Even if it means revising more than just my expectations.
Even if my leopard is right, and she’s far more than just a healer assigned to a mission.
Mine, my leopard insists again.
Not yet, I tell it. Maybe not ever. Mountain Cats don’t bond lightly. We certainly don’t bond with civilized healers who look at us like we’re already ghosts.
But as I settle onto the furs for sleep, her scent lingers in my memory, reminding me again of storm-rain and healing herbs and something wild underneath. Tomorrow, we begin the hunt.*
Tomorrow, I find out what Lyra Starling is hiding.
And why my magic has never sung for anyone the way it sang for her.
3
LYRA
The corridors of the aerie are quiet this late, most Storm Eagles either asleep or on night patrol. My feet carry me to Elena’s laboratory without conscious thought, drawn by desperate hope that she might have some solution I haven’t considered. The soft blue glow emanating from under the door tells me she’s still working. Her pregnancy apparently hasn’t slowed her dedication to research.
I knock softly and enter at her invitation. The lab is a perfect fusion of worlds: Haven’s Heart equipment humming alongside Storm Eagle healing crystals, holographic displays showing DNA sequences next to ancient texts on shifter bloodlines. Elena sits at her primary workstation, one hand resting on her rounded belly, the other manipulating data streams with practiced ease.
“Lyra,” she says, looking up with concern. “It’s late. Shouldn’t you be resting before tomorrow’s departure?”
“I couldn’t sleep.” The admission comes out more vulnerable than intended. “I was hoping... I need to talk to you about the assignment.”
Elena’s expression softens. She gestures to the chair beside her, pushing aside her research. “What’s troubling you?”
I sink into the chair, trying to organize thoughts that feel like storm winds in my mind. “The Mountain Cat tracker, Magnus, is not what I expected.”
“In what way?”
In every way, I think.In the way my magic sang when he touched me. In the way I’ve already seen him die.
“Mountain Cats are notoriously difficult to work with,” I say instead, falling back on professional concerns. “They’re solitary, traditional, suspicious of outsiders. I’m not sure I’m the right person for this mission.”
Elena studies me with those intelligent eyes that miss nothing. “That’s not really what’s bothering you.”
I look away, focusing on a DNA helix spinning slowly in holographic blue. “Someone else could do this better. You have other healers who’ve worked with wild clans. My responsibilities here at the clinic?—”
“Lyra.” Elena’s voice is gentle but firm. “I’ve known you for eight months. You’ve never once shirked an assignment, no matter how difficult. You’ve worked with Shadow Wolves still half-feral from isolation, Mountain Bears who could crush you with one paw, and human traders who think all shifters are animals. You’ve handled them all with grace and skill.”
She leans forward slightly. “So what’s really wrong? What is it about this particular mission that has you trying to run?”
My hands clench in my lap. I want to tell her everything—about the visions, about seeing Magnus die, about the certainty pressing on my chest that I’m walking toward disaster. But revealing my gift means becoming something to be protected or weaponized.
“I just... have a bad feeling about this,” I say finally. “Call it healer’s intuition.”
Elena is quiet for a long moment. Then she stands, moving to a shelf where she keeps personal items among the researchequipment. She picks up a small holographic frame with an image of her and Kael from early in their relationship, before the mate bond, when everything was still uncertain.
“When I first came to the aerie,” she says softly, “I was terrified. Not of the Storm Eagles, but of what being here meant. I was walking away from everything I knew, everything safe and predictable, toward something that could destroy me.”
She turns back to me, her free hand curved protectively over her pregnancy. “Kael terrified me most of all. Not because he was dangerous—though he was—but because I knew from the moment we met that he would change everything. That being near him would transform me in ways I couldn’t predict or control.”
“But you stayed,” I whisper.
“I almost didn’t. I tried to run, multiple times. I had a dozen logical reasons why being with him was impossible.” She smiles, soft and knowing. “But sometimes the assignments we resist most are the ones we need. The paths that frighten us are the ones that lead to who we’re meant to become.”
She returns the photo to its place and comes to stand beside me, one hand gentle on my shoulder. “Trust your instincts, Lyra. But ask yourself if they are telling you to run from danger, or from destiny?”
