Chapter 6 Maren
MAREN
Maren didn't know what possessed her to make the joke.
Maybe exhaustion. Maybe defiance. Maybe just the absurdity of having a six-foot-four tiger shifter escort her home like she was precious cargo instead of a loaded weapon.
"Do you need to check inside?" she'd asked, hand on her door. "Make sure I'm not harboring dark forces or plotting the town's destruction?"
She'd expected a polite refusal. A professional decline.
Instead, Tristan's ice-blue eyes had met hers with something that looked almost like amusement.
"Yes," he'd said simply.
Now he stood in her cottage, taking up entirely too much space, while she tried to remember how to breathe normally.
Her shadows had gone completely still the moment he crossed the threshold. Not fearful. Not aggressive. Just watching with the kind of focused attention they usually reserved for threats or particularly interesting magic.
Except Tristan didn't feel like either.
"Nice place," he said, scanning the interior. "Secure wards. Good sightlines."
"Thank you?" Maren closed the door and became suddenly hyper-aware of every detail.
Herbs hanging from rafters that might look sinister to the wrong eyes.
Books stacked everywhere that could be grimoires or just her addiction to reading.
The fireplace burning low, casting shadows that danced across walls.
Her shadows joined the dance without permission.
Tristan's gaze tracked the movement but his expression stayed neutral. "How long have you lived here?"
"Two years. Almost three." She moved toward the kitchen, needing something to do with her hands. "The cottage was abandoned when I arrived. Previous owner was a hedge witch who passed about five years ago."
"Family?"
"None that claimed the property." Maren filled a kettle from the enchanted pump, the water running clear and cold. "The Council let me have it in exchange for maintaining the wards on this section of forest."
"You do your own ward work?"
"Someone has to." She set the kettle over the fire, adding wood to build the heat. "And I'm good at it. Or I was."
She hadn’t meant for that last part to slip out.
Tristan turned from examining her bookshelves. "Was?"
Maren's hands stilled on the tea canister. She didn’t want to share but she’d already said too much.
Plus, she was trying to prove her innocence.
Might as well tell the truth. "My magic's been unstable since the storm.
Small things at first. Shadows moving without direction.
Spells misfiring. Nothing dangerous, just wrong. "
"Wrong how?"
"Like something's interfering. Or calling to it." She measured tea leaves into a pot, focusing on the familiar ritual. "I tried a diagnostic spell yesterday. It showed nothing. But I can feel it."
"Have you told the Council?"
"And say what? My magic feels weird but I can't prove it?" Maren's laugh came out bitter. "They'd use it as evidence I'm losing control. That I'm the threat everyone thinks I am."
Tristan moved closer, his boots quiet on the wooden floor despite his size. "Is that what you think? That you're a threat?"
"I think I'm tired." She poured hot water over the leaves, watching them unfurl in the steam. "Tired of people looking at me like I'm one bad day away from destroying everything around me."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one I have." Maren met his gaze across her small kitchen. "I know what I am. I know what my magic can do. But I also know I didn't cause those accidents, didn't crack those wards, didn't make that lantern explode."
"Then what did?"
"I don't know." The admission tasted like defeat. "But I'm going to find out before someone gets hurt and I get blamed for it."
Tristan studied her. "Show me."
"Show you what?"
"Your magic. A warding spell, something basic." He gestured toward the door. "Prove to me it's not doing what they think it's doing."
Maren's first instinct was refusal. Showing someone her magic felt intimate, vulnerable, like letting them see her stripped down to bone and breath. But something in Tristan's steady gaze made her pause.
He wasn't asking her to perform. He was asking her to trust him.
"Alright," she said quietly. "But outside. I don't practice shadow work indoors if I can help it."
They stepped into the cold together, breath fogging in the sharp air. The cottage sat near a small stream, frozen solid now and covered with a thin layer of snow. Moonlight turned everything silver and shadow.
Maren walked to the stream's edge, her shadows spreading across the ice like dark water. "Standard protective ward. Creates a barrier against hostile magic and physical threats. I use them to reinforce the forest boundaries."
"Go ahead."
She centered herself, pulling power from the deep well inside her chest where shadow magic lived. It rose smoothly at first, familiar and controlled. Her hands moved through the patterns her mother had taught her, weaving darkness into intention.
