Page 189 of Pack Baby for the Silver Foxes

“Say something,” she said.

“You’re beautiful.”

“Something else. That one makes me cry.”

Hudson’s mouth found her ear. “You’re ours.”

“That makes me cry too.”

“Then stop asking,” I said, and she laughed, and the laugh turned into a sound that wasn’t one at all. “Or ask us to claim you.”

Her pleasure built fast. Pregnancy had made her body quick and sensitive, but this was more than that. This was the need to be claimed rising under her skin. I could smell it, Hudson could too. His teeth grazed the side of her throat, and her body clenched hard around us.

“Knot me,” she gasped.

My control fractured. “Not when we’re both inside you.”

Hudson’s teeth scraped over the side of her neck, and his hand tightened over her belly.

Then she turned her face toward Hudson’s mouth at her neck. “Bite me.”

The world stopped.

Hudson froze.

I couldn’t breathe.

It’s what we’ve been so desperate to hear, but we asked first.

Mary’s eyes opened, wet and fierce and absolutely clear. “Bite me. Both of you. Please. I want to be yours.”

“Love,” I said, because my voice had become nothing else.

“I want to be claimed.” Her hand found mine. “I want you. I want everyone to know. I want to feel it when you’re both inside me.”

Hudson looked at me over her shoulder.

I saw want, terror, reverence, and love in his face.

“Both of you,” she said. “At the same time, if you can manage it.”

“That’s ambitious,” Hudson said against her throat.

We had waited because a claim should never be taken in confusion, heat, fear, or debt. Mary had chosen it in her nest, with our babies inside her and our rings on her finger.

“Please. Own me.”

Hudson’s top lip curled back and he bit first, high on the right side of her neck, exactly where his scent always settled. Mary cried out, pleasure and pain breaking together. I felt love flare through the bond before my teeth touched her. Then I bit the left side.

Her blood touched my tongue, the scent of wild violet, sugared blackberry, Irish whiskey, rain and Mary filled the room. And then the bright, frightened, funny, stubborn heart of her poured through the claim with a love so intense I made a sound against her skin that might have been her name.

She shook between us, crying and laughing, one hand over our babies, one in my hair.

“There,” she whispered. “There you are.”

Hudson licked over his bite, soothing it.

I did the same.