  She's entrusting Wolfie with making sure I sleep?
      And leaving me?
      Alone. With him.
      I mean, I know she doesn't have much of a choice.
      But still.
      &quot;Make sure she sleeps?&quot;
      Really? I don't need sleep that bad, and there's no way in h3ll I'm sleeping with him in the room.
      I turn and glare at Wolfie's tall and bulky frame. I have to tilt my head up quite a bit to look him in the eye from my position sitting with my legs dangling off the bed. He simply stares back.
      Dang he's pretty.
      We stay like this for a hot minute.
      And when I say hot, I mean hot.
      There's a sort of warmth collecting in my stomach, and I almost feel a sweat brake loose. For a split second — split second — the fact that I may be going through heat flashed through my mind. It's mainly a werewolf thing, but it's very common for females mated to wolves, e

  •••Jason's POV•••
      She does not look happy.
      Not one bit.
      She's been asleep for barely a few minutes and she already looks in pain.
      She told me not to worry about it. She's obviously afraid to sleep because she doesn't want to face her dreams.
      Could they be that bad?
      All I want to do is go up to her and scoop her up in my arms.
      But she wouldn't like that.
      Not at all.
      So I settled for sitting by her bedside and watching over her.
      She's unconscious and there's no one around. I can act as tender as I want to towards her.
      I rested my elbows on the bed and sighed, &quot;you've got some real baggage up there don't you?&quot; I commented under my breath.
      I was staring at her, and I noticed a little scar on her neck. She has a few of them in other places too, as I've noticed. One tiny one under her right eye, and a lower one

