One oversight?—
Could cost us everything. By the time it ends, the room feels different. More focused.
More serious. Less like a council. More like a war room. People file out quickly, already moving to carry out orders.
I stay behind. Magnus doesn’t leave. Of course he doesn’t.
“You’re carrying too much,” he says without looking at me.
“I’m carrying what’s necessary,” I reply.
He huffs quietly.
“That’s what I said the last time we went to war.”
I glance at him.
“You think I can’t handle it?”
“I think you’re human enough to feel it,” he says. “And shifter enough to ignore it. That combination can get dangerous.”
My jaw tightens.
“I don’t have the luxury of stepping back.”
“No,” he agrees. “You don’t.”
Silence settles between us. Then?—
“And your mate?” he asks.
There it is. Always there. Always part of this now.
“She’s not staying out of it,” I say.
Magnus nods slightly. “Good.”
I blink.
“Good?”
“She’s stronger than you think,” he says. “And smarter. That will matter.”
“I know,” I reply.
“And you don’t like it.”
That earns a faint, humorless smile.
“No,” I admit. “I don’t.”
He chuckles quietly.
“You don’t have to like it,” he says. “You just have to accept it.”
Easy for him to say. Harder to do when every instinct I have is screaming to keep her out of this. To keep her safe. To keep her?—
Mine.
