Ain’t Lion, I Love You (Shifter Mates of Hollow Oak #4)

Chapter 1

MAEVE

Snow fell in fat, lazy flakes outside the Silver Fang's frosted windows, piling against the sills like nature couldn't decide if it wanted to bury Hollow Oak or just give it a blanket.

Maeve Cross didn't much care either way.

She preferred winter. Preferred the cold.

Preferred the way it kept most folks home where they belonged instead of cluttering up her bar with holiday cheer and misplaced sentiment.

She ran the rag over the last glass, watching firelight bend through crystal until it gleamed.

The tavern sat quiet around her, all polished wood and dying embers, the kind of silence she'd spent years perfecting.

Her lioness stirred beneath her skin, restless due to the Veil hum threading through the air like a plucked string.

Something was shifting. She could feel it in her bones.

"You know," Twyla Honeytree said from the doorway, "most people celebrate the holidays with actual people."

Maeve didn't look up. "Most people are fools."

"And you're the wise exception?" Twyla stepped inside, shaking snow from her wheat-colored hair. She looked young as always, somewhere in her late twenties if you ignored the ancient weight in her light brown eyes. Fae blood kept her ageless. Nosy tendencies kept her insufferable.

"I'm the exception who wants to close up shop." Maeve set the glass on its shelf with the others, each one lined up perfect and even. "Don't you have some poor soul to matchmake at the Griddle and Grind?"

"Already did. Three times today, actually." Twyla perched on a barstool, grinning like she'd just won something. "Rowan Baneville and that sweet innkeeper Diana are coming along nicely. I don’t give them long before littles are on their way."

"Good for them." Maeve moved behind the bar, wiping down surfaces that didn't need wiping. Her hands needed the work. Needed the familiar rhythm of closing routine, the same steps she'd taken every night for years.

"You've been closing alone on the holidays since I've known you," Twyla said, her voice gentler now. "That's what, six years running?"

"Seven." Maeve dumped the rag in the wash bucket. "And I like it that way."

"Liking something doesn't make it good for you."

Maeve finally looked at her. Twyla sat there with her knowing smile and her secrets, the kind of fae who saw too much and said twice as much. They'd been friends long enough that Maeve could read the concern threaded through her meddling.

"I run a tavern," Maeve said. "I deal with people all day, every day. When I close up, I get peace. There's nothing wrong with that."

"Peace or isolation?"

"Same thing when you do it right."

Twyla laughed, soft and sad. "Your lioness doesn't think so."

She wasn't wrong. The beast inside Maeve prowled with an agitation that had been building for weeks. Longer, maybe. It paced and snarled and wanted things Maeve refused to acknowledge.

"My lioness can stuff it," Maeve said.

"Charming." Twyla tilted her head, studying her with those too-bright eyes. "The Veil's been humming lately. You feel it?"

"Hard to miss."

"It does that when something's coming. Someone, usually." Twyla's smile turned sly. "Someone important."

Maeve's hands stilled on the bar. She forced them to keep moving. "The Veil's always humming. That's what it does."

"Not like this." Twyla stood, brushing invisible dust from her skirt. "This is the kind of hum that means fate's paying attention. The good kind. The kind that brings mates together."

"Then it can hum at someone else." Maeve grabbed her coat from the hook by the door. "I'm not interested in whatever the Veil thinks I need."

"Because you already know what you need?"

"Because I don't need anything." She shrugged into the coat, a heavy thing lined with wool that smelled like woodsmoke and her own scent. "I've got my tavern. I've got my life. That's enough."

Twyla moved to the door but didn't open it. "Maeve—"

"Go home, Twyla." Maeve softened it with a small smile. "I appreciate the concern, but I'm fine. Really."

"You're always fine." Twyla pulled open the door, letting in a gust of cold air and swirling snow. "That's the problem."

She left before Maeve was able to argue, disappearing into the white-dark night like she'd never been there at all. Fae had a way of doing that. Slipping in and out of spaces, leaving questions behind like gifts you didn't want.

Maeve locked the door and leaned against it, eyes closed.

The tavern settled around her with familiar creaks and sighs.

This place was hers. She'd built it from nothing, turned it into the heart of Hollow Oak's shifter community.

The Silver Fang didn't just serve drinks.

It served as neutral ground, sanctuary, and home all rolled into one.

She'd made this life. Chosen it. And she'd chosen it alone.

Her lioness snarled in disagreement, pawing at the edges of her control. Maeve pushed back with practiced ease, shoving the beast down where it belonged. She'd gotten good at that over the years. Good at ignoring instincts that led nowhere useful.

The Veil's hum intensified, singing through the walls like a voice she couldn't quite hear. It raised the hair on her arms, made her spine prickle with awareness.

"Whatever you're planning," she muttered to the empty room, "I'm not interested."

The Veil didn't answer. It never did.

But it kept humming all the same.

Maeve grabbed her keys and headed for the back stairs that led to her apartment above the tavern. The snow would keep falling. The Veil would keep humming. And she'd keep doing exactly what she'd always done.

Surviving.

Alone.

The way she liked it.