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I swallowed. Hard.

I had never lived with a man. I had never wanted to live with a man. I had spent my adult years constructing a life that was entirely and specifically mine. The idea of folding that life into someone else's, of negotiating space and schedules and the ten thousand small daily decisions that cohabitation required, produced a sensation in my chest that was not dissimilar to the feeling of being locked inside a very small, very dark place.

"We had one night, and now you want to move in together?"

"We had more than one night, Petronella."

This was technically accurate.

"There are things," he said slowly, "that I haven't told you yet. Things that I need to tell you before we tell my family."

"Tell your family what?"

"That we're mated."

"Is that another wolf thing like the knot?"

Magnus held my gaze. "It's the wolf equivalent of marriage."

Marriage. The word landed in the center of my chest like a stone dropped from a significant height. It had no impact. Because I was out of my seat before it could land.

"I thought you were asking me to be your girlfriend. I thought you would come over and we would eat eggs and maybe eventually you would leave a toothbrush in my bathroom. But marriage? I have never wanted to be a wifey."

He looked at me. No, it wasn't him looking at me. It was the wolf looking at me out of Magnus' eyes.

I'd witnessed that wolf tear through flesh and kill a man. I had never once been afraid of Magnus or the beast inside him. Now I was rethinking that feeling.

CHAPTER THIRTY

MAGNUS

The wolf rose before I could leash him. Amber flooded my vision. The wolf pressed against the inside of my skin. Claws ripped through flesh. Every instinct I had — every old, pre-civilized, non-negotiable thing that lived underneath the suit — rose to the surface simultaneously and pointed at the same thing.

Her throat.

I was going to snatch her to me. I was going to bite her. I was going to mark her. So that she and everyone would know that she was mine. Because knots don't lie.

"I don't want to get married. I don't want to move. I bought this apartment with my own money. I'm not interested in your protection or your ring. I like my independence and I'm not giving it up for some dick, not even grade-A dick that knots. What I am willing to do is try a relationship. Date. Work up to being your girlfriend."

I curled my fingers into fists. My claws pricked my palms. Four sharp points on each hand broke skin. I scented the metallic tang of my own blood. Felt the warm, slippery proof of it against my fingers.

Better my skin than hers. Even though I wanted to break her skin. Wanted to leave something permanent on it. Soon, I placated the wolf.

The logical side of me knew that would push her away. That would never happen. Nell was caught in my gravitational pull now. A moon that had found its planet and didn't yet know that moons didn't get to leave. So I would stand here like a civilized man and listen to her baseless claims of independence. She could burn through every last drop of fuel trying to escape, and she still wouldn't break free.

"I want to be with you. I want to date you. I want to figure out what this is. But I am not going to be managed into a quickie marriage for the look of things. If someone thinks I slept my way to the top, they're an idiot. I don't need your protection from idiots. Or a ring on my finger to prove what I've built." She took a breath. "Those are my terms. Date me. Don't manage me."

She crossed her hands over her chest, which only propped up those lush breasts.

I reached for one of them.

She gasped, swatting away my hand.

I took her face in my hands and kissed her. Biting, nipping, suckling her. Not giving her space to breathe. I bruised her lips with mine. I let the tips of my claws graze her chin, her cheek, the spot behind her earlobes.

She felt the threat, but she didn't pull away from me. She kissed me back.

Her hands came up to my chest. She leaned into it, giving me all of her weight as though her legs were jelly.