Page 71 of Impawssible Magic

Her eyes are bright. Wet. “You called me your witch.”

“You are.”

“In front of them. In front of everyone who’s going to hear about this.”

I close the distance between us. She’s trembling—adrenaline crash, shock setting in—and I pull her against my chest without thinking. She fits there. She fits there perfectly.

“I spent five years convinced I would never feel this again.” My voice is rough against her hair. “Five years running from anything that looked like love, because loving means losing, and I couldn’t—” I stop. Breathe. “I couldn’t survive losing someone else.”

“Aslan—”

“But losing you isn’t an option.” I pull back enough to see her face. Her eyes swimming with tears she won’t let fall. “Losing you would end me, Leire. So I’m done running. I’m done pretending this is just protection detail. You’re my mate. My tiger knew it the first moment he saw you. My true mate. The only one I’ll ever have.”

“The first moment he saw me, I was talking to crystals and drinking cold tea.”

“Yes.” I grin. “He has questionable taste.”

Her laugh comes out watery and broken, halfway to a sob—and then the corner of her mouth curves, just barely, almost into a smile. Whatever the past weeks have put her through, that flicker is still there. Still hers.

Her hands come up to frame my face, fingers cold against my jaw. Her eyes search mine—fierce, thorough, reading every line of my face for the lie she expects to find.

Whatever she finds makes her smile fully.

“I’m still afraid.” Her voice drops to a whisper. “I’m still scared I’ll wake up and you’ll be gone, or you’ll realize this is a mistake, or someone will take you from me the way Shadow was taken⁠—”

“It won’t happen.”

“You can’t promise that.”

“No.” I turn my head, press a kiss to her palm. Her pulse jumps against my lips. “But I can promise to fight. Every day. For you. For us. For however long we have.”

The Protection Network arrives in a chaos of paws and shouted orders.

Torin reaches us first—massive even in human form, blood on his hands and worry carved into his broad face. His eyes sweep the carnage, catalog the fallen Preservers, linger on Leire pressed against my chest.

“You’re both alive.” Relief makes his voice rough.

“We’re fine.” I don’t let go of Leire. Can’t, yet. “What’s the status?”

“Iskra’s secure. We’ve captured eleven Preservers total, killed eight.” Torin’s gaze drops to the bodies around us. “Plus, however many you took down.”

“Lost count.”

He shakes his head slowly. “Between the shop and here, you’ve personally eliminated a slew of them tonight.”

“They threatened my mate.”

The word lands like a stone in still water. Torin’s eyebrows climb toward his hairline. Behind him, I see Caius arriving with a squad of wolves, Rhodes directing cleanup operations, Veren appearing from shadows with that knowing smile that makes me want to punch things.

“Your mate.” Torin’s voice is carefully neutral. “You’re claiming her officially?”

“Is that going to be a problem?”

“No.” His serious expression cracks into a grin—genuine, warm, the same smile I remember from before Dorothea died and I stopped letting people see me react to anything. “No, it’s not going to be a problem at all. It’s going to be exactly the kind of problem I’ve been hoping you’d have for five years.”

“That makes no sense.”

“It makes perfect sense.” He claps me on the shoulder—carefully, mindful of Leire still pressed against my other side. “The good kind of problem. The kind that means you’re finally living again instead of just breathing.”