Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
LEO
Aman emerged from the transformation—lean and scarred, with clever eyes and the casual nudity that came from a lifetime of shifting between forms. Blood dripped from the gash on his face, but he didn’t seem to notice.
His attention was fixed on Leo with the intensity of someone delivering a memorized speech.
“Enough.”
Leo didn’t shift. His lion form was larger, stronger, more intimidating. Let this man see exactly what he was facing.
“Victor sends a message.” The enforcer’s voice was steady despite the blood streaming down his cheek.
“The investigation is over, Castellan. Your investments are already lost. The surge is doing Victor’s work for him—Haven Shores’ magical businesses are failing, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. ”
Leo’s growl was a rumble that vibrated through the cooling air.
“Go home.” The man stepped closer, apparently unbothered by facing down a wounded but still dangerous lion. “Back to San Francisco. Back to your pride and your tower and your carefully controlled life. Leave Haven Shores to us. This is your only warning.”
Leo stared at him. At this messenger who thought he could deliver threats and walk away unscathed. At Victor’s arrogance, extending like a shadow even here, even now.
Go home.
To San Francisco. To Castellan Tower with its glass walls and sterile silence. To the empty penthouse where he’d convinced himself that control was enough. That discipline was enough. That he didn’t need anything he couldn’t acquire through careful calculation and strategic patience.
To a life without the smell of salt air and burning herbs. Without morning coffee left outside his door by a woman who pretended she wasn’t thinking of him. Without eyes and copper hair and a laugh that made him remember who he’d been before his father’s chaos had burned everything down.
Before this gets personal.
Leo shifted.
The transformation was smoother this time, his rage burning itself into cold focus. He stood naked on the cliff path, blood dripping from a dozen wounds, and met the enforcer’s eyes with the full weight of an alpha’s presence.
“It’s already personal.”
The man’s confident expression flickered. “Victor won’t—”
“Victor should have stayed in whatever hole he crawled into after I fired him.” Leo’s voice was steady despite the pain radiating through his body. “He should have accepted that mercy was more than he deserved. Instead, he came here. Targeted businesses under my protection. Stole from a woman I—”
He stopped. The words caught in his throat, too large and too new to speak aloud.
The enforcer’s smile returned, sharp with malice. “A woman you what, Castellan? Don’t tell me the great corporate lion has feelings for the chaos witch. Victor will be thrilled. That makes this so much more entertaining.”
Leo moved.
The enforcer was fast—jackal reflexes, trained responses—but Leo was faster. His hand closed around the man’s throat, lifting him off his feet and slamming him into the rocks. Not hard enough to kill. Hard enough to make a point.
“Tell Victor this.” Leo’s voice was a growl, the beast pressing close beneath his skin, barely contained. “If he touches her—if he sends anyone else near her shop or her friends or anything she cares about—I will tear him apart. Slowly. Piece by piece. And I will enjoy every moment of it.”
He released the enforcer, letting the man crumple to the ground. The jackal shifter scrambled backward, shifted into his animal form with a flash of golden fur, and fled into the growing darkness.
Leo watched him go.
Then his knees buckled, and he realized exactly how much blood he’d lost.
The walk back to Haven Shores was a blur of pain and determination.
Leo found his shredded clothes scattered across the rocks where the fight had begun.
He salvaged enough fabric to wrap his most serious wounds—the slash across his ribs was deep enough that he could feel the edges pulling with every breath—and started moving before his body could convince him to stop.
One foot in front of the other. That was all that mattered. Keep moving. Don’t think about the blood soaking through the makeshift bandages. Don’t think about the way his vision was starting to blur around the edges.
The path wound down from the cliffs toward town, each step sending fresh pain lancing through his damaged side.
His shoulder throbbed where the jackal’s teeth had torn muscle.
His forearm was sticky with drying blood.
Smaller cuts and bruises announced themselves with every movement, a chorus of damage that his shifter healing was already struggling to address.
He needed shelter. Medical attention. Rest.
The Siren’s Rest materialized from the darkness like a beacon.
Light spilled from the windows, welcoming and solid. Leo fixed his eyes on that light and kept walking. Not a hospital—they’d ask questions, file reports, alert authorities. Victor had contacts everywhere. Leo couldn’t risk word getting back that he’d been wounded.
