She crawled through the wreckage of her shop, searching desperately. Broken glass cut her palms, leaving trails of blood on the floorboards. Spilled potions soaked into her dress—she’d be cleaning this out of her hair for weeks, assuming she survived the next few minutes. Somewhere behind her, the two predators clashed again—the heavy thud of bodies, the snarl of teeth,the crash of her grandmother’s display case being reduced to splinters.
There.
The vial had rolled under the consultation nook, nestled against the leg of a velvet chair. Junie grabbed it with bloody fingers, clutching it like a lifeline.
A yelp of pain made her spin around.
Victor had Leo pinned. The jackal was smaller but faster, and he’d gotten inside the lion’s guard. His teeth were sunk deep into Leo’s shoulder—the same shoulder that had barely healed from the last attack, the one that still bore the pink scars of jackal teeth. Blood poured from the wound, staining Leo’s golden fur crimson, pooling on the ruined floor.
“Leo!” The scream tore from her throat without permission.
Victor’s head snapped toward her. His golden eyes gleamed with malicious intelligence.
He's going to use me against Leo. He's going to?—
Victor released Leo and lunged for Junie.
Time slowed.
Junie saw the jackal coming—lean and golden-furred, jaws open wide, clever eyes fixed on her throat. She saw Leo struggling to rise, too injured to intercept in time. She saw her own death in the gleam of those empty eyes.
Leo moved anyway.
He threw himself between Junie and Victor, taking the bite meant for her throat in his own already-wounded shoulder. The impact drove him backward into Junie, knocking her down but shielding her with his massive body.
Victor’s teeth sank deep. Leo roared in agony.
Junie didn’t think. She acted.
The binding potion was already in her hand. She wrenched the cork free with her teeth and hurled the contents at Victor’s face in one smooth motion.
The liquid hit the jackal mid-bite. Victor screamed—a sound that started as animal and ended as human as the shift ripped away from him. His body contorted, limbs lengthening, fur receding, the transformation forced into reverse by the potion’s magic.
He collapsed onto the ruined floor, naked and human and utterly helpless. His muscles locked in paralysis. His voice failed to a strangled whisper. The shift that defined his nature had been stripped away, leaving him trapped in a form that suddenly felt like a cage.
“What—” Victor’s eyes were wide with genuine fear for the first time. His careful composure had shattered like Junie’s window. “What did you do to me?”
“Binding potion.” Junie’s voice was steady despite the shaking in her hands. “Modified formula. My grandmother’s base recipe, actually—the one from the book you stole.” She allowed herself a fierce smile. “I spent weeks perfecting it. Turns out having your magic destabilized by the surge gives you a lot of motivation to experiment.”
Victor’s mouth moved, but only a wheeze emerged.
“You can’t shift.” Junie continued, stepping closer. “Not for a long, long time. Maybe never again. The potion binds to your core—the animal part of you. It doesn’t kill it. Locks it away. Like a bird in a cage.”
She crouched down, looking into those clever golden eyes that had so recently promised her death.
“My grandmother believed in mercy.” Her voice dropped. “But I’m not my grandmother. And you threatened the people I love.”
Leo rose from where he’d fallen, the shift sliding off him like water. He stood naked and bloody in the wreckage of Junie’s shop, wounds already beginning to close with shifter regeneration. His face was carved from stone, his brown eyes fixed on Victor with cold fury.
“It’s over, Victor.”
Victor laughed—a broken, bitter sound that scraped against Junie’s nerves. “Is it? You think this changes anything? You’ll never be one of them, Castellan. You’re an outsider. A pretender. This town will never accept you. They’ll see you for what you are—a control freak playing at belonging, the same way your father played at?—”
“You’re wrong.” Leo’s voice was quiet, certain. Not defensive. Sure. “This isn’t your town to destroy. It isn’t your prize to claim. Haven Shores doesn’t belong to you or me or anyone.”
He looked at Junie then—bloody and battered, standing in the ruins of everything she’d built—and his expression softened into an emotion that stole the breath from her lungs.
“Haven Shores is home,” he said. “That’s all that matters.”
