Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
ELIAS
If I were a more responsible scientist, I would have been documenting the first few days of our journey with obsessive precision.
Dates. Distances. Environmental variables.
The way Boone’s stride changes when the terrain shifts when we’re on foot.
The subtle differences in wildlife behavior when he’s in cryptid form versus human.
The fact that I’m pretty sure a mountain goat bowed to him on the second day, which I refuse to acknowledge out loud because that way lies madness.
Instead, my notes for the last three days consist of things like:
Shared dried apples. Boone pretended not to like them. Ate most of them anyway.
Music compromise: no “songs with feelings,” but apparently instrumental thunder is acceptable.
Woke up wrapped around him again. Zero regrets.
We’ve covered more ground than should be possible at the pace we’re moving, even with frequent stops.
Boone navigates like the land is a map he memorized centuries ago—which, based on what I’m learning, is probably not far from the truth.
Trails appear where there shouldn’t be any.
Shortcuts reveal themselves at his suggestion, shaving hours off what would have taken me days alone.
And the thing is… it feels easy—both in the truck and on foot.
Not effortless. Boone is still Boone—watchful, deliberate, occasionally gruff—but there’s a rhythm to us already. A wordless understanding. He slows when I need him to. I speed up when he grows restless. We share food, space, warmth, and long stretches of quiet that don’t feel awkward at all.
And I am absolutely the only person who drives. The one time I agreed to try to teach Boone did not go well.
Yesterday evening, when we stopped near a river swollen with snowmelt, I’d wandered too close to the edge while distracted by a cluster of glowing insects.
Boone hadn’t raised his voice or snapped at me.
He’d simply reached out, wrapped a hand around my wrist, and tugged me back against his side with a low, unimpressed sound.
“Eyes up,” he’d murmured.
I’d grinned up at him and said, “You like keeping me alive, huh?”
He’d paused, then replied, very carefully, “Yes.”
It had felt… significant.
Now, standing at the edge of a high meadow ringed with firs, I get my first real sense that we’re about to cross from travel into worlds colliding.
Boone stops.
Not abruptly—he never does anything abruptly—but with purpose. His posture changes, shoulders squaring, head tilting slightly as if he’s listening to something I can’t hear.
“We’re here,” he says.
“Here as in—” I glance around, seeing nothing but open grass, scattered boulders, and a sky so wide it makes my chest ache. “—here here?”
“Yes.”
I trust him enough now not to question it. Instead, I wait.
The air changes first.
It’s subtle—like the pressure shift before a storm, or the moment before a large bird takes flight nearby. The wind stirs without warning, bending the tall grass in slow, deliberate waves.
Then the shadow passes overhead.
I look up instinctively and freeze. The sky is suddenly… not empty.
Something massive moves against the blue, wings stretching so wide they blot out the sun in pieces. Feathers catch the light, dark and iridescent, flashing copper and midnight and storm-gray as the shape circles once, twice.
My heart slams into my ribs.
“Boone,” I say, very calmly, which is impressive considering my brain is currently screaming, That is not a bird!
“I know,” he replies, just as calm. “Breathe.”
I do. Shakily.
The creature descends in a controlled spiral, wind whipping around us as it lands on a rock formation at the meadow’s edge. The impact sends a tremor through the ground—not violent, but powerful, like a reminder.
Up close, the scale is dizzying.
He—he, my brain insists, latching onto personhood immediately—has the body of a man shaped by storms and the wings of a thunderhead given form. Feathers ripple as he folds them in, electricity faintly crackling along the edges before settling.
This is not subtle folklore.
This is presence.
Boone steps forward, unafraid. “Bob.”
The thunderbird inclines his head. “Boone.”
Their voices are… normal. Deep, yes, resonant, but conversational. Like two colleagues meeting on a jobsite.
My fear falters, confused by the sheer casualness of it.
Then I notice the second figure.
A human man, younger than me, stands near the thunderbird’s side, leaning casually against the rock like this is a perfectly ordinary Tuesday. He’s tall, broad-shouldered, with laugh lines at the corners of his eyes and hair a shock of black.
He smiles at me.
“Hi,” he says. “You must be Elias.”
I stare.
Words don’t come.
Bob glances at him, fond and impatient all at once. “Christopher.”
Christopher gives an exaggerated sigh. “You’re doing the looming thing again.”
Bob shifts, wings settling more neatly. “I’m standing.”
“You’re standing dramatically.”
My brain takes a second to catch up. This—this domestic familiarity—does more to steady me than anything Boone could have said.
Boone glances back at me, golden eyes sharp and assessing. “You all right?”
