17. Leire #2
The shop is chaos—crystals flying, magic crackling, display cases shattering in the crossfire. Glass and stone scatter across the floor. The selenite by the window explodes in a shower of white fragments. The rose quartz goes flying, and I feel a pang of guilt even as I keep fighting.
A hand closes on my arm. I twist, pull, break free. Throw an elbow into someone’s face and feel cartilage crunch under the impact. Power floods through me, defensive shields crackling around me like a second skin.
His voice. Not in my head exactly—I don’t hear his thoughts—but the pulse of awareness sharpens. The knowledge that he’s coming, that he’s close, that I’m not alone. That pull in my chest, spinning toward him.
I fight toward the door.
Iskra blocks my path. Her dark crystal pulses in her hand, radiating power that makes my stomach turn.
“You could have made this easy.” She raises the crystal. Dark energy spirals around it, gathering. “You chose hard.”
Magic lances toward me—
And a massive tiger slams into Iskra from the side.
Aslan in shifted form is terrifying. A wall of orange and black, all coiled power and killing intent, fangs bared in a snarl that shakes the walls. He and Iskra go down in a tangle of limbs and claws and crackling magic.
The other Preservers hesitate. Just for a moment. Just long enough.
Shifters pour through the broken door. Wolves in human form, wielding weapons and magic of their own. Bears blocking the exits with their massive frames. Panthers materializing from shadows I hadn’t even noticed. The Protection Network, finally springing their trap.
Iskra breaks free from Aslan. She’s bleeding—long scratches across her arm where his claws caught her—but she’s still standing. Still dangerous. Her dark crystal is cracked but not shattered.
“This isn’t over.” She throws something at the ground. Smoke billows, thick and choking, filling the shop with acrid fog.
She runs.
Aslan shifts—bones cracking, fur receding, man emerging from beast in the span of a heartbeat. He’s naked, breathing hard, blood on his hands that might be his or might be hers. Scratches mark his shoulders where magic grazed him.
“She’s heading for the Warding Line.” His voice is rough from the shift. “If she gets past it—”
“I know.” I grab his hand, ignoring the blood. “Let’s go.”
The chase through Mistvale is chaos.
Iskra moves fast, magically enhanced, leaving a trail of destruction in her wake. Streetlamps shatter as she passes. Cobblestones crack under her feet.
We follow. Aslan in human form beside me—someone threw him pants at some point, thank the gods for small mercies. What matters is his presence at my side, his hand occasionally steadying me as we navigate debris-strewn streets.
“She’s not alone.” He points to shapes moving in the mist. “More Preservers. Trying to cut us off.”
“Can we go around?”
“Not and catch her before she reaches the boundary.”
We push forward. Magic crackles at my fingertips, defensive shields ready to deploy at a moment’s notice. Aslan’s barely contained energy is visible in the glow of his eyes, the way his muscles coil with every step, the predatory grace that marks him even in human form.
A Preserver drops from a rooftop, blocking our path. Aslan doesn’t slow down. He shifts mid-stride, tiger form exploding outward, and takes the attacker down with brutal efficiency. Blood sprays across the cobblestones. The Preserver screams and goes silent.
I keep running.
Another one comes at me from the side. I throw a charged crystal without breaking stride—it catches her in the chest, detonates, sends her flying into a shop window. Glass shatters. Someone inside screams.
“Sorry!” I yell over my shoulder. “Insurance will cover it!”
The Warding Line looms ahead. I can feel it—that shimmer in the air where Mistvale’s protections end. Where the mist doesn’t follow. Where we’d be vulnerable to anything Iskra wanted to do.
She’s almost there.
“Aslan!” I grab his arm as he shifts back, panting. “She’s going to make it.”
“Not if we—”
“She’ll have reinforcements on the other side. That’s why she’s running this way.” I think fast, pulling pieces together in my head. “She wanted this. Wanted us to chase her. It’s a trap.”
“Then we spring it on our terms.” His jaw sets. “We don’t let her dictate the engagement.”
“That’s a terrible plan.”
“Got a better one?”
I look at the Warding Line. At Iskra, steps away from crossing. At the mist swirling around us, golden in the fading light.
“Actually.” I pull the last crystal from my pocket—the clear quartz, her talisman now, worn smooth from how often I’ve turned it over in my hand. “I might.”
I grab his hand. Press the crystal between our palms. And push.
Not sharing emotions or thoughts—we don’t have that. But through the crystal, using it as a focus, a bridge, a way to channel both our energies into something greater than either of us could manage alone.
Power surges. His and mine, intertwined through the quartz, amplifying each other in ways I don’t fully understand. The crystal blazes white-hot between our palms, energy spiraling outward.
I aim everything we have at Iskra.
The blast catches her three steps from the Warding Line. She screams—real pain, real fear—as the combined force slams into her shields. They crack. Shatter. And she goes down, thrown backward by power she never expected us to wield.
Silence.
The mist settles. The screaming stops. Somewhere behind us, I hear the sounds of the Network mopping up the remaining Preservers.
Iskra lies motionless on the ground, her dark crystal shattered beside her.
“Is she—” I can’t finish the sentence.
Aslan checks her pulse. “Unconscious. Alive.” He looks at me, eyes wide. “What did you just do?”
I look at the crystal in my hand. It’s cracked now, the energy we pushed through it more than it was designed to handle. But it worked.
“I don’t know.” The honest truth. I have no idea how I did that, or if I could do it again. “But I think I’m starting to understand what mate potential really means.”
He pulls me close. His arms wrap around me, solid and warm and real. I bury my face in his chest, breathing in his scent—woodsmoke and pine and the copper tang of blood.
“This part’s over.” His voice rumbles against my ear. “This group, at least.”
I think about Iskra’s words. About the binding she wanted to perform. About centuries of conspiracy designed to keep witches and shifters apart.
“It’s not finished.” I pull back, meeting his eyes. “This was one cell. One cluster. The Preservers are bigger than this.”
“I know.” He cups my face in his hands, thumbs brushing away tears I didn’t realize I’d shed. “But tonight? Tonight we won.”
Behind us, Caius is coordinating the cleanup with brisk efficiency. Rhodes is organizing prisoner transport, looking distinctly put-upon by the chaos of it all. Torin is checking on the wounded, his massive hands surprisingly gentle. Veren appears from nowhere, looking far too pleased with himself.
“That was spectacular,” the fox announces. “The bit with the crystal? Absolutely cinema. I’m going to be telling that story for decades.”
“Not now, Veren,” Caius growls.
“But the dramatic timing! The explosion! The—”
Rhodes grabs him by the back of his shirt and physically moves him away. “Go be useful somewhere else.”
“This is me being useful! Morale is important!”
Aslan’s arm tightens around my waist. The town settles into the quiet aftermath of battle.