14. Aslan
FOURTEEN
ASLAN
Ican’t deny it anymore.
I stand in the doorway of Leire’s bedroom, watching her sleep.
She’s curled on her side, one hand tucked under her cheek like a child. Shadow is pressed against her stomach—still unresponsive, still trapped in the control magic, but somehow he found his way to her during the night. Some instinct surviving even the magical chains that bind him.
The morning light catches the freckles scattered across her nose. The slight part of her lips. The peaceful vulnerability that she never shows when she’s awake.
Dorothea would want this for me. I’ve always known that. Maybe it’s time I listened.
Two hours later, I’m in the Stone Circle at The Den, and the mood is considerably less contemplative.
The Protection Network has assembled in full force—alphas, seconds, trusted allies—in the Den’s Stone Circle, firelight and carved granite, the usual discomfort built in.
Caius stands at the head of the table, gray eyes sharp as flint. The wolf alpha has led the Protection Network for many years, and it shows—his presence commands attention without effort.
“We have a situation.” Caius’s voice cuts through the murmured conversations. The room goes still. “Aslan. Report.”
I step forward. Every eye in the room tracks me—some curious, some skeptical, some openly hostile.
“The Preservers.” I keep my voice flat. Professional. “An ancient faction dedicated to preventing pairings between witches and shifters. They’ve been operating in Mistvale for years—possibly decades.”
Rhodes shifts in his chair, arms crossed. “What makes one witch worth this much effort?”
Elio steps forward from his position near the wall, silver eyes catching the torchlight.
“Mate potential. A rare magical signature—perhaps one in ten thousand witches. It allows them to form true mating bonds with shifters. Bonds that amplify both participants’ power significantly.
” He sets the familiar folder of documents on the table.
“The Preservers have spent centuries identifying and eliminating every witch who carries it. They’ve infiltrated covens, manufactured exiles, arranged deaths. Systematically. For generations.”
“The documents include names.” Elio taps another page—a list in careful copperplate.
“Infiltrators placed in your coven and others. Several are still active in their respective organizations.” His silver eyes hold mine.
“That information will be passed to the regional magical authorities. They will be dealt with.”
“The crystal arrangement.” I keep my voice controlled. “Have you found out what it means?”
Elio’s expression doesn’t change. “A claim. The Preserver Mark placed in someone’s space means: we see you, we know what you are, and you are already ours to deal with.
” His voice is flat. “It’s designed to isolate.
To make the target feel watched and owned before they’ve taken a single step toward anyone who might protect them. ”
Torin strokes his beard. “My grandmother used to tell stories. Said witch-shifter pairings were real, once. Before the Severing.”
“The Severing?” Veren leans forward. “That’s just a bedtime story to scare cubs into behaving.”
“Is it?” Elio’s pause is deliberate. “The Preservers have spent considerable effort making sure everyone believes that.”
“How significantly?” Caius’s voice is sharp. “The power amplification.”
“Enough to threaten established hierarchies. Enough to make them very, very afraid.”
Silence falls. Heavy. Loaded.
Veren speaks up from his corner, green eyes sharp beneath that deceptively innocent face. “The charm witch. Leire Firesinger. She has this mate potential?”
“Yes.”
“And she’s currently showing signs of pairing with...” The fox trails off, looking at me. His smile is knowing. Infuriating. He puts a hand to his chest in theatrical delight. “Someone in this room, perhaps? The suspense is absolutely killing me.”
“With me.” I meet his gaze without flinching. “She’s my mate. We haven’t completed the claiming, but it’s happening.”
The room erupts. Not all of it surprise—Veren’s expression is pure satisfaction, Torin nods slowly as though confirming something he already knew.
But others react with the alarm of people whose assumptions are being publicly dismantled.
Someone suggests I’ve been compromised. A lion I don’t recognize argues the pairing is forbidden.
I keep very still. Barely leashed.
Caius raises a hand. The room goes silent like he’s flipped a switch.
“This changes nothing about our mission.” His voice is iron.
“The Preservers are operating in our territory. They’ve attacked a resident under our protection.
They’ve infiltrated our town and threatened our people.
Whatever personal feelings we might have about witch-shifter pairings, we deal with external threats first.”
“Agreed.” Rhodes surprises me by speaking up. “The lion pride stands with the Network.” He gestures vaguely at me, his expression somewhere between distaste and resignation. “We don’t let outsiders dictate terms in Mistvale.”
Torin nods, his massive frame shifting. “The bears are in. Sakura—the other new witch—she’s shown similar potential.
I’ll increase protection on her studio—permanently.
Full detail, not monitoring.” His kind eyes meet mine.
Steady. Supportive. “If the Preservers are watching both witches, she becomes a primary target the moment they realize their operation against Leire has failed. She doesn’t move through this town alone until this is over.
