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“Know what I mean before I finish saying it.” He didn’t rush to answer. “Probably.”

“I’m going to need a moment to decide if that’s charming or alarming.”

“Take your time.”

“I’m leaning charming.” She tilted her head. “There’s a thing you want to tell me first. I can see it.” Something in him went still.

He stepped away from the doorway. He’d been planning this conversation for three days. In none of the versions did she walk in and go straight for the ships. He wasn’t surprised.

Tor told her about the mating claim. He’d run through how to say it, and every version sounded like either a medical diagnosis or a line from a historical novel, so he settled on direct, no preamble, trusting her to handle it. “There’s a mate bond. Wolf-specific, biological, and magical. It identified you as mine the morning the alert board turned gold-white, which was —”

“Five weeks ago.”

“Yes.”

She turned the words over. “‘Identified me as yours,’” she repeated. “That’s a sentence.”

“It’s accurate.”

“I’m — processing the phrasing.” She weighed it. “So, for five weeks, while you’ve been running training sessions on me —”

“The training sessions were legitimate.”

“I know they were legitimate. I’m establishing context.” She held up a hand. “Five weeks of training sessions, cliff fights, forest walks, and beach outings where I wore the cardigan on Valene’s instruction —”

“The cardigan was Valene’s idea?”

“Focus.” She pointed at him. “All this time, you’ve had a mystical bond with me and said nothing because —”

“Because you had an awakening, a tether source, and a threat to handle. I wasn’t going to add ‘also you’re magically mine’ until you were steady.”

“That is a remarkably reasonable explanation for a situation that is objectively wild.” She raised a finger. “That’s not a criticism.”

“Thank you.”

“That wasn’t entirely a compliment.”

“I know.”

She pulled the pillow off the back of the couch and put it behind her, making herself at home in the middle of this conversation, which was her all over, and settled back. “Okay. What does it mean in a practical sense? The bond.”

He told her the rest. The permanence once completed. The claiming mark: his declaration, hers to offer, never his to take. What it had cost to carry the bond for five weeks while keeping his expression professionally neutral. She listened with the focused attention she gave important data. When he finished, she was quiet for a beat. “The scarf.”

“What about it?”

“It’s been in your truck for weeks. Is that a wolf thing?” He considered that. “Yes.”

“So, while I thought you were hopeless at item returns, you were actually —”

“Keeping it.”

She bit her lip, barely keeping a smile from breaking through. “That is either sweet or slightly feral, and I genuinely cannot decide which.”

“Both, probably.”

“Both.” She nodded slowly. “Okay. Two questions.”

“Go ahead.”