Chapter 12 · How to Fake Loving a Wolf

“Stop touching it.”

Ronan caught my wrist before I could rub the burning mark off my palm again.

His hand was cold. Not normal cold. Dead-guy cold, if dead guys had enough muscle to pin you against a stolen SUV door and glare at you like you were the problem.

“It hurts,” I snapped.

“It’s supposed to.”

“Great. Love that for me.”

The ring sat on my finger, black metal sunk tight against my skin. Under it, the invitation kept glowing through my palm in thin silver lines. A crescent moon. A street address. Then, lower down, letters that kept trying to form before breaking apart like static.

My mom’s name.

Or part of it.

I swallowed hard and pulled my hand back.

Ronan let me go, but his eyes stayed on the ring.

We were parked under an abandoned printing warehouse three blocks from the hotel. The place smelled like wet concrete, oil, and old paper. Rainwater dripped through cracks in the ceiling and hit the hood in slow, annoying taps.

Above us, the city was losing its mind over Ronan Kade.

Every phone screen. Every lobby TV.