Page 122 of Mortal Shift
“I was going to ask you the same thing,” I said. “Is it true that you confessed?”
His eyes flickered over my face and then he dipped his chin in a nod.
“I…don’t understand,” I said. “I know you didn’t do it.”
“That doesn’t matter. Are you okay?”
“What do you mean it doesn’t matter?” I demanded. “Of course it matters. Do you know what they’re planning on doing to you, Cole?”
“Dammit, Cali, answer the question!”
I flinched back from his raised voice and then he was in my space, trapping me against the wall with a hand on either side of my head, staring down at me with shadowed eyes that made my heart constrict painfully in my chest.
“Are. You. Okay?” he demanded again.
“Okay?” I asked, my voice trembling with a note of hysteria. “They’re going to kill you, Cole. I had to fight even to be allowed to see you. Of course I’m not okay.”
He blew out through his nose, shoulders taut beneath the white tee, then slammed a hand against the brickwork.
“I don’t care about any of that shit. Have they hurt you?”
“They? They who? No-one has hurt me, Cole.”
He searched my face for a long moment then sagged in on his shoulders. His head drooped for a moment, then he raised his piercing eyes again to meet mine.
“We need to seal the mate bond,” he said. “Right now.”
He made to sweep my hair from my neck and I twitched aside.
“Tell me what’s going on,” I demanded again.
“There isn’t time. Turn around. I need to claim you. Now.”
“No!” I planted both hands on his chest and shoved him back. “Dammit, I’m not going to seal the mate bond with you like this. What the hell is wrong with you?”
I ran my eyes over him, really seeing him for the first time. His face was gaunt, and a restless shadow lurked behind his eyes, and I could see now he was favoring his left side a little. I reached out a hand and yanked up his t-shirt, and gasped in a ragged breath. A large patch of yellowing bruises mottled the skin over his ribs.
“What did they do to you?” I whispered.
“Nothing I couldn’t handle,” he said firmly. He caught my hand in his and raised it to his mouth, skimming his nose over the underside of my wrist. “As long as you’re safe, that’s all that matters.”
“No, it’s not,” I said. “You matter.”
“Careful,” he said with a wry smile. “Almost sounds like you care about me.”
I snorted. “Don’t go getting ideas. You’re just my admission ticket to the academy.”
“I thought you hated the academy?” A trace of his usual dark glimmer returned to his eyes as he teased me, and my heart thudded to see it, but I tossed him a casual shrug.
“I haven’t finished reading all the books in the library yet.”
“Funny.”
He traced his finger over my lips.
“Fuck, I’ve missed you.”
I slapped his hand away. “Then maybe you shouldn’t have confessed to something you didn’t do! Did you even think for one moment what it meant for the rest of us? For me, for your pack? No, you didn’t. You got some stupid idea into your stupid head, and to hell with everyone else.”
