All Chapters of How to Catch a Mate: Chapter 111 - Chapter 120

KravThe night was clean and cold. Air cut my lungs in long, even pulls as I crossed it, dragon wings holding steady. Panther City glowed ahead, wards running their blue line around the Tower and the flats. I should’ve felt the lock of home base. I didn’t. The whole sky felt off by a hair, like a string pulled tight somewhere I couldn’t see.Movement below. Wrong speed. Wrong line.I banked left, dropped. The wind hissed over my scales as I cut down through cloud. There under me a Honshu shape, wings lopsided, beating hard and failing. Not a clean glide. A stumble in the air.I folded, dove, then flared and hit a ridgeline hard enough to crack stone. I shifted before my claws did more damage. The Honshu in me came up fast, black and heavy, eyes hot, chest full of a growl that wanted out.The other shape wobbled and tried to gain height, then lost it. It clipped a spur of rock, spun, and slammed into the ridge fifty paces away. It lay there breathing ragged, legs scrambling, wings fold

Krav Ellan’s eyes stayed on me. “It said Ashlyn is marked.”“It said she belongs to a dark one,” I corrected. “It used the word belongs. That was the part it wanted me to take back to her.”“Will you,” he asked.“Yes,” I said.He weighed that. “Good.”Adrian pushed off the wall. “You want company when you tell her.”“No,” I said. “You want to be useful, get two on the ridge with dampeners and a quiet sweep. No torch. No chatter. If they find fresh ash or a second mark, they don’t touch it.”“On it,” he said, already texting.Keiral pointed at my leg. “Sit.”“Later,” I said.“Now,” she said. “You leave blood on my floor, I make you mop it, heir or not.”I sat. She cleaned the bite with something that stung like it had opinions. The burn along my shoulder got a fast pass and a strip. She wrapped the leg tight, not gentle. I didn’t flinch. She saw I didn’t and pulled it tighter. “Don’t pretend you don’t like the pain,” she muttered.“I don’t,” I said.“Liar,” she said, and cut the tape

Keiral The courtyard stank of blood. Black, thick, still steaming where it pooled on the stone. Panther corpses and those twisted things lay in heaps, dragged to one side by soldiers too numb to care where the pieces landed. The air was heavy, choked with the sharp bite of iron and smoke from burning bodies.I pushed through it, snapping at anyone who hesitated.“Get him on the table. Now.”A young panther staggered with a wounded soldier half across his shoulders. I shoved a bench aside, cleared the surface, and slapped down my kit. The wounded male groaned as I pressed a hand against his stomach. The cut was deep, clawed, bleeding hard.“Hold him,” I ordered. Two hands slammed down, one on each side of his chest. He thrashed until I poured tincture into the wound. He screamed, body arching, then went limp. The bleeding slowed. I stitched fast, tight, not caring if it was pretty. Pretty didn’t matter. Living did.I lost track of time. It was a blur of blood and commands. Tear cloth,

Ashlyn The Atterbury air smelled like rust and wet earth. The town was mostly dead, just rows of houses with broken windows and weeds climbing higher than the fences. Chickens used to run wild here. Curt swore the witch kept them as watchdogs. The yard we stood in now had no chickens. Just silence, the kind that pressed too hard on the chest.Her house sat crooked at the edge of the street. Curtains drawn. Smoke curling from a tin chimney. Herbs dangled in bundles along the porch. They weren’t decoration. They were markers. Wards.“She’s in there,” Chase said, pulling his jacket tighter. “I can smell it.”“You sure that isn’t the herbs?” Curt asked, smirking.“Shut up,” Chase muttered.I kept my eyes on the door. Sheetal prowled restless under my skin, sharp ears up. She knows we’re here.“Yeah,” I muttered, “she does.”Krav stood at my side, arms folded, his blue hair catching the dim light. He didn’t look at the house. He looked at me. His wolf, his dragon, his Honshu—they were all

Ashlyn We left the Den fast. No crowd. No speeches. Just me, Krav, and Mira moving down the back hall with our heads down.Mira kept her hood up, eyes on the floor. Silver still bled through when the light hit. Her hands shook but she didn’t stumble. I stayed tight on her right. Krav took point. No one tried to stop us. They felt Krav in the corridor and decided they had errands somewhere else.Outside, the air was cold enough to bite. Krav’s car woke when he looked at it. Doors lifted without him touching them. He put Mira in the back and I slid in next to her. He took the wheel, jaw set, eyes on the road before the doors finished sealing.We pulled out without a word. The Den fell behind. The valley took us in. Pines. Rock. Long stretches of nothing.Mira pressed her forehead to the glass. “I didn’t want this.”“I know,” I said.“Do you?” She swallowed. “Because Haden looked at me like I was dirt.”“He looked at you like the law was chewing on his throat,” I said. “He’s angry. He’s