DEMI
By the time I let Maverick into my room, my mouth still remembered blood.
Not taste exactly. I had brushed my teeth until my gums hurt, rinsed twice, chewed mint leaves from Margaret’s basket, and still the memory clung behind my tongue. Kate’s single drop had shattered me. The emergency bags in the bathroom had stitched me back together. That was the truth I could not let anyone smell.
So, while Maverick settled beside me with popcorn, coffee, and the careful patience of a man pretending he did not want answers, I watched him from the corner of my eye and panicked quietly. Had he smelled the bags? The bathroom? The metallic ghost of what I had swallowed before opening the door? Wolves smelled fear. Alphas smelled lies. What could mates smell when the woman beside them had just
