“I want to see for myself.”
He didn’t argue. Shifted onto his back, allowing her to carefully peel back the edge of the bandage on his shoulder. The bite mark that had looked horrific last night—deep enough to expose muscle, ragged at the edges where jackal teeth had torn—had closed significantly. The skin was pink and new, tender but intact. She could still see the outline of where the damage had been, but the wound itself was knitting back with startling speed.
“Shifter healing.” Leo watched her face. “It accelerates significantly during sleep.”
“I know how shifter healing works. I’ve been making potions for your kind for decades.” She pressed the bandage back into place, smoothing the edges with careful fingers. “This is remarkable. You should be in a hospital bed for a week.”
“I had an excellent healer.”
Junie’s cheeks heated. She busied herself checking the wound on his ribs—also dramatically improved, the deep slash now reduced to an angry red line that would probably scar. Her grandmother’s healing paste had done its work, combined with his body’s natural abilities.
“You’ll have marks.” Her voice came out steadier than she felt. “Permanent ones.”
“I told you, I don’t mind scars.”
There was a weight in his voice. A gravity that made her look up, meet his gaze.
He was watching her with an intensity that made her stomach flip. Not the careful, controlled assessment she’d grown accustomed to. This was raw. Open. Vulnerable in a way that Leo Castellan probably hadn’t allowed himself to be in years.
“We need to talk.” His words were quiet but certain.
Junie’s first instinct was a joke. How that phrase never preceded good news, or how she should make coffee first, or how she had a strict policy against serious conversations before noon.
But his gaze held hers, steady and waiting, and she found she couldn’t deflect. Not this time.
“Yeah.” She heard herself say. “We probably do.”
They sat facingeach other on the bed, legs crossed, close enough to touch but not quite touching. Glimmer had relocated to Junie’s shoulder, a presence against her neck.
Leo was quiet for a moment. Gathering his thoughts, maybe, or figuring out where to start. Junie waited, which was unlike her—she usually filled silences with chatter, smoothing over awkward pauses with humor and deflection.
This silence felt different. Heavy with words that needed to be spoken.
“My lion recognized you the moment I walked into that welcome dinner.” Leo’s voice was measured, deliberate. “Before you spilled the potion on my suit. Before we’d even spoken. I caught your scent from across the room, and the beast inside me—” He paused, jaw tightening. “There’s a word for it, in shifter culture.Recognition. The animal knows its mate instantly, absolutely, without doubt.”
Junie’s pulse stuttered. “Mate.”
“Yes.”
“That’s why you were so cold to me.” The pieces clicked into place. “That first day at my shop. You weren’t being an ass because you thought I was incompetent. You were being an ass because?—”
“Because the beast had decided you were its mate, and I disagreed.”
“You disagreed?”
“Strenuously.” His mouth twisted—not quite a smile, but close. “The idea that some mystical force had picked my partner for me?—”
“Felt like losing control.”
He looked at her, recognition flickering across his features. “Yes. Exactly.”
Junie understood that. More than she wanted to admit. The fear of having choices taken away, of being pushed toward a destination you hadn’t picked yourself.
“So you fought it.” Her voice was quiet. “You avoided me. You were cold and distant and looked at me like I was a problem to be solved instead of a person to be?—”
“Known.” His voice dropped. “I looked at you like a problem because if I let myself see you as a person—as you, specifically—I would have been lost. The beast was already certain. I was trying hard not to let the man agree.”
“And now?”
