Chapter 46
FORTY-SIX
CASSIA
Cassia limped across the ruined harbor before anyone could stop her.
Her ribs screamed with every step. Her head throbbed. The healing magic in her system protested the exertion with waves of dizziness that made the world tilt sideways. But she kept moving, one foot in front of the other, because she could see what was about to happen.
Aero was going to kill her.
His dragon wanted it—she could see it in every line of his massive body, in the way his claws pressed deeper into Nerissa’s shoulders, in the fire gathering at the back of his throat.
Eight centuries of control, shattered by three days of watching his mate hover between life and death.
The beast wanted blood. Wanted to end the threat permanently.
Wanted Nerissa dead in the most violent way possible.
Nerissa knew it too. She wasn’t struggling anymore—just staring up at the dragon pinning her down with something that looked almost like acceptance. Like she’d expected this ending all along.
“Do it,” she whispered, loud enough for Cassia to hear. “Kill me. It’s what I deserve, isn’t it? What I’ve wanted, ever since you looked at me and saw nothing. At least this way, you’ll remember me. At least this way, I’ll matter.”
Aero’s dragon rumbled—a sound of fury and agreement and barely-leashed violence.
“Aero.” Cassia’s voice came out weaker than she’d intended, barely carrying over the crash of disturbed waves. “Aero, look at me.”
His massive head swung toward her. Dragon eyes—storm-gray with lightning flickering in their depths—met hers across the ruined harbor. She saw the beast looking out at her. Saw the man trapped behind it, fighting for control.
She shook her head slightly. A tiny motion, barely visible, but she knew he saw it.
Don’t, she thought as hard as she could, wishing desperately that the mate bond gave them telepathy the way the old legends claimed. Don’t become something you’ll regret. Don’t let her make you into a killer.
She held her breath. She thought he wouldn’t listen—the dragon too far gone, the rage too consuming. She’d asked too much of him—asked him to show mercy to the woman who had nearly killed her.
Then Aero’s dragon closed its eyes. Took a breath that shuddered through its massive frame. And stepped back from Nerissa’s prone form.
The shift happened slowly—not the explosive transformation of battle, but a gradual pulling-back of the beast. Scales receded. Wings folded and shrank. The massive form condensed, contracted, became the man she loved, standing naked and exhausted on the harbor stones.
Someone—Beck, she thought—threw him a pair of pants. He pulled them on without looking, his attention fixed on the siren still sprawled on the rocks.
“Wyatt.” His voice was raw, wrecked, barely human. “She’s yours. The Deepwater Courts can decide what to do with her.”
Sheriff Wyatt Gentry stepped forward, his panther’s grace evident even in human form. He carried enchanted restraints—cuffs that would dampen magical abilities, shackles that had been spelled specifically for siren containment. His whiskey-colored gaze showed no emotion as he knelt beside Nerissa.
“Nerissa Ran,” he said, his voice carrying the weight of official authority, “by the power vested in me by the Haven Shores Council and the Continental Shifter Alliance, I’m placing you under arrest for attempted murder, destruction of property, and violation of the Supernatural Accords regarding weather manipulation.
You will be held for transport to the Deepwater Courts, where you’ll face judgment from your own people. ”
Nerissa laughed—a broken, jagged sound. “My own people. They’ll execute me, you know. The courts don’t tolerate failure.”
“That’s not my concern.” Wyatt secured the restraints with practiced efficiency. “My concern is protecting this town. You threatened it. Now you face the consequences.”
He pulled her upright, and for a moment, Nerissa’s iridescent gaze found Aero across the harbor. Something flickered in her expression—not rage anymore, not even hatred. Just a terrible, hollow recognition.
“You’re not going to kill me,” she said. Not a question.
“I want to. I want to more than I’ve wanted anything in centuries.” He stepped back, putting more distance between himself and the temptation of violence. “But I’m trying to be someone who deserves what I’ve found. And that person doesn’t kill a defeated enemy, no matter how much she deserves it.”
Nerissa’s laugh this time was bitter, broken. “She’s changed you. That pathetic mortal witch has actually changed you.”
“Yes.” Aero didn’t look away from Cassia, didn’t even acknowledge that Nerissa was still speaking. “She has. And I will spend however long she has—decades, centuries if I can find a way to give them to her—being grateful for it.”
