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“You just learned what my father taught me years ago: that you can’t trust anyone.”

“Even you?” I blink up at him. “What am I supposed to do about you?”

He looks away. Seems he doesn’t have an answer for the tether between us. The mate bond. They didn’t give it that name, but as soon as I think it, it rings true.

He had said his wolf was obsessed with me—is that what drives it? I search for it again, but I can’t wrap my magic around it, can’t seem to do anything to it. Not like before.

There one minute, dormant the next.

“Easy, witch,” Kian groans.

He shifts me, swinging my legs over his. And then I’m in his lap, still cradled to his chest. “You shouldn’t be able to feel it so much as to manipulate it. Not yet.”

“What does that mean?” I try to think back. “When you said your wolf was obsessed with me… I thought you meant he wanted to turn me.”

“No. Well, yes. It seems like fate wants us together. Forever.”

I swallow. “Okay, so how do we stop it?”

“Besides nearly killing both of us by trying to destroy it, just keep doing what you’re doing.”

“And what am I doing?” I ask in a low voice. I can’t quite touch what the coven was going to do—and I don’t know how to voice that it was them, not me, who decided to tear it out.

“Resisting my wolf’s brash attempts at seducing you.”

I laugh. I can’t help it. If his wolf thinks he’s been seducing me, he’s wrong. I don’t know how to make that clear to Kian’s other side, though. I’ve been terrified of the beast… and he wants to spend an eternity with me?

No way.

“Did you heal my back?” I ask instead.

“I did.”

“You didn’t worry it would deplete you?”

“Astra.” He shakes his head, his gaze going to the ceiling. “You gave me a shot of your own power—which tastes like heaven and crack at the same time, by the way. I still feel it in my blood. But I should’ve healed you fully before we left the pack.”

“And the demon blood?”

“Extracted. No thanks to the coven.”

Oh, shit. I lurch out of his hold. He stays where he is on the couch. This is the first time I’ve ever towered over him. He’s broad-shouldered, and he reaches out to grasp my hips. His thumbs edge under the sweatshirt that I definitely wasn’t wearing before, brushing my bare skin.

My cheeks heat.

I was shirtless when they did their…

“I have them out back,” he informs me, unaware of where my thoughts were heading.

“What?”

He rises and takes my hand, guiding me toward the back door. I’m still trying to figure out what that means when he opens the sliding glass door, admitting us into the large, unfenced backyard.

The dozen coven witches sit in a circle, bound and gagged. They notice him—us—immediately. Their eyes give away their fear, but none of them move otherwise. Why haven’t they run?

I step forward and smell blood. My hand flies up to cover my mouth. They didn’t escape because they can’t.

He’s staked them to the ground. Ribbed metal poles, rebar, stick out through one of their thighs.