8. Aslan
EIGHT
ASLAN
Idon’t leave the square that night.
I tell myself it’s protocol—the warning I gave Veren about Iskra Sable still fresh in my own ears, every instinct sharpened by things that don’t add up. I tell myself watching from outside is enough, the way it’s been enough for three weeks.
Then, past midnight, her wards flare. Not an alarm—not yet—just a ripple, subtle enough that a lesser shifter would have missed it. Someone testing the perimeter, patient and careful, searching for a weak point that isn’t there. Not tonight, at least.
I’m inside before I decide to be. She doesn’t ask why. Doesn’t argue when I claim the couch like it’s the most reasonable thing in the world instead of the last of my discipline giving out.
Neither of us sleeps much that first night. By the second, neither of us pretends I’m going anywhere. By the third, it isn’t a question at all.
The Den smells like woodsmoke and spilled beer and too many shifters crammed into one space.
I lean against the bar, nursing a whiskey I don’t particularly want, watching the room with the half-attention that’s become second nature.
Thursday nights draw a crowd—off-duty patrol members, young wolves blowing off steam, a table of bears arguing about something that’s probably going to end in arm wrestling.
Near the fireplace, a group of panthers plays cards with the kind of focused silence that means serious money is changing hands.
It’s been three days since her wards flared. Three days of sleeping on her couch. Three days of watching her work, listening to her hum, catching her scent every time she moves past me.
“You look like someone pissed in your whiskey.”
Torin drops onto the stool beside me, the wood creaking under his bulk. His beard is neatly trimmed, his eyes warm despite the observation.
“Long week.”
“It’s Thursday.”
“Long four days, then.”
His laugh rumbles through the bar, deep and warm. He signals the bartender for a beer. “Caius mentioned she’s had some trouble. Threats. Someone playing games with her wards.”
“It’s being handled.”
“Is it?” Torin accepts his drink, takes a long pull. Wipes foam from his beard with the back of his hand. “Or are you handling it alone because you don’t want anyone else near her?”
My jaw clenches.
Before I can respond, Veren Tahann saunters in and drops onto the stool on my other side, stealing my whiskey in one smooth motion.
“Gentlemen.” He makes a face at the whiskey, sets it back down. “You look terrible, Aslan. That couch doing you permanent damage?”
“I’ll survive.”
“On that couch? Doubtful. I’ve sat on that couch. It’s an instrument of torture masquerading as furniture.” He steals an olive from somewhere. “The charm witch has excellent taste in crystals, questionable taste in seating.”
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
“Always.” But he leans back, and something in his eyes sharpens past the performance. “Heard anything more about those Preserver symbols? The ones from the Registry archives?”
The shift catches my attention. Beneath the theatrical charm, something sharper lurks. The foxes see everything, hear everything, remember everything. If he’s asking, he already knows something.
“Elio’s looking into it.”
“Elio’s been looking into it for years.” Veren’s voice drops, losing its playful edge. “Those symbols aren’t random. They’re warnings. And whoever’s leaving them for your witch knows exactly what they mean.”
“She’s not my—”
“Sure.” He’s already moving, sliding off his stool with liquid grace. “Just an observation from someone who sees everything in this town. Watch the eastern perimeter tonight.” A pause at the edge of the crowd. “And fix the couch situation. You look like a man who hasn’t slept in a week.”
He disappears before I can respond.
Torin finishes his beer. Sets the glass down with a solid thunk. “I’ve known you a long time, Aslan. Since before Dorothea. Since the early days of your pride. I watched what losing her did to you.”
My chest tightens.
“I’m not—”
“You’re not over it. You’ll never be over it. That’s not how grief works.” Torin’s hand lands on my shoulder—heavy, grounding, warm. “But you’re not dead either. And that witch looks at you like you hung the moon. Whatever’s happening between you, don’t let fear make the decision for you.”
He leaves me alone at the bar, my empty glass sweating rings onto the wood.
The walk back to Whisperwind Charms takes longer than it should.
I tell myself I’m patrolling. Checking the perimeter. Making sure no one’s lurking in the mist with crystal patterns and dead birds and threats carved in elegant script.
But the truth is simpler. I’m stalling.
Because when I get back, she’ll be there with that sharp tongue that makes me want to either argue with her or kiss her senseless. Her scent will wrap around me. Her presence will settle something restless in my chest.
I pass The Crescent Cup, where Marcus is wiping down tables with methodical precision, his wife organizing receipts with supernatural speed.
They’ve been together three centuries and still hold hands when they think no one’s watching.
I pass Eternal Flame Candles, dark now but with an orange glow flickering in the back—Ember must be having a moment.
The phoenix has those sometimes. I pass the consignment shop, dark and quiet, a hand-lettered sign in the window promising the ghost will be back from her break by morning.
Normal. Quiet. Safe.
Every instinct disagrees. I’ve been on edge since the ward alarm, since I found nothing in the mist but the feeling of being watched. Someone’s playing a long game, and I don’t know the rules.
I push through the door. The wards recognize me now—a development neither of us has acknowledged. The bell chimes.
She’s at her workbench, bent over the smoky quartz she’s been arguing with for two days, hair piled in a messy bun that’s mostly escaped its constraints.
She’s talking to it. The crystal is not cooperating.
