"Good." She settles back against me. "Because I'm going to keep being right after the ceremony too. Forever. That's what you're signing up for."
"Forever." I test the word. It should terrify me—the commitment, the permanence, the weight of it. Instead it settles something restless in my chest. "I like the sound of that."
"Me too."
We sit in silence for a moment, the destroyed cabin around us. The night slowly giving way to dawn. Everything we've fought for coming down to one ceremony, one choice, one moment where everything changes.
"I love you," she says suddenly.
The words hit me square in the chest. Three simple words that carry the weight of everything—her choice to stay, her refusal to run, her willingness to risk death to save me.
I turn to face her fully, frame her face with my hands. Make sure she's looking directly at me when I say it back. "I know. I love you too."
Her eyes shine. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." I kiss her forehead, gentle despite the need clawing at my chest. "You're it for me, Maren. The only woman who could walk into hell and drag me back out. The only one brave enough to command an alpha bear-shifter mid-rampage. The only one I want standing beside me for the rest of my life."
"That's a lot of pressure." But she's smiling.
"You can handle it." I kiss her again, this time on the mouth. Brief but claiming. "Now let's make it official so I can claim you properly."
She laughs, and the sound breaks the remaining tension. Fills the destroyed cabin with something light and real and ours.
"Tell me what happens," she says. "After the ceremony. After I'm a shifter. What changes?"
"Everything. Nothing." I consider how to explain it. "You'll be able to transform into a bear. Feel the ley lines the way I do. Live longer, heal faster. Be part of the clan officially."
"Will I be able to feel you? The way you feel me?"
"The bond goes both ways. You'll know when I'm near. When I'm in danger. When I need you." I run my thumb across her cheekbone. "You'll never have to wonder where I am or if I'm okay. You'll just know."
"I like that." She leans into my touch. "No more nightmares about losing you."
"No more nightmares about being lost." The admission comes easier than expected. "I spent six months in that shadow realm terrified I'd never find my way home. Never see my family again. Never meet the woman my bear kept insisting was waiting for me."
"I was waiting." Her hand covers mine where it rests against her face. "I didn't know what I was waiting for, but I was. Eight months photographing ley lines, documenting things I didn't understand, drawn to this place for reasons I couldn't explain."
"The mate bond." I say it with certainty now. "You felt it before we even met. Before I made it back through the tear. Your soul recognized mine even though we'd never been in the same room."
"Is that how it works?"
"That's how it worked for us."
We sit together on what's left of the bed while the cabin settles into silence around us. She leans against me, head on my shoulder. The connection between us thrums with anticipation.
"Tell me about the ceremony," she says quietly.
"Blood exchange at the convergence point. Calder officiates. I make the cut, our blood mixes, and the bond completes." Irun my thumb across her palm, imagining the ceremonial knife. "Your DNA changes. You become a shifter."
"And that saves you?"
"Should. The mate bond is powerful. It could burn the corruption out. Stabilize my bear." I pause. "Or the corruption could be too strong. Could poison you too. Kill us both."
"It won't."
Her certainty makes me smile. "How do you know?"
"Because you're too stubborn to die, and I'm too stubborn to lose you." She tilts her head up to look at me. "We're going to do this, and it's going to work, and then we're going to seal that tear and save Redwood Rise. That's what happens."
