Chapter 10 Terms and Conditions Apply #2
My father’s face went flat.
Aunt Linda said, “Marianne.”
My mother looked wounded. “What? I’m saying she cares about her sister.”
I was too tired for the old dance.
“I do care about her,” I said.
My mother softened with relief.
I finished, “That doesn’t make her guilt mine to manage.”
The lobby went silent again as Tessa stared at me. Then she started crying harder, but differently this time. Less performance, more pain with no place to sit.
“Cassie,” she whispered.
“I love you,” I said, because it was still true and I hated how much truth could hurt. “I’m alive. I need to rest. That is all I can do right now.”
Tessa nodded, covering her mouth.
Dad stepped closer to the screen. “You call me again as soon as they let you.”
“I will.”
“And if you need me, you find a way.”
Ronan stood very still near the bed.
I looked at my father’s face and let myself take one selfish second to feel loved by someone who didn’t need me quiet to manage himself.
“I know,” I said.
Lucien ended the call and the tablet went dark. For a few seconds, the room made no sound except the monitor and my own breathing. Then pain rushed back in as if the call had been holding it politely outside.
I turned my head into the pillow and clenched my teeth.
Sava moved immediately. “Her pulse is climbing.”
Ian was beside me before I could tell him not to be.
He stopped short of touching me. “Cassie.”
I didn’t look at him. If I looked at him, the room would see too much. They would see rage and fear and the terrible, traitorous relief my body wanted from the same hand that had caused the wound.
“May I touch your hand?”
I hated him for asking. “Yes.”
His fingers slid under mine. The pain didn’t vanish. It eased back from the edge, which was almost worse because it proved the thing I resented most.
I needed him. For now.
Sava adjusted something in the IV. “Your body is burning through the medication faster when you’re upset.”
“Tell my family to be less talented.”
No one laughed.
Good. I had not been joking.
Ronan took the tablet from the tray and handed it to the nurse. “The call bought time.”
I looked at him. “That’s what I am now? Time?”
“Yes.”
Ian’s hand stiffened beneath mine.
Ronan saw it and didn’t soften. “You wanted honesty.”
“I wanted not to be bitten by a werewolf at my sister’s rehearsal dinner. We’re all settling.”
The words came out weaker than I wanted.
Ronan placed the tablet on the side table. “The wedding remains delayed. Your family remains on the west side. Your father is less likely to force a confrontation in the next few hours. Grant Carrington has been corrected publicly enough to reduce that particular narrative.”
“Corrected,” I repeated.
“He understands pressure.”
“Grant understands humiliation. Pressure would require a spine.”
Ian’s thumb moved once beneath my fingers, barely a touch, and the mark warmed. I looked down at our hands and he stopped at once.
Good.
I wanted it to be good.
It didn’t feel good. It felt like losing one more private piece of myself to a body that no longer asked me before answering him.
Ronan watched the exchange with the silent attention of a man counting cracks in a dam.
I looked at him because his coldness was easier to face than Ian’s guilt. “So why exactly, was I not supposed to survive this supernatural dog bite.”
Sava glanced at Ronan, but Ronan only said, “Ian will explain what he did.”
Ian’s gaze cut to his brother.
Ronan’s face gave him nothing. “The simple version.”
I turned my head toward Ian. He looked as if he would rather take a knife to the ribs, but I didn’t care.
“Explain.”
He stayed beside the bed, hands now folded in front of him where I could see them.
“The bite was a mate mark,” he said.
Hearing it again didn’t make it less ridiculous. It made it worse because the room didn’t blink.
“Yes I heard you the first time, a werewolf mate mark,” I said.
“Yes.”
“And that means what exactly?”
His jaw tightened. “Among wolves, it begins a bond.”
“A bond.”
“A magical and physical tie.”
I stared at him.
He didn’t look away. “It heightens scent, awareness, instinct, and emotional response. It can cause pain when mates are separated before the bond is stable. It can calm the body when the mate is close. It can cause dream bleed, fever, territorial behavior, and compulsion toward protection.”
“So all of this,” I said, lifting my bandaged shoulder a fraction before pain punished me, “is romance to your people?”
“No.”
The answer came hard and immediate, enough that even Ronan looked at him.
Ian’s face had gone bleak. “No. The first bite should be chosen. Even when instinct drives it, the rite gives structure, consent, witnesses, and law. What happened to you was not that.”
The room held still around the words. I appreciated the honesty and I hated needing it.
“But your wolf chose me.”
He closed his eyes once. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“I do not know.”
“Do you usually bite strange women who crawl through hedges?”
“No.”
“Reassuring.”
His eyes opened. There was gold in them, not fully, but close enough that my skin tightened.
“He recognized you before I understood what was happening,” Ian said. “That is not an excuse. It is simply the truth.”
“And the mark is killing me because I’m human.”
“Yes.”
Sava stepped closer. “It tried to kill you. For now, it has slowed.”
“For now,” I said.
The phrase had become furniture in this room.
Ronan spoke from near the door. “A human body cannot carry wolf magic. That is why everyone expected you to die already.”
“So what happens now?”
No one answered quickly enough.
Ian spoke first. “The mark has seven days before the full moon.”
Of course there was a fucking full moon. How cliche.
I closed my eyes. “Please tell me this is one of those symbolic full moons and not an actual calendar problem.”
“It is actual.”
“Fantastic.”
“If the mark burns out before then, you may recover.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
He went silent.
Ronan answered instead. “If it holds until the full moon, the bond may set.”
I opened my eyes.
Set.
Such a small word for a door locking.
“What does set mean?”
Ian’s voice was rougher when he answered. “Permanent.”
The monitor picked up speed. Sava moved, but I lifted one hand to stop her. I needed the fear. I needed to feel it before they medicated me back into manageability.
“Permanent,” I repeated.
Ian’s hands curled, then opened. “Among wolves, a permanent mate bond cannot be broken without severe damage. Often death.”
“Among wolves,” I said.
“Yes.”
“But I’m not a wolf.”
“No.”
“So what does it do to me?”
His face changed.
That was when I understood he didn’t know, nobody did.
A laugh moved through me, brittle and ugly. “You have got to be kidding.”