The way he said it—steady, possessive, absolute—sent another shiver through me.
I sighed, feigning annoyance to mask the way my body reacted. “You really don’t believe in half measures, do you?”
“Not when it comes to you,” he murmured.
There it was again. That tone.
I felt it in my chest, in my pulse, in every damn nerve.
I should’ve been mad. I wanted to be mad. But all I could think about was how his knuckles looked when they connected with Tyler’s face. How easily he’d dropped him. How the room had gone silent, like the world itself had recognized who the stronger male was.
And my wolf purred.
We stayed in that cabin for another twenty minutes, pretending to clean, but my thoughts were nowhere near the mop and bucket. I was hyperaware of him—of how close he moved, the weight of h
