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I was happy for my friend. At least her possessive wolf husband was good in bed. My gaze went to the bite mark on her neck. I had thought it was domestic abuse the first time I saw it. I'm still not entirely convinced Addie isn't being held hostage by Vidar Blackwood. It also might be jealousy because his older brother had released me from captivity and was staying away from me.

"The mark," I said, nodding at her neck.

Her hand went to it reflexively. "What about it?"

"It's a wolf thing? Like in the books. He marked you as his when you got married."

"It's like a wedding ring, but more. A ring comes off. This is in my skin. And mine in his. Every wolf who sees it knows what it means and who put it there. It's a declaration that doesn't have a take-back clause. Wolves don't get divorced."

"Did it hurt?"

The smile that crossed her face was slow and private, and answered the question considerably more thoroughly than her words did. "It hurt in the best way possible."

I looked at the mark for another moment. There was something about the shape of it — the curve, the impression — that was pulling at something in the back of my mind.

"It kind of looks like my birthmark." I reached up and gathered my locs, lifting them off the back of my neck.

Addie leaned forward, her wine glass tilting slightly in her hand as she studied the back of my neck. I felt her go still. "You said that's a birthmark?"

"I've had it since I was born, I think."

Addie’s gaze narrowed, her head cocked to the side. Before she could say anything more, the door opened. Vidar Blackwood darkened the doorway. His eyes went immediately to Addie, passing over me as if I wasn't there.

Magnus came in behind him. He was in dark trousers and a gray shirt, no jacket. Which was the most casual I had ever seen him. Which was deeply unfair, given the current state of my attempts not to think about him. He looked at Addie first — the instinctive sweep of a man checking on his family — and then at me. Our gazes held. I felt as if I was his captive again. It felt good.

"I didn't realize you had company," Vidar said, brushing his lips against his wife's temple.

"Nell isn't company. She's family." Addie left her husband's embrace and crossed to Magnus, going up on her toes to hug him with the easy affection of a sister-in-law who had decided he was hers. "What are you doing here? I thought you had a pack meeting tonight."

"It ran short." Magnus hugged her back briefly, his eyes moving over her shoulder to me. "I'll leave you to your evening."

"Actually…" I reached for my wine glass, finished what was in it, and stood up. "Addie and I were wrapping up. I need a ride home."

I gave Addie a look. Normally, she would've returned that look with a wry smile and hopped into the cockpit as my wing woman. Now, she pursed her lips and looked between me and Magnus. Was she about to cockblock me?

"Can I bum a ride, Magnus?"

Magnus looked at his brother. Then at me. "Of course."

I gathered my coat and my bag with one hand. I side-hugged Addie with the other.

"Text me when you're home," she murmured against my hair.

I said a terse goodnight to Vidar, who returned my farewell with the same cold affection. Eventually, we'd have to come to an understanding. I didn't want to think about that while I was thinking about seducing his older brother.

Magnus held the door. I walked through it. The elevator was waiting. We stepped in together. The doors closed. We dropped floor by floor in silence.

I turned toward him. And inhaled. Cedar and heat and expensive tobacco. It settled into my lungs and made my shoulders relax for the first time in days.

"Did you just sniff me?"

"I did." No apology. No qualification. "I went out last night to pick up a guy for some spicy sleep."

The elevator gears growled.

"But he smelled wrong."

Magnus was very still. "Wrong, how?" It wasn't quite a question. But he still expected an answer.