Page 83 of The Werewolf’s Wrong Mate

She didn’t look disgusted or horrified. No, she looked afraid, and not of me dying. Of me living.

My skin prickled.

“Thank you for the advice,” I said.

Ronan’s gaze cut to me. He heard the change in my tone. So did Ian.

Evelyn seemed to hear acceptance. “I know you have no reason to trust me.”

“That’s true.”

“But we both had a choice taken from us last night.”

Also true. Too true, maybe.

She took a half step forward but Ian’s growl stopped her before Ronan could. The sound barely rose above his chest, but Evelyn froze as if he had put a hand around her throat.

The mark in my shoulder warmed. My body felt his warning move outward. Not at me. Around me. A circle drawn in the air by something old and violent and certain that no one crossed without permission.

I should have been terrified and truthfully, I was terrified, but that didn’t explain the other thing. The other thing was a low, shameful relief that moved through my body before I could stop it. Not because Evelyn had threatened me. Not exactly. Because Ian had sensed something I had sensed too, and for one second, I was not the only person in the room reading a performance underneath pretty words.

Evelyn’s eyes lowered.

Ronan stepped into the doorway fully. “That is enough.”

She nodded. “Of course.”

Before she turned, she looked at me one last time.

“Do not let them make your survival sound like a gift,” she said. “Sometimes survival is only the start of ownership.”

Then she left and the door closed behind her.

Ronan looked at Ian first. “You growled at a Thorne daughter in front of witnesses.”

Ian looked ready to argue but I spoke first.

“She is scared of the mark.”

All three of them turned to me.

Ronan’s gaze sharpened. “Why do you say that?”

“Because she looked at it the way Grant looks at a phone left unlocked.”

No one understood that immediately. Then Sava’s face changed a fraction. She did.

“Like it might prove something,” I said.

Ronan stepped closer. “Prove what?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Ian was watching me now and the pressure under my ribs changed again, quieter this time, focused. He believed me.

Ronan’s expression remained unreadable. “Evelyn had reason to be distressed by what happened.”

“Distressed people look at the person bleeding. She kept looking at the bite.”