Chapter 8 - Rhett
She crumples like a puppet with cut strings.
I catch her before she hits the floor, my reflexes faster than thought. One second she's conscious, staring at me with those wide, terrified hazel eyes. The next she's unconscious in my arms, her head lolling against my shoulder.
"Fuck," I breathe. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."
What did I expect? That she'd take it in stride? That she'd nod calmly and say, *Oh, you're a shapeshifter, how interesting, tell me more*?
I scared her. Traumatized her. Showed her the monster I've spent five years hiding from the world, and her brain did the only rational thing it could. It shut down rather than process the impossible.
I lay her back on the bed, checking her pulse. Strong and steady. Her breathing is normal. She just fainted, nothing worse.
But the look on her face before she went under, pure terror.
Of me.
The bear whines, distressed. *Mate scared. Mate hurt. Fix it.*
"I can't fix this," I mutter, pulling on pants with shaking hands. "This is exactly why I should have kept my mouth shut."
But the bear wouldn't let me. I'd tried to deflect, tried to keep the truth buried, but it kept pushing, kept demanding that I show her, that I prove to our mate what we are.
Because that's what she is. What she's been since the moment she walked into my clearing.
My fated mate.
The bear recognized her instantly, even if I tried to deny it. But tonight, lying next to her in the darkness, feeling the bond strengthen with every word we exchanged, there's no denying it anymore.
The universe, in its infinite cruelty, has given me a mate.
Someone I'm bound to. Someone I'm supposed to protect and cherish and build a life with. Someone who will be tied to me for as long as we both live, connected on a level most people can't even comprehend.
And I repay that gift by shifting in front of her and scaring her unconscious.
I grab a cloth and wet it from the water basin, pressing it gently to her forehead. Her eyelids flutter but don't open.
"I'm sorry," I whisper. "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have… I should have just lied. Should have let you think I was crazy or metaphorical or whatever made sense to you."
But the bear is right there, still pressing against my control. Still insisting that mates don't lie to each other, mates share everything, mates are supposed to know each other completely.
The mate bond is ancient. Primal. It doesn't care about human complications like consent or timing or the fact that I'm a broken disaster who has no business being tied to anyone, let alone someone like her.
Someone bright and alive and full of curiosity and joy. Someone who makes beautiful things and shares them with the world. Someone who deserves a partner who isn't haunted by the ghosts of the people he killed.
I check her pulse again even though I just did it thirty seconds ago. Still strong. Still steady.
She's going to wake up and she's going to run. She'd be an idiot not to. And she's not an idiot, despite her occasional lapses in judgment.
She'll go back to town and she'll tell people. No, wait. Will she? Who would believe her? She has no proof. No footage. Just a wild story about a man who turns into a bear.
They'd think she hit her head during the storm. Hallucinated. Experienced a mental break. Maybe that would be better. Let her think it wasn't real. Let her dismiss it as trauma-induced delusion and move on with her life.
But the thought of her doubting her own reality, questioning her sanity…
The bear snarls. *No. Mate knows truth. Mate deserves truth.*
"Mate deserves better than this," I say out loud. "Better than me."
*No one better. No one stronger. No one who will protect her like we will.*
And that's the hell of it, isn't it? The bear is right. I might be broken and dangerous and fundamentally unsuited for human connection, but I would die before I let anything hurt her. Would tear apart anyone or anything that threatened her. Would burn down the world to keep her safe.
But what if the thing she needs protection from is me?
What if I lose control again? What if the bear takes over and she's the one who ends up torn apart, one more body on the pile of my failures?
The thought makes my stomach turn.
I can't let that happen. Won't let that happen.
Which means I need to stay away from her. Need to let her go back to town in the morning and never come back. Need to deny the mate bond no matter how much it hurts, no matter how much the bear rages against it.
It's the only way to keep her safe.
From me.
Her breathing changes. Deepens. She's waking up.
I back away from the bed, putting distance between us. Giving her space. Making sure she doesn't wake up with me hovering over her like some kind of—
Like the predator I am.
Her eyes open slowly, unfocused at first. Then they land on me and everything sharpens. She scrambles backward until she hits the wall, pulling the blankets up like they'll protect her from what I am.
"Easy," I say, keeping my voice as gentle as I can. "You're safe. I'm not going to hurt you."
"You—" Her voice cracks. She swallows and tries again. "You turned into a bear."
"Yes."
"That's not possible."
"And yet you saw it happen."
She shakes her head, like she can physically deny the reality of what she witnessed. "I'm hallucinating. The hypothermia, it damaged my brain, I'm seeing things that aren't—"
"You're not hallucinating," I interrupt. "Your brain is fine. What you saw was real."
"People don't turn into bears!"
"Most people don't. I do. So do others like me."
"Others?" She looks like she might pass out again. "There are more of you?"
"Shifters exist. Have always existed. We're just good at hiding."
She stares at me, and I can see her brilliant mind working, trying to categorize this information, trying to make it fit into a worldview that has no space for it.
"This is insane," she finally says. "This is… I need to go. I need to leave."
"It's the middle of the night and you're still recovering. You're not going anywhere until morning."
"I'm not staying here with—with—" She gestures at me helplessly.
"With a monster?" I supply flatly. "Fair enough."
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't have to. It's what I am."
"You're—" She stops, pressing her palms to her eyes. "I can't process this. I can't… Bears. Shapeshifters. This isn't real."
The bear whimpers. Our mate is in distress and we caused it.
"I'm sorry," I say, and I mean it. "I shouldn't have shown you. Should have just let you think I was crazy. But you asked, and you kept pushing, and I—" I run a hand through my hair, frustrated with myself. "I wanted you to know. Wanted you to understand why I can't… Why this can't…"
"Why what can't?" She lowers her hands, looking at me with those sharp eyes.