The sight hits me like a physical blow—a certainty I don’t get to have anymore, some deep part of me insisting otherwise.
She looks up.
“You’re late.” No heat in it. Just observation.
“Ran into Torin at The Den. And Veren.”
“Ah. Fox gossip.” She sets down the crystal—the stubborn one, she calls it. According to her, it refuses to hold a charge properly and gives her attitude about it. “What’s the verdict? Has the town decided our fate yet?”
She stretches, spine cracking in three places. “I saved you dinner. It’s probably cold by now.”
“You didn’t have to—”
“I know.” She moves toward the kitchen. “Eat it anyway. You look like you haven’t had a real meal in days.”
She’s not wrong. I’ve been subsisting on bar snacks and protein bars, too focused on patrol routes and threat assessments to bother with actual food.
I follow her into the small kitchen. She hands me a plate—pasta, some kind of vegetable, bread that’s definitely from Moonpetal Bakery. The domesticity of it makes my chest ache.
“How was the Den?” She leans against the counter, watching me eat.
“Loud. Crowded. Torin gave me unsolicited advice.”
“About?”
“Life choices.”
“The bear wisdom.” Her mouth curves. “Torin once told me that storms pass but roots remain. I’m still not sure if he was talking about gardening or something deeper.”
“With Torin, it’s probably both.”
She laughs. I want to make her laugh like that every day for the rest of my life.
The thought lands like a punch to the chest.
“You should sleep.” She pushes off the counter. “The couch awaits. I’d offer you something better, but—” She trails off. A flush climbs her cheeks.
“The couch is fine.”
“Liar.” But she’s smiling, and it does something dangerous to my chest. “Try not to fall off.”
“I make no promises.”
She passes close enough that her scent wraps around me. Lavender and sage and something uniquely her. My hands itch to reach out, to pull her close, to bury my face in her hair and breathe her in.
I don’t move.
Upstairs, a door clicks shut. Then quiet.
Twelve feet. Might as well be twelve miles.
I dream of Dorothea.
This happens less often now—the sharp-edged grief has dulled to a persistent ache—but tonight she’s vivid. Dark hair and laughing eyes and the familiar bond that sang between us like a living thing.
We’re in the cabin, the one we shared before the accident. She’s making tea, humming off-key, and I’m watching her with the certainty of a man who knows exactly where he belongs.
“Five years.” She sets down the kettle without turning around. “That’s a long time to keep a seat empty at a table for one.”
“I don’t know how to do this without you.”
“You’re not doing it without me. You’re doing it instead of living, and those aren’t the same thing.
” She turns, and her face is kind. Sad. Steady in the way that only ever showed up when she meant something completely.
“I didn’t build a life with you so you could spend the rest of yours guarding my absence like it’s a duty.
I want you happy, Aslan. Loud and stubborn and impossible again.
I want you to let someone else set a place at that table. ”
“What if I lose her too?”
“Then you’ll grieve her too, because that’s what loving people costs.
” Her smile turns fond, a little exasperated—the exact face she used to make when I’d sulked over something small.
“But you don’t get to skip the whole thing because you’re scared of the ending.
That’s not honoring me. That’s just hiding. ”
I wake to darkness and the sound of someone crying out.
Leire. Upstairs. Another nightmare.
My tiger has me halfway up the stairs before my human brain catches up. I stop on the landing, hand braced against the wall, breathing hard.
Her voice quiets. The crying stops. Silence settles back over the shop.
I should go back to the couch. Should maintain distance. Should remember all the reasons this is a terrible idea.
Instead, I sit on the top step. Close enough to hear if she needs me. Far enough to maintain the fiction that I’m not already lost.
The amethyst on her workbench gives a single pulse. Even in the dark, I feel it watching me.
Then the ward alarm trips.
Not screaming—a low, discordant hum threaded through the protective net around the shop. The kind of alarm that means something tested the perimeter without breaking through. I’m down the stairs and out the back door before the sound has fully processed, senses stretching into the dark.
Nothing. Mist. The smell of wet cobblestones and something sharp-edged and chemical that dissipates before I can place it. A suggestion of movement at the very edge of my range, gone when I turn.
They were here. They’re not anymore.
I do a full circuit of the building. If anything had gotten through—if she’d woken to something standing over her—I press the thought down hard and check every ward point. Everything holds—intact, but humming faintly with the strain of having been tested.
When I come back through the front door, Leire is at the top of the stairs.
She’s in her robe, arms wrapped around herself, a chunk of black tourmaline in one fist. Her hair is loose. Her eyes are very awake.
“Everything okay?” Her voice is quiet. Sleep-rough.
“Perimeter test. Nothing got through. The wards held.”
She’s quiet for a moment. Just looking at me, the tourmaline turning slowly in her fingers.
“Are you staying?”
The couch. All the very good reasons I’d been repeating to myself all night.
“Yes.”
She nods. Goes back to bed. I hear her door close—not the click of a lock, just the soft sound of someone settling in.
I stay at the bottom of the stairs for a long time.
Something settles in my chest—the constant hum of urgency loosening its grip, just for now.
Then I go back to the couch and pretend I wasn’t watching over her all night.
The lie tastes like copper. Like hope. Like the beginning of something I’m too scared to name.