Healed: True Mates Book 3 (Wolf Shifter) (A Craggstone Paranormal Romance) by Olivia Arran

was right.
    Kate glared at me.
    Now I was one hundred percent sure.
    “I’m guessing the father is…” I watched her face, looking for a tell. “Gary? No, Eric? Bingo! Raving-dead-lunatic as the father. Congratulations, Kate, he was quite the catch!”
    “You didn’t know him properly, no one in this pack did—only me. I was his chosen mate—”
    “I think you’ll find Kara was his chosen mate. The one he fought for in front of the Shifter Council. The one he died for.”
    Kate flinched as if my words were causing her physical pain. “He was murdered. Tricked and murdered. Gary told—” She stopped short, her mouth clamping shut again.
    “Gary told you what?” Tarq growled, leaning over her shoulder, glaring at her at eye level.
    But the woman stubbornly remained silent. Tarq and I exchanged looks. We could hardly beat the information out of her, not with her carrying a pup—even that bastard’s pup.
    I took a deep breath. I was going to have to try and connect with her, woman to woman.
    “Eric wasn’t what you thought, Kate. He had many women, and you were just one of them.”
    “We were mated!” she cried out, shaking her head rapidly. “The other women didn’t count, didn’t matter—he told me that! He just wanted that Kara back so he could teach her a lesson, use her as an example to the pack. He said that if you let one bitch get away with it, then they’d all think they could do whatever they wanted. He only wanted us to mind, to treat the men with the respect they deserved!”
    I felt physically sick as I listened to her spew Eric’s tainted bullshit, her eyes glowing with certainty. In her mind, she was right. The bastard had brainwashed her.
    “Did he ever force himself on you?” I asked gently.
    “No! He didn’t!”
    “Are you sure? Try to remember, did you always want him?”
    Kate looked confused, as though I were the one losing my mind. “Well, a woman doesn’t always want it. You must know that! But it’s our job to service—”
    “I’ve heard enough of this fucking bullshit,” Tarq barked out, striding around to face Kate. “It is never okay for a man to force himself on you. It is always okay to say you don’t want to, you don’t feel like it, you don’t fucking want him—whatever! You don’t even have to give a reason! You just say no, and he should respect that!” His words built until he roared the last word.
    Shocked, I looked at him. He was shaking, his legs braced as he ran a hand through his hair, trying to hide his face from me. But I caught a glimpse of his eyes, and they were filled with anguish, with hurt and sorrow.
    Kate was staring at him, too, then her lips twisted in a mockery of a grin, teeth glinting white. “ You’re not a real man, not if you’d let a woman say no to you.”
    But he had. And he was. And this bitch wasn’t going to say otherwise, pregnant or not.
    My hand flew out before I had time to think, cuffing her around the cheek, knocking that silly smirk off her face. “He is a hundred, no, make that a thousand times the man Eric ever was. Tarq has more honor, more compassion, more strength of character, more…” I searched for a more eloquent way to phrase it, then decided to boot eloquence straight out of the window, “… has more raw sex appeal than Eric had in his little toe!”
    “Thanks, that’s nice to know,” Tarq murmured next to me, a touch of color flushing his cheeks.
    “Well. It’s true. Doesn’t mean—you know—”
    “I know. It’s still nice to hear, though.”
    “When you two lovebirds have finally finished, care to tell me what you’re going to do with me?”
    Tarq grunted, his brow creased in thought, then turned to me, dismissing Kate as insignificant. “I think it’s time we chose some lieutenants, now the traitor is out in the open. And don’t even bother to suggest Seb—he’s too much your type for me to handle right now. I need to keep my mind on the task, not be fighting off rages of