Page 33 of Mane Brew

“Watching and preparing to act are different categories of threat.” The words come out clipped. Sharper than intended. “The preparation phase is complete. They’re moving to execution.”

“Execution.” She laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “Dramatic word choice.”

“Accurate word choice.”

We stare at each other across the bar. The fermentation tanks bubble in the back room—a sound I’ve become intimately familiar with over the visits I’ve documented. Her magic hums through the building, alive and chaotic and refusing to be contained in ways that should set my teeth on edge.

It doesn’t. It hasn’t for a while now.

“Why do you care?” Her question cuts through the standoff. Quieter than her usual volume. Almost vulnerable. “Why does it matter to you if anything happens to my brewery?”

Because the brewery is you. Because your chaos has become my pattern. Because the file that started at fifty-three pages has grown to fifty-seven, and somewhere in all that careful tracking I stopped being objective.

“Because it’s my job.” The words taste like ash. “Protecting magical establishments falls under Network jurisdiction.”

Her expression shutters. The vulnerability disappears behind familiar armor. “Right. Your job. How could I forget?”

The fermentation tanks rattle. Her magic responding to emotion—I’ve cataloged that tell extensively. She’s upset. She’s trying to hide it.

She shouldn’t have to hide it from me.

I open my mouth to say—what? I don’t know. Anything that isn’t about jurisdiction or protocol or any of the careful categories I’ve built between us⁠—

The window explodes.

Time fractures into fragments.

Glass. Screaming through the air in glittering shards.

Fire. Magical fire, the kind that burns regardless of fuel, erupting from the eastern wall.

Her face. Shock and terror and fierce determination underneath—the chaos witch meeting chaos head-on.

My lion roars to the surface.

I don’t remember choosing to shift. One moment I’m human, standing across the bar from her. The next I’m airborne, four hundred pounds of muscle and mane and pure protective instinct launching across the taproom.

She throws up shields. I see them spark to life around her—amber and gold, her magic rising to meet the threat. Strong shields. Probably strong enough to hold against the first blast.

Not strong enough for the second.

I hit her mid-leap, my lion’s body crashing into hers as the second explosion tears through the brewing room. Copper tanks shriek. Glass shatters. The walls groan.

We go down in a tangle of fur and flesh and desperate magic. I curl around her, covering her body with mine, my mane falling across her face as debris rains down.

Pain strikes my back. Sharp. Immediate. I ignore it. The only thing that matters is the woman beneath me, her heart hammering against my chest, her magic sparking wildly against my fur.

The explosions stop.

Silence. Ringing, absolute silence, broken only by the crackle of flames and distant screaming from the street. Smoke curls through the ruined taproom, thick with the smell of burnt hops and scorched copper. A pipe hisses. Water or steam—I can’t tell.

I shift back. It’s not a conscious decision—my body simply refuses to maintain lion form when I need hands to check, to touch, to verify that she’s alive and whole and⁠—

“Are you hurt?”

My voice comes out raw. Wrecked. I’m still covering her, my human body curved protectively over hers, my hands bracketing her head on the debris-strewn floor. Glass crunches beneath my knee. Blood trickles down my back. I don’t care.

She blinks up at me. Dust in her hair. Blood on her cheek—a small cut from flying glass. Her wild curls spread across the broken wood like autumn fire.