both packs.”

I took one step toward him.

Ronan’s power struck across my shoulders like a chain. “Ian.”

Silas stopped speaking. He was smarter than some.

Evelyn’s mother clutched her daughter’s arm. Evelyn didn’t move. Her face had gone bloodless, but her gaze still held on the human’s mark with a focus that sharpened the wrongness in me.

The little dog whined again and the human’s hand tightened around the leash. Unconscious, burning alive from the inside, and still holding on.

My chest vibrated with a sound I could not stop.

Ronan looked down at her then. His gaze took in the torn dress, the bare feet, the blood soaking the blush fabric at her shoulder, the black veins crawling beneath her skin, and the stubborn fist closed around the dog’s leash.

Something moved across his face. Fast. Gone before anyone else could use it. My brother had never been soft, but he had never been stupid either.