Page 112 of Hunted to Be Mine

A touch grazed my cheek, feather-light. A trick of sleep.

Again, fingertips traced my jaw with reverence. I kept my eyes closed. If I looked, it would vanish.

Familiar. The path along my cheekbone, the slide to my lower lip. He had touched me like this on the train to Zagreb, when he thought I was sleeping. Mapping me with careful hands. A sound broke out of me, small and helpless.

The hand returned, fingers threading into my hair, tucking it behind my ear. A brush along the shell, finding the tiny freckle there. He’d found it once when he memorized every mark with his mouth.

My pulse kicked. The monitor tattled with quickened beeps.

“Breathe, Selina.” A whisper. Barely sound. “Just breathe. Don’t open your eyes yet.”

I went still, afraid to move, to inhale, to hope. That voice. Not the dull cadence from the parking garage—this one was intimate, the one from shared beds and stolen hours.

You’re dreaming, I told myself. Not real.

“It’s me,” came the faint murmur. “I’m here.”

“How?” The word slipped out. I kept my eyes shut. If I looked, I might lose him.

Hope flared, painful and bright. This felt real. He felt real.

“Open your eyes,” he said, so soft it felt like a hand on my skin. “Slowly. No reaction. You can’t give us away.”

I blinked into the dim. He leaned over me, those storm-gray eyes full of recognition, warmth, something deeper I hadn’t let myself name.

I flinched on instinct, the lab flashback snapping at me. His grip tightened around my hand, steadying me.

“No, no. I’m sorry.” Shame burned.

“It’s okay.” His gaze never left my face. “I get it.”

My free hand rose, trembling as I traced him: the hard line of his jaw, the small scar at his temple, the crease that cut deeper when he worried. My Specter. My Wolfe.

“How?” The question cracked. “I watched it. I watched what they did.”

He flicked a glance toward the door and back. “Dresner misread what you’ve done to me.”

“I don’t understand.” My eyes searched him for an answer. “He used the words. You screamed. Then he said something in your ear and you just—”

The last word wouldn’t come. Those screams still hung in that garage in my head. The instant when Wolfe vanished from his own face.

“Was it fake? Did you know to pretend?”

His fingers tightened around mine; his thumb traced a circle against my skin. Another glance at the door. Back to me.

“I didn’t fake it,” he said. “It hurt like hell, Selina. Like acid poured into my brain. I wanted it to stop so badly, I didn’t care how.”

A tremor ran through him. I reached up with my good hand, needing to feel his skin under my palm.

“Then how…?”

“I don’t know exactly. The words were working. I could feel myself slipping, piece by piece. Then I saw your face.”

He held my gaze, stripped bare.

“You were crying. That anchored me. I could feel them tearing at everything they built, but I kept locking on you. Your eyes. Your hands on me. I hid a part of myself and held on.”

A tear slid into my hairline. “But you didn’t respond. You didn’t blink when I said your name.”