“I do.” Weres saw all kinds of supernatural stuff, and that usually had one of two results. Either they hunkered down in their religion of choice, or they called all religion crap.

“You haven’t completed your bond, but you can speak to her in your mind?” A guy a few seats down said. “A good number of us have mated fully and cannot do that. I’m not liking it. Not at all. Vivian said your mate was cursed and can’t shift. And last night she didn’t shift. Sounds like witchcraft to me.”

From his first sentence alone, I knew this guy and I were not going to be friends. Add in the fact that he was believing whatever Vivian was spreading about me, and he was officially on my list of suspects. Sure, the curse was real, but I wasn’t cursed anymore. It shouldn’t even be a thing.

“Cursed?” Another male voice chimed in. “You’d mate a cursed one? Bring her among us?” And now that guy was on my list, too.

“You’ve been mated to Vivian for years. How can you do this to her?” The lady in the red shirt now had a place on my list.

“Vivian’s stood by your side for decades, and you’d throw her off for this brasser?”

Okay. Everyone in the fucking room was on my list, except Saoirse, Ian, and Donovan. I was doing a terrible job of narrowing down suspects.

But I had one question. Brasser? I asked Donovan.

Whore. His tone was less than pleased. He let out a rumble. “Did any of you ever attend my mating ceremony?”

There was silence.

“Did I ever say I was mated to Vivian?”

Silence.

“Was there any indication, aside from a solitary night spent in my bed, that I was mated to her?”

Even more silence.

“Then what should that tell you? It’d be wise to use your brain if you’ve got one. Vivian is not, and never was, my mate.” Donovan’s voice was ice cold. “Do not call my mate, Meredith, a whore. Not ever. Not if you want to live.” Power rolled through the room until we were all choking on his anger.

That pretty much ended the question-and-answer portion of our night. Thank God. I wasn’t sure how much more I could take. I’d thought that I wanted to be accepted by the pack, but I wasn’t so sure anymore. Not if this was how they treated people.

Donovan took a bite of his food, and that signaled that he was moving on. Still, there was silence for a few minutes before someone started talking. At first, it was just murmuring in the back, but over the course of a few minutes, the room slowly came to life. But my mate sat there, silently eating his food as he thought.

What do you think? I asked him.