Not the pack house, either. Theo’s territory, and Leo wasn’t sure he could survive the Alpha’s interrogation in his current state. Theo would want explanations. Strategies. Commitments about how Leo planned to handle this escalation.
Leo didn’t have strategies right now. He barely had consciousness.
The inn. His room was in the inn. And Junie’s room was right next to his, and some part of him—the part that was still more predator than man—needed to be close to her. Needed to know she was safe. Needed to feel her presence even if he couldn’t explain why.
She’s the reason you came back, the creature inside him noted. She’s the reason for everything.
Leo pushed through the side entrance, avoiding the main lobby. The stairs were agony, each step a fresh exercise in willpower. Blood was seeping through his makeshift bandages, leaving dark spots on the carpet. Avine was going to be furious about the stains.
He made it to his door. Leaned against the frame. The world was getting fuzzy around the edges, darkness creeping in from his peripheral vision.
The door beside his opened.
“Leo?”
Junie stood in the doorway of her borrowed room, wearing that ridiculous tank top she refused to replace and shorts that showed entirely too much leg.
Her hair was loose around her shoulders, catching the hallway light.
Glimmer was coiled at her throat, scales flickering from sleepy purple to alarmed crimson.
Her eyes went wide as she took in the blood, the wounds, the way he was swaying on his feet.
She didn’t scream.
“Inside. Now.”
Junie’s voice was steady—steadier than he’d expected—as she grabbed his arm and guided him into her room. The space smelled like her: herbs and honey and the particular charge of magic recently used. Leo breathed it in, letting the familiarity anchor him as she deposited him on the edge of her bed.
“Don’t you dare pass out before you tell me what happened.” She was already moving, pulling vials and jars from the bag she’d brought from her shop. Emergency supplies. Salvaged from the wreckage of Moonrise Mixology. “Jackals?”
“Three.” His voice came out raspy, scraped raw. “On the cliff path. Professional. Sent by Victor.”
“I’m going to kill him.” The statement was matter-of-fact, delivered while she poured a clear liquid onto a cloth and pressed it against the slash across his ribs. Leo hissed at the sting. “Stay still. This is a clotting accelerant. It’ll hurt like hell but it’ll stop the bleeding.”
“Your hands are shaking.”
“No, they’re not.” Her hands were absolutely shaking. She was compensating with fierce focus, her movements efficient despite the tremor. “This is going to need proper healing magic. Or a skilled surgeon. Let me see the shoulder.”
Leo turned, exposing the bite wound. He heard her sharp intake of breath.
“Leo.”
“The bleeding is mostly under control. Shifter healing will manage the rest.”
“It looks like a wild animal tried to remove your arm from your body.”
“A wild animal did try to remove my arm from my body. I returned the favor.” He felt her hands on his shoulder, gentle despite the trembling. “They were warning me off. Victor’s message—go back to San Francisco. Leave the investigation alone.”
“And you said?”
“That it’s already personal.”
Her hands stilled on his wounded shoulder. Leo heard her breathing, felt the slight hitch in it that suggested she was fighting for control.
“Why?”
The question was quiet. Loaded with meanings neither of them had spoken aloud.
“You know why.”
“I want to hear you say it.”
Leo turned to face her. The movement pulled at his wounds, fresh pain flaring through his side, but he needed to see her. Needed to watch her face as he admitted the truth he’d been circling for weeks.
“Because he threatened Haven Shores.” He forced each word out, pulled from somewhere deep.
“Because he destroyed your shop and stole your grandmother’s book.
Because every time I close my eyes, I see your face in that diner, laughing at overpriced wine, and I can’t—” His voice cracked.
He was too tired, too bloody, too raw to maintain the careful walls he’d spent two decades building.
“I can’t stop wanting you. I’ve tried. I’ve fought it every day since I got here. Nothing works.”
Junie’s eyes were bright. Wet at the edges. Her hands had stopped shaking, steadied by what he’d said.
“You came back here.” Her voice was slow, working through it. “To the inn. To me. Instead of a hospital. Instead of the pack house. Instead of anywhere with actual medical facilities.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Leo reached up, brushing a strand of hair from her face. His fingers left a smear of blood on her cheek. She didn’t flinch.
“Because you’re here.” His voice was rough, scraped from somewhere he’d stopped visiting years ago. “Because the beast inside me demanded it. Because you’re the only person I want.”
She kissed him. Soft. Brief. A question.
He answered by pulling her down to him.