Page 79 of The Werewolf’s Wrong Mate

The first time they tested distance, Sava made Ian step away from the chair beside my bed and stand near the sitting area. Maybe twelve feet. Not far enough to be dramatic. Far enough to remind my body that it had become unreasonable.

At first, nothing happened and I was proud of that for exactly six seconds.

Then the bite warmed. The warmth became pressure, the pressure became heat. The heat crawled under the bandage and sent a thin black line branching toward my collarbone while my heart stumbled into a rhythm the monitor didn’t appreciate.

Ian didn’t move, well he had been ordered not to move so of course he didn’t, but I could see what it cost him. That was new. His face didn’t give him away. Ian’s face revealed very little when he didn’t want it to. I felt him. That was the part nobody had put in a cheerful brochure. I felt the strain of him in my own body, not as pain exactly, but as pressure behind my ribs. His control had a texture. Hard. Hot. Pulled so tight it seemed to hum and beneath it, something paced.

Not metaphorically, something in him actually paced, and some newly ruined part of me knew it.

The wolf.

I could feel the shape of it without seeing it, the restless, furious animal testing the boundary of Ian’s skin because I was hurting and he had been told to stand still.

My pulse leapt and Ian’s gaze snapped to my face.

“You feel me,” he said.

It was not a question. I looked away and that was answer enough, which annoyed me.

Ronan noticed. Of course he noticed. The man collected information the way other people collected hotel soaps.

“Describe it,” he said.

My eyes cut to him. “I am not a lab report because you’re stressed.”

“You are alive because I need information.”

“I’m alive because your brother’s hand keeps werewolf poison from redecorating my organs.”

“That too.”

The honesty should have been refreshing. It mostly made me want to throw a pear at his head.

Sava stepped between my line of sight and Ronan’s. “Describe it to me, then.”

That was clever. I disliked being managed. I disliked Ronan. I disliked the mark, the room, the invisible wolves beyond the door, and the fact that my body felt too heavy for the amount of fury available.

I didn’t dislike Sava.

Yet.

I looked down at the sheet.

“It’s pressure,” I said. “When he moves away, the bite hurts. That part you already know. But before that, there’s something else.”

“What kind of something else?”

I searched for words that didn’t sound ridiculous and found none waiting.

“His control?” I said finally. “Or lack of it. I can feel him trying not to come closer.”

The room went silent. Ian’s expression didn’t change, but the pressure under my ribs tightened hard enough to steal my breath.

Sava looked at the monitor. “Interesting.”

“It is not interesting.”

“Everything is interesting if you are the one who is not bitten.”