"Nothing. Forget it."
"No, say it. Why you can't what?"
I shouldn't. I should shut this down right now. But the mate bond is pulling at me, demanding honesty, demanding I give her the truth she deserves.
"Why I can't be around you," I force out. "Why you need to leave in the morning and never come back. Why this—" I gesture between us "—whatever this is, it has to end before it really starts."
"Because you're a bear shifter."
"Because I'm dangerous. Because I killed my entire unit when I lost control of the bear. Because you've seen what I can become, and you should be terrified."
"I am terrified," she admits. "But not the way you think."
"What other way is there to be terrified of a monster?"
"You're not a monster, Rhett. You're—" She stops, searching for words. "You're someone who's been through something traumatic. Something I don't fully understand. But that doesn't make you a monster."
"I killed my friends," I say harshly. "Tore them apart while they screamed. Woke up covered in their blood. If that doesn't make me a monster, what does?"
"Did you mean to do it?"
"What?"
"When you lost control. Did you choose to kill them? Did you want to?"
"No, but—"
"Then it was an accident. A terrible, traumatic accident, but not murder. Not monstrosity."
I want to argue. Want to explain that intention doesn't matter when people are dead. But she's looking at me with something that isn't quite fear anymore, and I don't know what to do with it.
"You should be running," I say. "The smart thing would be to get as far from me as possible."
"Probably," she agrees. "But I've never been very good at doing the smart thing. You might have noticed."
Despite everything, my mouth twitches. "I noticed."
She shifts, pulling the blankets more securely around herself. "So. Shapeshifters are real."
"Yes."
"And you're one of them."
"Yes."
"Can all of you turn into bears, or are there other animals?"
The question catches me off guard. It's practical, curious, the same tone she used when asking about my blacksmithing. Like she's collecting information, not freaking out.
"Different animals," I hear myself answer. "Bears, wolves, big cats. Others."
"Are there a lot of you?"
"More than humans know about. Fewer than there used to be."
"Why are you telling me this? If it's such a secret?"
Because you're my mate. Because the bond won't let me lie to you. Because some part of me wants you to know everything, even the parts that should stay hidden.
"Because you already know the biggest secret," I say instead. "Might as well have context."
She nods slowly, processing. "The others like you. Do they live alone too? Or is that just your damage?"
"Most live integrated in human society. Have jobs, families, normal lives. The isolation thing is just me."
"Because of what happened."
"Yes."
"How long ago was it?"
"Five years."
"And you've been alone up here the whole time."
"Yes."
She's quiet for a long moment, and I can see her working through it. Piecing together the puzzle of me.
"That's so sad," she finally says, and the sympathy in her voice is worse than fear would have been.
"It's necessary."
"Why? If you haven't lost control in five years—"
"Because I haven't let the bear out in five years," I interrupt. "I've kept it locked down, repressed. Tonight was the first time I've fully shifted since… Since that night."
"Why tonight?"
Because you asked. Because the bear demanded it. Because the mate bond made it impossible to refuse.
"To prove a point," I say roughly. "To make you understand why you need to stay away from me."
"Seems like it backfired."
"How do you figure?"
She meets my eyes steadily. "Because I'm not running. And I don't think I'm going to."
The bear surges forward, triumphant and possessive. *Mate stays. Mate accepts us.*
"You should," I manage.
"Why? Because you might lose control again? Rhett, humans lose control too. We get angry, we lash out, we hurt people. It's not unique to shapeshifters."
"The scale is different."
"Maybe. But you know what I think?" She shifts forward slightly, lowering the blankets enough that I can see her face clearly.
"I think you're not dangerous because you lost control once.
I think you're dangerous because you've been keeping yourself locked in a cage for five years, and that kind of repression has to break eventually. "
"That's why you need to leave. Before it breaks and you're the one who gets hurt."
"Or maybe," she says softly, "what you need isn't more isolation. Maybe what you need is someone who knows what you are and isn't afraid. Someone who can help you find balance instead of just pushing everything down until it explodes."
"You don't know what you're saying."
"Don't I? I research things for a living, Rhett. I learn and I adapt and I figure things out. Give me some credit."
"This isn't one of your adventure vlogs. This is life and death."
"I know that. I almost died yesterday, remember? And you saved me. The dangerous, out-of-control monster saved my life."
"That's different."
"How?"
"Because saving you and hurting you are… They're not the same situation. I had control then."
"And you have control now. You shifted and then you shifted back. On purpose. Because you chose to."
I want to argue, but she's right. I did choose. The bear listened when I told it to retreat. We worked together for the first time in five years. Because of her. Because the mate bond made the bear cooperative in a way it has never been.
"You don't understand what you'd be getting into," I try one more time.
"Then explain it to me. Help me understand."
I look at her, at this brave, stubborn, beautiful woman who should be running and instead is asking questions. Who faced the monster under the bed and didn't flinch.
My mate.
And for the first time in five years, a tiny part of me thinks: maybe.
Maybe she's right. Maybe I don't have to be alone. Maybe the mate bond is the universe's way of saying I've punished myself enough.
Or maybe it's a test I'm destined to fail.
Either way, I'm too tired to fight it anymore tonight.
"Tomorrow," I say. "We'll talk more tomorrow. Right now, you need rest. Real rest."
"Will you be here when I wake up?"
"Where else would I go? This is my cabin."
"You know what I mean. You're not going to disappear into the woods to protect me from yourself or some other self-sacrificing bullshit?"
Despite everything, I almost smile. "No. I'll be here."
"Promise?"
"I promise," I say.
And the mate bond seals it, turning the words into something more binding than any vow.