18. Aslan #2
My gaze locks with Leire’s again. She’s watching me with an intensity that matches my own—reading my expression, trying to understand the plan, ready to move when I give her an opening. We’ve fought side by side. We’ve run from danger, bled in the same battle, almost died protecting each other.
She’ll know what to do.
Trust her. Trust myself. Trust this.
The last thought is the hardest. I’ve spent years learning not to trust feelings, not to trust love, not to trust that good things can last.
“You want to know what happens when a witch-shifter pairing forms?” My voice is steady now. Quiet. The calm before violence. “You’re about to find out.”
I shift.
My tiger explodes from my human form between one heartbeat and the next.
The Preservers expect me to charge toward Leire. To try to close the distance, put myself in reach of that knife. That’s what instinct would demand—protect the mate, get between her and danger, damn the consequences.
But I’m not just a tiger.
I’m a pride leader who’s fought a hundred battles. I’m a Protection Network veteran who knows how enemies think. I’m a predator who understands that sometimes the best attack is the one your prey doesn’t see coming.
I don’t charge toward Leire.
I charge the two flanking Preservers.
They flinch—training screaming at them to defend—and for one critical second, the woman holding Leire turns her head. Just a fraction. Just long enough.
Leire moves.
Her elbow slams back into the Preserver’s solar plexus. The knife wavers. Leire drops, twisting away, and the blade that should have opened her throat catches only air.
The Preserver stumbles—winded, off-balance, suddenly aware that her hostage isn’t helpless at all.
I’m already on the flankers.
The first one dies trying to cast. His hands are rising, dark magic gathering, when my jaws close around his arm. I pull—a savage, wrenching motion that tears limb from socket. He screams, blood fountaining, and I release him to drop in a heap of shock and agony.
The second one runs.
Smart. But not smart enough.
I catch her in three bounds, take her down with a swipe to the back of the legs, and end it with a bite that crunches through her spine. Clean. Efficient. The way a tiger handles prey that can’t fight back.
Three. Four.
I spin, claws digging furrows in the earth, and find Leire and the leader locked in struggle.
The Preserver is taller, stronger, magically enhanced.
But Leire has crystals—she has crystals—and the ones she’s throwing are charged with desperate power.
One catches the woman in the shoulder and detonates in a flash of white light.
The Preserver staggers, arm going limp, a scream torn from her throat.
Another crystal flies—smaller, sharper, aimed with the precision of someone who’s been practicing. It catches the Preserver in the knee. She buckles.
That’s my witch.
Pride surges through me, fierce and hot. Not helpless. Never helpless. Whatever they expected when they grabbed her, it wasn’t this.
“You—” The woman’s voice is ragged, pain cracking through the cold certainty. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“Yeah.” Leire’s voice is steadier than it has any right to be. “I fought back. It’s kind of my thing.”
The Preserver raises her good hand. Dark energy spirals around her fingers, gathering for one final strike.
I shift mid-leap.
Human hands catch the Preserver’s wrist before the spell can finish forming. Human strength—fueled by tiger instinct and protective fury—forces that arm down, down, until bones grind against each other.
“No.”
The word is barely human.
The Preserver’s eyes go wide. She’s seeing what Iskra saw, what everyone sees when I stop pretending to be civilized—the predator underneath the man. The killer who wears politeness like a costume.
“The Preservers will send more.” Her voice cracks. “This isn’t over. It will never be—”
I hit her. Hard.
She crumples.
Silence.
The Warding Line hums beside us. Behind us, I can hear voices—Torin shouting, wolves howling, the Protection Network finally catching up to a fight that’s already over.
Leire stands in the trampled grass, breathing hard.
She’s bruised. Scraped. A thin line of blood traces down her neck where the knife got close—not deep, not dangerous, but enough that my tiger snarls every time I look at it.
Her hair has come completely loose from its braid, copper strands wild around her face.
Her clothes are torn. Her hands are shaking.
She has never looked more beautiful. Not despite the blood and the bruises—because of them. Because she’s standing.
“You came.” Her voice is hoarse. “I knew you would, but—you came.”
“I will always come for you.” The words scrape out of my throat. “Every time. Any distance. Any enemy.”
Her eyes are bright. Wet. “You called me your witch.”
“You are.”
“In front of them. In front of everyone who’s going to hear about this.”
I close the distance between us. She’s trembling—adrenaline crash, shock setting in—and I pull her against my chest without thinking. She fits there. She fits there perfectly.
“I spent five years convinced I would never feel this again.” My voice is rough against her hair. “Five years running from anything that looked like love, because loving means losing, and I couldn’t—” I stop. Breathe. “I couldn’t survive losing someone else.”
“Aslan—”
“But losing you isn’t an option.” I pull back enough to see her face.
Her eyes swimming with tears she won’t let fall.
“Losing you would end me, Leire. So I’m done running.
I’m done pretending this is just protection detail.
You’re my mate. My tiger knew it the first moment he saw you.
My true mate. The only one I’ll ever have. ”
“The first moment he saw me, I was talking to crystals and drinking cold tea.”
“Yes.” I grin. “He has questionable taste.”
Her laugh comes out watery and broken, halfway to a sob—and then the corner of her mouth curves, just barely, almost into a smile. Whatever the past weeks have put her through, that flicker is still there. Still hers.
Her hands come up to frame my face, fingers cold against my jaw. Her eyes search mine—fierce, thorough, reading every line of my face for the lie she expects to find.
Whatever she finds makes her smile fully.
“I’m still afraid.” Her voice drops to a whisper. “I’m still scared I’ll wake up and you’ll be gone, or you’ll realize this is a mistake, or someone will take you from me the way Shadow was taken—”
“It won’t happen.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“No.” I turn my head, press a kiss to her palm. Her pulse jumps against my lips. “But I can promise to fight. Every day. For you. For us. For however long we have.”
The Protection Network arrives in a chaos of paws and shouted orders.
Torin reaches us first—massive even in human form, blood on his hands and worry carved into his broad face. His eyes sweep the carnage, catalog the fallen Preservers, linger on Leire pressed against my chest.
“You’re both alive.” Relief makes his voice rough.
“We’re fine.” I don’t let go of Leire. Can’t, yet. “What’s the status?”
“Iskra’s secure. We’ve captured eleven Preservers total, killed eight.” Torin’s gaze drops to the bodies around us. “Plus, however many you took down.”
“Lost count.”
He shakes his head slowly. “Between the shop and here, you’ve personally eliminated a slew of them tonight.”
“They threatened my mate.”
The word lands like a stone in still water. Torin’s eyebrows climb toward his hairline. Behind him, I see Caius arriving with a squad of wolves, Rhodes directing cleanup operations, Veren appearing from shadows with that knowing smile that makes me want to punch things.
“Your mate.” Torin’s voice is carefully neutral. “You’re claiming her officially?”
“Is that going to be a problem?”
“No.” His serious expression cracks into a grin—genuine, warm, the same smile I remember from before Dorothea died and I stopped letting people see me react to anything.
“No, it’s not going to be a problem at all.
It’s going to be exactly the kind of problem I’ve been hoping you’d have for five years. ”
“That makes no sense.”
“It makes perfect sense.” He claps me on the shoulder—carefully, mindful of Leire still pressed against my other side. “The good kind of problem. The kind that means you’re finally living again instead of just breathing.”
Veren slides closer, fox-grin firmly in place. “Well, well. The murder cat found his witch. I believe Rhodes owes me twenty gold pieces.”