Six months of dreams, and here he is. Real. Dying, maybe. Speaking my name like a prayer or a promise or a plea.
The shadows press against the walls, patient as death. Waiting to see what I'll do. Waiting to see if I'll run.
Let them wait.
I check the Maglite's battery—full charge. Good. I have three more camera batteries and enough bottled water for two days. My sleeping bag is thermal-rated for below freezing. The cabin door is solid wood with a working lock. Not much of a fortress, but I've worked with less.
My check-in with the sheriff's office is in six hours. When I don't call, they'll send someone. Probably find me here with an unconscious man covered in impossible corruption and a story about shadow creatures that will make me sound insane.
But that's a problem for later. Right now, he needs someone to stay.
I've spent eight months in and around Redwood Rise chasing mysteries through this forest. Photographing impossible shimmer, documenting phenomena that shouldn't exist, trying to understand why this place calls to me with a voice I can't ignore.
Maybe this is why. Maybe everything—the dreams, the shimmer, the ley lines I didn't know existed until today—has been leading to this moment. To him.
I settle onto the floor beside him, my back against the cabin wall where I can watch both him and the door. The Maglite stays in my right hand. My left rests near his shoulder, close enough to feel the rise and fall of his breathing.
"I don't know who you are," I whisper to the unconscious stranger. "I don't know where you came from or how you know my name. But you fought your way through hell to get here. So I'm staying."
The shadows shift outside, their patience wearing thin.
I'm not going anywhere.
CHAPTER 2
JONAH
The dreams weren't dreams.
She's real. Flesh and warmth, carrying a scent that cuts through the corruption still eating at my system. The grizzly inside me roars the truth before my human brain catches up:Mine. Ours. Mate.
I force my eyes open. The effort costs more than it should, like my body forgot how to perform basic functions during however long I was trapped. My eyelids feel weighted, gritty. The ceiling above me is rough wood, unfamiliar. Not the grey stone of that nightmare realm. Not the Pacific rolling overhead. Somewhere new.
Somewhere with her.
I catalog threats before I catalog location. Old training from Dad: assess danger first, ask questions later. My senses sharpen despite the weakness dragging at my limbs, though they're operating at maybe sixty percent capacity. Temperature: cold but not dangerously so. Maybe forty-five degrees. Sounds: her breathing, close and steady. Heartbeat. I can hear her heartbeat, which means she's within ten feet. No immediate hostiles. No sounds of shadow creatures manifesting. Scents: old wood,peppermint tea, photographer's chemicals from film processing, and her.
Always her. Salt and something floral I can't name—jasmine maybe, or honeysuckle. The bond between us hums through my chest like a second heartbeat, insistent and undeniable.
My body feels wrong. Heavy. Like someone replaced my muscles with wet sand. The fever radiates from my core, and I can feel the corruption pulsing through my veins in time with my heartbeat. Black. Spreading. Poisonous. But beneath all that wrongness, beneath the fever and the weakness, I feel her presence like a beacon.
I turn my head. She's sitting against the cabin wall maybe five feet away, a long metal flashlight gripped in her right hand like a club. She’s close enough to check on me without touching. Smart. Cautious. Her eyes are closed but her breathing pattern says she's not asleep. Just resting. Conserving energy while staying alert.
Dark hair pulled back in a messy knot. Strong jawline. The kind of mouth that probably smiles easily, though she's not smiling now. She looks exhausted. Terrified. Determined. There's dirt on her jeans and what looks like frost damage on the sleeves of her jacket. She defended me. Fought for me while I was unconscious and vulnerable.
The dreams didn't do her justice. Didn't capture the realness of her. The way her pulse jumps in her throat, the slight tremor in her hands that she's trying to hide, the stubborn set of her shoulders that says she's scared but refuses to run. In the dreams, she was ephemeral, ghostlike. Here, she's solid. Real. Mine.
The animal inside me surges forward, wanting to shift, wanting to claim her properly. Silvery mist starts to swirl around my hands. The transformation beginning involuntarily. I slam itdown hard. Not now. Not when I'm this weak and unstable. Not when I might lose control and hurt her.
The effort of suppressing the shift sends pain lancing through my spine. I bite back a groan, but some sound must escape because her eyes snap open immediately. Dark brown, sharp with intelligence. She doesn't flinch or scramble away. Just grips the flashlight tighter and assesses me the same way I assessed the room. Looking for threats. Evaluating options.
"You're awake." Her voice is steadier than I expected. "Don't try to sit up. You have a fever of 104 and you've been unconscious for three hours."
Three hours. Not long enough for the corruption to spread far, but long enough that my brothers must be losing their minds wondering where I am. If they even know I'm back.
"Where am I?" My voice comes out rough, scraped raw.
"Ranger cabin just north of Redwood Rise proper. Near the coastal convergence point where you..." She hesitates. "Where you came through."
