18. Aslan #3
“You were betting on this?” Leire’s voice is incredulous.
“Darling, everyone was betting on this.” Veren waves a hand. “The only question was timing. I had ‘before the new moon.’ Rhodes was holding out for ‘never.’ Torin went with ‘eventually, after significant emotional trauma.’”
“I said after moderate emotional trauma,” Torin corrects. “There’s a distinction.”
Rhodes appears, looking deeply uncomfortable with the entire conversation. “Can we please focus on the fact that we just fought off an organized attack by an ancient conspiracy? There are protocols—”
“There are protocols about shifter-witch matings?” Leire asks.
“There are protocols about everything.” Rhodes’s jaw tightens. “Which is why this entire situation is irregular.”
“Irregular is one word for it.” Caius’s voice cuts through the chatter. The alpha wolf surveys the scene with steel-gray eyes, his expression unreadable. “Unprecedented is another.”
Silence falls.
Caius looks at me. At Leire. At the bodies scattered around us, the blood on my face, the protective way I’m still holding her against my chest.
“Report to the Den tomorrow. Both of you. There will be questions.” His gaze softens, just barely. “But tonight... tonight, you’ve earned some peace.”
They want reports. Debriefings. Official statements about what happened and why and how.
We walk back to town through the golden mist. Leire’s hand in mine, her steps steady despite the exhaustion I see dragging at her.
The Network falls in around us—an escort neither of us asked for but neither of us objects to.
Protection. Pack behavior. The instinct to circle wounded members and keep threats at bay.
I should care that they’re seeing this. Seeing us.
I don’t care.
Let them see. Let them talk. Let the whole damn town know.
She’s my witch. My mate. And I’m done hiding it.
Whisperwind Charms is dark when we reach it.
The wards are shattered—remnants of the earlier battle that no one’s had time to repair. Glass and crystals litter the floor inside, visible through the broken windows. The door hangs crooked on its hinges.
Leire stops on the threshold. I feel the shudder that runs through her—grief and rage and bone-deep exhaustion woven into a single wave.
“My shop.” Her voice is small. “They destroyed my shop.”
“We’ll rebuild it.”
“All my crystals. My workbench. The displays I spent weeks—”
“We’ll rebuild it.” I squeeze her hand. “All of it. Better than before.”
She turns to look at me. Eyes searching mine in the dim light. “We?”
“Yes.”
Her laugh is exhausted, brittle. “I don’t know what happens next, or how to process any of this, or why you’re still standing here when you could—”
I kiss her.
Not gentle. Not tentative. I kiss her the way I’ve wanted to for weeks—deep and claiming and thorough enough to leave no doubt about what I feel. She gasps against my mouth, her free hand fisting in my hair, and then she’s kissing me back with the same desperate intensity.
When we break apart, we’re both breathing hard.
“That’s why I’m still standing here.” My voice is rough. “Because wherever you are is where I want to be. Because my tiger chose you, and I’m finally smart enough to agree with him. Because losing you would break me in ways I didn’t think I could still be broken.”
“Shadow’s still recovering at Anouk’s.” She glances at the ruined shop. “We can’t stay here tonight.”
“Come home with me.”
The words surprise us both. I don’t bring people to my cabin. Haven’t in years. But the thought of letting her out of my sight right now, of being anywhere she isn’t—
“Your place?” Her eyebrows lift. “The mysterious tiger lair no one’s allowed to see?”
“It’s not mysterious. It’s just private.”
“Same thing in Mistvale.” But she’s smiling. Tired and battered and still smiling. “Okay. Take me home.”
Home.
I like the way that sounds in her voice. Like it’s already true. Like wherever we go, as long as we go there with each other, it counts.
The night has fully fallen, and Mistvale is settling into its evening rhythms around us—lamplight in windows, music from somewhere distant, the town oblivious to the war fought at its edge.
Sunny Clearwater calls out a cheerful “Stay safe, you two!” as we pass the bakery, and the irony nearly makes me laugh.
Give it an hour. Maybe less.
The mist swirls golden around our feet, and I remember what Grandmother Peach said about it being particular.
Maybe it was. Maybe it’s been guiding us toward each other since Leire first set foot in Mistvale. Maybe the magic in this town knows secrets we’re only beginning to understand.
Or maybe it’s simpler than that. Maybe two broken people found each other and decided to be whole.
The battle isn’t over. The Preservers are bigger than one local cell, and the conspiracy that drove Leire from her home is older than Mistvale itself. There will be more fights. More danger. More moments when everything hangs in the balance.
But right now, in this golden evening with her hand in mine and her shoulder pressed against my arm, none of that matters.