Page 43 of Trusting Her Mate

“I know.”

“I wanted to tear his throat out.”

“I know.”

“But I didn’t. Because that would make me like him.”

My hands stall on her waist. The water runs over us both. Steam curls around her face. She looks wrecked and fierce and beautiful.

“No,” I say. “It wouldn’t.”

“It would have.”

“Then it’s a good thing you’re better than him.”

Her eyes fill. She blinks, and the tears don’t fall. She holds them. My brave, impossible mate.

I keep washing. Down her stomach. Over her hips. Along the bruise on her left side. She flinches when I press too hard, and I ease up.

My emotions are a wreck. The fight. The fear. Watching Dax launch at me and seeing Wren’s wolf explode out of her before I could react. The sound of her jaws crushing bone. The sight of her standing over him, naked and bloodied, daring him to move.

I’m shaking.

My wolf is pacing, wild and unmoored, caught between pride and terror and a need so savage it scrapes my insides raw.

I want her. Not gently. Not carefully. I want her so badly my teeth ache.

But she’s hurt. She’s bruised and she’s been through hell.

I wash her hair, working the soap through the tangled strands. She leans into my hands. The bond pulses with something warm.

“You’re holding back,” she says.

I pause. “You’re injured.”

“I’m fine.”

“You have a cut on your ribs,” I point out like she doesn’t know her own body.

“It’s shallow.”

“You’re bruised.” I point out the obvious once more.

“I heal fast.”

“Wren...”

She turns to face me. Water streams between us. Her eyes are dark, steady, and certain.

“I can feel you through the bond,” she says. “You’re barely holding it together.”

She’s right. I’m barely holding it together. My wolf is tearing at my insides, desperate, feral, fed by the adrenaline still crashing through my system.

“If I lose control...” I start.

“Then you lose control.”

“I could hurt you.” The words are soft, coated in fear.