Page 54 of Mortal Shift
“His wolf will be driven to keep you safe. Not just from other suitors, but from anyone who might hurt you.”
“One, nobody says suitors anymore, and two, you might not have noticed, but Thaden has been snacking on me pretty frequently, and Cole has yet to give a damn.”
“Yeah, that is kind of odd,” she admitted with a small frown. “But it doesn’t change things. He’s not going to let you die. Hell, look at how far he went to keep you from leaving.”
“Sure, for his own selfish reasons, so he didn’t look weak.”
She stared at me for so long I started to squirm in my seat. “What?”
“Are you really that dense?”
“I’m not going to answer that,” I said, folding my arms across my chest. Because, clearly, the answer was yes, and either of our egos needed me to say that out loud.
“If he just wanted you to stick around, there are other ways he could have done it. Had someone hex you. Threatened your mom’s life. But he didn’t. He’s put her in luxury accommodation, with the best doctors money can buy on hand.”
“Yeah, but he didn’t do that for me. Heliterallysaid that.”
“Right.” She rolled her eyes so hard I thought they might never recover. “And you guys always say exactly what you mean.”
“That is so not the point. And anyway, I don’t even know that she’s there, not really. He could be lying. That’s why I need to go find out for myself that she’s okay. You know, assuming I live long enough. And no,” I added, intercepting her look, “I amnotabout to ask Cole for protection, because I’ve already proved your logic is flawed. See notes re ‘Thaden’.”
“And not at all because of your fragile ego.”
“Hey, you can’t argue with the proof. Cole must be broken.”
“Yes, I’m sure,” she said drily, and then smiled slyly. “Of course, you know how you could test it, just to be sure…”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Why do I get the feeling I don’t like where this is headed?”
“Well, there’s this Christmas party coming up soon…”
Chapter Nineteen
Three days before the party, and neither Ling nor I had changed our opinions on whether or not I should go. Of course, since I was in control of my own body—well, except when asshole high fae were around, apparently—my opinion was the one that counted. And my opinion was that I had better things to do.
Like finding out if Cole was lying about my mom, once and for all. And I was totallynotdoing it Ling’s way, because there was no way I was sucking up to that guy, or trying to set some twisted kind of honey trap. There was no way my body could be allowed that kind of freedom around Cole, not with the damn mate bond whispering in my head almost constantly now.
Even now, it was thrumming with wordless admiration as Cole crouched, leaped, and landed easily on four legs, tail flared in a banner of grace and elegance in his wake. He pivoted in a tight circle, flashing his teeth to some faceless wolf he’d been paired with, and Ryker grunted in satisfaction.
“Not completely useless,” he conceded. “You’ll run in the full moon hunt tonight.”
A ripple went round the rest of the group, and I saw more than one envious glance sent in his direction—more than one outright hostile look, too. Great, because more enemies were exactly what we needed right now.
He. I mean, whatheneeded right now. There was no ‘we’ about us.
Ours…
Nope, not ours, stupid mate bond. I was going to have to find a way to silence those whispers before I did something reckless—like throw myself at him in front of the whole first-year shifter contingent.
He’d shifted back into his human form, and remained in a crouch, head slightly bowed.
“Thank you, alpha. I will not disappoint you.”
“See that you don’t, or it’ll be your last. And see that your mate is ready.”
I blanched, and Cole jerked his head up in surprise.
“Cali?”
