Page 85 of Mane Rival in Store by Milly Taiden

She claimed him as much as he claimed her.

Her hands on his skin. Her teeth on his collarbone. Her voice in his ear saying his name—not Your Majesty, not the nickname, his NAME—Rune, Rune, Rune—and each repetition stripped another layer until they were both raw and real and the only thing left was the need to be as close as two bodies could get.

He was fierce and careful in equal measure. His hands tracked the terrain of her with a possessive tenderness—avoiding the bandaged shoulder, holding the rest of her like the world would try to take her again and he would not permit it. When he moved inside her, his entire body shuddered—not desire alone but relief, the bone-deep confirmation that she was here and whole and his.

The claiming bite came at the peak.

His teeth on her shoulder—the uninjured one, the mark placed opposite the scars, so that one shoulder carried the proof of what she’d given his family and the other carried the proof of what he’d given her. The pain was bright and immediate and the sensation that followed was not. It was warmth—spreading from the mark through her chest and her limbs and settling into a steady, golden glow that she would carry for the rest of her life.

His roar broke from his chest at the moment of the bite. Not the war-cry from the dock. Not the territorial blast of a SoHo sidewalk. A sound she’d never heard—deeper, richer, resonant with harmonics that hadn’t existed before this moment. The roar of a mated alpha. The sound that every lion within range would hear and understand: claimed.

The mark on her shoulder shimmered. Faint gold against her skin—warm, living, the color of his mane caught in the sun.

They lay in the wreckage afterward. His forehead against hers. Their breathing ragged. His blood and hers dried on the sheets.

“Your roar changed,” she whispered.

“It did.”

“Every lion heard that.”

“Yes.”

“Dekel is going to be insufferable.”

His laugh—the real one, surprised out of him, the one that transformed the king into a man—broke through the dark of the room. She kissed the laugh off his mouth, and his arms tightened around her, and the golden mark on her shoulder hummed against the night.

From downstairs, muffled through two floors of limestone townhouse, Dekel’s voice carried with the unmistakable delight of a man who had been waiting thirty-four years for this moment:

“DID EVERYONE HEAR THAT? BECAUSE I HEARD THAT. THE ENTIRE EASTERN SEABOARD HEARD THAT.”

Aspen, from the guest suite, texting at the speed of joy:

Aspen: THE ROAR CHANGED. THE ROAR CHANGED. RUNE MATED. I’M CALLING PAPPA. I’M CALLING EVERYONE. THE ROAR CHANGED AND I HEARD IT FROM TWO FLOORS AWAY AND I’M CRYING AGAIN BUT THESE ARE HAPPY TEARS.

Breezy, to the group chat, at midnight, with the digital precision of a woman who documented everything:

Breezy: Status update. Evidence secured. Criminal referral initiated. Medical treatment administered. Lion fight damage assessed. Claiming confirmed by audible roar at 11:47 PM. Adding “mating ceremony—unscheduled” to the operational log. I am requesting hazard pay.

Sybil:

Oliver: WAIT WHAT?

THIRTY-SEVEN

LARK

The conference room at Creed Capital smelled like new carpet and aggression.

Lark sat at the long mahogany table with her shoulder aching under two layers of gauze and a silk blazer she’d chosen specifically because it covered the bandages without signaling injury. The blazer was green. The lipstick was Villainette’s “Last Laugh”—a deep burgundy from the fall villain collection that she’d developed specifically for moments when a woman needed her war paint. She hadn’t worn it since the launch party. It tasted like vindication.

To her right: Harrison Coleman in his sharpest charcoal suit, his vintage Omega catching the fluorescent light, his easy smile absent. He’d arrived at the den at six in the morning with a briefcase, two junior associates from Coleman & Associates, and a carafe of cafecito so strong, it had made Dekel’s eyes water.

This was not Harrison the warm father who played basketball on Saturday mornings and hid comic books in a locked cabinet. This was Harrison the banker—the man who had built an empire from a Wharton scholarship and a Washington Heights bodega’s worth of discipline—and the banker did not smile until the deal was closed.

To her left: Vivienne Coleman in winter-white Chanel, her silver-streaked hair in the sleek chignon that meant court was in session. She wore her mother’s pearl earrings and an expression that had made opposing counsel reconsider career choices for thirty years. Vivienne was not representing anyone in a legal capacity today. She was here as an observer. An observer who happened to be a tenured Columbia law professor and whose presence at the table sent a very clear message: the woman you tried to destroy has a family, and the family brought a litigator.

Beside Vivienne: the actual attorney. Margaux Rollins, a litigation partner at Whitfield & Associates whose hourly rate could fund a small country and whose track record in commercial fraud cases was the reason Breezy had selected her from a list of seven candidates, interviewed her via video call, and had a retainer signed by four. Margaux was small, dark-haired, and unremarkable until she opened her mouth, at which point she became the most precise instrument in the room.