POV: Evelyn

I learned I was Silas's mate because Ronan asked me to pass the potatoes.

"Our Alpha hasn't eaten since he found his mate," he said across the crowded dinner table. "If you don't feed him, he'll become dramatic."

Twenty conversations stopped.

Ronan closed his eyes.

"I would like to withdraw the sentence."

Silas set down his fork.

Maeve kicked Ronan beneath the table.

"Ow."

"Withdraw faster."

The Blackwood Reapers had filled the safe-house dining room with roasted meat, bread, loud opinions, and six children chasing one another beneath the chairs. Someone had burned the vegetables. Someone else blamed Silas despite his being forbidden from cooking.

Until that moment, the evening had almost felt normal.

Mate changed the room.

Not because I had never heard the word. Silas had used it on the motorcycle. Nolan had spoken about wolves and another man's wife.

But no one had explained what it meant to everyone else.

"Found?" I asked.

Ronan looked at Silas. "I have recently developed a medical condition that prevents speech."

"Upstairs," Silas told him.

"This is my plate."

"Take it."

Ronan gathered his food. The other Reapers suddenly discovered urgent reasons to carry dishes into the kitchen. Within a minute, only Silas, Sophie, Maeve, and I remained.

Sophie held up a potato. "Is this a mate?"

Maeve took her hand. "Come help me find dessert."

"I already found potato."

"Dessert is sweeter."

They left.

Silas and I faced each other across the ruined family dinner.

"Explain it," I said.

"I wanted to wait."

"Until when?"

"Until you were safe, off medication you didn't choose, and able to leave the room if you disliked the answer."

I looked toward the open door.

He had considered even that.

"I'm listening."

Silas folded his hands on the table. "Wolves recognize one person as a life bond. Scent first. Then instinct. Sometimes dreams. Sometimes emotional bleed."

"The motorcycle."

"You felt me."

"For a second."

"That's the bond opening."

I remembered my palm over his heart and the rush of hunger, shelter, loneliness, and wanting that had not been mine.

"Does it mean you love me?"

Pain crossed his face.

"No. The bond is not love. It creates recognition and need. Love is what I choose after."

"And what have you chosen?"

His eyes met mine.

"I'm trying not to answer that while you still need shelter from me."

"Can a wolf refuse it?"

"Yes."

"Can I?"

"Yes."

"Would it hurt you?"

Silas looked toward the window. "Yes."

"How much?"

"That isn't information you should use to make your decision."

My chair scraped the floor as I pushed back from the table. "You don't get to edit every answer for my benefit."

His gaze returned to mine. "It would hurt every day. I would still rather live with it than watch you accept me because you felt responsible for my pain."

The answer stole the next question from my mouth.

"Would you take another mate?"

"There wouldn't be another."

Not romantic. Not the way he said it. It sounded biological and brutal, like a door in his body had opened once and would never open again.

The honesty was infuriating.

"What does your wolf think?"

"That you belong with us."

"With you or to you?"

Silas did not answer quickly enough.

I stood.

"Evelyn."

"The law says I belong to Grant. Your wolf says I belong to you. Does anyone care what I say?"

"I do."

"Then why didn't you tell me before I slept in your house? Before I wore your clothes? Before I wrapped myself around you on that motorcycle?"

He rose but stayed on his side of the table.

"Because you were bleeding when I found you. Because Grant taught you that every gift carried a debt. Because telling you a supernatural bond had chosen us while you had nowhere else to go would make consent impossible to separate from gratitude."

"So you decided for me."

"I delayed telling you."

"That is a decision."

"Yes."

No defense. Somehow that made anger harder to hold and easier to sharpen.

"What else does the bond give you?"

"Your general direction when you're afraid. Fragments of strong emotion. Your scent changes when you're hurt, angry, or—"

He stopped.

"Or what?"

Gold entered his eyes.

"When you want me."