Lydia laughed. “In what way?”

“He defends me. And he makes me share stuff. And he respects my strength. And he doesn’t make me feel like I need to change.”

Jaime made an “ah” sound. “He’s making himself important to you, and you’re not too happy about that, because losing him would hurt. Yeah, I get it. I was determined not to mate with Dante. But he got through all my defenses, the jerk.”

Back then, Jaime had stopped shifting because her wolf was so traumatized, she attacked anyone around—viewing them as a potential threat. But her wolf had been fighting to break free, and Jaime had known that if it happened, her wolf might turn rogue and have to be killed. As such, she hadn’t wanted to mate with Dante—not even when she’d discovered they were true mates—for fear that if she were killed, he wouldn’t survive the breaking of the mating bond.

“I did my best to keep Nick at a distance,” said Shaya. “I was just so mad at him, so hurt. But he smashed down every wall I had up. Dominant males are good at that. It’s not possible to catch them; they’re too elusive for that. But when they decide a female is going to be theirs, they won’t stop until they have her.”

Roni rocked back on her heels. “Whoa, it’s really not that serious between me and Marcus.”

Lydia gave her a wan smile. “I know you probably won’t want to hear about his sexual history, but let me just say I’ve known Marcus a long time, and he has never been so totally into a female before.”

“When he does that thing where he focuses all that charm and dominant male energy on you, Roni . . .” Taryn fanned her face. “Yowza.”

Jaime laughed. “May I just say we’ve loved that you haven’t made it easy for him.”

Lydia nodded. “It’s about time he had to work for something. And he has worked for you, hasn’t he?”

Roni couldn’t deny that he had. She was private, unsociable, and awkward, but he hadn’t let her keep him away. He’d persevered, practically hunted her down. And now he’d publically staked a temporary claim on her. But she wasn’t going to make the mistake of thinking he was around for good. “He’s going to want his mate.”

“Dante didn’t,” said Jaime, tying ribbons on the ends of the balloons. “He thought she’d be someone who couldn’t accept that he was Beta, who’d want him to choose between her and his position. One of the reasons he decided he wanted to imprint with me was that he realized I’d never make him choose. It turned out imprinting wasn’t necessary, but you get my point.”

Taryn spoke then. “Not all shifters are set on finding their mates. Some don’t like the idea that they’re not in charge of their own path. Some have a preconceived notion of what their mate will be like, and they reject it. And some choose to imprint, aware that there’s a possibility they’ll never find their true mate anyway.”

“You have to consider that Marcus has been circling you since you guys first met,” said Shaya. “It’s clearly more than casual sex to him. That’s not something you can blow off.”

Roni got what Shaya was saying: if things continued to be so intense, the next step would be imprinting—and it could even happen without Roni or Marcus consciously causing it. How had they gone from discussing Marcus’s safety to the subject of mating? Uncomfortable with the direction the conversation had headed, Roni shoved her lollipop back into her mouth.

Shaya sighed, her smile affectionate. “Okay, I can take a hint. But let me just say that I know letting yourself care for someone is majorly scary, and I know it’s appealing to throw up some barriers, but it truly isn’t worth it—he’ll just knock them down.”

“One last thing.” Jaime’s expression was serious. “There was something Dante once said to me before we realized we were mates, when he knew I was contemplating ending the whole thing before I got hurt. He said, ‘Maybe it’s fucking doomed, I don’t know. But don’t you want to know?’ That was when I realized I had to know. So I guess you have to decide what your answer is to that question.”

Roni said nothing, honestly unsure. But she needed to find the answer, because Marcus would expect her to make the same temporary claim on him, particularly considering how bold and assertive dominant females were. His wolf would expect it too—hell, her wolf was expecting it—and dominant males never settled for anything less than what they wanted.

The trouble was that, as she’d told him, she was truly bad at relationships. Roni wasn’t good at expressing how she felt or giving emotional feedback. Wasn’t what anyone would call cuddly or affectionate. Shifter males were protective, liked to take care of their females, liked to feel needed. Roni was self-reliant, fiercely independent, and had been raised to never need a male for anything. As such, she tended to clash badly with her partners.

It had never mattered much to her before—beyond general annoyance anyway—because she’d never really cared for any of them. But Marcus . . . it would matter with him. She didn’t want to hurt him and didn’t want him to look at her the way her mother looked at her—like she lacked, like she wasn’t good enough. Even the idea of it made her want to hold back.

But to do that to protect herself would be cowardly, wouldn’t it? Cowardly and selfish, and she’d like to think she was neither of those things.

It would be unfair to him, because he’d never given her any reason to believe that he thought that about her. He never seemed to be judging her or laughing at her. Her quirks didn’t seem to bother him, nor did the fact that she wasn’t girly. And although he defended her, he didn’t do it in a way that suggested he was “the boss” or that he didn’t see her as his equal. In fact, it actually annoyed him when people dismissed her strength.

Damn the asshole for making himself matter to her. But did he matter enough to publicly stake a temporary claim on him in return? Matter enough that she had to know if a relationship between them would be doomed or not?

She feared that, yeah, he actually might.

Getting to his feet, Nick spat blood on the ground. “You’ll pay for that, Fuller.”

“You ran face-first into my elbow—what did you think would happen?” Marcus’s wolf bared his teeth in a feral grin, liking the sight of the Alpha hurt. He also liked the sight of Zander’s broken nose—super fast or not, the guy couldn’t escape a male wolf who suspected he had a thing for his female.