The ward began to form, a shimmer of silver-black light arcing over the stream.
Then something pulled.
Maren gasped as her magic lurched sideways, yanked by an invisible force she couldn't see. The ward collapsed, power scattering wild across the ice. Where it touched, frost patterns appeared that seemed wrong, geometric and sharp instead of organic.
"Stop," Tristan said sharply.
"I'm trying—" The magic wouldn't respond. Wouldn't settle. It poured out of her like water through broken fingers. It was looking for something.
Then, the ice cracked.
Not a small crack. A deep, resonating snap that echoed through the frozen stream like gunfire. More fractures appeared, spider-webbing outward from where her magic had touched.
Maren tried to step back but her boot caught on something. She stumbled, balance failing, the cracked ice shifting under her weight.
Tristan moved faster than should've been possible.
His arm caught her around the waist, yanking her back from the stream's edge just as the ice gave way completely. They collided hard, his back hitting a tree while she crashed against his chest. Her shadows exploded outward instinctively, wrapping around them both in a protective cocoon.
For three heartbeats, neither of them moved.
Maren became aware of details in fragments. The solid wall of muscle at her back. The arm still locked around her waist. The way Tristan's breath came fast against her hair. His heart hammering against her shoulder blade, matching the frantic rhythm of her own.
Her shadows curled over and around them both, dark tendrils weaving between them like they were testing the connection and found it acceptable. They soothed themselves against his presence in a way that made absolutely no sense.
"You okay?" Tristan's voice came out gruff.
"Yes." Maren tried to step away but his arm tightened fractionally. "I'm okay. You can let go."
"Ice is still breaking."
She looked down. He was right. The stream continued to crack, fractures spreading wider even though her magic had stopped. Something was still active, still pulling at the ice with invisible fingers.
"That's not me," she whispered. "I'm not doing that."
"I know."
She looked at him, noticing how his ice-blue eyes tracked the patterns with intense focus, but not suspicion. Not accusation.
"You believe me," she said, not quite a question.
"Your magic stopped. The ice didn't." Tristan's gaze shifted to meet hers. "Either you're the best actress I've ever seen, or something else is using your signature as cover."
"The Council won't see it that way."
His arm finally loosened, letting her step away. "We need to figure out what's actually causing this."
Maren wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly cold despite her cloak. Her shadows retreated slowly, reluctantly, like they didn't want to leave the warmth they'd found wrapped around Tristan's solid presence.
She understood the feeling.
"Thank you," she said quietly. "For not letting me fall."
"That's the job."
"Is it?" She searched his face, looking for the professional distance that should be there. Finding something more complicated instead. "Or are you just decent?"
Tristan's mouth quirked slightly, not quite a smile but close. "Can't it be both?"
Maren felt her own mouth twitch in response. "I suppose it can."
"Come on," Tristan said, nodding toward the cottage. "It's too cold to stay out here. And you promised me tea."
"I did no such thing."
"You offered tea if I got cold." He started walking, forcing her to follow or be left in the dark. "I'm cold."
"You're a tiger shifter. You barely feel temperature."
"Doesn't mean I don't appreciate warmth."
Maren found herself following him back inside, her shadows coming behind like curious children.
Tristan closed the door firmly and turned to face her. "We need to tell Emmett about this."
"And say what? That my magic misfired?"
"That something's actively interfering with your spells. That's not instability, that's sabotage." His expression hardened. "And whoever's doing it wants you to take the fall."
Maren wanted to argue and say he was reading too much into accidents and coincidence.
But the ice was still cracking outside her window, and her shadows had wrapped around him like he was safety, and nothing about any of this felt like coincidence.
"Tomorrow," she said finally. "We tell them tomorrow. Tonight I just want to pretend I'm not the town's favorite scapegoat."
Tristan nodded once. "Tomorrow, then."
He moved closer to the door like he was actually going to leave, and something in Maren twisted at the thought of being alone again with her unstable magic and the darkness pressing in.
Or at least that’s what she told herself.
"The tea's still hot," she said before she could think better of it. "And you did get cold. Technically."
Tristan paused, hand on the door. "Technically."
"So you might as well stay until you're warm again."
"That could take a while."
"I have plenty of tea."
The corner of his mouth lifted properly this time, a real smile that transformed his whole face from hard planes to something approaching warmth. "Then I guess I'm staying."