Page 87 of The Werewolf’s Wrong Mate

Sava checked the monitor. “Heart rate is high but tolerable. Mark is stable.”

“How romantic.”

Sava ignored me. “Three steps.”

“Toward what?”

“The chair.”

I looked at the chair five feet away. “Ambitious.”

Ian’s hand stayed steady at my back. “I have you.”

The words were too soft, and I looked up at him. He seemed to realize it the same second I did.

“I mean physically,” he said.

“I know what you meant.”

The problem was that my body believed both meanings.

I took one step, my legs trembling. Ian adjusted with me, not guiding or pushing, simply making himself a structure I could use, which was something sadly unfamiliar to me. Grant had always helped in ways that made help into debt. A jacket over my shoulders when he wanted people to see his care. Advice sharpened into correction.

Ian didn’t perform support. He became it and waited to see whether I would accept the next inch.

I took the second step. Then the third. By the time I reached the chair, sweat had gathered at the back of my neck and my breath had gone thin. Ian’s palm lifted from my back the moment I was seated, before I had to ask.

Another point for the werewolf.

Very irritating.

Sava looked almost satisfied. “Good.”

“I strongly disagree.”

“You didn’t faint.” She pointed out.

“Again, low standards.”

“You are alive after a lethal mark, so yes.”

Ian lowered himself to a crouch in front of the chair and I stiffened.

He saw it immediately and stopped moving. “Your foot.”

I glanced down. There was a line of dried blood along the arch from where I had cut myself running after Henry. I had forgotten about it under the more dramatic injuries, which seemed unfair. My foot had suffered too and it deserved acknowledgment.

Sava followed my gaze. “I missed that.”

“Forgiven. You were distracted by the giant bite.”

“I still dislike missing things.”

Ian looked up at me. “May I?”

The question should have felt excessive, but from him it didn’t. I leaned back in the chair, exhausted and too warm, while my heart tried to decide whether to be furious, frightened, or something even less useful.

“My foot?” I asked.