Page 84 of The Werewolf’s Wrong Mate

Sava glanced toward Ronan. “Shock can do strange things.”

“Sure,” I said. “So can guilt.”

That word went into the room and stayed there.

Ronan didn’t like it.

Good.

He looked toward the door. “No one speaks to her again without me present.”

Ian’s gaze stayed on me. “Or me.”

Ronan ignored him.

Sava made a note. “The visit raised her pulse, but the mark didn’t spread.”

I looked at her. “Glad my hostage meet-and-greet produced useful data.”

She capped her pen. “It did.”

“Wonderful.”

The exhaustion came fast then. It rolled over the anger, the fear, the strange awareness of Ian, and the cold little shelf in my mind where I had placed Evelyn’s careful words.

My eyelids grew heavy.

Ian took one step closer. “May I sit?”

The question was quiet. Simple.

“You may sit in the chair,” I said. “You may not loom, growl, threaten women in white, or look at my neck as if you’re having a religious crisis.”

Sava looked down at her notes. Ronan looked briefly at the ceiling, which from him was practically hysteria.

Ian sat, carefully, his hands staying on his knees and the mark settled at once. This time, it didn’t feel like surrender. It felt like a room quieting after too much noise, which frightened me in a whole new way.

Chapter 12:

A Very Convenient Accident

Cassie

By late afternoon, Sava decided I needed to stand.

I disagreed. My body disagreed more eloquently by making every muscle feel borrowed, every bone feel personally offended, and every inch of skin around the bite pulse with a dark little warning that movement had been invented by sadists.

Sava remained unmoved.

“You have been in bed too long,” she said, adjusting the cuff on my arm.

“I was bitten by a werewolf.”

“Yes.”

“I feel that should earn me at least some sympathy.”

“You have a concussion risk, venom response, blood loss, and an unstable mark trying to make decisions your body cannot support. I need to know whether you can stand before your muscles start bonding with the bed.”