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I sat up. "Magnus. What is⁠—"

"Nell." He looked at me over his shoulder. The amber blazed, the heat making me wince. "Get. Dressed."

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

MAGNUS

Someone had marked my mate.

I turned this over in my mind while Nell dressed. She was talking. Normally, I loved this woman's voice. Hung on every word produced by her brilliant mind. Right now, nothing she said pierced.

The mark was not a birthmark. The mark on the back of her neck was not a mole, or a scar, or a patch of melanin that had decided to congregate in one place.

Those were teeth marks. Not a quirk of genetics crafted inside the womb. It was two crescents. One larger arc sitting above a smaller one. The upper and lower impressions of a mouth that had closed around the back of her neck. The skin had healed smooth over it; decades of healing. The mark had faded to a shade darker than the surrounding skin, softened by time into something that could almost pass for a birthmark if you didn't know what you were looking at.

I knew what I was looking at.

A birthmark didn't have geometry. A birthmark was melanin; pigment distributed by cellular chance, the body's random artistry, edges soft and uneven and entirely indifferent to pattern. What was on the back of Nell's neck had edges. Had intention. Had the unmistakable architecture of a jaw that had closed with care around something it was protecting rather than hunting.

Some fucking wolf had put its mouth on the back of my mate's neck. My wolf was not being rational about this.

"Magnus. Are you listening to me?"

She was dressed. In her own clothes now, not my shirt, which the wolf did not like. I put my hand on the back of her neck and steered her toward the door with a grip that was firm without being painful.

"Let go," she said.

I did not.

The enforcer on the other side of the door stepped aside. His gaze widened slightly when he took a look at my face. His eyes slipped to Nell. There was a flash of pity there before his face went blank again.

"Stick close," I said. "Both units. Full formation."

There was a chorus of Yes, sirs. Then we were in motion.

"Magnus." Nell's hands were still working at my grip on her neck. "I am not a dog on a lead."

I kept my hand on her neck. The wolf's need to maintain contact with its mate overrode everything else. The elevator arrived. We stepped in. The two enforcers who had been on her door took positions outside as the doors closed.

Now that we were in a confined space with no place to escape, I loosened my hold. Nell turned to face me. She looked up at me with those clear direct eyes. It had to be a trick of the light, or my own anger sparking, but I could've sworn I saw the temper boiling up inside of her flash at me from her eyes.

"No," she said, the word was a complete sentence. "I'm telling you no."

I ignored this.

"I said, stop. I'm withdrawing my consent."

"Too late."

She looked at me for a long moment. The elevator hummed. Rational thought dropped away floor by floor. "Please."

The plea fell on deaf ears.

The cars were waiting at the building's exit; engines running. My hand captured her neck once more. I walked Nell to the door of the lead vehicle, opened it, handed her in. She had stopped protesting, which either meant she had accepted it or she was conserving her energy for a larger argument later. With Nell, both were equally possible.

I buckled her seatbelt, pulling the straps tight. She inhaled against the restraints. She did not meet my gaze.

I got in. One car pulled out in front of us. The unit behind fell into position. I pulled into the column and drove.