Page 39 of Match Made In Growl

She tried. Her mouth formed a word that didn't make it out. Then her eyes rolled back and her body went limp.

"I need help!" Criss shouted toward the café, toward anyone. "Someone get a healer!"

The café door was already open. Twyla was there, face pale, hands already glowing faint gold with the residual magic of her fae blood. Behind her, three other people stood frozen in the doorway, staring at the naked man crouched over the unconscious woman in the destroyed square.

Across the square, through the rain, the spot where Rydan had been standing was empty.

Criss pulled Steph against his chest, her blood warm on his collarbone, her heartbeat faint but steady against his ribs. The storm howled around them, the broken fountain bled water across the cobblestones, and from every window on the square, Hollow Oak watched.

He could give a shit less. Let the council note his violation. Let the pride code record his defiance. Let Rydan Ashkar add this to whatever ledger he kept of Holts who didn't know their place.

Criss held his mate in the rain and dared anyone to tell him he was wrong.

23

STEPHANIE

The headache was the first thing. A dull, persistent throb behind her left eye that pulsed in time with her heartbeat, anchoring her to consciousness before she was ready for it. The second thing was the smell of herbs and beeswax and the soft murmur of voices outside a closed door.

She was at the inn. Her room. Someone had carried her here, changed her out of her wet clothes into a dry shirt that wasn't hers, and put her to bed with a bandage wrapped around her temple. Diana, probably. The shirt smelled like lavender detergent and mothballs, which was pure Diana.

Steph sat up slowly. The room tilted, steadied. Her left wrist was wrapped too, sprained from the fall. The gash on her temple stung when she touched the bandage, but the skin beneath felt closed, healed faster than it should have been. Fae magic. Twyla must have done something at the scene.

The scene. The square splitting apart. The ward stones firing. Criss in tiger form, jaws on her jacket, dragging her free.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed and was pulling on boots when the knock came.

"It's me," Criss said through the door.

She almost told him to leave. The word was right there, loaded, ready. Instead she said, "Come in."

He looked like he hadn't slept. His golden-brown hair was uncombed, his jaw unshaven, and there were shadows under his amber eyes that aged him five years. He stood in the doorway holding two mugs of tea.

"How's your head?" he asked.

"Functional. How's your standing with the council?"

He set both mugs on the nightstand. "Emmett wants a formal statement. Apparently shifting in the town square violates about six guidelines. The pride code violations are a separate conversation I'm not looking forward to."

"You shifted in front of everyone."

"You were falling into a hole in the ground. I wasn't going to sprint across the square on two legs and hope for the best."

She took one of the mugs. The tea was too hot and she drank it anyway, letting the burn ground her. "What happened out there, Criss? The ward stones activated in sequence. That's not weather damage. That's not structural failure. Someone triggered a chain reaction using the town's own foundational wards."

He sat in the chair by the window. He chose distance, and she noticed.

"I know," he said.

"You know."

"I know who's doing this. Or I'm fairly certain." He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped. "It’s Rydan Ashkar. He's a tiger shifter elder, former pride leadership. He showed up in Hollow Oak two weeks ago claiming to be an advisory consultant on your dig."

"I've met him. He bought me tea and told me some truths are better left buried."

"He told me something similar. Except his version came with a side of my family's dirty laundry." Criss's jaw worked once before he continued. "I found gaps in the Holt family records. Sixteen years of history between 1927 and 1943, completely erased. Pages cut from ledgers. Entries rewritten. And the name attached to the directive authorizing the changes was Ashkar."

Steph set her mug down. "When did you find this?"