Evan looks at me, and there's something in his face that isn't just love, it's respect, deep and real, the look of a person seeing you fully and valuing exactly the thing about you that the rest of the world always dismissed.
"That's why it was always you," he says quietly. "Not just the bond. Not just the wanting. You're the one thing Cass never planned for, because he's spent his whole life in a world where power is strength and blood and violence, and he has no idea what to do with a human girl who wins by being smarter and more patient and more stubborn than anyone gives her credit for. He built his whole plan to break a wolf. He never once considered that the wolf's mate would be the most dangerous person in the story."
The words land warm in my chest, and I hold onto them, because
