Chapter 10 Terms and Conditions Apply
Terms and Conditions Apply
Cassie
My mother cried on a tablet screen.
That was how I knew the day had gotten worse.
The tablet stood on a rolling tray near the foot of the bed, angled so I could see the west lobby behind her.
Marble floors. White flowers. A wall of windows pouring in civilized morning light, as if the resort had not spent the night hiding a supernatural medical crisis beneath its tasteful stonework.
She sat on a cream sofa with a tissue balled in one hand.
Tessa was beside her, pale and swollen-eyed, clutching Henry so tightly the dog looked both cherished and resentful, which meant at some point while I was asleep they sent Henry away from all the werewolves.
My father stood behind them with his arms folded, expression flat in a way I knew meant he was past polite.
Aunt Linda hovered at his shoulder with a mimosa and a face full of murder.
Grant stood slightly apart from them.
Of course he did.
Grant had always understood framing. He looked concerned but composed, rumpled just enough to suggest he had been awake with worry.
His shirt was open at the throat. His hair remained offensive.
He had positioned himself where the lobby light hit his face softly, because even crisis could be useful if one knew where to stand.
I hated him with enough strength to feel briefly healthier.
“Cassie?” Tessa’s voice cracked. “Oh my God. Cassie.”
I looked down at myself. Someone had changed me while I was unconscious.
There were still bandages across my shoulder and chest, and the left side of my body felt as if it had been used to stop machinery, but the ruined bridesmaid dress was gone.
In its place, I wore a soft black robe over a loose tank top and medical wrappings.
The robe was expensive, because apparently captivity had a spa package.
The bite was hidden.
The room was hidden.
Ian stood out of view of the tablet, close enough that the mark under my skin had settled into a dull, watchful ache.
Ronan stood near the door with his arms folded, positioned so I could see him and the screen could not.
Sava sat in a chair beside the bed with one hand near my IV line, watching my vitals with the air of a woman prepared to end the call the second my body objected.
Lucien stood somewhere on the other side of the tablet, inside the west lobby, wearing a calm voice and a resort manager’s suit. I could not see him, but I could hear him.
“Ms. Morgan is awake and able to speak briefly,” he said. “Dr. Sava has limited this call to five minutes”
Five minutes. My life had been reduced to a supervised hostage proof-of-life with talking points.
Dad leaned closer to the screen. “Cassie girl.”
I swallowed. My throat felt scraped raw.
“Hi, Dad.”
His face changed. He tried to hide it, but I knew him. Relief hit first, then fear again because relief had shown him how much he had been carrying.
“You with me?” he asked.
“I’m with you.”
“Paprika.”
Aunt Linda lifted her glass. “That spice has done more for this family than therapy.”
My mother made a wounded sound. “Linda, please.”
“What? I’m respecting the code word.”
Despite everything, despite the bandages, the locked room, the werewolf near the wall, and the Alpha by the door, I almost smiled.
“Hi, Aunt Linda.”
She leaned into the frame. “You look terrible, sweetheart.”
“Thank you.”
“That’s a compliment. Terrible means alive and under-medicated.”
Sava said from beside me, “She is adequately medicated.”
Aunt Linda’s eyes narrowed. “Who said that?”
“My doctor,” I said.
“Tell her I said you need more.”
“She heard you.”
“Good.”
Tessa cried harder.
The sound pulled me back to the screen.
“Cassie,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. Henry got loose, and I should have held the leash, and you went after him because I asked you, and I thought you were just mad at me, but then you were gone and there was blood on the path and they wouldn’t let us see you.”
I closed my eyes for one second. Blood on the path. So they had given the humans enough truth to hurt and not enough to understand.
“Tess,” I said, opening my eyes again, “Henry is fine.”
“That is not the point.”
“It’s a point. He’s small. He needs all the points he can get.”
Her mouth crumpled.
I was too tired to hold her together. Too hurt. Too angry. Too aware that somewhere underneath her tears was the life she had built out of my wreckage.
But I still loved her.
That was the unfair part. Love didn’t always leave when self-respect arrived. Sometimes it sat there between the broken furniture and made everything harder to clean up.
“I’m alive,” I said. “That’s what I need you to hear.”
Tessa nodded hard, crying silently now.
My mother leaned forward. “They said you fell near the east service path.”
“I did.”
It was true enough to taste bad.
“And cut yourself?” Dad asked.
His eyes were on my face, not the robe, not the soft lighting, not the official neatness of the call. He knew. Not the truth. Not wolves. But he knew there were pieces missing.
