Page 25 of Mane Squeeze
Lillith swore under her breath and moved quickly, hands already working through the dark to find the emergency candles. Dominic followed her, instinct thrumming in his bones.
“I’ll check the perimeter,” he said.
“You can’t go far,” she reminded him, tone sharp with worry.
“I won’t.” He squeezed her shoulder. “Just the edge of the porch.”
The moment he stepped outside, the storm met him like a challenge.
Wind lashed through the trees with banshee screams, hurling branches and debris across the clearing. The scent of burning magic hit Dominic’s nose—sulfur, ozone, and the bitter tang of bloodroot, all of it wrong.
He stilled, every muscle coiled. “What the hell are you?” he muttered to the air, low and feral.
The wind answered—not with words, but with a sound that rumbled through the bones of the earth itself. A howl, stretched thin by something ancient and furious. Then, as if the night split at the seams, a shape peeled itself from the treeline—black as pitch, woven from smoke and sparks, its limbs too long, too fluid, like the memory of a beast more than a body.
It moved like it remembered being a wolf. But it wasn’t. Not anymore.
Its eyes glowed ember-red, and they locked onto Dominic like a predator recognizing another.
It lunged.
He shifted mid-motion, the change ripping through him with a roar that felt half pain, half release. Gold flared, musclesnapped and thickened, bones cracked into place. The lion hit the clearing with enough force to rattle the porch beams, claws digging into soft earth, fangs bared in a snarl that reverberated through the storm.
They collided in a spray of sparks and shadow.
Dominic’s claws sank into the creature’s shoulder—if it even had one—but it didn’t bleed. It shrieked, the sound like metal grinding on bone, and coiled around him, biting and tearing with shadow-fangs that seared like lightning.
He fought like his life depended on it.
Because it did.
The creature twisted, smoke curling like tendrils around his limbs, trying to smother him, pull him apart molecule by molecule. But Dominic was built for war. For protection. For fury. He slammed it into the ground, claws raking through what little substance it had—and it shrieked again, louder, more desperate. Not dying. Fading.
Still, not before one of its claws raked across his shoulder in a swipe of fire and agony.
He roared.
A sound that tore the night in half.
The creature shattered.
Vanished into mist.
And Dominic collapsed to one knee, panting hard, his chest heaving. The wound burned deep, blood slicking his fur. Magic sizzled in his veins like static trying to escape.
It wasn’t just a cursed storm. This was targeted.
This was a message.
Something—or someone—had sent that creature straight for him.
Straight for them.
He staggered to his feet, still in lion form, the world swimming around him in shades of pain and adrenaline. He heard her before he saw her.
“Dominic!”
Lillith stood in the doorway, the storm whipping her hair wild, candlelight flickering behind her like a halo. Her nightgown clung to her frame in the rain, but her eyes—gods, her eyes—were wide and terrified and locked on him.
