Mate of the Mountain (Shifters of Redwood Rise #4)

Prologue

JONAH

The Pacific swell rocks my research boat in a steady rhythm that most people find nauseating.

After ten years of fieldwork, the motion feels like breathing—natural, necessary, home.

The coastal caves north of Redwood Rise cut dark shadows into the cliffside ahead, their mouths gaping wide where the tide hasn't quite reached its peak.

My monitors beep softly, tracking the orca pod that's been circling this same spot for three days straight.

Perfect mathematical circles. I've documented unusual cetacean behavior before—the humpback who stayed in Monterey Bay for six weeks, the grey whale that adopted a pod of bottlenose dolphins—but nothing like this.

This defies every pattern of orca social structure and hunting strategy I've ever studied.

Something's off.

I adjust the hydrophone array, listening to their calls filter through the speakers.

The usual complex vocalizations—clicks, whistles, the haunting songs that marine biologists spend careers trying to decode.

But underneath, there's a frequency I've never heard before. Low. Rhythmic. Almost like a pulse.

The bear inside me stirs restlessly, responding to something it recognizes even when my human mind doesn't. The sensation crawls up my spine, raising the hair at the back of my neck.

I run through my instruments again. Water temperature: 52°F, standard for this depth.

Salinity: 33 PSU, normal Pacific levels.

Current patterns: predictable tidal flow.

Everything reads as it should, except for the massive electromagnetic anomaly centered directly beneath where the orcas are swimming.

The ley lines.

They run everywhere in Redwood Rise—through the town, beneath the tavern, converging at points where Calder monitors their flow like a guardian watching over something precious. But I've never felt them extend this far offshore. Never felt them pulse with this kind of intensity.

I radio back to shore, thumbing the transmission button. "Calder, you there?"

Static crackles through the speaker, then my oldest brother's voice cuts through. "Go ahead."

"I'm tracking that orca pod you asked about. They're circling a specific formation about two miles north of the sea caves. Something's down there, and it's registering on every instrument I have. Electromagnetic readings are off the charts."

"Ley line convergence?" His tone sharpens with interest.

"Has to be. But I've never seen one extend into open water like this." I watch the orcas continue their precise circuit on my screen. "The pod's reacting to it. They won't leave."

A pause, longer than I'd like. When Calder speaks again, there's an edge to his voice. "Be careful. If there's a convergence point that far out, it could be unstable."

"I'm going down to take a look. Get some readings, collect water samples from the convergence point."

"Jonah—"

"I'll be fine. This is what I do, remember?" I'm already double-checking my dive gear, running through the mental checklist I've followed hundreds of times. Tank pressure good. Regulator functioning. Compass calibrated. "I'll call you when I surface."

"Stay on the radio."

"Will do."

But I'm already thinking about what I might find below, about the way the ley lines hum through Redwood Rise like a living current and what it means that they've reached this far into the ocean.

The grizzly paces inside me, agitated but curious.

We're both hunters in our own way—me with my research equipment and field notes, him with teeth and claws and instinct older than recorded time.

The water is cold when I roll backward off the boat, the shock of it clearing my head even through the drysuit. Underwater, sound changes. The boat's engine becomes a distant thrum. The orcas' calls echo through the water column, closer now, more urgent.

The water temperature drops as I descend—52 degrees at the surface, colder here at depth.

I watch my depth gauge: thirty feet, fifty, seventy-five.

My ears equalize with practiced ease. The rocky formation materializes through the murk gradually—a ridge of stone rising from the seafloor, covered in kelp forests and barnacle colonies.

A harbor seal darts past, spooked by my presence.

Under normal circumstances, I'd pause to observe it, maybe grab some video footage.

Today there's nothing normal about what I'm seeing, and it's glowing.

Not brightly. Not like bioluminescence or any natural phenomenon I've catalogued in ten years of marine research.

This glow comes from within the rock itself, pulsing in waves that match the frequency I heard on the hydrophone.

Golden threads of light weave through the stone like veins, the same way the ley lines appear when Calder lets his vision open to them on land.

The animal in me reacts with recognition. And warning.

The energy pouring off this convergence point feels corrupted. Tainted. Like rot spreading through healthy tissue, poisoning everything it touches.

I swim closer, taking measurements with my instruments even as every instinct screams at me to surface, to get away, to warn my brothers that something is deeply broken here. The orcas circle overhead, their massive bodies casting shadows across the rock. They're not hunting. They're not playing.

They're trapped.

The ley energy is drawing them, holding them, keeping them fixed in this pattern like insects caught in amber. The pull drags at me now too—a magnetic force that wants to tug me closer to the convergence point, to the place where all those golden threads meet and twist together.

I kick hard, putting distance between myself and the formation. Need to surface. Need to radio Calder with this information. This isn't just an anomaly; this is a threat. If the ley lines are corrupted this far from Redwood Rise, what else has been affected?

