Page 74 of The Werewolf’s Wrong Mate

Sava adjusted something in the IV. “Your body is burning through the medication faster when you’re upset.”

“Tell my family to be less talented.”

No one laughed.

Good. I had not been joking.

Ronan took the tablet from the tray and handed it to the nurse. “The call bought time.”

I looked at him. “That’s what I am now? Time?”

“Yes.”

Ian’s hand stiffened beneath mine.

Ronan saw it and didn’t soften. “You wanted honesty.”

“I wanted not to be bitten by a werewolf at my sister’s rehearsal dinner. We’re all settling.”

The words came out weaker than I wanted.

Ronan placed the tablet on the side table. “The wedding remains delayed. Your family remains on the west side. Your father is less likely to force a confrontation in the next few hours. Grant Carrington has been corrected publicly enough to reduce that particular narrative.”

“Corrected,” I repeated.

“He understands pressure.”

“Grant understands humiliation. Pressure would require a spine.”

Ian’s thumb moved once beneath my fingers, barely a touch, and the mark warmed. I looked down at our hands and he stopped at once.

Good.

I wanted it to be good.

It didn’t feel good. It felt like losing one more private piece of myself to a body that no longer asked me before answering him.

Ronan watched the exchange with the silent attention of a man counting cracks in a dam.

I looked at him because his coldness was easier to face than Ian’s guilt. “So why exactly, was I not supposed to survive this supernatural dog bite.”

Sava glanced at Ronan, but Ronan only said, “Ian will explain what he did.”

Ian’s gaze cut to his brother.

Ronan’s face gave him nothing. “The simple version.”

I turned my head toward Ian. He looked as if he would rather take a knife to the ribs, but I didn’t care.

“Explain.”

He stayed beside the bed, hands now folded in front of him where I could see them.

“The bite was a mate mark,” he said.

Hearing it again didn’t make it less ridiculous. It made it worse because the room didn’t blink.

“Yes I heard you the first time, a werewolf mate mark,” I said.