Page 83 of The Wolfing Hour

“Me? What about me?”

I cleared my throat, stared into the mug some more. “She invoked your name.”

“Like a curse?”

“Seriously? We witches don’t curse people as much as you wolves seem to think we do.” I finally lifted my gaze. His brow furrowed, and he blinked a few times. He wasn’t being obtuse—the man was genuinely confused. “Oh. You were being serious.”

“It’s just thatinvokedsounds ominous.”

“Not in this instance.” I sighed. I was making a mess of this. “Margaux said, ‘You took this on for Ronan, to help him find hissister—now, find her. Pour everything you’ve got into it,’ so, I said to myself, it hurts and it’s hard, but for Ronan, I can do this.”

He’d been in the process of standing—had already stacked our plates and silverware to be taken to the sink and washed—when he froze. The dishes rattled in his hands.

“You said that?”

“To myself, yeah.”

In a jolting lurch, he came back to himself. He walked to the sink like a robot, set the dishes down, and returned to the seat beside me, where he stared into the middle distance for a solid thirty seconds.

I was a little confused by his reaction. I’d expected at least a sarcastic, “So what you’re saying isI’mthe one who actually got control of the spell,” with a wink and a grin.

“Ronan, I?—"

“I lied to you yesterday,” he said abruptly.

“Lied? About what?”

“You asked about me calling you mate. I blamed my wolf and said my human side was more civilized when it comes to you. That’s bullshit. If anything, the human side of me is even more wild about you than my wolf side.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond, so I went with the scintillating, “Oh.”

“From the very start, I never intended to let you go. You and I are soulmates.” He reached for my hands, which was convenient, since I was reaching for his. “I knew it for sure the night you paid off your bet by standing on my bar in that godsdamn wet dream of a dress.” He threaded his fingers through mine.

“The look on your face was priceless,” I mused.

“I helped you down and looked into your beautiful autumn eyes. Then you whispered, ‘See you around,’ and I knew itwasn’t going to be enough to just see you around. I was going to need to see you every day for the rest of my life. I was so fucking lost, Betty.” He ducked, rested his forehead against mine. “Irretrievably gone.”

My heart gave a joyful little stutter. “I’ve been drawn to you since I met you, and I had no idea why. At one point, I suspected you’d had someone cast a spell on me.” I smiled to hide how embarrassed I was to be telling him this. “I had Fennel test me for magical influence. He didn’t find anything, of course.”

“You suspected I spelled you? That’s wild, Betty.”

“Is it? You’re Floyd’s son, and he wanted me silent—and dead. To my mind, it made sense.” I held up my hands when he opened his mouth to argue. “But then I got to know you through our interactions, and through conversations with people like Gladys. I started to see you differently.”

“And now?”

“Now I trust you enough to lead me out of the darkness.”

“Betty.” The chair legs squeaked against the floor as he yanked my chair next to his. He wrapped one arm around my shoulders, the other he rested on my upper thigh. “You’re everything—to me, my wolf. None of what I feel for you is civilized, and it should probably scare you.”

“Huh. You’re the one who should be scared. I love you from a place planted inside me so deep I can’t even see the roots.” I rested my head on his shoulder then cuddled closer and buried my face in his neck. He smelled like wolf and coffee and the outdoors. I filled my lungs with his scent, and my body relaxed.

Had I stripped out of my clothing, I wouldn’t have felt more naked. This man held my whole heart in his hands. It scared me a little, but not much, because I was starting to believe I held his in the exact same way.

“I have to go,” he said. “I’ve got a search team reconnoitering in a half hour. Every wolf in the county not under Floyd’s thumb.”

“I know.” I kissed his cheek then peeled away from him and slid my chair back into place. “Before you head out, I need to tell you something. There was a bit more to the spell. It’s highly metaphoric and too vague to be very helpful, but I caught a vision of a cell, its walls dripping with silver. Outside the cell was a room with an old wooden desk. An enormous wolf prowled around the desk, like he was guarding something.”

“You went through a lot of pain for that information.”