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"It's the only reason I can stand to ask."

She's quiet for a moment. Behind her, on the dresser, one of her shop candles lights itself and stands straight and white.

"Ask, then," she says.

So I do it. It comes out of me rough and too quiet and about six months too late.

"Maren. I love you. Will you let me claim you?"

"Yes, Gage."

Just that. No ceremony. She says it the way you'd say pass the salt, and it takes the legs out from under me anyway.

Then she waits, because she knows I'm not finished, because she has been reading my face since April.

"I want you to do it back to me," I say.

Her breath stops.

"Gage. Are you sure?"

"Yes. It's been done both ways plenty of times. A lot of mates have the matching marks." My hands are shaking and I don't hide it.

"My father's people didn't. No one of that generation would have let a woman put her mouth on his throat, and they'd tell you it was strength."

"And you'd let me?"

"That there's no version of this where it only runs one direction. That's what my father did and I don’t want that." I make myself finish it. "I'm asking you to mark me too. You just have to bite down harder."

She sits all the way up, straddling me, and puts both hands flat on my chest.

"I want to belong to you, Maren. I've wanted that ever since I met you and you poked your finger in my chest and told me to build something that could take a hit." I smile.

Every candle in my house comes up at once.

White, straight, standing like they're waiting for orders, and frost blooms across the outside of the window in one breath and stops.

She kisses me.

Down the hall, claws hit the guest room door twice, unhurried.

I am going to require the couch. Sid, dry as a bone.

And a closed door, and no commentary from either of you in the morning.

Maren laughs against my mouth. I reach behind her, catch the bedroom door with two fingers, and swing it shut.

Rude.

"You're staring again," she says.

"Hard not to."

The scar through my eyebrow itches the way it does when my wolf is too close to the surface. I press my back against the headboard and try to look like a man who has his shit together.

Six and a half feet tall, tattooed, huge muscles, and I’m sitting here trying not to panic because a woman half my size is waiting for me to claim her.

Her eyes hold mine. No fear. No hesitation. Just that steady, stubborn calm that makes her the first person in years who doesn’t flinch when my wolf slips through.