“Lecturing her served a purpose?”

“The more I lectured her, the more she . . .” Kathy trailed off, prompting him to fill in the blanks.

“Spent time with me,” he finished.

She grinned. “Exactly. She spent more time with you to get away from me and to be contrary. If I’d tried to push her to spend some time with you, she’d have done the opposite.”

“No, but she’d have tried. I wouldn’t have let her run.”

Kathy chuckled. “I like you, Marcus Fuller. You’ll be good for my Roni.”

At that moment, the door opened and Roni stepped out onto the porch. “Hey, gorgeous.” Marcus held out a hand to her. Eyes dancing from him to Kathy, she slowly walked to him and slipped her hand in his.

Kathy rose to her feet and sniffed at her daughter. “I suppose this is the part where I congratulate you.”

Roni snorted. “Don’t be too happy for me. Really. Calm down.”

“I’m glad you’ve found your mate. I’m not saying you’ll manage to keep him, but . . .” Kathy turned and went back inside.

Growling, Roni shook her head. “She was sent to test me. And I’m failing miserably.”

Marcus curled his arms around her and indulged in a long, thorough taste of that luscious mouth. “Let’s go for a run. My wolf badly wants to play with yours. He wants his mate.”

Her wolf liked that idea too, wanted to finally brand her male. Despite Marcus’s assurances that her wolf was free to mark his wolf as much as she wanted, Roni hadn’t let them run together before. Quite frankly, she’d worried that her wolf would claim Marcus fully as her own, and Roni hadn’t wanted to do that until imprinting started. Only then would she have felt confident that the relationship had progressed far enough to do that.

Now that Roni knew he was hers on every level, she had absolutely no problem with answering her wolf’s desire to run with and brand Marcus’s wolf. So, after dumping their clothes in Roni’s lodge, they shifted forms.

The female dark-gray wolf and the male, whose fur was a mix of gray, brown, and yellow, licked and nipped at each other’s muzzle in greeting. Then the female delivered a sharp nip to the male’s ear and bounded away. He followed her, and together they loped through the woods of Mercury Pack territory. They spent hours mock fighting, ambushing, pouncing, shouldering one another, and jaw wrestling before finally claiming and branding each other.

It was dark when they returned to the lodge. In the living area, Marcus shifted forms first and collapsed on his back. The long day had left him sapped of strength. A dark-gray female wolf stood over him, sniffing behind his ear and then licking at his chin. He smoothed his hands down her graceful neck. “Come back to me, Roni.” Seconds later, he had a gorgeous, naked woman sprawled on top of him.

“Your wolf is as insatiable as you are,” Roni mumbled against his chest, exhausted. She came close to purring when his fingertips traced the length of her spine.

“You weren’t kidding when you said your wolf is aggressive when going after what she wants.” Not that his own wolf had any complaints about the multiple brands.

“Your wolf isn’t exactly shy.” The bite on her nape had hurt like a motherfucker, but it had only served to further incite her wolf. Yep, their animals were well matched.

Rolling her onto her back, Marcus lapped at his claiming mark. “I love looking at this.” He wouldn’t have thought he could be this possessive. He hadn’t imagined it would be like this—so consuming, so fucking intense that it stole his breath. He wanted to keep her locked away, so he wouldn’t have to share her. Wanted to gouge out the eyes of any male who dared ogle her. Wanted to know her better than anybody else did, to be vital to her. He wanted to own her—body, mind, and soul.

At the same time, though, it wasn’t a destructive possessiveness like he would have imagined. It wasn’t a sinister greed that would grow into something unhealthy. It wouldn’t suffocate or hinder or hurt her. Not this. He didn’t look at Roni and see an object, he saw someone whose happiness meant more to him than anything. And, yes, jealousy came with it. But not out of insecurity or distrust. It came from a soul-deep need to protect and keep this person who mattered most to him, to safeguard their bond from any external threat.

“I want you to remember something. No matter how possessive or protective I am, don’t ever see me as not respecting you or believing you can’t defend or think for yourself. Don’t ever think I want to squash your independence.” He licked along her collarbone, pausing to swirl his tongue in the hollow of her throat. “You’re perfect to me exactly as you are.”

“I’ll remember. It doesn’t mean I won’t push back.”

He smiled. “I wouldn’t expect anything different.” Supporting himself using his elbow, he propped his head on his hand. “So, which one of us is switching packs?” When she didn’t say anything, he continued. “I’m going to be honest with you. I don’t want to switch for two reasons: One, I’m close to the people in my pack; they’re all family to me. Two, I agree with Eli: Nick and your mom will make themselves a problem for us—they truly can’t help themselves. But if you really want to stay here, I’ll switch.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because you matter more than any of that.” With his free hand, he doodled patterns on her flat stomach, liking how it quivered beneath his touch. “I want you to be happy.”

“Which is great and all, but I want you to be happy. So we can’t try to make this decision based on happiness or we’ll just go around in circles. Let’s look at it practically instead.” At his nod, she went on. “It would be practical for me to stay here. My pack is smaller than yours. If I leave, the pack gets smaller and it loses an enforcer. Your pack doesn’t need me. It doesn’t need another enforcer.”

“Trey won’t object to having another enforcer, but I see your point.” He took a moment to nuzzle her neck. “If I was to join your pack, you’d gain another member. But I strongly doubt your brother will want me as an enforcer—no Alpha wants their sister’s mate directly under their rule like that in case they give an order that results in a tragedy. That means I’d have no role here. But I never wanted the position anyway, so I guess I could live with that.”