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Then she tipped her head back, looked me over from my boots to the scar through my eyebrow, and said, “You look like you bury people for a hobby.”

I stared at her.

She smiled.

“Was that too personal for a first meeting?”

“Probably.”

“Good. I hate small talk.”

Then she took the lamp out of my hands and walked into the building like she hadn’t just rearranged something inside my chest.

My wolf went very still.

I ignored him.

That afternoon, she backed the rental truck into my mailbox.

Not clipped it.

Hit it hard enough to leave it leaning at an angle.

I came outside and found her standing beside it with her hands on her hips.

“That was already crooked.”

“It was vertical.”

“Mostly vertical.”

“You hit my mailbox.”

She frowned at it. “Technically, it’s on the property line.”

“That doesn’t make it yours.”

“I think it makes it communal.”

“It does not.”

She opened her mouth to argue.

My wolf chose her before she got to say anything.

Mine.

Every muscle in my body locked.

Maren kept talking, completely unaware that the animal inside me had just made the most dangerous decision of my life.

Mine.

I spent three days telling him to be quiet. He didn’t listen.

I spent the next six months pretending it wasn’t true.

"You're staring again," she says.