He left before Leo could respond.
Leo sat alone in the back room of the Wolf Moon Brewery, surrounded by empty bottles and the lingering scent of rival predators, and tried to remember how to think clearly.
The investigation had taken a turn he hadn’t anticipated. Sabotage. Targeted attacks. A larger threat lurking behind the convenient cover of the mating surge. That was concrete, actionable, the kind of problem he knew how to solve.
The other thing—the mate thing—was neither.
She’s been different since you showed up, Theo had said.Sharper. More alive.
Leo didn’t know what to do with that information. He’d spent twenty years building walls so high, even he couldn’t see over them. Discipline was safety. Order was strength. Vulnerability was what had destroyed his father and nearly destroyed him.
And yet.
He remembered the basement beneath Moonrise Mixology, bathed in blue light. The way Junie had looked at him when he’d explained the ley line problem—surprised, almost grateful, like no one had ever taken her seriously before. The way her attention had dropped to his mouth. The way his entire body had screamed at him to close the distance.
He remembered the welcome dinner, before the disaster. Catching her across the room. The beast had known before he did. Had recognized her with absolute certainty while his human brain was still cataloging threat assessments and political implications.
He hadn’t closed the distance. He’d stepped back. He’d maintained his grip.
But standing in the empty back room of a wolf-owned brewery, with a death threat still ringing in his ears and the taste of excellent beer on his tongue, Leo had to admit something he’d been refusing to acknowledge.
His restraint was slipping.
Every time he saw her—every time someone mentioned her name—his carefully constructed barriers cracked a little more.
He didn’t know what to do about it. He didn’t know if there was anything to do.
But as he walked back to the Siren’s Rest through Haven Shores’s quiet streets, his lion prowling restlessly beneath his skin, Leo made himself a promise.
He would solve the investigation first. Find out who was behind Sable Acquisitions. Protect the businesses being targeted—protect her, whether she wanted protection or not.
And then, perhaps, he would let himself consider what came next.
ELEVEN
JUNIE
The prickle along her skin announced the wrongness before she even reached the door.
Junie halted on the sidewalk, keys frozen in her hand. Glimmer went rigid around her neck, scales shifting to deep warning purple—the color of bruises, of danger, of bad decisions catching up.
The bay window display was dark. No softly glowing potions rotating through their lunar colors. No light spilling onto Main Street’s early morning sidewalk.
Just darkness.
She’d gotten up early, unable to sleep after another night of dreams she refused to examine. Dreams featuring tawny hair, broad shoulders, and a voice that made her skin feel too tight. Better to work. Better to lose herself in brewing than in thoughts of Leo Castellan.
The lock clicked. The door swung open.
And Junie’s world shattered.
Glass everywhere. Her beautiful antique apothecary shelves—the ones she’d spent three years restoring—torn from the walls and splintered across the floor. Potion bottles smashed, their contents mixing into puddles of ruined magic that sizzled andsparked against the hardwood. The Wellness section destroyed. The Emotional Support elixirs bleeding into each other in pools of contaminated color.
Her locked cabinet—the Special Requests—hung open, hinges wrenched loose. Empty.
“No.” The word came out broken. “No, no, no?—”
Glimmer uncoiled from her neck and dropped to the floor, scales flashing urgent crimson as she slithered through the destruction. Cataloging. Searching.
