[Alex knows that he's right on some level: that she's not normally this subservient. It's true. The only times that she ever has been have been when she'd chosen to be so but it had never been as reflexive and instinctive as this felt like it was. It was never this easy, and when the hell has Alex ever had easy in her life when it came to anything never mind to one Richard Strand? He was infuriating at the best of times, impossible at the worst, but that had never stopped her connection to him. That had never actually severed their bond. Bent it, twisted it, pressed it to almost snapping but it had never broken it.

Alex had told Amalia once that it felt like the two of them were like an elastic: they could push and pull and draw to the limits of the material but in the end it always snapped them back into place together. Maybe if she'd not had that thought before, she would have been more something about this. More headstrong maybe, more dismissive of whatever the hell was happening with the two of them. But she had. They were a rubber band, and had always been in one another's orbit.

Hades and Persephone, spending six months apart forced there by the need of the seasons.

So she just kisses him back, just as harshly, just as fiercely, because as submissive as Alex is, this isn't something that this is just happening to. Kissing Richard is something that Alex wants to be an active participant in even if it's not how she'd ever imagined that would happen in any way close to this.

Her fingers wrap around the back of his neck, holding him to her. Her strength isn't unnatural, it's not caused by the 'pack shift' or whatever else is happening. No, it just comes from Alex being Alex and how bad she is at letting go of anything (or anyone) that she cares about it.

She even sounds exactly like herself when she says:]

We've always been partners, Richard. We've just been really terrible at it. We don't need to be now. And yes. I'm yours. Yes.