Page 86 of The Werewolf’s Wrong Mate

The difference startled me.

His skin was warm under the black sleeve. Hard muscle. A steady pulse. Beneath that, a low vibration I would not have noticed yesterday. Maybe not a vibration exactly. A hum. A presence? The wolf under his skin, aware of my fingers, aware of my weakness, aware of the distance between my throat and his mouth.

I went still and Ian did too.

Sava looked from his face to mine. “Pain?”

“No,” I said.

The answer came too fast and her eyes narrowed.

“Cassie.”

“It isn’t pain.”

That was all I was willing to give her with Ian standing close enough to hear my pulse do something stupid.

His gaze dropped to my fingers on his arm. He knew. Of course he knew.

Wonderful. My body had become a public announcement system with medical monitoring.

“Can you stand?” Sava asked.

“Apparently we’re about to find out.”

The first attempt was embarrassing. I pushed up from the bed with my good arm, my feet finding the carpet, Ian steady beneath my hand. The room tipped sideways before I made it halfway upright. My vision grayed at the edges, pain rushing out from the bite, hot enough to hollow my lungs.

Ian’s other hand hovered near my waist but he didn’t touch. That restraint, right then, cost him so much I felt it. He wanted to grab me and pull me against him, brace my whole body with his, end the shaking by surrounding it. The wolf wanted that in simpler terms. Hold. Warm. Protect.

“Breathe,” Sava said.

“I am breathing.”

“You are arguing. Try breathing.”

I drew in air through my nose and the room steadied by degrees. Ian’s arm flexed under my grip, but he still didn’t touch me with his other hand.

“You can put a hand on my back,” I said.

His eyes came to mine.

“Upper back,” I added. “Uninjured side. Don’t make it weird.”

“I won’t.”

His palm settled between my shoulder blade and spine, careful, broad, warm.

The mark quieted at once. So did something else. For one thin second, the room was only that hand and the place where pain loosened enough for me to stand inside my own body again.

I closed my eyes and I heard Ian stop breathing.

“Don’t make that face,” I said.

“I don’t know what face I am making?”

“Religious crisis.”

His mouth tightened.