  •••Jason's POV•••
      &quot;AH!&quot;
      I nearly jumped out of my skin as Maria suddenly broke free of her friend's hold and lurched forward into a sitting position. Fantastic forest green eyes darted in every direction, wide in fear, confusion, and panic. I probably mirrored her, along with everyone else in the room.
      My heart was in my throat, but her's seemed unnaturally slow in its beats, even for someone not waking up from the apparent nightmare of the century. I was perplexed, but everything went from zero to one hundred so quickly I could barely keep up, let alone question the slow rate of her heart.
      The second she darted up, her friends jumped to restrain her. But she fought. Hard.
      I didn't understand why at first, but when I caught sight of her gaze, realization washed over me. Her forests weren't deep and something you want to run arms open into, like usual. They were shallow. And what was happening right behind the tree line — right behind her eyes — wasn't pretty. In fact, it was terrifying. And tragic. The expression on her face painted all of this for the world to see. We couldn't witness what she was, but we could see the pain in her eyes.
      It made an intense feeling spread through my chest and crawl to my stomach. I couldn't identify it if I wanted to. Butterflies wouldn't be the right analogy. It's more like a family of wasps panging at my insides.
      I don't know why, but time took this time to slow down in my head. And everything went sort of muffled in my ears.
      It couldn't have done it while everything was quiet and calm?
      But my subconscious chose now to let everything hit me. Not while I was staring at her lay helpless, but while I was watching her suffer a tragedy mixed with a horror right in front of my eyes. The worst part is that it's all behind her glassy gaze, in her head, and none of us can do anything about it.
      I had told Malaki not to let me think too deeply about any of this, and I had done the same for him. All because I didn't want either of us to truly see her.
      We're mates for crying out loud. It would make me week in the knees and probably make the aspect of stopping all this and just begging for her forgiveness all too appealing.
      But here we are.
      Finally seeing her.
      And d@mn, she's the most magnificent thing I've ever seen. Even in her pain.
      And what'd you know, everything everyone spoke about her, warned me about, was true so far.
      She's not just a master's kid who's had everything handed to her. She can't be naïve because, the movie that's playing in her head right now, it can't be anything innocent and kind.
      Deep deep deep deep deep down, I saw this before. Of course I did. How could I not? She's my other half.
      But I was really hoping to avoid being able to feel this until she submitted. The feeling I get when I think about how amazing she is.
      She caught me off guard. Ki and I had our walls down, and she sneak attacked us with her beautiful truth and forced it down our throats. Her beautiful, painful truth.
      So much for denial.
      So much for getting through this easily.
      I thought I could be passive enough not to let this happen. . . But it did.
      'And now we're screwed,' Ki budded in.
      No!
      If I mess up this deal it puts us all in danger. Even her.
      We have to follow through. We'll go through with your plan.
      'I don't know if I can do it —'
      You can, and you will.
      . . . Besides, you gonna let her walk all over you like that?
      He let out a growl.
      'No. I'M the alpha.'
      That's what I thought.
      And yes, we are.
      I focused back in on what's around me.
      Goddess, seeing her is like a punch to the stomach —
      HOLY CRAP.
      I barely snap out of it in time to SEE her fist hurtling towards my face.
      But there's not enough time to move out of the way. So one 20th of a second later, I took a surprisingly brain jarring punch right to the nose.
      &quot;Fu#k!&quot;
      D@mn, she hits hard.
      &quot;Oh my crap! I'm SO sorry!&quot;
      ***Maria's POV***
      Crap, I just punched mate in the face.
      Wait. . .
      &quot;Wait, no I'm not,&quot; I scowled and gave him a kick to his side from his doubled over position.
      He puffed out a grunt of air at the contact.
      I rolled my eyes and —
      Wait. . .
      He's shirtless.
      . . . Right in front of me.
      And oh my goddess.
      I feel light headed.
      This isn't my fist time seeing a shirtless guy.
      Obviously. And it's not even my first time seeing an absolutely ripped shirtless guy, like Wolfie is.
      Obviously, again, because I literally fight for a living and, not to mention, go to the gym and pool.
      But this is. . . This is a lot.
      Oh my goddess his abs. . .
      OKAY! Enough! I need to stop this.
      Before I literally faint.
      I need to get back onto my train of thought to distract myself from all of. . . That.
      But we will be returning to that.
      I may not regret it, but I still didn't mean to punch him in the face.
      In my dream, like most times, I was a little girl again. Scared and helpless.
      Well, maybe helpless isn't the right word. . . I was a little bad @ss, but no match for what I was dealing with.
      I was back in my nine year old body, staring up at him. Fighting with everything I had.
      It's no wonder the scene in my dream switched from chains to his people holding me down. It was my friends trying to calm me down in real life.
      And Jason. . . He was just the first face I saw after all the terrible memories of him were bombarding my head. I didn't mean to strike out at him.
      When I start to wake up — and this goes for most of my nightmares — I get this rush of power. I'm not my 9 year old self anymore, and I can kick butt like it's nobody's business again, so my first instinct is usually to jolt awake with a limb flying towards some innocent bystander's face.
      But this time the bystander wasn't innocent, so it worked out.
      Wolfie slowly stood from his doubled over position, still cradling his bleeding nose.
      Oh my goddess.
      That smells too good.
      So . . . Why am I not jumping him and draining him of all his blood?
      I haven't fed in months.
      I shouldn't be able to resist.
      I feel a pull, but it is far too manageable. I've had trouble controlling myself with his smell even without his blood actually being exposed. So why. . .
      I gasped, and I know my eyebrows shot up.
      Everyone got visibly more uncomfortable.
      No. . .
      They wouldn't.
      I whipped my gaze to Doc, because apparently, she's here too. I shook my head, &quot;You didn't.&quot;
      There's no blood bags anywhere, and the single one Rose and Brandon gave me wouldn't be enough for me to resist Wolfie's exposed blood.
      Silence.
      They did.
      They gave me Jason's blood.
      I don't know how obvious I made the very intense. . .
      Wait. . . Deep breath.
      Don't overreact. They were trying to help.
      I don't know how obvious I made the very intense. . . Discontent, but I felt everyone's agitation grow.
      &quot;Everyone out,&quot; I heard Wolfie's snarl cut through the air.
      No one moved for a second.
      He looked around, &quot;Now!&quot; He put a little alpha command behind it.
      It got Happy stirring, and he moved to lead everyone out.
      Before he got to her, Doc looked over to me and Wolfie, &quot;She still shouldn't be out and about. You need to regain your strength. You should sleep for the rest of the day.&quot;
      Lay down and stare at the sealing while I contemplate every bad decision I've ever made for the rest of the day, got it.
      Happy got to her and grabbed her arm lightly, &quot;Doctor,&quot; he beckoned.
      Wow, he's probably the most gentlemanly person to throw someone out of a room since ever.
      She walked with him but threw something over her shoulder as she left.
      &quot;You,&quot; she pointed at me sternly, &quot;sleep.&quot;
      &quot;And you,&quot; she moved her demanding gaze to Wolfie, &quot;Make sure she sleeps.&quot;
      My brows furrowed.
      &quot;Wait what?&quot;
      And she was gone.

She's entrusting Wolfie with making sure I sleep?
      And leaving me?
      Alone. With him.
      I mean, I know she doesn't have much of a choice.
      But still.
      &quot;Make sure she sleeps?&quot;
      Really? I don't need sleep that bad, and there's no way in h3ll I'm sleeping with him in the room.
      I turn and glare at Wolfie's tall and bulky frame. I have to tilt my head up quite a bit to look him in the eye from my position sitting with my legs dangling off the bed. He simply stares back.
      Dang he's pretty.
      We stay like this for a hot minute.
      And when I say hot, I mean hot.
      There's a sort of warmth collecting in my stomach, and I almost feel a sweat brake loose. For a split second — split second — the fact that I may be going through heat flashed through my mind. It's mainly a werewolf thing, but it's very common for females mated to wolves, even if they're not one themselves, to experience it too.
      Which is freaking weird if 

Chapter 20)What Did They Do?