“Yes,” I said. “Badly enough that everyone is being very dramatic about infection.”
Sava’s gaze flicked to me but I ignored her.
“Do you remember what happened?” Dad asked.
The room tightened around me. Ronan didn’t move, but I felt his attention. Ian’s stillness changed too. The mark responded to him before I did, warming along my shoulder with a slow, unwelcome pulse.
I looked at my father on the screen. I wanted to tell him.
The want hit so hard it felt physical. I wanted to say there are monsters here, and I am in a locked room, and the man who hurt me is standing beside the bed because his touch keeps poison from burning through my heart.
I wanted to say come get me, because a childish part of me still believed my father could walk into any nightmare and make it answer for itself.
Instead, I said, “I remember chasing Henry. I remember falling. The rest is messy.”
Dad’s expression didn’t change, but Aunt Linda’s did. She knew an edited sentence when she heard one. She came from our family, we had practically invented them.
Grant moved into frame, his face held soft concern. That alone made me want to throw the tablet through a window that didn’t open.
“Cassie,” he said. “We’re all relieved you’re awake.”
I said nothing. He let the silence sit for half a second, just long enough to look wounded.
Then he continued, “Everyone was worried. You ran off so suddenly, and after the champagne, I think people were afraid you might have been more upset than you realized.”
There it was. There was always a there it was with Grant.
My body went cold beneath the robe.
On the screen, Dad’s face changed. Aunt Linda lowered her mimosa. Tessa looked confused at first, then uncomfortable, and my mother briefly closed her eyes.
Ronan watched me from near the door, his face unreadable. Ian didn’t move, but I felt violence gather at the edge of the room as clearly as I felt the pain under my skin.
I kept my eyes on Grant.
“That’s interesting,” I said.
His expression softened further. “I only mean, emotions were high. No one blames you.”
“Blames me for…chasing a dog?”
“For being overwhelmed.”
“Grant,” Dad said, his voice quiet enough to be dangerous.
Grant lifted one hand. “I’m not accusing anyone. I’m trying to protect Cassie too. If there’s a liability issue, we need to be honest about her state of mind.”
My state of mind.
I had heard that phrase from him before. In therapy, when he wanted my questions framed as instability. In our kitchen, when he wanted my anger framed as volatility. At family dinners, when he wanted my silence framed as healing.
Ronan’s voice cut in from beside me. “Mr. Carrington.”
Grant went still.
Ronan stepped just close enough for the tablet to catch the edge of his shoulder and nothing more.
“Halcyon Ridge staff monitored all alcohol service at the rehearsal dinner,” Ronan continued.
“Ms. Morgan was not intoxicated by any standard that would support your concern. She pursued an animal that had escaped its restraint. Her injury occurred on resort property, and the resort has accepted responsibility for ensuring she receives appropriate care. If you attempt to reframe that injury as emotional instability again, you will do it in writing through counsel.”
The lobby went silent.
Beautiful. Professionally devastating.
If I had been less poisoned, I might have applauded.
Grant’s face lost warmth by degrees. “I didn’t mean to imply anything inappropriate.”
“Then we are aligned,” Ronan said.
Grant looked at me, and for one second, the concern dropped. What sat underneath was anger.
Good. Let him have some.
Aunt Linda leaned fully into frame. “Well, that was arousing.”
“Linda,” my mother hissed.
Dad didn’t smile, but the corner of his mouth moved.
Tessa stared at Grant, not for long, but long enough that it mattered.
Lucien’s voice entered from the lobby side. “Dr. Sava, we are approaching the time limit.”
Dad ignored him. “Cassie, I want to see you in person.”
“You can’t yet.”
“Because they won’t let me?”
Because the wound on my shoulder looked like something from a horror movie. Because my veins had turned black before dawn. Because the man who bit me was close enough to hear my blood. Because if my father saw the truth, Ronan might decide he was a problem too.
“Because I look worse than this,” I said.
Dad’s eyes hardened.
I gave him the only thing I could. “I need you steady, remember?”
His jaw worked.
“I’m steady,” he said.
“You also need to keep Aunt Linda from committing anything prosecutable.”
“I’m not promising miracles.”
Aunt Linda raised her glass again. “I heard that.”
My mother leaned in. “Cassie, sweetheart, are you sure you’re okay? The wedding has been postponed, and Tessa is so upset, and I know you would never want her to feel guilty.”
There it was again. Even now. Even from a tablet screen. Tessa flinched, and for once, I didn’t know whether it was guilt over me or recognition of Mom’s timing.