Cassia’s eyes burned. She blinked rapidly, refusing to cry, refusing to let the emotion overwhelm her in front of everyone. But her heart felt like it might burst from the fullness of what she was feeling.
He was choosing to be better. Not because she’d asked him to, not because she’d demanded it—but because what they’d found together was worth becoming. That was something different entirely from anything she’d ever been given.
Wyatt hauled Nerissa away, her waterlogged form stumbling over the debris-strewn harbor. Other officers moved to assist, forming an escort that would take the siren to holding until transport to the Deepwater Courts could be arranged.
The crisis was over.
Cassia crossed the remaining distance to Aero on legs that barely held her upright.
She didn’t care that the entire town was watching.
Didn’t care about the pain in her ribs or the dizziness swimming at the edges of her vision.
She just needed to touch him, to feel him solid and real and alive beneath her hands.
He caught her before she could fall, his arms wrapping around her with a gentleness that belied the violence of moments ago. She buried her face in his chest—bare skin warm against her cheek, heart pounding beneath her ear—and breathed him in.
“That was dramatic,” she mumbled against him.
His laugh was rough, exhausted, but real. “You’re one to talk.”
“I love you.” The words came easily—no fear, no hesitation, just the simple truth of what she felt. “I love you, you ridiculous ancient disaster of a dragon.”
“I love you too. Even though you can’t follow simple instructions like ‘stay on the porch’ and ‘don’t walk across ruined harbors with cracked ribs.’”
“Technically, you never said I couldn’t walk across ruined harbors.”
“I assumed it was implied.”
“You know what they say about assumptions.”
She felt him smile against her hair. Around them, the town was beginning to stir—cleanup crews moving toward the damaged docks, healers checking on anyone who might have been caught in the crossfire, the alpha network coordinating the return to normalcy.
She let her eyes close, her cheek against his chest, the steady beat of his heart the only thing that mattered right now. They’d survived. They’d won. Nerissa was defeated, the weather manipulation ended, the threat to Haven Shores eliminated.
“Take me home.” The words came out barely above a whisper.
He pulled back to look at her, something soft and wondering in his expression. “Your cottage?”
“Either. Both. Wherever you are.” She reached up to touch his face, feeling the stubble scratch against her palm. “That’s home now. You.”
His eyes flared—heat and love and the kind of fierce possessiveness that used to terrify her but now felt like safety. He kissed her in the middle of the ruined harbor with half the town watching, and she kissed him back with everything she had.
Somewhere overhead, Delos circled—the younger dragon still in shifted form, keeping watch even now that the battle was over.
Gust had returned to perch on a nearby piling, his small form radiating disapproval at the public display of affection.
The seagulls were already gossiping—she could hear them, the supernatural network spreading news of the dragon elder and the storm witch across Haven Shores.
Let them gossip. Let everyone know.
She was Cassia Gale, and she’d found someone who loved her chaos.
And soon—as soon as her ribs healed and she could move without wincing—she was going to let him claim her properly.
The thought sent heat curling through her veins, anticipation building beneath the exhaustion. His arms tightened around her, and she wondered if he could feel it—the shift in her breathing, the way her body responded to even the idea of what was coming.
“Soon,” he murmured against her lips, as if reading her mind. “When you’re healed.”
“How soon is soon?”
“The healers say a week. Maybe less if you actually rest like you’re supposed to.”
“I can rest.” She grinned up at him. “I can rest very well if properly motivated.”
“Is that so?”
“Mmm. Take me home and find out.”
He laughed—a real laugh, warm and surprised—and swept her into his arms before she could protest. She yelped, wrapping her arms around his neck as he carried her away from the harbor, away from the cleanup crews and the watching eyes, toward whatever future they were building.
Behind them, the sunset faded to purple and then to star-scattered dark. The harbor would take weeks to repair. The town would take longer to process everything that had happened.
Already, she could hear the cleanup beginning—Theo’s voice directing pack members, Leo coordinating with Hux about temporary harbor closures, the witches discussing how to repair the damaged wards. Haven Shores would rebuild. It had survived worse. But this time, there would be two dragons helping.
That was new. That was unprecedented. Dragons didn’t join communities—everyone knew that.
But Aero was staying. For her. Because of her. And Haven Shores would never be the same.
But Cassia Gale was alive. She was loved. And she was done apologizing for either.
She’d stopped asking the world’s permission a lifetime ago. It just took this long to believe it.