"You’re impossible," she whispered.

"I’m yours," he corrected, withdrawing his hand slowly. "And you’re mine, they all know that too."

From the front of the team, Dawn’s voice drifted back, aggressively casual: "So anyway, does anyone else think the weather’s been weird lately? Like, really fascinating cloud formations. I could discuss clouds for hours, hours and hours."

Dimitri grunted. "Shut up, Dawn."

"Just making conversation! About clouds! Which are very loud! Louder than anything else happening right now!"

Victor’s chest shook against her back with a laugh he didn’t bother hiding. His fingers didn’t stop; if anything, they moved faster, deeper, punishing her for the way her body clenched around him at the interruption.

"Ignore him," Victor breathed against her ear. "Look at me."

She lifted her face from his throat, flushed and glassy and wrecked, and the expression that crossed his features made her stomach drop in the best possible way. Hunger, yes. Always hungry with Victor.

But underneath it, threaded through the possessive heat like silver through stone, something softer. Something that said she was the axis his entire world turned on, and he’d burn it all down before letting her go.

His forehead pressed against hers. The red of his gaze filled her entire field of vision.

"Mine," he said, quiet enough that only her fox ears could catch it. "Every sound, every shiver, every time you clench around my fingers like you’re trying to keep me inside you forever." His thumb pressed harder. "Mine."

Her back arched off his chest. Her hand clamped over her mouth. And Victor smiled, slow and feral and devastatingly tender all at once, as if watching her fall apart was the only thing in this ruined world worth seeing.

The air in the group was thick with high-tension static that had nothing to do with the looming storm and everything to do with the display Victor had just put on.

He hadn’t just carried Felicity; he’d claimed her in a way that left the rest of the men, especially Dimitri, grinding their teeth in a silent, possessive fury.

They were making record time. In the middle of the road sat Ragdoll Alice, looking just as stitched together and frantic as the last time they’d seen her. But she wasn’t alone. Standing guard over her was a massive, snarling Tiger man, a hulking beast-kin with orange-and-black fur and eyes that burned with a hair-trigger temper.

The second the Tiger-man caught sight of Dimitri’s oppressive aura, he didn’t hesitate. He lunged.

Dimitri didn’t even move. He simply raised a hand, his power snapping out like an invisible noose, prepared to crush the beast’s airway before he could even land a blow.

The Tiger-man’s throat constricted, his eyes widening as he hit an invisible wall of pure, "delusional" killing intent.

"WOAH, WOAH, WOAH! TIM, STOP IT!" Alice screamed, jumping up and waving her ragdoll arms frantically. "I KNOW THEM, AND I REALLY DON’T WANT TO DIE TODAY!"

The pressure vanished instantly. Tim dropped to the gravel, coughing. He didn’t fully back down, though; he shuffled back to Alice’s side, sitting with a heavy thud and glaring at Dimitri with a look of absolute, concentrated pissiness. Behind them, Alice’s other two "prey" husbands, looking small and terrified, shrank into her shadow.

Felicity, still tucked securely against Victor’s chest, beamed a bright, radiant smile. "Alice! I missed you!"

Alice froze, her button eyes nearly popping out of her head. "Felicity? You’re... you’re alive?" Her voice was a high-pitched squeak, trembling with disbelief. She looked Felicity up and down, taking in the sight of her friend, whom she had thought lost forever. Her gaze then slowly panned across the line of men standing protectively around Felicity. Victor, his arms still wrapped around her like a shield; Voss, his silver hair catching the light, making him look like a titan carved from moonlight; and Dimitri, whose very presence seemed to darken the sky, his aura oppressive and foreboding.

"I heard you were kidnapped," Alice squeaked, her voice trembling. "I thought for sure you were... well, gone. But you’re out here just... here?"

Alice’s gaze darted to the husbands, their protective stances and hardened expressions speaking volumes of their determination to keep Felicity safe. Then her eyes landed on the elite mercenaries of Snow and Leaf Team, who were currently looking at Tim like he was a minor inconvenience they might accidentally step on. A shiver ran down her ragdoll spine as she took in their lethal demeanours.

She looked back at Felicity, her button eyes wide with awe and fear. "I’m impressed," Alice whispered, her ragdoll shoulders shaking slightly. Her voice was filled with a mix of admiration and terror. "But I’m also incredibly terrified of your taste in men." She gestured vaguely at the group surrounding Felicity. "That team... they look like they eat nightmares for breakfast."

Felicity’s giggle was a soft, melodic contrast to the heavy silence that followed Alice’s blunt assessment. She didn’t look like a woman who had been kidnapped; she looked like a queen.

"They’re just protective, Alice," Felicity said, her tone light and teasing as she leaned back against Victor’s solid chest.

Victor didn’t loosen his grip. If anything, his arms tightened around her, his chin resting near her fox ears as he levelled a bored, dangerous look at Tim. The Tiger-man was still bristling, his tail lashing against the gravel, but the "invisible noose" Dimitri had used was a clear warning that their team operated on a different level of lethality.

"Protective? Felicity, they look like they’re one word away from erasing this area," Alice squeaked, her button eyes darting back to Dimitri, who was still standing like a stoic statue of impending doom.

Tim, Alice’s new husband, sat with a heavy thud, his eyes narrowed at the Snow and Leaf mercenaries. He was clearly used to being the "Alpha" in Alice’s small group of husbands, and being humbled by Dimitri’s effortless power had left him in a foul mood.

Alice took in a breath, "did you kidnap them or?"