10. Aslan
TEN
ASLAN
Elio has nothing that first night. No match for the signature on the envelope, no name to put to the woman who delivered it—just a promise to keep digging and a warning, delivered in that maddeningly even voice of his, that whoever orchestrated this won’t wait for us to catch up.
So we don’t wait either. Patrols. Watching.
The kind of vigilance that wears down a mind faster than any fight would.
Four days on her couch, and I’m losing my mind.
Not from discomfort—though I’ve grown intimately familiar with the couch’s particular cruelties, the cushions finding new ways to punish my spine each night. Not from exhaustion, though I’ve barely slept more than a few hours at a stretch since this started. No.
The problem is I have nothing to offer her that doesn’t come wrapped in danger—an active threat hunting her, an investigation half-finished, a war I’m supposed to be managing. I don’t tell someone I want a future with them while their present is still on fire.
So I wait. And every night, she’s right there. Twelve feet away. Up those stairs. In her bed.
Every time she moves overhead, I track the sound—floorboard creak near the dresser, softer steps toward the bathroom, the groan of bedsprings when she settles.
Every time she laughs at something during the day—that sharp, surprised sound like she’s startled by her own amusement—my chest clenches.
Every time her scent drifts down from upstairs—warm and sweet and entirely her—I have to grip the edge of the couch to keep from going to her.
Last night was the worst. Another nightmare—her voice saying something that might have been my name or might have been Shadow. I made it halfway to her door again before I caught myself.
She quieted on her own. Neither of us mentioned it this morning.
This isn’t professional. I know it. I’m counting floorboard creaks.
“You’re staring at the ceiling like it kicked your dog.”
I turn my head. Leire is standing at the bottom of the stairs, wrapped in a robe that’s seen better days, hair a tangled mess around her shoulders. No makeup. Shadows under her eyes that match my own. There’s a crease on her cheek from her pillow, and her feet are bare on the cold floor.
She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
The thought catches me off guard. I’ve noticed she’s attractive—I’m not blind, and something in me has been very vocal on the subject.
But this is different. This is soft-morning-light-and-messy-hair and I want to wake up to this every day for the rest of my life.
It’s a dangerous thought. The kind of thought that got me destroyed five years ago.
“The ceiling knows what it did.”
She gives a barely there grin. “Coffee?”
“Already made it.”
She takes the cup I hold out without comment, and we settle into our now-familiar silence while the shop warms up around us.
“I need to go to Thornveil today.” She settles into the chair across from me, one leg tucked beneath her. “Anouk has supplies I ordered. Protection ingredients—I want to strengthen my personal wards.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“You don’t have to shadow me everywhere.”
“Yes. I do.”
She opens her mouth—to argue, probably. I know that look. The stubborn set of her jaw, the flash in her green eyes. But she closes it. Takes a sip of coffee instead, studying me over the rim of her cup. “Fine. But you’re carrying the bags.”
“Wouldn’t dream of making you lift anything heavier than a crystal.”
“I’ll have you know some of my crystals are very heavy.” She’s fighting a smile. “Some of them could definitely be used as weapons. The big smoky quartz in the back? That thing could take out a werewolf.”
“I’ve seen you wield a quartz point. I believe it.”
The smile breaks through. Small, genuine, lighting up her whole face like sunrise over the mountains.
I’m in so much trouble.
Thornveil Apothecary sits in the heart of The Hollow, a narrow building squeezed between Eternal Flame Candles and Second Chances, the consignment shop run by the town’s oldest ghost. The smell hits me the moment we step inside: a hundred herbs layered over each other, sharp and green and ancient.
Dried bundles hang from the rafters. Jars line every surface, their contents ranging from mundane (lavender) to questionable (something that’s definitely still moving).
Anouk Darkwater looks up from behind the counter.
Dark hair pulled back severely, dark eyes assessing everything in a single glance.
She’s the coven leader—has been for eight years—and she carries the authority like a second skin.
Most shifters find her intimidating. I find her competent, which is better.
But when she sees Leire, something softens. Just slightly. The sharp edges ease.
“Your order is ready.” She disappears into the back room, returning with a wrapped package tied in twine. “Extra mugwort, as requested. And I added some black salt—you’ll want it for the perimeter work.”
“Thank you.” Leire reaches for her wallet, but Anouk waves her off.
“Consider it a coven gift. We look after our own.” Her gaze flicks to me. Assessing. Knowing. “Though it seems you have additional protection these days.”
