Page 71 of Wolf Trial

“We didn’t think you’d wake up,” he said, keeping that smile on his face until it looked painful. “Lainsz says your heart stopped for a moment two nights ago.”

“Because he had a pillow pressed over my face?” I joked.

“Hilarious,” the dick himself drawled. I found him leaning against the wall beside the door, watching me with dead, shadow-ringed eyes that sent a shock of alarm through my chest.

I quickly looked away, focusing on Verne. He and Leander sat on my bed—well, Verne’s bed—utterly fixated on me. “I died again?”

“Almost,” Verne replied, a shadow chasing through his eyes. He didn’t fake a smile like Leander, and I found myself glad for it. I wasn’t sure I could handle the alpha pretending everything was sunshine and daisies. “If it wasn’t for your sheer stubbornness and Leander’s sister healing you, we’d have lost you.”

“Leander’s sister…?” I glanced at him, startled again by the sight of him. His green eyes were dark with bags beneath, his stubble more of a beard. Brown and cerulean hair fell around his face, wild and unruly. His shirt was equally rumpled; I chose to be kind and not let my eyes linger on the stain down the middle.1

“Lucira,” he said, gravelly. That smile made a reappearance, painful enough that I leaned over and touched his hand without thought. “My parents were here, too. They’re all worried about you, but they had to go home. Lucira’s coming back tomorrow to check on you.”

Oh. Well, a double stabbing was one way to get out of the meet-the-parents thing.

“What happened to the hag? And Beaufort?” I rubbed my head, my temple pounding when I tried to recall the events in detail. “I have memories, but they’re hazy.”

“The slayer leech killed Beaufort,” Lainsz filled in when an awkward silence fell. “The hag escaped. We were a little busy with you bleeding out all over us to hunt her down, so fuck knows where she ended up.”

She was free? My stomach dropped.

“You’re safe here,” Verne promised, clasping my free hand. “I promise you, Sadie. Nothing bad will happen to you again.”

“Seems unrealistic given everything else that’s happened since I got to this shithole. No offense,” I added since they lived here. It was their shithole.

“What about my friends?” I asked after a moment of quietude, ignoring the spike of pain through my fragile heart. I’d get over it. It wasn’t the first time I’d lost friends. “Did they get hurt?”

Lainsz made a throaty noise from the door. “Unfortunately not.”

“They’ve been here everyday,” Verne told me, brushing a lock of hair out of my wide eyes. “We refuse to let a slayer into our home on principle—”

Lainsz made another noise. I was in agreement with this one, and raised an eyebrow to echo his point.

“Except our beloved mate,” Verne corrected. He looked tired, lines cut around his mouth, his eyes drooping. I didn’t let the beloved word affect me, batting it away like a ping pong ball. No good would come of thinking these men cared about me. Even if they had cared if I lived or died. And had gone to such lengths to save me. Again.

I sighed. “Some badass fighter I am. This is twice you’ve had to save me.”

“Never again,” Leander said, firmly enough that I fumbled to find the place where I could sense his emotions, to see if the ice on the lake had shattered. It was still intact, but it was whittling away. “This is the last time we’ll save you.”

“I’ll just die next time, then?” I quipped. Lainsz laughed; Leander recoiled like I’d slapped him. “Shit, sorry, that was insensitive.”

I was only just getting to grips with what this whole mate thing meant, but I knew it meant everything to Leander.

“Sadie,” Verne said, squeezing my hand. “We should talk about—that academy.” I blinked, waiting for him to continue, his tone already getting my hackles up. “It’s not safe. You can’t go back.”

Wanna know a surefire way to make me do something? Tell me I can’t. Forbid me from doing it.

I narrowed my eyes. “Are you telling me what I can and can’t do, Verne?”

He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “You already died once, and came so close to dying permanently because of that place,” he argued.

I was wrong. There were cracks in Verne, too. Just hidden so deep I couldn’t even sense them. I saw them, though, and heard them in his voice when he added, so firm there was no room for compromise, “You need to stay here.”

Beside the door, Lainsz shook his head, black hair spilling over his shoulders like a tempting waterfall.

No. Not tempting. That was the two stab wounds talking.

“I want to talk to my friends,” I said, pulling my hands from theirs and ignoring the deluge of cold that hit me without them touching me.