Page 51 of Wolf Trial

I looked at him a little strangely. “Aren’t you supposed to be the big powerful Alpha who tells us all what to do?”

Verne smiled, but there was something strained and sad about it. “It’s not really my style. The three of us are family. I don’t have to keep them here by force, because they want to be here. I won’t keep you here by force, either. If you want to leave, I’ll let you leave, but don’t expect me to leave you unprotected.”

“So, what? You’re gonna follow me around like a bodyguard. Shadow me while I’m at the school led by teachers who would kill you in a heartbeat?”

“If that’s what it takes to keep my mate safe,” he agreed. “If that’s what it takes to keep you safe.”

There was a distinction I hadn’t realised I needed. To be wanted, protected, not just because of this bond I couldn’t begin to understand, because of me, and who I was.

That was the hurt that made me cold, kept me at a distance. I wanted to be here. I’d been drawn back here all day, but I didn’t want to be here as their mate. I want to be here as Sadie, and welcomed anyway. Wanted anyway. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the way they spoke to me, took care of me, but how much of that was just because of the bond and how much was for me?

“Show me the burn site,” he said, bringing the mortar over to the kitchen island and watching me roll up my sleeve. It had completely healed, unblemished, but the way Verne was acting and the way the others had reacted made me think silver burns were dangerous even if they couldn’t be seen.

“Your skin can be healed,” he said, laying his hands over my forearm, fingertips grazing the sensitive inner elbow until I had to fight a shiver. “But the poison remains under the surface, insidious because the moment it reaches your heart…”

“No more Sadie?” I guessed.

“Exactly,” he confirmed, a little faint.

“Oh, it smells lovely,” I said, trying not to choke as he began to smear the green concoction on my skin. “You should bottle this as perfume. You’d make a killing on the market day.”

Honestly, if this wasn’t a whole different world—one at war, training kidnapped people as soldiers—it would be cute and quaint with its rolling hills and cute little villages. I knew, somewhere, there was a market selling fresh produce and hand crafted items. I might even like it here, if I hadn’t been abducted and forced to come.

I was still smirking, I realised when Verne finished smearing the salve on my skin.

“It looks good on you,” he said, his eyes dark and exceptionally soft.

“Sarcasm?” I asked

“Amusement. I think happiness would suit you even more.”

I shrugged, irreverent, and said, “I wouldn’t know,”

He sobered, a furrow between his brows. “You’ve never been happy?”

“I’m sure I have,” I replied, already regretting the remark. “Years ago. So long that my memory of it has degraded. You know how adults get, obsessed with the daily grind, forgetting childhood innocence and happiness.”

“No,” he replied seriously.

“Well.” That was a mood killer. “Thank you for the green goop. I assume this will save me before the silver can attack my heart?”

“It will,” he confirmed, still in that soft, serious voice. His thumb skimmed a slow path across my jaw, sending warmth through my face and a charge through my heart.

“I don’t remember any silver on my face,” I said. I didn’t recognise the emotion in my voice.

“You can never be too careful,” he replied, as if we both didn’t know this touch had nothing to do with healing me. His thumb danced along my cheekbone, until his palm moulded to my cheek.

I could’ve pushed him away, could’ve jumped off the island and fled, but I didn’t move off as he leaned closer. The kiss was feather-light, little more than air grazing my bottom lip. And for some reason I couldn’t put into words, it made me want to cry.

It was one brush, one kiss, then Verne moved back, gathering up the pestle and mortar, scrubbing them in the sink as if nothing just happened.

I didn’t know what to do with this atmosphere between us, not comfortable exactly, but tender and more significant than it should be.

“This,” I said, chewing my lip. “It’s just because I’m your mate, right? You’re not— it’s got nothing to do with me as a person, right? This draw you feel towards me.”

“Sadie,” he breathed, and he was so appalled, his expression so strict that I jumped off the island and had retreated almost entirely through the living room before he spoke again. “It has everything to do with you as a person.”

I froze on the edge of the plush rug, my hand finding the back of a sofa and digging my fingernails in.