Chapter 19 Rafe
RAFE
The villa sits heavy in the dark like a lung holding its breath. The stone walls press close, ancient and cracked, and the air smells of olives, dust, and the faint tang of the storm rolling in over the hills.
I lean against the window frame in the main room, watching the treeline beyond the courtyard.
The old shutters creak against the breeze and my fingers drum against the sill, restless and slow, a rhythm I don’t even notice until I stop it.
She’s in the back room. I can hear her breathing, slow and steady, like she’s fallen into some kind of trance instead of sleep.
The glow still lingers on her skin. It’s softer now, muted, but it’s there. It’s been there all night.
I should be moving. I should be packing us out, finding another place, putting distance between her and this city that’s starting to smell like death every time I think about it.
But I can’t. I keep telling myself I’m watching the perimeter, but the truth is simpler.
I can’t take my eyes off the line where the trees meet the dirt road.
That’s where trouble comes from. It always does.
The bull in my chest doesn’t like it either.
He’s pacing, low and hot, sniffing for something I can’t name.
My palms itch, my teeth press together, and every nerve in my skin feels like a tripwire waiting to snap.
I light a cigarette just to have something between my fingers, watch the ember glow in the dark, and tell myself it’s just nerves. But it isn’t. It’s something else.
A whisper cuts through the wind.
I crush the cigarette into the stone and stand straight. My boots barely make a sound as I cross the room. The villa’s doors are old but solid. The locks mean nothing to people like us. I listen again. Nothing. No crickets. No cicadas. Just the soft roll of air over the hills.
I slip out into the courtyard, the night air sliding against my skin like a warning. The fountain in the center is dry but full of weeds. I crouch beside it, scanning the treeline. My hands stay loose at my sides, but inside I’m already shifting weight to my heels, ready to move.
Then I smell it.
This is sharper. Metallic, but sweet, like blood on citrus peel. My teeth ache at the scent. My muscles coil before my mind can even name it. Jaguar.
I know the way they hunt. Slow, deliberate, a shadow moving behind a heartbeat. Roman doesn’t send men to knock. He sends killers to end.
I straighten, slow and deliberate, and speak into the night. “Come out.”
Nothing.
“Now,” I say, voice low, the kind that doesn’t need to shout.
The branches shift. A figure steps from the treeline, bare feet silent on the dry grass, moving with the grace of someone who knows exactly how to kill and exactly how long it will take.
He’s tall, lean, built like steel cables under skin, tattoos curling up his arms in patterns I don’t recognize.
His eyes shine yellow even in the dark. He smiles like he’s already had this conversation in his head.
“You made it hard to find you,” he says in Spanish, his accent clipped and clean. “But not impossible.”
I don’t answer. I just keep my hands loose and my eyes on his throat.
“She’s inside,” he says, like he’s making small talk. “The witch.”
My jaw ticks. “She’s not yours.”
He tilts his head, that smile widening just a fraction. “Everything’s Roman’s. Especially what you try to hide.”
I move before he does. My fist catches his shoulder, but he twists, light on his feet, claws flashing where nails were.
He’s fast. Too fast for a human. Not fast enough for me.
He slashes for my ribs. I twist, feel the fabric of my shirt tear but not the skin beneath.
I grab his wrist and slam him into the stone wall hard enough to crack plaster.
He laughs, low and breathless. “That’s it, Bull. Show me what she makes you.”
I don’t answer. I drive my knee into his gut, feel the air leave him, then spin him and pin him by the throat against the fountain’s edge.
His claws rake at my arm, drawing blood but not enough to matter.
The bull in me surges. My vision flickers.
The night sharpens until every leaf on every tree is a blade.
He spits blood, still smiling. “You’re slow.”
He twists and gets free, lunges low, and his shift comes halfway—skin rippling, fur breaking through in jagged patches, jaw stretching to show teeth that don’t belong in a human mouth.
He springs up, claws aimed for my throat.
I drop low and catch him mid-air, slam him into the courtyard stones so hard they crack.
His voice is a hiss now, jagged and wet. “Your bond is his target.”
The words cut deeper than his claws. My grip tightens. “What did you say?”
He laughs, choking on his own blood. “She’s already in it. You brought her in. You gave him a key.”
The bull roars inside me. My vision goes gold. My skin splits at the seams and the shift comes fast, tearing up from my spine to my skull, horns curving into the night air, muscles doubling, every vein in my body singing for violence.
I tear him apart.
There’s no poetry in it. No clean kill. Just claws and horns and teeth and the sound of something breaking under weight it can’t fight. He dies fast but not quiet, his voice a gurgle that fades before his body hits the stones. Blood steams against the cool night air.
When it’s done, I’m standing in the courtyard, chest heaving, hands red, horns fading back into skin.
My breath clouds in front of me though the night isn’t cold.
I look down at him. What’s left of him. His eyes are still open, yellow fading, mouth frozen in a half-smile like he knew exactly how this would end.
I wipe my hands on my jeans and crouch beside him, fingers closing around the edge of his shirt to drag him away from the fountain. But then I stop. His words sit heavy in my skull.
Your bond is his target.
Not just her. The bond. The thing between us that shouldn’t even exist. The thing I’ve been trying not to name because naming it makes it real.
I stand and look toward the villa. The shutters are still. The light in the back room flickers. She’s in there, maybe asleep, maybe still glowing, maybe dreaming of ancestors and fire. She has no idea what just tried to take her from me.
I feel the bull shift under my skin, not pacing now but still, coiled, listening.
This isn’t just my war anymore.
I walk back inside, my boots leaving dark prints on the tile.
The air in the villa feels different now, thicker, like it knows what’s waiting outside its walls.
She’s sitting up on the mattress, hair falling loose around her shoulders, the glow soft but steady under her skin. Her eyes widen when she sees me.
“Rafe,” she says, voice soft but sharp at the edges. “What happened?”
I don’t answer right away. I cross the room, crouch in front of her, and take her hands in mine. My palms are still streaked with blood. She doesn’t flinch.
“They sent someone,” I say finally, voice low. “A jaguar.”
Her eyes search mine. “Roman.”
I nod once. “He said something before he died. Said our bond is his target.”
She draws a breath, slow, like she’s pulling it through water. “Then he knows.”
“Yeah,” I say, my voice heavier than I mean it to be. “He knows.”
She squeezes my hands, the glow pulsing under her skin where it touches mine. “Then we stop hiding.”
I stare at her, this woman who walked into my world thinking she was just profiling a fighter and now sits glowing in a villa with blood on her hands that isn’t hers but might as well be.
“You’re in this now,” I say, quiet but sure. “Whether you want it or not.”
She tilts her chin up. “I already was.”
The bull stirs at that, not with rage but something older, something like recognition.
I rise, pull her up with me, and look out the window. The treeline is dark again, the courtyard empty, but the scent lingers. Not just blood. War.
I wrap an arm around her shoulders, draw her against my side, and I don’t try to make a plan. I just stand there, watching the hills, feeling her heartbeat against my ribs, knowing Roman’s already moving pieces I haven’t even seen yet.
And I know one thing with a clarity that cuts through every other noise in my head.
If he wants her, he has to go through me.