"Ulfric," Claudia said, yelling that one word, the way a drill sergeant yells at a bad recruit.

He looked at her. "What?" His power bit along my skin again.

"First, control your power, it's biting along everyone's skin. You're the wolf king, you need to set a better example."

"What I set for my people is my business, rat."

She continued as if he hadn't spoken. "Second, you're making Anita feel worse than she already does."

He made a wordless sound, almost a yell. His power went back to just being heat, but not painful. His voice came careful, each word thick with suppressed rage. He was swallowing it, but it was still there. "I don't want to make Anita feel worse, but if she's pregnant then she has to know that she can't keep living the life she's living."

"You still want to trap her," Claudia said, "trap her and put her in some kind of 1950s cage."

"Marriage is not a trap," he said. "You make it sound like I want her barefoot and pregnant."

"Don't you?" she asked, and her anger was softer now, as if she finally understood he wasn't being a jerk, he just didn't understand himself.

"No," he said, and he meant it. He turned back to me. "You said it yourself, Anita, whatever's best for this little person. Do you really think being a federal marshal, and dealing with all kinds of violent crime and monsters, is the kind of life that a baby needs?"

"Jesus, Richard," I said, "you're still trying to take away my life. To take away what makes me who I am. You love me, but not who I am. You love who you want me to be."

"Isn't that what you want from me?" he said. "Don't you want me to change who I am, too?"

I started to say no, then stopped myself. I thought about it. Was I asking him to change as much as he was asking me? "I want you to embrace the life you already have, and be happy in it, Richard. You want me to totally change my life, and try to fit in some white-picket-fence picture that doesn't match your life, or mine."

"I am so sick of you accusing me of wanting to put you behind a white picket fence."

"I may be pregnant, and suddenly you want me to marry you, and give up being a federal agent. We aren't even sure there is a baby, and you're already trying to impose your idea of what our life should be on me."

"Could you really keep working on serial killer cases, and killing monsters, after you have a baby?"