Page 53 of The Werewolf’s Wrong Mate

That thought made me nauseous.

Sava adjusted the IV stand. “The fever may climb again by afternoon.”

“Lovely.”

“You will feel pain, heat, chills, nausea, dizziness, sensory disturbance, and possibly emotional instability.”

I looked at her. “You mean beyond waking up in werewolf jail?”

Her mouth pressed thin. “Yes.”

Fair enough.

The nurse tucked the sheet around my legs. “Do you need anything before I step out?”

“My phone. My father. An attorney. Pants.”

The nurse looked at Ronan and I hated her immediately. Ronan stood by the door, still and broad and grim enough to make the room feel smaller. He didn’t look like a man keeping a prisoner for pleasure. That might have been easier to understand. He looked like a man making an ugly choice and already planning the next three.

“You will have your phone,” he said.

That surprised me.

He saw it and added, “Supervised.”

Less surprising.

“I want to call my dad.”

“No.”

My laugh came out dry and thin. “You are very committed to being my least favorite kidnapper.”

His expression didn’t change. “Your father cannot hear your voice until you can control what you say.”

“I am thirty-eight years old. I have been controlling what I say around family since I was old enough to understand Thanksgiving seating.”

“That was before you were bitten, poisoned, and shown a world that kills to stay hidden.”

My stomach tightened.

“What happens if I tell him?” I asked.

Ian’s head lifted. Ronan looked at me for a long second, and I understood before he answered that whatever he said would be the cleaned-up version.

“If your father learns what we are, he becomes a risk. If he tells your mother, your sister, the groom, anyone, the risk spreads. If humans arrive with police, cameras, paramedics, or weapons, my people respond. Then humans die, wolves die, and secrecy dies with them.”

Ian said, “Ronan.”

“No,” Ronan said. “She needs to know what silence is buying.”

I stared at him. Some part of me wanted to argue. To throw law at him, police, federal agencies, news, every ordinary institution I had trusted without loving. But the night had stripped ordinary from the room. I had seen a man become a wolf. I had seen other people watch it as if it was terrible but not impossible.

Ronan didn’t fear consequences, he was calculating acceptable casualties.

“You’re saying you’ll kill my family.”

“I am saying if this becomes exposure, I will protect my pack.”