Page 44 of Impawssible Magic

A normal day in Mistvale. Safe. Peaceful.

My tiger doesn’t agree. The air tastes off—metallic, charged, the way it gets before a thunderstorm. The mist is moving in patterns that don’t match the wind.

“Aslan?” Leire has stopped walking. Her hand touches my arm. “What is it?”

“Something’s—”

They come out of the alley.

Three of them. Masked, dressed in dark clothing that blurs at the edges—magical enhancement making them hard to focus on, edges smearing like wet paint. They move fast. Too fast. Enhanced speed, enhanced strength. Professional operatives, not common thugs.

The first one goes for Leire.

I don’t think. Don’t plan. The shift takes me mid-leap, bones cracking and reforming in the space between heartbeats, clothes shredding as I tear free. Nine hundred pounds of muscle and fury. I hit the first attacker before his fingers can close around her arm, claws raking across his chest, the weight of my body slamming him into the cobblestones.

He screams. Blood sprays, hot and copper-sharp on my tongue. I don’t stop.

My jaws close around his shoulder, fangs sinking deep through cloth and flesh and bone. He goes limp beneath me—unconscious or dead, I don’t care which. The only thing that matters is Leire. The only thing that has ever mattered is keeping her safe.

The word rises before I can stop it—mate—and this time I don’t push it down. I let it sit there, true and terrifying, while I keep moving.

The other two are circling her. One throws a spell—binding magic, meant to immobilize—chains of red light snaking toward her. Leire dodges, faster than I expected, pulls a crystal from her pocket, and flings it at the caster. The quartz shatters on impact, releasing a burst of protective energy that sends him staggering.

She’s not helpless. Good. She’s fighting. The relief is almost as overwhelming as the fear.

I launch at the second attacker, catching him mid-stride. He twists, faster than a human should, and a blade scores along my flank. The pain is sharp but distant—I don’t care about pain. I care about the woman behind me, the way she’s breathing hard, the fear I can smell on her skin like copper and ozone.

I take him down with a swipe of my paw that opens his chest to the bone. He crumples. Doesn’t get up.

The third attacker has Leire.

His arm is around her throat, dragging her toward the alley. She’s struggling, kicking, clawing at his grip with her nails. A crystal in her hand pulses with desperate energy—she’s trying to channel it, trying to fight, but she’s panicked, unfocused. The magic sparks and fizzles.

I roar. The sound shakes the street, sends pigeons scattering, makes the market-goers freeze in place. Somewhere, glass shatters.

The attacker doesn’t stop. His grip tightens on Leire’s throat, and she makes a sound—a small, choked gasp—that drives every rational thought from my mind.

Something shifts.

The air goes electric. The crystals in Leire’s pocket flare bright—all of them, not just the one in her hand—and her magic surges. Not wild this time, not chaotic. Focused. Powerful. Like a dam breaking, releasing a flood that’s been building for years.

It reaches toward me like a living thing.

And when it touches⁠—

Power floods through me. Hers and mine, intertwined, amplifying each other in ways that shouldn’t be possible. I roar again, and this time the sound carries magic. The force that rips the attacker away from Leire isn’t physical—it’s something else entirely. Something neither of us fully controlled.

He hits the wall. Hard enough to crack stone. Stays down.

I stand over his body, breathing hard, trembling with spent energy. My flank burns where the blade caught me. Blood drips onto the cobblestones—mine, theirs, mixed in pools of red.

Leire is on her knees, staring at her hands like she’s never seen them before.

The surge fades. The electricity drains from the air. And we’re left in the aftermath, surrounded by unconscious attackers and the stunned silence of a market that watched something impossible happen.

Somewhere nearby, I hear Rhodes giving orders. Torin’s voice, low and calm, directing people away from the scene. Caius will have been alerted by now. The Network will handle the cleanup.

But none of that matters.