Page 69 of Claimed By The Tracker

"All right."

"I want you to mark me." The gold at my palms rose higher. "Properly. The way your wolf needs to. The way that makes it official. But I need to know that you understand this isn't about possession. It's about choosing to stay. About choosing me, over and over, the same way I'm choosing you."

Jace's eyes went fully gold. His jaw clenched. Through the bond I felt his wolf surge forward. Not with aggression. With something that looked like recognition.

"I understand," he said. His voice was rough. "Are you sure?"

"I've never been more sure of anything."

He crossed the distance between us in two steps. His hands came up to frame my face—not gentle, not rough, just certain. His eyes searched mine for one last moment of verification. Then he leaned down and kissed me.

It wasn't like the kisses before. There was something more fundamental in it. Something that tasted like claiming and consent in equal measure. His teeth grazed my lower lip. His tongue traced the line of my jaw. He was marking me already, with his scent, with his touch, with the exact way his body fit against mine like it had been made for this.

"Say it," he said against my skin. "Say that this is what you want."

"This is what I want," I whispered. "You. Always you."

He made a sound—not quite a growl, something deeper—and pulled me closer. His hand came up to the back of my neck and he tilted my head to the side, baring my shoulder to him. I felt his breath against my skin. Felt the moment his wolf reached the surface.

"I'm going to mark you," he said. "Where everyone can see it. Where every wolf in a hundred miles will know exactly who you belong to."

"Yes."

His fangs grazed the mark side of my shoulder. I felt the sharp edge of it, the promise of what was coming. My magic flared gold in response. My hands came up to grip his shirt.

He bit down.

Not hard enough to break skin. Not yet. Just hard enough that I felt the edge of it, the potential. The marking impulse held at a careful threshold. Asking for permission at the exact moment of claiming.

"Yes," I breathed. "Yes, do it."

He bit down harder and this time his teeth broke skin. I felt the sharp sting of it, the immediate flood of his mark settling into my nerve endings like a signature being written in fire. His wolf surged through the bond—satisfaction, possession, completion—and I felt mine rise to meet it. Not submission. Matching. Our wolves meeting in the bond and recognizing each other as already claimed.

He released and pulled back just enough to see the mark he'd left. Blood was rising at the edges of his teeth marks. His gold eyes tracked it with an intensity that made my breath catch.

"Mine," he said. The word was a statement of fact. A vow. A promise all at once.

"Yours," I said. "And you're mine."

I reached up and pulled his collar down, exposing the mark I'd left on him weeks ago. It was faded now, just barely visible under the right light. I leaned in and bit down, hard enough to match his, hard enough that fresh blood rose at the edges.

His hands came up and gripped my hips. Pulled me against him. His hips met mine and I felt the hard evidence of exactly how much my marking affected him.

"Bed," he said. "Now."

"Not yet." I held his eyes. My hand came up to the center of his chest. My magic bloomed gold against his shirt, small and controlled and entirely intentional. A matching mark to the one he'd left on my shoulder. "I need you to understand that this—all of this—is what I chose. Not what was decided for me. Not what was expected. This is mine. You're mine. And I'm going to make sure everyone knows it."

His hand came up and covered mine. Held my magic against his heart.

"I know," he said. "I've always known. From the moment you threw me against a car, I knew you were going to choose this. Choose me. I just had to wait for you to understand it."

I kissed him then. Deep. Claiming. My tongue tracing the places where my blood and his were still mingled at his lips. My magic flaring brighter where our hearts met.

"Take me to bed," I said. "And make me yours in every way that matters."

He did.

We already knew each other's bodies—the slow night in the farmhouse, the nights since. What happened next wasn't about learning each other for the first time. It was about marking the moment we both understood we weren't going back: two people who'd already chosen each other, choosing again on purpose, with fresh blood on both our mouths and a claim that had just been renewed in the most literal way either of us had a word for.