Smart. So damn smart.
"Probably, yeah. My oldest brother, Calder, he's the primary guardian. If anyone can help stabilize me, it's him." I take a step toward her. Need to be closer. Need to know she's real and safe. "But the shadows will keep hunting us. They're drawn to the corruption, and they won't stop until I'm dead, back in that realm, or we find a way to cleanse this poison from my system."
"Then we kill them first." She lifts her chin, fierce determination flashing in her eyes. "You said I could help. So teach me how."
Heat flares through my chest—pride, possession, something deeper I don't have words for. This woman. My woman. Staring down impossible danger and choosing to fight instead of run.
I close the distance between us and cup her face in my hands. Her skin is soft, warm, alive. Everything the shadow realm wasn't.
"I know this is insane. I know it's too much too fast. But you're mine, and I protect what's mine. So you're coming with me. Back to Redwood Rise. To my family. They'll help us end this."
It's not a request. Alpha command bleeds into my voice despite my effort to gentle it. I expect her to argue, to push back against being ordered around.
Instead, she leans into my touch. "You fought your way through hell to get back here. To get to me. I'm not letting you face what comes next alone."
Her hand covers mine where it rests against her cheek. The touch completes a circuit I didn't know was open. The bondsolidifies, snapping into place with a rightness that settles the grizzly for the first time since I broke through.
"Come with me." Softer this time. A request from a man to his mate, not an alpha's command. "We're going to my family. They'll help us end this."
My hand is already on her arm, guiding her toward the door. Protective instinct won't let her be more than arm's length away. Not with shadows hunting us. Not with the corruption spreading faster now, branching up my neck where she can see it.
She should be terrified. Should be demanding answers, explanations, proof that I'm not insane.
Instead, she grabs her camera bag and her satellite phone. "I need to call the sheriff's office first. Tell them I'm okay so they don't send a search party to the wrong location."
Sheriff's office. Sawyer. My brother.
“Tell him Jonah's back. Tell him to get everyone to the compound. We're going to need help with this." I'm already pulling her toward the door, every instinct screaming to get her somewhere safer. Somewhere with backup. "Make the call on the way. We need to move."
She digs in her heels. "Wait. You can't go like that."
I look down at myself. Completely naked. She's right. I need clothes.
"Is there anything here I can use?" I scan the cabin. Photography equipment. Camping supplies. A sleeping bag. Not much else.
She moves to a duffel bag in the corner and pulls out a flannel shirt and sweatpants. "These will be big on you, but better than nothing. My uncle's. He left them here last month."
The clothes hang loose on my frame. I've lost weight in that realm, muscle mass burned away by fever and fighting, but they're warm and whole. Good enough.
Maren shoulders her camera bag, fingers the satellite phone. "My truck's outside. It'll be faster than walking."
Right. She's been working out here for months. Of course she has a vehicle. "If your whole family are shifters, and the town is full of shifters, why didn't anyone find you? Why didn't they sense you were in trouble?"
The question cuts deeper than she probably means it to. "The shadow realm exists outside normal space. Outside where the pack bonds and clan connections can reach. My brothers probably felt something was wrong, but they couldn't pinpoint where I was or how to help." I move toward the door, testing my balance, making sure my legs will hold. "They've been searching. I know they have. But you can't track someone who's been erased from reality."
"That sounds lonely." Her voice is quiet.
"It was." I don't elaborate. Don't tell her about the isolation, the silence, the way the corruption whispered promises of surrender if I'd just stop fighting. "But I'm out now. And I'm not going back."
The cabin door creaks as I push it open. Cold air rushes in, carrying the scent of shadow corruption. The grizzly strains against my control. Wanting to shift again, wanting to fight, wanting to claim her properly. I force it down. Barely.
Maren's hand stays steady on her keys. She's breathing hard, eyes scanning the treeline where the shadows wait. Terrified but moving forward anyway.
My kind of woman.
"If I start to shift involuntarily in the truck," I tell her as we head for her vehicle, "if the corruption takes control, you stop the truck and get out. Run for town. Don't look back. Find Sawyer at the sheriff's office."
"I'm not leaving you."
