Page 151 of Nikolay

“He drugged her.”

The word struck harder because it was true and plain and naked.

The witch’s chanting broke altogether.

My throat tightened.

Nikolay took another step.

“He stole her from open company.”

Another step.

“He laid her on stone.”

Another.

“And now he asks you to witness this obscenity as though ritual can bleach cowardice clean.”

Sage’s composure cracked at last. “Enough.”

“Not nearly.”

His voice had not risen. It had dropped, if anything, gone softer and more deadly with each sentence.

“You speak of wolf dignity while binding a woman who told you no.” His gaze flicked, at last, toward the wolves standing near the altar. “Is this dignity? Is this the proud, old strength you were promised? Leather on wrists. Drugged blood. A witch holding together a rite she can barely keep from collapsing.”

The witch actually flinched.

I wanted to laugh at that. Or cry. Or both. My head felt too light and too full all at once, but the bond held me together where the rest of me wanted to come apart.

One of the younger Ironwood wolves swallowed hard and looked toward Sage. “Alpha—”

Sage cut him off with a snarl. “Silence.”

There it was. The mask slipping.

Nikolay heard it too. I knew he did because something pitiless entered the next line.

“Yes,” he said. “There he is.”

Sage’s nostrils flared. “You have no claim here.”

At that, Nikolay finally stopped moving.

When he spoke again, every word struck with the weight of law.

“She. Is. My. Mate.”

The bond flared so fiercely I gasped.

No one in that clearing could have mistaken what crossed my face then. Relief. Pain. Love. Everything I had tried to hold together under pride and hurt and confusion tore open all at once, and there it was between us for anyone with eyes.

A murmur moved through the ring.

Sage’s expression turned murderous.

Nikolay did not so much as blink. “And you”—his gaze returned to Sage with surgical precision—“put your hand across her face.”