Chapter 12 A Very Convenient Accident #2
Sava came over with antiseptic, and Ian released my foot at once. She cleaned the cut while I pretended not to care that Ian had moved back two feet and looked ready to put his own hands through a wall.
“Is this the part where we all pretend my foot has plot significance?” I asked.
Sava wrapped a small bandage around it. “No. This is the part where I remind you that humans can get infections from ordinary wounds too, since apparently you are collecting every category.”
“Always overachieving.”
Ian’s gaze remained on my leg. Not in a lustful way. In a guilty one.
“Stop,” I said.
His eyes lifted. “Stop what?”
“Looking at every bruise like you personally invented gravity.”
His face went still.
Sava stood and gathered the wrappers from the bandage. “I will check the hall.”
That was a lie, there was nothing medical in the hall and we all knew it.
She left anyway. The door closed and for the first time since waking in the suite, Ian and I were alone.
Not fully alone. The guards stood outside.
Sava could come back. Ronan probably had ears in the walls or some Alpha subscription service for emotional discomfort.
Still.
Ian stayed where he was, several feet from the chair, hands at his sides.
“I didn’t mean to stare,” he said.
“No, you meant to brood silently until the room apologized.”
His mouth moved slightly. Not quite a smile, but close enough to be suspicious. I looked away because noticing almost-smiles on the man who bit you felt like going down a road with poor signage.
A wave of dizziness moved through me and I gripped the arms of the chair. Ian moved one step but I lifted my hand and he stopped.
Good.
Useful.
Annoying.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“You are not.”
“I know. It’s a figure of speech.”
“I dislike that figure.”
“You dislike many things, I suspect.”
“Yes.”
“Talking?”
“Yes.”
“Furniture that gets between you and doors?”
“Sometimes.”
“People touching my things?”
His eyes met mine. There it was again, that direct hit of attention.
“Yes.”
I should have been afraid of that answer. I was, partly. Another part of me felt a low answering warmth in the mark, a satisfied pulse at his honesty. Not possession exactly. Recognition of being defended.
That was how cages started, probably. One bar at a time, each one polished enough to look like care.
I leaned back, suddenly tired of my own body’s betrayals.
“You can’t do that,” I said.
“Do what?”
“Make my things your burden. Or my father. Or Henry. Or the emotional weather of my face. I know the wolf is apparently having a very intense day, but my life is not territory.”
His gaze lowered.
“No,” he said.
“No, you won’t?”
“No, your life is not territory.”
The answer was too careful and I studied him.
“You’ve been territory before.”
His eyes came back to mine. I had not meant to say it. Not that way. But the mark carried something from him, and I had been sitting in his restraint all afternoon. Control didn’t feel natural in him. It felt trained, forced almost. Reinforced until the bones accepted the cage.
Ian didn’t answer and I knew I was right.
“That’s why you understand Ronan,” I said.
A muscle moved in his jaw. “Ronan is Alpha.”
“That isn’t what I said.”
“No.”
His voice had gone lower.
I should have stopped, but I didn’t want to.
“Your brother talks about the pack, and you hear duty. I hear a man deciding what a person costs.”
“He has to.”
“Does he?”
“Yes.”
The word came hard, but the bond did something under it.
A flash of old blood. Not an image exactly, more like the impression of one?
Cold floor. A younger Ian with rage in his mouth.
Ronan standing in front of him. Men shouting.
The smell of fear. The shape of a boy learning that if his brother lost power, everyone he loved would bleed.
I inhaled sharply.
Ian went still. “What did you feel?”
“I don’t know.”
“Cassie.”
I looked at him. There was no command in my name this time. Only urgency.
“I think you were young,” I said slowly. “I think you were angry. I think Ronan was standing in front of you then too.”
His face closed, but not before I saw it.
Truth.
Sava had called it dream bleed, but apparently we were no longer waiting for dreams.
“Sorry,” I said.
The word surprised both of us. I didn’t know who I was apologizing to. Him, for seeing something private? Myself, for meaning it? The universe, for making me a woman who still apologized in captivity?
Ian looked away. “You didn’t choose to see it.”
“It didn’t stop me from seeing it.”
“No.”
He looked at me again. “What else do you feel?”
I should not have answered. I knew that.
The whole room was built around reasons not to answer.
Ronan wanted information. Sava wanted data.
Ian wanted to know whether the thing between us was getting stronger.
I wanted my body back, my father, my phone, a world where the worst thing that happened this weekend was Grant making a toast.
But Ian had asked me plainly and some traitorous part of me wanted to answer him plainly in return.
“You’re tired,” I said.
“Yes.”
“You’re hungry.”
“I can ignore hunger.”
“That sounds healthy.”
“It is common.”
I watched him a moment. “It shouldn’t be.”
His brows drew slightly, as if that was not a response he had expected.
I continued before I could regret it. “You feel guilty all the time. Not just about me. About everything you do with your hands.”
His eyes dropped to his hands. They were scarred. Big. Still. Killer’s hands, probably. Also the hands that had held my foot as if a scrape deserved reverence.
My throat tightened.
“You don’t trust yourself near me,” I said.
“No.”
“But you trust yourself more than you trust anyone else.”
His gaze lifted and I saw the hit had landed.
Good.
Let him be seen too, since apparently I was bleeding secrets through a bandage.
“I trust myself to stop,” he said. “I do not trust them to stop when I tell them to.”
“The council?”
“The council. The guards. Evelyn. Ronan.”
“Your brother?”
His face tightened. “Especially Ronan.”
I glanced toward the door. The guards outside had not moved, but I felt the pressure of them now. Muted. Irritating. Like people whispering in another room when you knew they were talking about you.
“Because Ronan will make the hard choice.”
“Yes.”
“And I’m the hard choice.”
He didn’t answer.
There it was. Plot, as Aunt Linda would say, becoming personal.
I let my head rest back against the chair and closed my eyes. “I miss when my biggest problem was Grant being a predatory linen advertisement.”
Ian shifted sharply.
I opened one eye. “Do not go murder him.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You were thinking about it.”
His nostrils flared once. That might have been his version of a laugh. Or indigestion. Hard to tell with murder men.
“He made you afraid,” Ian said.
I opened both eyes.
Careful, something in me warned.
“He made me tired,” I said.
Ian’s gaze stayed on my face.
I sighed. “Men like Grant don’t usually scare women by becoming monsters. They scare them by convincing the room the woman is the monster first.”
His expression went very still.
“He followed me to the bathroom before Henry ran,” I said.
The words came out softer than I intended. Ian didn’t move which was the only reason I kept talking.
“He said things. Usual Grant things. Just enough to make me react if I was stupid, not enough for anyone to believe me if I did. Then Henry ran, and I chased him, and now Grant gets to act worried while telling everyone I was unstable.”
The room felt colder.
Ian’s voice was controlled so tightly it sounded almost empty. “Did he touch you?”
“My wrist. Earlier. In the lobby.”
His eyes went gold.
“Barely,” I said quickly.
The gold remained.
“Ian.”
His name did something. Not just to him, but to both of us. The mark pulsed, but instead of pain, I felt the wolf turn toward my voice. Not gentle. Not tame. Listening.
Ian closed his eyes. His hands opened, slowly, until the claws I had not noticed pressing at his fingertips slid back under skin.
A breath left me. I had called something dangerous back without touching him.
He opened his eyes. They were dark again, but not fully human.
“Thank you,” he said.
The words were rough. I had absolutely no idea what to do with them.
“You’re welcome,” I said, because apparently etiquette remained undefeated.
The door opened without a knock and Ronan stepped in.