Page 35 of Titan’s Mate

Titan slid over and pulled her down on the bench next to him, still with his arm around her. He found a semi-clean rag among his tools, and handed it to her so she could wipe her eyes.

Then he said quietly, “Tell me.”

She had to take a couple of deep, shuddering breaths before she could talk. “It’s my bear,” she said. “She can’t come out, because the demon tumor is too unstable for us to Change. She’s been locked inside me since it happened.”

Titan held her against him, making a wordless rumble of sympathy in his chest.

She went on, “I just—I can’t stand the thought of her never feeling the sun again. Never getting to go back to the forest where we grew up. Never eating fresh bamboo shoots in the spring.” Her voice dropped. “Having no one around me now who even knew what she looked like. It was like she’d been… erased.”

The tears started flowing again. He wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on her hair, and she could feel him listening. Taking on some of her pain.

“It’s hard enough, thinking about all the things I’m never going to see or do, all the things I’m never going to experience. But for her, that’s already over. And I wish I could give her my body one more time. Or—I don’t know. Be me and her at the same time, so I could just hug her and tell her I’m sorry.”

Titan sat holding her, rocking her back and forth. After a long time, he said, “I can give you that last part. If you trust me.”

Mari twisted to look up at him. “How? That’s the most impossible part!”

He gave her that little bit of a smile, but his eyes were sad. “I’m a shaman, remember? I have superpowers.” He held his hand out in front of them, palm up. “Let me take you to see her.”

Mari hesitated. She didn’t know how this could be possible, but she knew Titan wouldn’t lie to her. She took his hand, sliding her fingers through his.

“Close your eyes.”

Mari closed her eyes, and suddenly… they were somewhere else. Standing on vast plain of waving grass, up to her knees, reaching as far as she could see in every direction. Overhead, the sky was a featureless gray-white, no sun or anything to show where the light was coming from. It was just there.

She felt like she should whisper, even though there was no one around. “Where are we?”

“The spirit world.”

She whipped her head around, glaring at Titan. “We’re not dead, are we? Because I’m going to be really pissed off if you killed me before I got to meet your crew and have my last cinnamon bun.”

He rolled his eyes. “No, we’re not dead. I can bring people here in spirit. Our bodies are still in my studio, still breathing.”

“Well, thank goodness for that.” She looked around again. “The spirit world isn’t quite as exciting as I thought it would be.”

“The spirit world can be anything you want, if you know how to navigate it.” He took her hands. “Close your eyes and imagine your home forest, in the spring. You’re standing in your favorite grove of bamboo.”

She imagined.

“Now call your bear. In your mind.” She tried to do that, although she didn’t know exactly how.

He said softly, “Now open your eyes.”

She did, and…

They were there. Her home forest, in the bamboo stand by the fish pond. The sun shining through the leaves, dappling the shore and the edge of the water with light, and the wind rustling the bamboo.

No, not just the wind. The stalks moved, and out of the bamboo came her bear.

Mari sat down, so overcome her knees wouldn’t work. “Oh,” she said. “Oh my… oh.” Titan stood back, behind her, as her bear lumbered right up to her.

She still didn’t know how this was possible, but it was somehow happening. This wasn’t just a vision, a pretend. It was really her bear.

The bear nosed Mari, butting her head against her, and tears came to her eyes again. “Oh. Look at you.” She’d never actually seen her bear before, except as a reflection when she was her.

She was the cutest freaking bear ever. Sweet and roly-poly, with eyes full of wisdom. Mari hugged her other self, rocking back and forth. Her bear sat down next to her, grabbed a handful of bamboo shoots in her giant paw, and offered them to Mari.

Titan watched as the two of them sat together in the dappled sunlight, chewing on bamboo shoots. He could tell they were talking mind to mind, as shifter animals did in the spirit world, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying.