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“Sure is lucky he was there.” Avery glared at me. “Without him and his pheromones, you would have bled out.”

Yes, I would have. No one could have saved me but him.

“And then, once you were in the room, the elder Rossellini sent two serious fixers to make sure you were dead a second time, and he beat both of them up to keep you safe,” Wade disclosed, picking up the story. “I mean, who is this guy? Your guardian angel?”

Christ.

“You know,” Avery said sarcastically, “I’ve never heard of a wolf being able to calm another wolf, keep them from shifting when they’re not conscious, who wasn’t their mate. Have you, Deacon? Have you heard of that?”

“Wait,” Gigi husked, going through everything in her head. “How could… Wait.”

“Don’t overreact,” I cautioned her, feeling the seconds tick by as she put things together. Normally she was faster, but I suspected she was sleep deprived from worrying about me. Which was going to make the revelation, when she came to it, all the worse.

“Have you lost your fucking mind?” Gigi roared, her voice trembling with rage. “How dare you keep this from me!”

“Wait now,” Graeme ordered, glancing around the room. “Do you mean to tell me you have a true mate and you haven’t claimed him?”

What was I supposed to say? “This is no one’s business but⁠—”

“Deacon Sterling Houghton-Crowne!” Gigi bellowed that time, and it was really loud.

“Oh man, she used your whole-ass name.” Wade snickered, clearly enjoying my pain. “That’s so bad.”

“Sasha Norwood is your mate? Your true mate?” Graeme asked, sounding overwrought, as though reeling from the revelation.

“No,” I muttered.

“Yes,” Avery stated flatly. “Clearly yes. No one but a true mate could have hoped to keep you from bleeding out. He held your shift in thrall to him, full stop, that’s it. He reached you on a level only he could, and from what the EMTs said, they watched your pulse even out in seconds. Those are the facts. Don’t be stupid. You know what that means.”

I shook my head.

Gigi got up then and started to pace, which, in her heels, made the sound worse. The click-click-click-click-scrape, the turn, then again and again. It was grating, but she was working something out.

“He left that night, the night of the gathering, so early. Too early,” Gigi murmured, remembering. “I so enjoyed speaking to him, and then… then he excused himself to the veranda, and you were there with those horrible cronies of yours you care nothing about, the other single alphas of the jarl, all rich and entitled, completely out of touch with what it means to work for a living, and you… you… What happened?”

I stayed silent.

“I remember his face now. He was radiant, and that smile of his was… But then when he came back in, he looked like someone had hit him, utterly crushed.”

“I have no recollection of seeing him out on the⁠—”

“But you wouldn’t have had to see him to know he was there. He’s your mate, so the rest of your senses would have known where he⁠—”

“Why are you assuming I did any⁠—”

“Deacon!”

“I didn’t do⁠—”

“Oh, D, what did you do? Did you say something to him?”

“No,” I answered truthfully, because I hadn’t. That was the night I’d made sure to be loud and abrasive, arrogant and crude, and made absolutely certain he heard every word out of my mouth, especially that I could never, would never consider an omega. I had made it crystal clear that whining, preening, dull-witted, subservient omegas were not for me.

“You’re a liar,” she accused me. “What happened?”

I’d done it for him.

I’d realized the moment I saw him cross the ballroom, saw him move, that he belonged to me. It was that fast, slamming into place in my chest like the tumblers of a lock. From several feet away, I caught his scent, then watched his lips curl into a smile as he came closer, and with every step I knew if he offered me his hand, I’d never be able to let him go. And if I reached for him and pulled him into my life, he’d never be safe again. I lived dangerously. There was always someone to save, corruption to weed out, and I alone could do that. I had no family, no loved ones to threaten, and yes, there was Gigi, but she was under Graeme’s protection and no one would dare. There was no one else with a target on their back, unless I put it there. Sasha was my mate; I would never allow him to be hurt. The way to ensure that was simple: I had to never claim what was mine. Easiest way to do that was to let him know how disgusting and loathsome I found all omegas. It had worked like a charm. Every time I saw him after that—and I’d had to see him; to check on his safety, I told myself, but really, merely looking at him filled me with warmth—he’d run.