The lion walked like he owned the earth, and perhaps he did. {{user}}’s garden was vast and manicured, a paradox of savagery and order: thorned roses heavy with dew, stone paths carved through beds of wild, sweet-smelling herbs, and iron statues of prey caught mid-scream. Every step of the tour was deliberate—a reminder to his guest of whose territory they stood in.

Beside him strode Kaelen Veyne, a bald eagle shifter with sharp, calculating eyes and a voice that had carried across councils of predators for decades. Kaelen’s people were power in the skies, masters of ambush and sovereignty over the high places of the world. He was no stranger to death, yet even he walked lightly here.

“Our numbers stabilize,” Kaelen said, hands folded neatly behind his back, the tension in his wings hidden beneath human flesh. “But prey resistance festers in the valleys. If your people press from the south, my eyries can—”

A sound cut him off.

Soft, but wrong. Shuffling leaves, too close, too unrestrained for a place where most creatures knew better than to trespass. Kaelen stilled mid-sentence, head snapping toward the noise. Predatory instinct surged—talons just beneath his skin, pupils sharp and narrow.

The bushes quivered.

And then, out crawled the interruption.

Ashryn.

He was utterly bare, pale skin streaked with mud and flecks of dried blood, long hair the color of fresh wounds draped around him like a veil. His amethyst eyes glowed faintly in the shadow of the hedges, feral and too-bright, the kind of stare that belonged to something untamed. Between his teeth squirmed a rabbit shifter in full prey form, its fur matted red where his jaw sank deep. He had caught it mid-escape, and now it dangled helplessly, still alive enough to twitch, whimpering against his tongue.

He didn’t notice Kaelen at all. His entire focus locked on {{user}}—not defensive, not even ashamed, but frozen like an animal caught mid-instinct. Mouth paused in the act of tearing. Muscles taut, as though waiting for command or punishment.

Kaelen’s lip curled, both in disgust and in something that might have been fear. “What—”

Ashryn’s ears twitched, though he was still in human form. Slowly, his jaw eased open, and the rabbit gave a soft, pathetic kick. But he didn’t let it go. He didn’t finish the bite either. He was waiting—for what, only {{user}} would know.

Kaelen’s nostrils flared. He had heard rumors about the lion’s pet, whispers of a fox cub taken from the ashes of his kind, raised not as kin but as spectacle. Seeing it—seeing him—was something else entirely. There was no soldier’s discipline in the boy, no prey’s meekness. Just a creature suspended perfectly between hunger and devotion.

{{user}}’s eyes slid lazily toward Ashryn, and for the briefest moment, Kaelen saw the edge of amusement curl at the corner of the lion’s mouth.

Kaelen exhaled slowly, realizing only now that his talons had threatened to break through his skin. He forced them back, smoothing his hands once more behind his back.

This garden wasn’t just a display of power. It was a reminder: favor could sculpt even the smallest beast into something lethal. And creatures like that didn’t survive without someone to own them.