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“You’re wasting your breath,” I said and scratched Nia behind the ears. “You didn’t see her standing over your unconscious body. You were surrounded by demons, and there was no way she was abandoning you. You’re asking her to go against every one of her instincts. She’ll protect you no matter what you say. She loves you. I don’t need to understand what she’s saying to see that.”

Worry filled her gaze. “I just…I can’t bear to think of her getting hurt.”

“She feels the same way about you.” Nia ran around my legs and licked my hand. “Does she understand me, or is it only you?”

“With the way she and I communicate, just me, but animals, especially domesticated ones like cats and dogs, can pick up on a lot of what people are trying to say, they sense it, when we’re happy with them or annoyed or whatever. Like when you called her a good girl, she picked up on it easily.” Iris looked up at me. “She said that you’re with us now, so no demon will hurt me.”

“She’s right,” I said. “I’ll never let anything hurt you.”

Iris held my gaze and licked her lips, then quickly looked away, grabbed Amy’s sweater, and held it out for me. “I guess you better sniff this.”

My new mate was thawing, but that fear was still there, and at times she still hid behind it. For some reason, she was still holding back, despite saying she wanted to try to make it work between us. It probably had more to do with her ex-boyfriend than anything else. I hoped that’s all it was. I could show her I wasn’t like him over and over again, and hopefully, one day, she’d finally believe it. I couldn’t fight blind, though.

I’d let her have her little bit of distance for now—there would be none later tonight when I got her alone and in our bed again.

“Why don’t you and Nia stay here? I’ll be able to move faster.” And get you back to safety quicker.

“I’m coming,” she said. “I know I’m not as fast as you, but I can move quickly when I go into my animal state.”

She closed her eyes and started breathing slow and steady. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m about to show you, but I need to concentrate.”

Iris kept her eyes closed, and Nia danced around her, the dog quivering with excitement. I froze, sensing the change before I saw it.

Wolf.

Iris was turning into a fucking wolf.

I could still see her. Iris was still there, but there was this shadow of a wolf surrounding her. “What the fuck is this?” She turned to me, and her eyes were different. Jesus fucking Christ, they were arctic blue, and yeah, all animal.

“This is part of my magic,” she said. “I can call on different animals, and when I do, I take on some of their abilities. I can run faster as a wolf, see and hear better too.”

I stood fucking statue still, my mind scrambling.

“How does she feel to you?” Iris asked. “I don’t know if she’s the spirit of a wolf or part of me, but she’s the same wolf who comes whenever I call.”

Goose bumps rose all over my skin as I took her in. “It’s you,” I rasped. “She’s you. You are one and the same.” I didn’t know how to describe it. If Iris had been born a wolf or a shifter, the ghostly figure surrounding her is how she would’ve looked, how she would have felt. I knew it with certainty.

She smiled. “I did wonder. I’ve always had this incredible connection to animals, like I was one of them, even though I’m not.”

“You never told me about this. I had no idea.” My heart was fucking racing. She was so fucking powerful—and she’d kept it from me, hidden it. “Why didn’t you tell me you could do this?”

She frowned. “I don’t know…I didn’t think it was important.”

“What else can you do that you haven’t told me?” A feeling I didn’t like shifted through me.

“Nothing. Draven, are you…are you seriously angry at me right now?” Her blue wolf’s eyes were full of fire.

I shoved my fingers through my hair. I didn’t know what I was, but I didn’t like secrets, especially when it came to her magic. “Is there more, Iris? You promised to be honest with me.”

“No, there isn’t, and I didn’t think you meant about this. Why the hell does it matter?” she said, spine stiffening.

“It just does. We’re mates. I should know who the fuck I’m sleeping beside,” I bit out.

She stilled, watching me with those eerie fucking eyes that weren’t hers, but also were. “You don’t trust me.”

Not a question. I gritted my teeth. Shit. No, I realized, I didn’t, not fully, not yet. I wanted to, so badly, but I had three hundred years of resentment, of mistrust and fear, to work through. “We all have shit we’re working through, which is why I demand complete honesty,” I said instead.