I swallow, then nod. “I think so. I’m… processing.”
“That’s normal,” Christopher says cheerfully. “First time’s always a lot.”
“First time?” I echo faintly.
He grins wider. “Meeting a thunderbird. Or realizing your boyfriend is a cryptid. Dealer’s choice.”
My face heats instantly.
Boone makes a low, offended sound. “I’m a sasquatch.”
Christopher raises a brow. “Buddy, I say that with love.”
Bob clears his throat, the sound rolling like distant thunder. “We don’t have much time. I needed to confirm Boone’s status and deliver this.”
He reaches into a pouch at his side and withdraws a small and faintly glowing object—a carved rune, warm even from several feet away. The symbols etched into it hum softly, like a living thing at rest.
“This is the access needed,” Bob continues, then shifts his gaze to me. “This will allow you through the wards at Yellowstone.”
My breath catches. “Me?”
“Yes,” Bob says. He steps closer and presses the rune into my palm.
The warmth seeps into my skin, up my arm, settling somewhere deep and strange. My scientist brain is already spinning out of control, cataloging sensation, theorizing mechanisms, screaming about energy transfer and biological impossibility.
But another part of me—quieter, steadier—just feels… accepted.
Bob turns back to Boone. “I have to leave. Solstice logistics are already unraveling, and I refuse to let Akai coordinate security again.”
Boone huffs. “Good idea. He can’t be trusted with any type of responsibility.”
Christopher chuckles. “We’ll see you there, yeah?”
Boone nods. “Yes.”
Bob spreads his wings again, the air thrumming with power. Christopher steps closer to him without hesitation, hand resting easily against his side.
Before they take off, Christopher looks back at me.
“You’re doing great,” he says, like he knows exactly what’s going on inside my head. “Don’t overthink it too much.”
I laugh weakly. “I’m terrible at that.”
“Yeah,” he says kindly. “So was I. It took me at least sixty years to get used to this new life.”
The thunderbird launches into the sky as my eyes boggle at his words, wings beating once, twice, and then they’re gone—just a fading echo of wind and electricity and what feels like possibility.
The meadow settles.
I exhale a breath, then look at Boone.
He’s watching me closely, concern etched into every line of his posture.
“Well,” I say faintly. “That was… a lot.”
He studies my face. “You’re not afraid.”
It’s not a question.
I consider it honestly. “I was,” I admit. “For about ten seconds. Then I realized if you trust them, I can too.”
His expression softens a little. “That was wise,” he says.
My heart promptly forgets how to behave.
It isn’t until Bob and Christopher are gone—really gone, the last ripple of displaced air smoothing back into meadow-stillness—that my brain catches up with what just happened.
I look down at the rune in my palm.
It’s still warm.
Not metaphorically warm. Not emotionally warm.
Physically warm, like a stone that’s been sitting in sunlight.
The symbols etched into its surface pulse faintly, as if responding to my attention.
When I curl my fingers around it, the hum deepens, not louder, but more present, like a second heartbeat.
I swallow.
“Boone,” I say slowly, carefully. “What Christopher said earlier.”
Boone’s attention sharpens immediately. He’s gone still in that way I’m starting to recognize—the way he does when something matters. “Yes.”
“He said sixty years but doesn’t look a day older than twenty-eight.”
“Yes.”
My thoughts stumble. “Yes, what?”
“Yes, as in he and Bob met almost eighty years ago.”
“And he’s seriously that old?” I’m struggling to comprehend, but broken record or not, I push, saying, “He looks late twenties. Thirty, max, if he’s been outside a lot.”
Boone considers this. “He has been outside a lot.”
“That does not—” I stop, drag a hand through my hair, then try again. “Okay. So. Help me out here. Because either my understanding of human aging is catastrophically flawed, or something very significant is happening.”
He exhales through his nose. “Both.”
My laugh comes out a little hysterical. “Great.”
We move away from the meadow and toward a stand of trees where the ground dips and offers natural shelter. Boone scans the area out of habit while I… stare at the rune like it might start explaining itself if I glare hard enough.
Christopher’s words replay in my head.
So was I.
I clear my throat. “So… Bob and Christopher. They’re mated.”
“Yes.”
“And Christopher is human.”
“Yes.”
“And he has not aged normally.”
“No.”
“And this is”—I gesture helplessly—“not a unique situation.”
Boone pauses in the act of setting down his pack. He looks at me for a long moment, then says carefully, “It’s not common. But it isn’t unheard of.”
My stomach drops in a strange, fluttering way that has nothing to do with fear.