Came through. Such a simple way to describe tearing myself free from a dimensional prison. But I appreciate that she's not screaming or calling me crazy. That's something.
"How long was I gone?" The question tastes bitter. Time moved wrong in that place, stretched and compressed until days felt like years and years felt like seconds.
"Six months." She pauses, studying my reaction. "I started dreaming about you six months ago. A man I'd never met, drowning, fighting to break free. The dreams were so vivid I asked around town." Her voice drops. "Everyone knew about the missing Hayes brother. Your boat was found empty. The Coast Guard called it an accident." Her eyes narrow. "But you didn't have an accident, did you?"
Six months in the real world. Half a year that felt like decades in that grey hell.
Sharp. My mate is sharp, and satisfaction settles in my chest at that realization. I'm going to need someone smart beside me to deal with what's coming.
"No." I push myself up to sitting despite her protest. The room spins but I breathe through it, forcing my body to obey. Can't afford weakness. Not with shadow creatures hunting us. "I was pulled through a ley line convergence point. Trapped in what the old stories call the shadow realm. I've been fighting my way back ever since."
The vortex tears me through the convergence point. Water becomes stone. Pacific cold becomes burning heat. My lungs scream for air that tastes wrong, corrupted, poisonous.
I land hard. My drysuit is shredded. My equipment is gone. And the shadow corruption starts immediately—black veins spreading through my system like ink through water.
But even through the pain, even as the grizzly panics and my human mind reels, I feel her. A connection I didn't know existed, suddenly blazing to life across impossible distance. My mate. Real. Waiting.
I curl my hands into fists against stone that burns and freezes simultaneously.
"I'm coming back," I promise the distant tether. "Whatever it takes. I'm finding you."
Maren watches me with that sharp assessment again. "Shadow realm. Fighting your way back." She doesn't phrase it as a question. "And the things outside? The creatures made of smoke?"
"Followed me through. They're drawn to the corruption in my system." I look down at my arms where the black veins are still visible, pulsing faintly. "They'll keep coming until either I'm dead or they are."
She absorbs that information with unsettling calm. Most people would be running by now. Screaming. Calling me insane.Instead, she pulls out a camera and starts scrolling through images.
"I got photos. Of you coming through. Of them manifesting." She turns the screen toward me. "They show up on film."
I study the images. The dimensional tear captured in perfect focus. My own form stumbling through, half-caught between worlds. And the shadows—three of them, their impossible geometry frozen by her camera.
"You can see them." Not a question. If she photographed them, she can perceive them. That's rare. Useful. "Good. That means you can help me kill them."
Her eyebrows rise. "Help you—I'm a photographer, not some kind of warrior."
"You must have defended me while I was unconscious." I gesture to the metal flashlight in her hand, the camera with its powerful strobe. "You fought them off. That makes you a warrior, whether you like it or not."
She opens her mouth to argue, then closes it. Smart enough to recognize truth when she hears it.
"What are you?" The question is blunt. Direct. "Not human. Or not entirely."
"Grizzly bear-shifter. My whole family—my brothers and I—we're all bears. We guard the ley lines that run beneath Redwood Rise." I watch her face for signs of disbelief or fear. See neither. Just intense focus. "And you're my mate. I recognized you the moment I broke through. That's why I knew your name. Why I've been dreaming about you for—" I stop. "How long did you say I was gone?"
"Six months."
Six months of fighting to get back to her. Six months of pushing against barriers between worlds, trying to break through to the connection that kept me sane.
The bond pulls taut between us. Her pupils dilate. Her breath catches. She feels it too.
"This is insane," she whispers.
"Yes." I don't soften it. Don't try to make it easier. "And it's real. The shadows are real. The corruption is real. The bond between us is real. And right now, you're in danger because of me."
Before she can respond, the temperature drops.
Frost spreads across the windows in familiar patterns. The shadows are back, and this time they've brought reinforcements. I count five distinct presences converging on the cabin.
The grizzly surges forward again, and this time I don't fight it. Can't fight it. The transformation burns through me. Faster than it should, unstable from the corruption, but happening anyway.