Whatever is happening between you and your witch, I’ve seen the way she looks at you. That’s not enchantment. That’s choice.”
“It’s also nauseating,” Veren adds cheerfully. “But in a romantic way. Like watching two people fall into a river—you know it’s going to be a disaster, but you can’t look away.”
Rhodes pinches the bridge of his nose. “Is there ever a meeting where you don’t make everything worse?”
“You’d miss me if I stopped.”
“I would not.”
“You absolutely would. Who else would keep you entertained during Caius’s strategy briefings?”
“The strategy briefings are important—”
“Gentlemen.” Caius’s voice carries the particular exhaustion of someone who has mediated this exact argument approximately nine hundred times. “Focus.”
One by one, the other alphas voice their support. Kief, the mountain lion, offers his cats for perimeter patrol. Veren’s foxes will handle intelligence gathering, spreading disinformation and tracking Preserver movements. Even the representatives from the smaller groups fall in line.
The Network is going to war.
“We need a plan.” Caius spreads a map of Mistvale across the table. “The Preservers have been operating from the shadows. We need to draw them out.”
“Use Leire as bait.” The words come from Elio, but they echo what I’ve been thinking—and dreading. “She’s what they want. If she appears vulnerable, isolated, they’ll move.”
My tiger snarls. Every instinct screams against this plan. The thought of her out there, exposed, waiting for enemies to come for her—
“She’s already suggested it.” I force the words out through clenched teeth. “She wants to end this. Permanently.”
“And you’re willing to risk her safety?” Rhodes’s skepticism is sharp. “For someone you claim is your mate, you seem very willing to put her in danger.”
“I’m not willing to do anything.” I lean forward, hands braced on the table. “If she wants to fight, I’m not going to insult her by refusing.”
“He’s right.” Torin’s voice is calm, steady—the voice of reason in a room full of predators. “These witches—Leire, Sakura, the others—they’re not damsels. They’re survivors. Treating them like fragile objects won’t protect them. It’ll just piss them off.”
A few reluctant laughs break the tension. Even Rhodes grins.
“So we use her as bait.” Caius taps the map. “But controlled bait. We choose the location. Set up surveillance. Have forces ready to move the moment the Preservers show themselves.”
“The Warding Line.” I point to the edge of town, where the protections grow thin. “They’ve been operating near there—the mill where we found her familiar. If we stage things near the boundary, they’ll think she’s vulnerable.”
“What kind of staging?”
“Make it look like she’s trying to break the control magic on her own. Away from backup. Desperate to save her familiar.” I hate every word of this plan, but it’s solid. “The Preservers want to eliminate the threat quietly. A lone witch, isolated and distracted? They won’t be able to resist.”
Elio nods slowly. “I can spread disinformation through my channels. Make sure the Preservers hear that she’s planning something reckless.”
“And when they come?” Rhodes drums his fingers on the table. “We need numbers. Coordination. If they send more than a handful of agents—”
“They will.” Veren’s voice loses its playful edge, going sharp and certain. “This is their endgame. They’ve been building to this for years. They’ll send everything they have.”
“Then we send everything we have.” Caius looks around the room, meeting each alpha’s eyes in turn. “Every alpha. Every second. Every fighter we can spare without leaving our territories exposed. We end this in one strike.”
The weight of it settles over the room. This isn’t a skirmish or a patrol. This is war—the kind that changes things permanently.
Caius’s voice carries the finality of command. “We stage the trap. Draw them out. And when they come for her...”
“We tear them apart.” The growl vibrates through my chest.
No one argues.
The meeting breaks up slowly. I should stay—should coordinate with Torin, review terrain with Rhodes. Instead I’m walking toward The Hollow.
The afternoon mist is thick today, golden where the sun catches it. Mistvale goes about its business around me, oblivious to the war brewing beneath the surface.
I pass Grandmother Peach’s cottage, and she’s standing in her garden, apparently having a serious discussion with her peach tree. She catches my eye and waves, then holds up a basket covered with a checkered cloth.
“For the witch!” she calls. “Cobbler keeps best when shared with someone you love!”
I have no idea how she knows where I’m going. I have no idea how she knows anything. The woman is a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in pastry dough.
I take the basket. It smells like brown sugar and fate.
“Thank you.”
“Thank me by making her happy, dear.” Her eyes twinkle with knowing I definitely don’t want examined. “The mist has been very particular about you two.”
I don’t ask what that means. Some questions are better left unanswered.
I feel Leire before I see her. Not her thoughts, not her emotions—just the steady pulse of her presence, like a compass pointing north. She’s in her shop. Safe. With Shadow.
The knowing settles everything in my chest that’s been unsettled for hours.