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“Hello, love,” Finn said as he opened the sliding door, Buddy bounding in after him.

The dog loved Finn—almost more than me—and would go and sit outside around the time the man knocked off to wait for him.

He scanned the dining room when no one responded, taking in my stony expression and Slade’s wide grin, along with the blood smeared across his neck and shoulders.

“Finn, mate, take a load off and have a beer,” Slade said, gesturing expansively. He got to his feet. “Anything for you, my love?” I shook my head, so he went into the kitchen and began digging through the fridge.

Finn sat down, eyes wide and unfocused. Buddy barked at his knee, and he gave the dog an absent-minded pat.

“My love,” he said, staring at the table, then his eyes darted to Slade who came waltzing back, a cigarette hanging out one side of his mouth and several beers in hand.

He shook his head, raking back a stray strand of hair that had escaped his ponytail.

“Fucking hell, I was only gone for three hours.”

“That’s all it takes, mate,” Slade said, twisting off the lid of the beer and handing it to me.

“I’m gonna get on the phone, get the families up here, see if the mob in the kitchens can throw together something for us.

Gotta ring Stores and see if they can send up some beer.

Fuck it, that can be our mating presents. ”

“Slade,” Finn said.

“Where do you reckon they’ll set us up in the married quarters? Hopefully not near bloody Phyllis.”

“Slade.”

“It’ll be nice, setting up home, having a few kids, getting my bloody mother off my back.”

“Slade, stop!”

We all jumped at the sound of Finn’s voice.

I found my fingers digging into the table, my heart racing.

His voice was like an iron whip, smashing down on the two of us and forcing Slade to silence.

When I discovered I could move, I scratched at my neck.

The bite the black wolf had inflicted there had basically disappeared, but the site grew itchy at different times.

“We talked about this.” I could hear Finn fighting to take the reasonable tone I’d always known him to use, but I saw the shake in his hands.

“I love her. She loves me. I couldn’t fucking stop myself, OK?

I mean, just look at her...” I struggled to meet Slade’s gaze as he looked at me.

That naked look was back and so intense, it would have been a relief to see the old cynical Slade.

“I waited my whole fucking life for this, and I found her. She chose me. Never in my wildest dreams did I think my mate was going to be someone like her.”

“You don’t even know her.” Brandon appeared in the kitchen doorway, jacket in hand.

“Does she want to live in the married quarters? Does she want to go back to the human world? Does she want to be tied to multiple men for the rest of her life? Does she want kids? Fuck, tell me her favourite colour, and I’ll at least be semi-appeased. ”

“Why are you fuckers doing this?” Slade said.

My hand shot out to take Slade’s without thinking.

The need to do something, anything to stop the unshed tears scoring his throat from spilling was overwhelming.

I felt a tension in my chest, something growing as he stared the other two down.

“What? You think I planned this? I’m not you, Doc, with your carefully orchestrated interactions. ”

“No, but you have some self-control.”

“No, I fucking don’t, and if you knew what this was like, you’d never say a word against me.” Slade’s head whipped around to face mine. “Don’t worry, love. We’ll work this out. We can go stay at Mum’s until this all settles down.”

I needed so much more than that right now. What had just happened? Why was everyone getting upset? What did this mean to Slade? To me? But it appeared I was not going to get time to process that yet.

He is pack, my Tirian insisted, and then I knew exactly what I had to do.

I got up out of my seat and wrapped my arms around Slade, and he shifted back so I could straddle his lap and bury my head in the curve of his neck.

That same sense of familiar rightness—like we’d been a couple for years, that we were linked in a thousand ways—settled over me.

Since the heat, every touch had become sexual.

But for a moment, I experienced a respite from it as I just sunk into him, his arms like iron bands around me, pulling me so close, you couldn’t have slid anything between us.

“Princess...” Slade’s voice came out as an agonised hiss. “Love you.”

When I finally pulled back, a certainty unlike anything I’d ever felt thrummed through my chest. The others could quibble and scrap, but that had no place here. I looked into those hazel eyes and said the words that beat in time with my heart. “I love you too.”

“It’s done,” Finn said, rubbing his eyes. “I’ll tell Kelly.”

Brandon’s only response was to stride over to the door and slam it on his way out.