Chapter 35
THIRTY-FIVE
JUNIE
The jackal was smaller than the lion, but what he lacked in size he made up for in speed and viciousness.
Victor darted in low, snapping at Leo’s exposed flank. Leo pivoted, but not fast enough—jackal teeth scored a line across his ribs, drawing blood that matted the golden fur. Victor danced back before Leo could counter, circling with the patient cruelty of a born predator.
They clashed again—Leo’s massive paw swiping at Victor’s head, Victor dodging with fluid grace and countering with a bite to Leo’s foreleg. The shop around them was reduced to kindling, shelves toppling, potions shattering, the careful order of Junie’s life demolished in moments.
Get up, Junie told herself. He's fighting for you. Move.
The binding potion. Where had it rolled?
She crawled through the wreckage of her shop, searching desperately.
Broken glass cut her palms, leaving trails of blood on the floorboards.
Spilled potions soaked into her dress—she’d be cleaning this out of her hair for weeks, assuming she survived the next few minutes.
Somewhere behind her, the two predators clashed again—the heavy thud of bodies, the snarl of teeth, the crash of her grandmother’s display case being reduced to splinters.
There.
The vial had rolled under the consultation nook, nestled against the leg of a velvet chair. Junie grabbed it with bloody fingers, clutching it like a lifeline.
A yelp of pain made her spin around.
Victor had Leo pinned. The jackal was smaller but faster, and he’d gotten inside the lion’s guard.
His teeth were sunk deep into Leo’s shoulder—the same shoulder that had barely healed from the last attack, the one that still bore the pink scars of jackal teeth.
Blood poured from the wound, staining Leo’s golden fur crimson, pooling on the ruined floor.
“Leo!” The scream tore from her throat without permission.
Victor’s head snapped toward her. His golden eyes gleamed with malicious intelligence.
He's going to use me against Leo. He's going to—
Victor released Leo and lunged for Junie.
Time slowed.
Junie saw the jackal coming—lean and golden-furred, jaws open wide, clever eyes fixed on her throat. She saw Leo struggling to rise, too injured to intercept in time. She saw her own death in the gleam of those empty eyes.
Leo moved anyway.
He threw himself between Junie and Victor, taking the bite meant for her throat in his own already-wounded shoulder. The impact drove him backward into Junie, knocking her down but shielding her with his massive body.
Victor’s teeth sank deep. Leo roared in agony.
Junie didn’t think. She acted.
The binding potion was already in her hand. She wrenched the cork free with her teeth and hurled the contents at Victor’s face in one smooth motion.
The liquid hit the jackal mid-bite. Victor screamed—a sound that started as animal and ended as human as the shift ripped away from him. His body contorted, limbs lengthening, fur receding, the transformation forced into reverse by the potion’s magic.
He collapsed onto the ruined floor, naked and human and utterly helpless. His muscles locked in paralysis. His voice failed to a strangled whisper. The shift that defined his nature had been stripped away, leaving him trapped in a form that suddenly felt like a cage.
“What—” Victor’s eyes were wide with genuine fear for the first time. His careful composure had shattered like Junie’s window. “What did you do to me?”
“Binding potion.” Junie’s voice was steady despite the shaking in her hands.
“Modified formula. My grandmother’s base recipe, actually—the one from the book you stole.
” She allowed herself a fierce smile. “I spent weeks perfecting it. Turns out having your magic destabilized by the surge gives you a lot of motivation to experiment.”
Victor’s mouth moved, but only a wheeze emerged.
“You can’t shift.” Junie continued, stepping closer. “Not for a long, long time. Maybe never again. The potion binds to your core—the animal part of you. It doesn’t kill it. Locks it away. Like a bird in a cage.”
She crouched down, looking into those clever golden eyes that had so recently promised her death.
“My grandmother believed in mercy.” Her voice dropped. “But I’m not my grandmother. And you threatened the people I love.”
Leo rose from where he’d fallen, the shift sliding off him like water. He stood naked and bloody in the wreckage of Junie’s shop, wounds already beginning to close with shifter regeneration. His face was carved from stone, his brown eyes fixed on Victor with cold fury.
“It’s over, Victor.”
Victor laughed—a broken, bitter sound that scraped against Junie’s nerves.
“Is it? You think this changes anything? You’ll never be one of them, Castellan.
You’re an outsider. A pretender. This town will never accept you.
They’ll see you for what you are—a control freak playing at belonging, the same way your father played at—”
“You’re wrong.” Leo’s voice was quiet, certain. Not defensive. Sure. “This isn’t your town to destroy. It isn’t your prize to claim. Haven Shores doesn’t belong to you or me or anyone.”
He looked at Junie then—bloody and battered, standing in the ruins of everything she’d built—and his expression softened into an emotion that stole the breath from her lungs.
“Haven Shores is home,” he said. “That’s all that matters.”
Wyatt arrived a few minutes later.
The panther shifter surveyed the destruction with his usual unreadable expression—the demolished window, the overturned cauldrons, the unconscious jackals scattered across the floor like discarded toys, and one very paralyzed Victor Sable curled in the fetal position.
“Messy.” That was his only comment.
“He started it.” Junie was sitting on the floor, too exhausted to stand.
Her hands were cut, her dress was ruined, and she was fairly certain she had glass in her hair.
Glimmer had returned to her shoulders, scales cycling through relieved greens and protective purples, occasionally hissing at any deputy who came too close.
“I’m sure.” Wyatt handcuffed Victor with enchanted restraints—the kind designed to hold shifters, though Victor’s shifting problem made them somewhat redundant. “We got reports of attacks on three other businesses simultaneously. Coordinated distraction. He was serious about taking the town.”
“The other attacks?” Leo asked. He’d found a blanket somewhere, wrapped it around his waist, but he was still very much naked and very much injured.
Blood continued to seep from the shoulder wound, slower now but still concerning.
His skin was pale beneath the tan, and Junie didn’t like how heavily he was leaning against the counter.
“Contained. The security measures held.” Wyatt hauled Victor to his feet, none too gently.
The jackal shifter—former jackal shifter—made a pained sound but couldn’t struggle against the grip.
“Theo and Beck handled the harbor district. Put down four jackals between them. Cassia apparently called down lightning on two more who were trying to breach Narla’s shop.
” A ghost of a smile crossed his stoic face. “She’s very pleased with herself.”
“She would be,” Junie murmured. She could already imagine Cassia’s dramatic retelling of the battle—complete with sound effects and probably some exaggerated hand gestures.
Victor said nothing. His eyes had gone flat, empty—the look of a man who’d gambled everything and lost. All that cunning, all that careful planning, undone by a chaos witch with a modified potion and a stubborn lion who didn’t know when to stay down.
Wyatt marched him toward the door without ceremony. Two deputies flanked the remaining jackals, securing them for transport.
Before Wyatt reached the door, one of his deputies held something out toward Junie. “Found this in his bag,” the deputy said. “Looked personal.”
It was a book. Old leather binding, warped at the corners from age and handling, the cover stamped with her grandmother’s initials in faded gold.
Junie took it with both hands. She turned to the encoded pages—her grandmother’s private cipher, the recipes Victor had wanted most. Still intact. Unbroken. Whatever his people had tried, they hadn’t cracked it.
She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to.
“I’ll need statements from both of you,” Wyatt called over his shoulder. “Tomorrow. Tonight, get some rest.” His gold eyes flicked to Leo’s wounds with professional assessment. “And get those looked at. Shifting doesn’t cure stupid.”
Then he was gone, and Junie was alone with Leo in the ruins of her shop.