Wyatt woke with Narla draped across his chest, her hair spilling over his shoulder, her breath warm against his skin. The claiming mark on her shoulder had settled into a dark crescent, already beginning to scar—proof of what they’d chosen, as real as the bond humming in his chest.
For a long moment, he just lay there. Feeling her weight. Feeling the bond humming in his chest—that GPS awareness, that sense of exactly where she was even though she lay inches away.
Mate. Mine. Ours.
His panther was finally content. Maybe truly content for the first time ever.
He’d been a ghost before her. Now he was claimed, and awake, and exactly where he was supposed to be.
Narla stirred against him. Her eyes fluttered open.
“Morning.” Her voice was sleep-rough, satisfied.
“Morning.” His lips brushed her hair. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I got thoroughly claimed last night.” She smiled against his chest. “And like I’m finally whole.”
“Good.” He tightened his arms around her. “Because today, we end this.”
Today, they would face Derren. Today, they would fight for their community, their friends, their future. But first?—
He rolled her beneath him, kissed her deep and slow.
“We have time,” he murmured against her mouth. “A little time.”
“Then stop wasting it.”
He didn’t argue.
Outside, the sun was rising over Haven Shores. The community stood watch. Wolves running patrol. Dragons circling the harbor. Witches gathering their potions and candles. But here, in this cabin, there was just them. Just Wyatt and his mate, wrapped in each other, breathing in this stolen peace.
Claimed.
FORTY-ONE
NARLA
The attack came without warning.
One moment, Narla was walking through the morning market with Cassia, picking up supplies for the shop. The next, the harbor water went still—unnaturally still, no waves, no ripples, no movement at all—and Cassia grabbed her arm hard enough to bruise.
“Trouble brewing.”
Later, Narla would understand: his glamour had read as nothing more than a visiting stranger, walking through the market like any other morning. The perimeter wolves had scented a man. Not a monster.
Then the constructs began to rise.
They clawed their way up from the harbor depths—dozens of them, dead flesh animated by dark magic, moving with the jerky wrongness of puppets on strings. They climbed onto the docks, spilled over the seawall, formed ranks with a precision that spoke of a controlling intelligence. Some had been human once. Others bore the distorted features of shifters—wolves and bears and things she couldn’t identify, their animal forms twisted into mockeries of what they’d been in life.
Their eyes were empty. Their movements mechanical. Their purpose singular.
Destroy.
The market erupted into chaos. Screams. Running feet. The crash of overturned stalls.
Narla’s claiming mark pulsed hot against her shoulder—Wyatt, sensing her fear through the bond. He was moving, coming to her, but he was across town. Too far.
“Get everyone back!” Cassia’s hands crackled with lightning. “I’ll hold them!”
