I Will Protect You

Rafe laughs at my question as if it is the most absurd thing he’s ever heard. It’s the kind of laugh that shakes the room but still sounds hollow. I’m probably projecting.

“Protect you from Io? Is that really something that I have to do?” he asks after catching his breath. “Why on earth would I have to protect you from your own people?”

My own people.

It’s only natural that he looks at Io that way. I’m his mate who abandoned her “birth pack” to join him. That makes Io my new home, and these wolves are my people. Technically. Off the record, though, I’m sure that I’ll be considered public enemy number one the second everyone discovers who my mother is.

Goddess, I jumped out of the frying pan and into the pits of hell.

“I’m not from here. I don’t know the ways of your people. I’m sure I will rub someone the wrong way eventually,” I mutter my half-truth, trying my best to keep my composure and not let anything else slip.

I jump when his warm fingers gently rub between my tented brow