Page 71 of The Werewolf’s Wrong Mate

But I still loved her.

That was the unfair part. Love didn’t always leave when self-respect arrived. Sometimes it sat there between the broken furniture and made everything harder to clean up.

“I’m alive,” I said. “That’s what I need you to hear.”

Tessa nodded hard, crying silently now.

My mother leaned forward. “They said you fell near the east service path.”

“I did.”

It was true enough to taste bad.

“And cut yourself?” Dad asked.

His eyes were on my face, not the robe, not the soft lighting, not the official neatness of the call. He knew. Not the truth. Not wolves. But he knew there were pieces missing.

“Yes,” I said. “Badly enough that everyone is being very dramatic about infection.”

Sava’s gaze flicked to me but I ignored her.

“Do you remember what happened?” Dad asked.

The room tightened around me. Ronan didn’t move, but I felt his attention. Ian’s stillness changed too. The mark responded to him before I did, warming along my shoulder with a slow, unwelcome pulse.

I looked at my father on the screen. I wanted to tell him. The want hit so hard it felt physical. I wanted to say there are monsters here, and I am in a locked room, and the man who hurt me is standing beside the bed because his touch keeps poison from burning through my heart. I wanted to say come get me, because a childish part of me still believed my father could walk into any nightmare and make it answer for itself.

Instead, I said, “I remember chasing Henry. I remember falling. The rest is messy.”

Dad’s expression didn’t change, but Aunt Linda’s did. She knew an edited sentence when she heard one. She came from our family, we had practically invented them.

Grant moved into frame, his face held soft concern. That alone made me want to throw the tablet through a window that didn’t open.

“Cassie,” he said. “We’re all relieved you’re awake.”

I said nothing. He let the silence sit for half a second, just long enough to look wounded.

Then he continued, “Everyone was worried. You ran off so suddenly, and after the champagne, I think people were afraid you might have been more upset than you realized.”

There it was. There was always a there it was with Grant.

My body went cold beneath the robe.

On the screen, Dad’s face changed. Aunt Linda lowered her mimosa. Tessa looked confused at first, then uncomfortable, and my mother briefly closed her eyes.

Ronan watched me from near the door, his face unreadable. Ian didn’t move, but I felt violence gather at the edge of the room as clearly as I felt the pain under my skin.

I kept my eyes on Grant.

“That’s interesting,” I said.

His expression softened further. “I only mean, emotions were high. No one blames you.”

“Blames me for…chasing a dog?”

“For being overwhelmed.”

“Grant,” Dad said, his voice quiet enough to be dangerous.