Ian needed to tread softly so he didn’t lose her.
“Did you not like it?” he asked low, kneeling down near the edge of the tub. “I won’t be that rough again. I’m sorry.”
Elyse rested her cheek against her knees and gave him a shy smile that buckled his insides. “Don’t make that promise, bear-man. I liked seeing the real you.”
“If I’m ever too rough—”
“You weren’t.” Her gold-green eyes were sincere in the flickering light of the candle he’d lit and placed on the sink.
With a relieved sigh, he ran a washcloth gently around the torn skin on her shoulder. She winced when he got too close, and he hated himself. Hated that he wasn’t human and better for her. She shouldn’t have to deal with an animal’s whims.
“Why didn’t you tell me you could see Cole’s bite mark?”
“I thought you hadn’t mentioned it because it hurt to think about. I hated it, though.” Ian shook his head to ward off the new wave of rage that threatened to take him. “Elyse, I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to hurt you. Not ever.”
As soft as a breath, she asked, “What does it mean?”
“My mark?”
She dipped her chin once.
“It’s a claiming mark. I never thought I would give a woman one, but then…”
“Then you met me?”
“Yeah. You’re important.”
She reached across the porcelain ledge and drew a wet finger gently over the half-healed bite mark she’d made on his chest.
Ian swallowed hard and closed his eyes against how good her touch felt on his skin. “Can I tell you something?”
“Tell me everything.”
“I was so fucking proud when you bit me back.”
“You’re proud of me?” Why the hell did she sound so baffled by that? Could she not see she owned him, heart and soul?
“Elyse, whatever Cole made you feel about yourself, he was wrong. You are the strongest woman I’ve ever met. You’ve been dealt blow after blow, and still you are here, fighting and clawing to keep the life you love. You’re a badass.”
“A badass,” she repeated dreamily. “You know, I think I like that compliment even more than if you told me I’m beautiful.”
He smiled and ran his fingertip across her soft cheek. “You’re both.”
“I think I’ll grow to hate the snow,” she whispered.
The moisture that rimmed her eyes split him open and laid him bare. For the first time in his life, he hated the snow too. Snow meant change. It meant winter was on its way. The cold, white powder was Mother Nature’s reminder that they would be separated by sleep soon. “I wish I was different for you.”
A single tear slid from the corner of her eye and dropped into the bath water that rippled around her. Elyse slid her hand up the back of his and pressed his palm against her cheek. “I don’t. You’re perfect the way you are.”
Ian let off a shaky breath and leaned his chin on the tub just to be closer to her.
“Ian?”
“Hmm?”
“When you wake up next spring, I’ll still be in this. I’ll still want you to be my husband.”
This woman… Ian swallowed hard and brushed a strand of damp hair from her forehead. She was everything good about his life now. How anyone so brave, determined, loyal, and beautiful had picked a man like him, he wouldn’t ever understand. All he could do was try his best to make her happy when he could because that right there, her slow smile, was the thing he coveted most in this world.
He pulled her left hand to his lips and kissed the gold band on her finger. “Big wedding or small?”
“Small. And I want it to be here.”
“Done,” he promised.
Elyse leaned her cheek onto the bathtub ledge, right near his, so he let his lips linger on her wet hair and ran a light finger up and down her spine.
She bore his mark now, and he bore hers, and he would do anything to keep her.
And now, while he was awake enough to be of use to her, he would give her the tools she would need to protect herself from what was coming.
Elyse didn’t understand yet, but she would. Miller asking Josiah about her meant she hadn’t ever really escaped the McCalls. That crazy werewolf had killed one of her cows. It wasn’t vengeance that made him hunt her herd.
Miller was marking his territory.
And Ian would be damned if he went to sleep without teaching Elyse how to defend herself from the wolves.
Starting tomorrow, his beautiful badass would become a weapon.
Chapter Eighteen
“Again,” Ian murmured.
Elyse lifted the rifle to her shoulder and put the scope on the target of the wolf Ian had sketched out on brown butcher paper and nailed to a tree a hundred yards off.
“Tighter to your shoulder. Even tighter. Spare your body the kick so you won’t be sore.”
“Ha,” she muttered. Tomorrow was going to suck. No doubt she would be black and blue since she hadn’t listened to Ian’s advice the first hour, and now her shoulder ached like she’d taken a solid kick from Demon’s hoof.