I don’t answer. Anouk’s eyebrow rises—she’s known me long enough to read the silence.
We leave with the package tucked under my arm.
The afternoon sun filters through the mist, casting everything in soft gold.
The streets are busy—market day. Witches haggling over herbs at corner stalls.
A selkie selling jewelry near the fountain, her wares catching light in impossible ways.
Children running through the crowd, some in half-shifted forms—a wolf pup chasing his human sister, a kitten that’s definitely someone’s familiar yelling instructions from her witch’s shoulder.
A normal day in Mistvale. Safe. Peaceful.
My tiger doesn’t agree. The air tastes off—metallic, charged, the way it gets before a thunderstorm. The mist is moving in patterns that don’t match the wind.
“Aslan?” Leire has stopped walking. Her hand touches my arm. “What is it?”
“Something’s—”
They come out of the alley.
Three of them. Masked, dressed in dark clothing that blurs at the edges—magical enhancement making them hard to focus on, edges smearing like wet paint. They move fast. Too fast. Enhanced speed, enhanced strength. Professional operatives, not common thugs.
The first one goes for Leire.
I don’t think. Don’t plan. The shift takes me mid-leap, bones cracking and reforming in the space between heartbeats, clothes shredding as I tear free.
Nine hundred pounds of muscle and fury. I hit the first attacker before his fingers can close around her arm, claws raking across his chest, the weight of my body slamming him into the cobblestones.
He screams. Blood sprays, hot and copper-sharp on my tongue. I don’t stop.
My jaws close around his shoulder, fangs sinking deep through cloth and flesh and bone. He goes limp beneath me—unconscious or dead, I don’t care which. The only thing that matters is Leire. The only thing that has ever mattered is keeping her safe.
The word rises before I can stop it—mate—and this time I don’t push it down. I let it sit there, true and terrifying, while I keep moving.
The other two are circling her. One throws a spell—binding magic, meant to immobilize—chains of red light snaking toward her.
Leire dodges, faster than I expected, pulls a crystal from her pocket, and flings it at the caster.
The quartz shatters on impact, releasing a burst of protective energy that sends him staggering.
She’s not helpless. Good. She’s fighting. The relief is almost as overwhelming as the fear.
I launch at the second attacker, catching him mid-stride.
He twists, faster than a human should, and a blade scores along my flank.
The pain is sharp but distant—I don’t care about pain.
I care about the woman behind me, the way she’s breathing hard, the fear I can smell on her skin like copper and ozone.
I take him down with a swipe of my paw that opens his chest to the bone. He crumples. Doesn’t get up.
The third attacker has Leire.
His arm is around her throat, dragging her toward the alley. She’s struggling, kicking, clawing at his grip with her nails. A crystal in her hand pulses with desperate energy—she’s trying to channel it, trying to fight, but she’s panicked, unfocused. The magic sparks and fizzles.
I roar. The sound shakes the street, sends pigeons scattering, makes the market-goers freeze in place. Somewhere, glass shatters.
The attacker doesn’t stop. His grip tightens on Leire’s throat, and she makes a sound—a small, choked gasp—that drives every rational thought from my mind.
Something shifts.
The air goes electric. The crystals in Leire’s pocket flare bright—all of them, not just the one in her hand—and her magic surges. Not wild this time, not chaotic. Focused. Powerful. Like a dam breaking, releasing a flood that’s been building for years.
It reaches toward me like a living thing.
And when it touches—
Power floods through me. Hers and mine, intertwined, amplifying each other in ways that shouldn’t be possible. I roar again, and this time the sound carries magic. The force that rips the attacker away from Leire isn’t physical—it’s something else entirely. Something neither of us fully controlled.
He hits the wall. Hard enough to crack stone. Stays down.
I stand over his body, breathing hard, trembling with spent energy. My flank burns where the blade caught me. Blood drips onto the cobblestones—mine, theirs, mixed in pools of red.
Leire is on her knees, staring at her hands like she’s never seen them before.
The surge fades. The electricity drains from the air. And we’re left in the aftermath, surrounded by unconscious attackers and the stunned silence of a market that watched something impossible happen.
Somewhere nearby, I hear Rhodes giving orders. Torin’s voice, low and calm, directing people away from the scene. Caius will have been alerted by now. The Network will handle the cleanup.
But none of that matters.
Only her.
I don’t shift back until we’re inside her shop.
