“I’ve gotta go check on Nala and my pup-cubs.” Torin is already stepping away, edging toward the tree line. “This is Blackwood business anyway.”
“You’re leaving?” I turn to him.
“Hell yes, this is out of my league.” He gives me a look that says he’s not sorry about it. “Keep the shirt.” He breaks into a run and disappears into the trees.
Tiana rolls her eyes. “Damn wolf shifter.”
She reaches out and grabs my arm, her grip firm even with her bruised hand. “Aaron needs to calm down,” she tells me. “I’ve never seen him like this. It’s like his magic is overpowering him or something.” She starts pulling me toward the portal but I snatch my arm back.
“Don’t make me tie you up.” Her voice goes sharp. “I need to get you looked at.”
“I’m not leaving him like this.” Aaron is still facing the Glen, his shoulders rising and falling with heavy breaths, and the glow is fading from his skin in slow pulses.
The portal beside us flickers. Tiana glances at it and then back at me.
“Fine.” She crosses her arms. “Stay with your man so he can lock your ass back up.” She lifts her bruised hand and inspects it, flexing her fingers with a wince. “I’m going to Wintermoon Medical for myself anyway.”
She gives Aaron one last glare—and walks through the portal.
Aaron is still glowing. His breathing is heavy and his hands are still curled into fists and nothing about his posture says this is over. My lion presses flat inside me. Whatever’s driving him tonight hasn’t let go yet.
“Oh, no.” I take a step back. “I am not getting locked up again.”
“MARA!” Aaron’s roar rips through the clearing and my lion flinches inside me.
I spin and leap through the portal. The magic pulls me through and I land in a crouch on the front steps of Wintermoon Medical, palms flat against the cold ground. Tiana is by the entrance with her arms crossed.
“I knew you’d come to your senses.” Tiana’s mouth pulls into a smirk. “I know lion shifters hate being caged.”
I hiss at her but I don’t look away from the portal. It’s closing—the edges pulling inward, the light dimming, the tear between the Glen and the Medical entrance shrinking fast.
“Well, come on.” Tiana turns toward the door. “Don’t just stand there and watch?—“
She freezes. So do I.
Aaron’s fingers lock around the edges of the closing portal. His hands grip the light itself, the magic bending and sparking against his skin, and I can see the strain in his arms as he holds it open. The portal fights him—it shudders and crackles and tries to close—but Aaron digs his fingers in and pulls.
He tears it open. The portal rips apart under his hands like fabric and he steps through. Blue-gold light trails off his skin and he stands in front of Wintermoon Medical like he didn’t just tear a hole in the air with his bare hands. The ripped edges spark behind him before they dissolve into dust.
“What the fuck?” Tiana whispers. Her fear hits my nose before she finishes the word—sharper than Torin’s, deeper, the scent of a sister watching her brother become something she doesn’t recognize.
I move behind Tiana and my hands find the back of her cloak and I hold on. The woman who glared at me all semester is the only thing between me and whatever Aaron has become tonight.
“I take it he’s not supposed to do that,” I say.
“No.” Tiana’s voice is barely above a breath. “I’ve never seen a warlock or a witch tear a portal open like that. Not even Amir.”
Aaron stands there with the dust of the torn portal settling around him. He locks onto me behind his sister and his magic pulses once across his skin.
“Give me my mate,” he snarls.
Tiana steps aside. I hiss at her but she lifts her hands and says, “Here you go, brother.”So much for solidarity.
My feet are planted and I’m about to tell him he can wait out here until he remembers how to act like a person, but Tiana flicks her wrist. My body slides forward across the ground like I’m standing on ice and I crash into Aaron’s chest.
His arm wraps around me, his skin touches mine, and the glow stops pulsing. It smooths out and dims and the heat rolling off his body drops back to something warm instead of burning. My lion settles inside me and my tail curls up and brushes the sweat from his cheek.
Tiana tilts her head. “I take it you’ve calmed down.”
