Page 42 of The Werewolf’s Wrong Mate

I stared at him.

“She is alive because if we kill her, you kill half the pack trying to stop us,” Ronan said to Ian. “You may expose us anyway. You may leave me no choice but to put you down in front of our own people.”

Ian flinched.

Ronan turned his eyes to me. “So, Ms. Morgan, understand where you stand. I do not know you. I didn’t ask for you. I do not care about your feelings, your wedding party, or your shock, except where they intersect with keeping my people alive and our existence hidden.”

“Ronan,” Ian said.

“No.” Ronan’s gaze stayed on me. “She needs truth more than comfort. If you die tonight, I will manage the damage. If you live, you will obey every restriction placed on you until I understand what my brother did and how to undo it without slaughtering my own council.”

The room seemed to shrink around the bed. My body shook under the blanket. Fever, fear, rage, all braided too tightly to separate.

“You’re threatening me while I’m dying.”

“I am explaining your odds.”

“My odds are terrible.”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“And if I live, I’m a prisoner.”

“For now.”

I looked at Ian. He didn’t deny it. That hurt in a way the bite had not reached. Because monsters were one thing. Men were another. I knew what it felt like when a man’s silence gave the room permission.

Ian’s face tightened as if he knew exactly where my mind had gone.

“I will not let them hurt you,” he said.

I closed my eyes. “You already did.”

No one spoke after that. Not for a while. Sava worked over me with brisk hands and no pity. Ronan left once, returned, spoke in low voices with guards, and left again. Ian sat beside the bed because his touch kept the worst of the pain from becoming something I could not survive. He asked permission once before putting his hand back on my shoulder.

I hated that the asking mattered. I hated that I said yes.

Sometime deep in the night, the fever climbed so high the room began to come apart. The ceiling rippled. The shadows breathed. Voices outside the door stretched long and thin, then snapped into strange clarity. I heard people arguing beyond the walls as if they stood beside my bed.

“She is suffering.”

“She is a breach.”

“She is dead already.”

“Then let the poison finish it.”

“If it does not?”

“It will.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Kill her before sunrise and burn the body.”

Ian’s hand went rigid on my shoulder. The sound that left him was not human. I opened my eyes. His face was turned toward the door, every line of him locked around violence.

“Don’t,” I whispered.