His tail betrayed him. It wagged. Once. Twice.

Tommy noticed. Tommy always noticed. The kid had the audacity to smirk around a mouthful of honey cake.

Marx composed himself in approximately 0.3 seconds, because he was a professional, and also because the jackal was still standing there with his stupid box and his stupid suit and his stupid belief that he had any right to make her laugh like that.

"Here’s my final offer," Marx said, leaning forward with the kind of conspiratorial charm that had talked him out of prison cells, into fortified vaults, and through seventeen different territorial checkpoints. "You turn around. You walk away. You tell everyone in that line behind you that the woman inside this manor has four husbands who would disassemble the planet for her, a ghost who booby-traps the perimeter for fun, a wolf with barrier magic who hasn’t slept since the Jurassic period, two whole teams that would happily set all the alive females on fire and all there husbands and pursuers on fire if that made her happy and a panther-" He pressed a hand to his own chest. "-who is deeply, catastrophically, embarrassingly in love with her and has absolutely nothing to lose."

The jackal blinked.

Tommy choked on his cake.

Marx’s grin didn’t waver, but something behind his ribs cracked wide open, raw and exposed in a way he never allowed. The words hung in the morning air, too honest, too real, stripped of every layer of charm and deflection he usually wrapped around himself like armour.

He hadn’t meant to say that.

He’d absolutely meant to say that.

The jackal took one step backward. Then another. Then he turned and walked briskly toward the end of the road, polished box still tucked under his arm.

"Did you just?" Tommy started.

"Nope," Marx said.

"You literally just told a complete stranger that you’re—"

"Didn’t happen."

"I was right here. I heard it, oh my god, I need to tell everyone."

"Your ears are full of cake crumbs and lies. No one would believe you. Hell, they would think you said it." Marx crossed his arms again, settling back against the gatepost. His heart hammered against his sternum, rapid, painful, alive. "Next!"

The line shuffled forward, and Marx planted himself between them and her, exactly where he wanted to be, exactly where he’d stay until someone physically removed him or the sun burned out.

Whichever came first.

—— Inside the manor—-

Dimitri came awake with the phantom sensation of her still wrapped around him, skin against skin, the wet heat of her, his name breaking apart on her lips. His hips had been driving into her, hard and desperate, and she’d been clutching at his shoulders, her nails scoring lines down his back, and he’d been filling her, marking her, claiming her, and then-

The couch.

A blanket tucked around his waist. The smell of her on his skin, in his hair, tangled in the fabric pressed against his face.

She was gone.

His eyes snapped open. The living room was empty. Grey light filtered through the windows, dust motes floating in the stillness, and the silence pressed against his eardrums like something physical.

"Felicity." His voice came out rough, cracked, barely a whisper.

He shoved the blanket off and tried to stand. His legs buckled. The world tilted sideways, the floor rushing up to meet him, and something crashed, a side table, a lamp, he couldn’t tell, couldn’t see past the spinning, the dizzying lurch of everything going sideways. His shoulder hit hardwood, and pain lanced through him, but it was nothing compared to the hollow, gutting panic clawing up his throat.

He groaned. The sound tore out of him, raw and animal.

Somewhere above, a door slammed open. Footsteps hers, he knew the rhythm of her footsteps, the particular cadence of her running, even before he heard the others shouting behind her.

"Slow down, Felicity, the stairs!"

"Don’t trip, for God’s sake!"

She burst into the living room like a small, desperate storm. Her hair was loose and wild, her face flushed, her eyes wide and red-rimmed. She smelled like healing magic, the sharp metal tang of it clinging to her skin and underneath that, them. All of them.

His nostrils flared.

She ran straight into his arms, and he caught her, careful even through the rage building behind his eyes, because she was his, she was right here, and she was covered in their scent.

His vision went red.

The pressure built in his chest like a detonation, and then it released, a wave of raw, crushing force that slammed outward in every direction. The windows rattled. The walls groaned. And every one of them, Victor, Voss, Ivan, Damien, Lucan, Exile and Ivan hit the floor like they’d been struck by something invisible and enormous.

Victor went down on one knee first, his wings flaring uselessly, silver hair whipping across his face. Voss crashed into the wall and slid. Ivan hit the ground with a grunt that rattled the floorboards. Damien’s claws scraped hardwood as he tried and failed to find purchase. Lucan and Exile were just down.

They struggled. Even Victor, at level one hundred, the man who could decimate armies once a week, the leader who commanded respect from every beastman, was straining, his arms shaking, his jaw clenched, unable to rise.

Felicity didn’t feel it. She was in his arms, untouched, safe, and her hands were on his face, her palms warm against his cheeks.

"Dimitri, stop." Her voice cracked. "Stop, please, let them go. You were levelling up. They’re our family. I love you, and I love them. Please, please stop."

She pulled his face down to hers and kissed him. Her lips were trembling, wet with tears, and she kissed him like she was pouring everything she had into it, every ounce of love, every scrap of fear, every desperate plea. She kissed his mouth, his jaw, the corner of his eye, and he could feel the rage draining out of him like water through cracked earth, replaced by something warm and aching and hers.