“Every time you are around a man.”

Every time I…

What?

I could not believe what my ears were hearing.

“Have you gone mad?” I asked.

“No.”

“Every time I’m around a man you will stake your claim,” I stated to be certain I was hearing correctly.

“I will amend,” he returned. “Every time you’re around a man who might wish to be between your legs, be that in the past, the present, or I might have some inkling he would consider this in his mind in the future. Others, such as those who prefer their own gender, those too old to remember what to do with a stiff cock or those too young to know how to use one, no.”

“You have gone mad,” I decreed.

He shrugged.

I began to pull from him only to find myself pressed closer, but now we were front to front.

“It is me, Ellie,” he informed me. “And you love me. So let it be.”

“And what if I were to do this around every woman who might conceivably find you attractive, which is about seventy percent of all the realms, not including women who prefer their own gender, or little girls who have not yet learned the uses of men, but definitely including older women who likely never forget what a man can do with a stiff cock.”

He grinned wolfishly down on me. “I invite your claiming at your leave, my queen.”

I could only hold my glare for approximately three more seconds before I burst into such gales of laughter, I found myself collapsing against his chest.

When I was finished, and I felt his lips against the top of my hair, his hold about me, it came to me he had not laughed with me, and I realized what he was about.

He wanted me vexed, or frustrated, or amused.

He wanted me anything but grieved.

Oh, my Cassius.

I turned my head and pressed my face into his chest as I rounded him with my arms.

“Ellie,” he whispered into my hair.

“It was good while it lasted, sweetheart,” I told him.

I then burrowed into him.

His arms tightened.

We stood that way for some time before he gave me a squeeze and said something his tone told me eloquently, he very much wished he did not have to say.

“Hera shared that they are soon to begin building the pyres, my darling.”

I nodded, my face rubbing against his leathers.

“After, I would ask that you attend me as I ink Jasmine into Mac’s flesh.”

I closed my eyes tight but did so nodding again.

I loved it that Mac intended to do that.

“Nero will then ink you into me.”

I opened my eyes, dipping my head back, and caught his.