Chapter 9 A Conflict of Interest #3
Ronan gave her the phone. “One message.”
She took it.
This one took longer. By the time she finished, her hand was shaking so hard Sava moved closer, ready to take the phone if necessary.
Cassie held it out and Ronan read silently. Then he sent it and placed the phone facedown on the table again.
Cassie’s eyes had begun to drift shut when the phone buzzed.
Ronan checked it. “Your sister replied.”
Cassie opened her eyes.
Ronan read, “I’m so sorry. Henry is safe. Dad is here. Mom is scared. Grant is being weird. Please don’t die. I love you.”
Cassie stared at the ceiling.
“Grant is being weird,” she said. “Of course he is.”
Ronan pocketed the phone again. “Enough.”
Sava adjusted the blanket. “Sleep if you can.”
“I don’t want to dream.”
The mark pulsed, I felt it.
Sava noticed my reaction. “Dream bleed?”
“Too soon,” Ronan said.
Sava’s gaze stayed on me. “Maybe.”
Cassie’s eyes opened a fraction. “What is dream bleed?”
No one answered, and her gaze found mine.
“What is dream bleed?”
I could lie. Ronan probably wanted me to. I had lied for the pack all my life. Lied by silence, by violence, by standing in rooms where others said peace while I calculated exits and body counts. Lies were not difficult.
This one stuck in my throat.
“Sometimes,” I said, “a mark lets one mate feel or see pieces of the other in sleep.”
Cassie went very still.
“Mate,” she repeated.
Ronan said, “Ian.”
I ignored him.
Cassie’s eyes stayed on me. “You said I wasn’t your mate.”
“I said you were not my anything.”
“Convenient difference.”
“Yes.”
Her anger was quieter now, and worse for it.
I leaned forward, stopping before I reached the edge of the bed. “My wolf believes the bite made a claim. I do not know if the claim can last in human blood. I do not know if what he feels is truth, instinct, or the rite twisting around a mistake. I know you didn’t choose it.”
“That does not answer dream bleed.”
“No,” I said. “It does not.”
She swallowed. “So if I sleep, you might get inside my head.”
I forced myself to hold Cassie’s gaze.
“I might,” I said. “Or you might get inside mine. Or nothing may happen.”
Her face tightened, and I heard her pulse climb.
“Great,” she whispered. “Even unconscious, I don’t get privacy.”
The words entered me and stayed there. I had no defense.
Ronan spoke from the door. “Sava can sedate you deeply enough to reduce dreaming.”
Sava’s expression didn’t change, but I smelled her irritation. “Possibly.”
“Do it,” I said.
Cassie looked at me. “I didn’t ask you.”
I shut my mouth. She was right…again.
Sava stepped into her line of sight. “I can increase the sedative. It may help you sleep without surfacing into dreams. It may also make you more disoriented when you wake. Your body is already fighting hard.”
Cassie closed her eyes. “How much worse does disoriented get from waking up in werewolf jail?”
Sava waited.
Cassie opened her eyes again and looked at the doctor. “Do it.”
Sava nodded.
I moved back from the bed while she prepared the syringe. Distance hurt. Not in my body. Somewhere lower and older, where the wolf kept the new shape of the world and punished the man for stepping away from it.
Cassie watched Sava inject the medication into the line. Then she turned her head toward me.
“If I see anything in your head,” she whispered, “I’m judging your decorating.”
The words should have been light. They were not. They were a woman building one last thin wall around herself before sleep stole the tools from her hands.
“I would expect nothing less,” I said.
Her eyes drifted shut.
For a while, no one moved. We watched the sedative pull her under. Her breathing steadied. The mark darkened, then settled. The monitor slowed into a rhythm that didn’t sound safe, but sounded less like the edge of death.
Ronan waited until she was fully asleep before he spoke. “You gave her more truth than I allowed.”
“I gave her less than she deserved.”
“You are not the judge of that.”
I looked at my brother. “No. I am the reason she needs truth in pieces because the whole of it may kill her.”
Ronan’s face didn’t change.
Sava gathered her bag, but her eyes moved between us with open warning.
“This is the only warning I will give you,” Ronan said. “If she learns too much too quickly and panics, that panic may kill her. If she tells the humans, they will die. If the pack thinks she has enough knowledge to threaten us, I may not be able to keep the council behind a door.”
“Then keep them afraid of you.”
“They are.” His gaze moved to the bed. “They are more afraid of what you will become for her.”
I had no answer, because I was beginning to fear it too.
The room quieted around Cassie’s sleep. Outside, the pack waited. Beyond them, the humans lied to themselves in the daylight because humans were good at making fear wait until after breakfast.
I stood beside the bed of a woman who hated me, a woman my wolf had chosen, a woman my Alpha might one day decide needed to disappear.
Cassie had asked for privacy.
Because of me, even sleep had become another locked room.