Leire’s hands are shaking too badly to work the lock, so I nudge the door open with my shoulder and herd her inside. The wards let us through, sealing shut behind us with a hum of protective magic.
Safe. For now.
I shift back to human form and immediately remember the downside of emergency transformations.
No clothes.
Leire’s eyes go wide. Her gaze drops—automatic, instinctive—traveling down my chest, my stomach, lower—then snaps back up to my face so fast, I might have imagined it.
Except for the flush spreading across her cheeks.
Except for the way her throat works as she swallows.
Except for the spike of heat I smell on her skin.
Despite everything—the attack, the fear—heat coils in my gut at that look. She liked what she saw. Even shocked, even terrified, she noticed.
“Right.” She spins on her heel, marches to the chest by the window, and yanks out a blanket. Throws it at me without looking. “Here. Cover your... everything.”
I catch the blanket. Wrap it around my hips. It’s too small—barely covers what needs covering—but it’s better than nothing.
“You can turn around.”
She does. Slowly. Her face is still flushed, but she’s got her composure back—mostly. Her eyes stay firmly on my face this time, though I catch them trying to drift downward more than once.
“We need to talk about what happened.” She crosses her arms over her chest. “The attack and the... other thing.”
“Both.” I move to the couch, sit heavily. The wound on my flank is already healing—shifter metabolism—but it pulls unpleasantly. “But mostly the other thing.”
“What was that?” Her voice cracks. “When he grabbed me, when I thought—there was this surge. Power. Mine and yours, all tangled up.”
“I don’t know.” The honesty tastes strange. Uncomfortable. “But it felt like...”
“A familiar bond.” She finishes the thought. “That’s not—you’re not an animal. You’re a person. Shifters don’t bond with witches. It’s not possible.”
“And yet.”
She stares at me. I stare back. The truth of it sits between us—undeniable, terrifying, impossible to ignore.
“I don’t want a familiar.” Her voice cracks on the words. “Especially not a person. Do you have any idea how badly that ended for me last time? Shadow was supposed to be my anchor, and he—” She stops. Swallows hard.
“I know.” I lean forward, elbows on my knees. “I don’t want a bond either. I had one. It destroyed me when I lost her.”
Her expression shifts. Recognition, maybe. Understanding. The look of someone who knows what it’s like to have everything ripped away. “Your witch. Dorothea.”
I nod. The dream comes back to me. The one where Dorothea tells me to start living again.
“Then we agree.” She straightens, squaring her shoulders like she’s preparing for battle. “This isn’t happening. Whatever that was—the power surge, the whatever—it was a fluke.”
“It’s already happening.”
She flinches. “Don’t say that.”
“Leire.” I hold her gaze. “I’m not happy about this either. But lying about it won’t make it go away.”
Her throat works. I watch her swallow. Watch the fear and the wanting battle across her face. The urge to close the distance between us—to touch her, to taste her, to pull her into my arms and never let go—is almost overwhelming.
“So what do we do?”
“I don’t know. But we don’t have to figure it out tonight.”
“Stay.” The word is out before she seems to realize she’s said it. Her flush deepens. “I mean—on the couch. Like before. After what happened...”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
She nods. Moves toward the stairs, then stops. Looks back at me.
“The couch is really uncomfortable.”
“I know.”
“I could—” She stops. Shakes her head. “Never mind. Goodnight, Tiger.”
“Goodnight, Leire.”
She disappears up the stairs. I hear her footsteps overhead, hear her door close, hear the creak of bedsprings as she lies down.
I stay on the couch. Neither of us sleeps.
I lie in the dark, staring at the ceiling, feeling that new awareness humming beneath my skin. I know she’s up there—awake, restless, probably having the same argument with herself that I’m having.
I know what it cost me the last time I let someone this close. That knowledge lives in my chest like scar tissue, not pain anymore, just the shape of what was there.
But underneath the terror is something else. Something warm and wanting and far too much like hope. Something I don’t have a name for yet—or maybe I do and I’m not ready to say it.
Upstairs, I hear Leire shift in her bed. Roll over. Sigh into her pillow.
The restless thing in my chest goes still. She’s safe. I’m here. That’s enough for tonight.
We don’t know what this means. Don’t know what it will become. Don’t know if either of us is brave enough to find out.
And somewhere between us, something impossible is taking root.
Somewhere across town, the Registry bell rings. Once. Twice. A third time.