She felt it before she saw it—cold pressing against her side, the sensation of something wrong touching her magic. She twisted away, but the thing’s not-hands had already grazed her arm, leaving a streak of numbness in their wake.
“No—”
A roar split the night.
Not a human sound. Not even a sound that belonged in this realm—primal instinct and ancient fury and absolutely furious.
The lion came out of nowhere.
TWENTY-TWO
LUNARIA
He was magnificent.
Lunaria had never seen Hux shifted, had only heard stories about lion forms and the power they contained. The curse should have kept his lion suppressed—it had stolen everything else the bond would have given him. That he could shift at all, dragged here by nothing but her danger and whatever fragile thing was growing between them, told her more than any star chart could.
Nothing had prepared her for the reality of it—the sheer size of him, the raw physical presence that made the void creatures seem small and fragile in comparison.
Four hundred pounds of golden-maned predator crashed into the void creatures like a wave breaking against rocks. His coat gleamed in the garden’s light, muscles rippling beneath fur that seemed to catch starlight and hold it. His eyes—those familiar amber eyes, now blazing with lethal intent—locked onto the nearest threat and destroyed it.
Claws that could shred steel tore through void-flesh with impossible ease. Whatever made the creatures half-intangible to her magic, they were solid enough for him. He bit, raked,pounced—each movement precise, devastating, the practiced violence of a predator who had never forgotten what he was.
He felt me,she realized with stunning clarity. He felt me in danger, and he came.
There was no bond. No GPS awareness, no cosmic certainty. Just a man who had chosen her, whose instincts had dragged him out of meetings and across town because something inside him knew.
“Hux!”
The lion’s head swung toward her. Understanding passed between them—recognition, relief, a fierce and wordless promise.
Then they fought.
They fellinto rhythm without discussion.
Her starfire illuminated targets in the darkness; his claws finished what her magic started. She called light down from overhead; he used the brightness to identify threats she couldn’t see. When creatures flanked him, her vines dragged them back. When they pressed too close to her, his roar sent them scattering.
The gardens pulsed with power. Every flower Lunaria had restored was blazing, the whole complex lit up like a beacon. The orrery behind her had started to move—not fully, not properly, but the mechanism was responding to the flood of celestial energy, grinding through sixty years of dormancy.
The void creatures fell. One after another, dissolving into nothing as claw and starlight and living garden combined against them. The Warning Bells had gone quiet.
“Is that all of them?” Lunaria gasped, leaning against a pillar. Her magic was running low, her reserves depleted by the sustained assault.
Hux shifted.
One moment, four hundred pounds of golden predator. The next, a naked man rising from a crouch, his body streaked with sweat and what might have been void-ichor. He crossed to her immediately, hands cupping her face.
“Are you hurt?” His voice was rough, caught between human speech and animal growl.
“I’m fine. The gardens—they protected me—you protected?—”
“Little witch.”
The voice came from everywhere.
From the shadows between trees. From the spaces between stars. From the void that existed in the gaps of reality itself.
Lunaria’s blood turned to ice.
