Page 81 of The Werewolf’s Wrong Mate

I closed my eyes. “I love when men discuss me as if I’ve become plumbing.”

Ronan’s gaze returned to me. “If the connection strengthens, the council will have more reason to fear you.”

“And if it weakens?”

“Then we may be able to free both of you.”

I looked at Ian then. He looked tired, which was absurd. His body didn’t seem built for tired. He looked like something that waited in forests and ended wars. But the exhaustion was there beneath the hard line of his mouth and the brutal way he held his shoulders. He had not slept. I swear he had barely blinked. He was standing in a locked room with the woman he had nearly killed, trying to want nothing from her while his whole body argued against him.

The pressure under my ribs changed to something softer. No, not softer, more like less violent. I felt the difference in him before I understood my own reaction. His guilt was still there, rough and heavy, but under it sat something else. A carefulness so intense it almost hurt. He wanted to come closer. He wanted to comfort. He wanted to put his body between me and every threat in the building.

And he was afraid that doing any of it would make him another threat.

My throat tightened. I didn’t want sympathy for him. I especially didn’t want to understand him.

Ian’s eyes narrowed slightly, as if he had felt something move through me in return, but before he could say anything a knock came at the door.

Ronan opened it only halfway. Lucien stood in the hall, and beside him was a woman in white.

Every muscle in Ian’s body locked. I knew her before anyone said her name. The woman from the circle. Pale hair braided down her back. Lovely face. White dress, though this one was less ceremonial than the one I remembered through pain and moonlight. Her eyes were blue, her hands folded at her waist. She looked calm in the careful way of women who had been taught stillness made grief more beautiful.

Ian’s intended mate.

Evelyn Thorne.

Something ugly moved in my stomach. Certainly not jealousy. I refused jealousy on principle. It was worse than that. Awareness? The humiliating knowledge that this woman had been standing where I fell, that my blood had replaced hers in a ceremony I didn’t understand, that everyone in the room knew it and nobody had bothered to prepare me before putting her in the doorway.

Her gaze went from Ian to me, then to the bandage at my shoulder. It stayed there one second too long.

“Alpha Holloway,” she said quietly. “May I speak with her?”

“No,” Ian said.

Ronan didn’t look at him. “Why?”

Evelyn’s throat moved. “Because I owe her no harm.”

That was a strange sentence. Not, I mean no harm, I owe her none.

Cassie the human wanted to dismiss it as rich supernatural etiquette. Cassie the woman who had survived family dinners, couple’s therapy, and Grant Carrington’s sincerity heard the wording and placed it carefully on a shelf.

Ronan opened the door wider but didn’t step away from it. “You may stand there.”

Evelyn accepted that without argument.

Smart.

Her eyes moved to me again. Up close, she looked younger than I had first thought. Late twenties, maybe. Perfect skin, perfect posture, perfect control. Her face carried embarrassment, hurt, and something that looked enough like compassion to be useful.

“Ms. Morgan,” she said. “I am Evelyn Thorne.”

“I figured.”

A flash of surprise moved through her eyes.

Good. Apparently humans were allowed pattern recognition.

“I am sorry for what happened to you,” she said.