“Morning,” she said, her voice rough with sleep.
“Morning.” I poured a third mug and held it out.
She took it, wrapped both hands around the ceramic, and leaned against the counter beside me. Her shoulder pressed into my arm. Not deliberate, just gravitational.
The bond vibrated between us, constant as a second pulse, and beside it, Solomon’s newer thread beat steadily. Two heartbeats in her chest now. Two presences she could feel without looking.
It changed things. The way she moved through the cabin, the way she touched us without thinking about it. It was no longer just the careful, exploratory contact from before the claiming.
This was ownership. Confident, casual,permanent.
She sipped her coffee and her free hand found the back of my neck. Fingers in my hair, nails dragging lightly against my scalp. A gesture so small it barely registered as intentional, but my wolf clawed my ribs in response, greedy for it.
“You’re tense,” she murmured.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re tense and lying about it. Your neck is a rock.”
“It’s always been a rock. It’s a neck.”
She tugged my hair gently. A reprimand. I leaned into it despite myself, and her mouth curved against the rim of her mug.
Solomon watched us from across the counter. His expression was neutral, but the bond between Mira and him sent a pulse of contentment through the room that even I could feel through her.
This was how it was supposed to work. A connection so clean that possessiveness only pointed outward, never inward.
The front door burst open loudly. Of course, there is only one suspect.
Percival came through looking as if he’d been in a war. Soot on his jacket, his curls flattened on one side from his helmet, and a man who spent eight hours on a call that tested every ounce of his considerable patience.
He didn’t say a word. Just crossed the living room, rounded the counter, walked directly to Mira, and buried his face in her chest.
She barely had time to set down her coffee before a six-foot-two lycan was slumped against her, face pressed between her collarbones, arms wrapped around her waist, every line of his body communicating total surrender.
“Bad shift?” she asked.
A muffled groan vibrated against her sternum.
“Three calls,” he said into her shirt. “Back to back. The last one was a kitchen grease fire where the homeowner tried to put it out with a garden hose and somehow made it worse. Then Thompson spilled chili on the engine controls and I had to spend forty minutes cleaning salsa out of a gauge panel.”
“Salsa?”
“Chunky salsa. The worst kind for machinery.”
Instances such as this reminded me how young Percival is.
Mira’s hand came up and carded through his hair. He made a sound against her chest that was closer to a purr than anythingthat should come from a grown man, and his weight settled deeper into her.
Then she gripped a fistful of his hair and pulled his face up.
“Well, you love that, don’t you?” The grin on her face was wicked, aimed at the fact that he’d chosen her chest as his personal rest station.
Percy blinked up at her. Soot on his nose, dimples emerging despite his exhaustion, hazel eyes bright with the particular energy that was entirely his.
“Please have mercy.” His voice was plaintive, flirtatious, devastatingly charming. “I’m going through a tough time.”
“You’re going through a salsa incident.”