The radio static fills my ear as I try to transmit. "Calder, are you receiving? The convergence point is corrupted. Something's—"

The transmission cuts out. Dead air. Not even static now, just silence broken only by my breathing through the regulator and the distant calls of the trapped orcas.

The ley energy is interfering with the signal.

I surface long enough to gulp air and reorient myself. The boat rocks steadily fifty yards away, right where I left it. Afternoon sun hangs low, painting the water copper and gold. From up here, everything looks peaceful. Normal.

The contrast between surface calm and what's happening below makes my skin crawl.

The smart move would be swimming back to the boat, radioing for help, letting Calder handle this from shore with proper equipment and backup.

But that's not how Hayes men operate. We don't retreat when our territory is threatened, and these waters are as much mine as the forests are Calder's.

I check my tank gauge—still three-quarters full—and descend again.

The convergence point burns brighter than before, as if my presence activated something. The golden threads pulse faster, weaving together in patterns that hurt to look at directly. The bear surges against my control, wanting to shift, wanting the strength and power of our other form.

Not yet. Not underwater. Even grizzlies have limits.

I reach for a sample container, trying to collect some of the water closest to the formation. My hands shake as the ley energy washes over me. Not gentle like the lines beneath Redwood Rise. This feels hungry. Desperate.

The convergence point explodes.

One moment it's glowing, pulsing, broken. The next moment power erupts through the water, sending shockwaves that hit me like a physical blow. The pressure wave tumbles me backward. Equipment tears free from my belt. My regulator rips from my mouth.

And then the vortex opens.

Water spirals inward, creating a massive whirlpool centered directly on the convergence point. I kick hard, fighting against the current, trying to reach the surface that's suddenly impossibly far away. My lungs burn. My vision tunnels.

The ley energy wraps around me like chains.

The bear panics, tries to shift. The transformation begins—fur erupting across my skin, bones starting to reshape—but the ley energy disrupts everything. I'm caught between forms, neither human nor grizzly, vulnerable in ways I've never experienced.

The vortex pulls harder.

I have one desperate second to reach across the distance toward home, toward family. The mental cry tears out of me with everything I have left: Calder. Eli. Beau. Sawyer.

Their names feel like prayers. Like the last words I might ever speak.

The ley lines are broken. Something's coming through. Find me.

And then I see her.

Just a flash in the chaos—a woman's face I've never seen but recognize with the certainty that lives in bone marrow. Dark hair whipping in wind I can't feel. Eyes fierce enough to match my own. A strength that calls to something primal in me.

Mine.

The word echoes through both man and bear. My mate. My future. The one I didn't even know I was searching for until this exact moment when I'm being torn away from any chance of finding her.

The ley energy tears me through the convergence point, and the world splits apart.

I expect water. Ocean. The familiar pressure of the Pacific around me.

Instead, I slam into stone. Dry stone.

My body registers the impossibility before my mind catches up. One second: drowning in the Pacific, lungs burning for air. The next: gasping on solid ground, water streaming off my torn drysuit.

The shadow realm.

I recognize it the instant my bare feet touch ground, even though no Hayes has set foot here in living memory.

The stories passed down through generations of guardians paint this place in whispered warnings—the twisted mirror of our world, the space between dimensions where broken ley energy pools and festers. Where nothing living should survive.

Everything is grey. Shadowed. Fundamentally wrong in ways that make my scientific mind recoil. Light comes from nowhere and casts no shadows, because shadows would imply something solid and real. This place is neither.

My other half thrashes inside me, trying desperately to shift back to our human form, but the transformation won't stabilize. We flicker between states—human, grizzly, something caught in between. Pain lances through every nerve.

Control it. The thought cuts through the panic. You're a Hayes. You're an alpha. Control your bear.

I force the shift back to human through sheer will, gasping as my body finally settles into one form. What remains of my drysuit is shredded. My equipment is gone. I'm barefoot on stone that feels simultaneously freezing and burning hot.

And the shadow corruption starts.

Not slowly. Not gently. It slams into me like a riptide, seeping through skin, muscle, bone.

Black veins spider across my forearms. My blood thickens, turns sluggish.

The grizzly—my constant companion since I first shifted at thirteen—whimpers and retreats deeper inside me, trying to escape what we both know can't be escaped.

I stand slowly, testing my balance, assessing my situation with the same methodical approach I'd use for any research problem.

I force my mind to work like it does in the field. Assess the situation. Trapped between dimensions? Yes. Convergence point malfunction? Clearly. Shadow corruption spreading through my system? Already feel it turning my veins black. But I'm breathing. Thinking. Still myself.

That's what matters.

Most importantly: I'm not dead.

Which means there's a way out.

I test the air, trying to sense the ley lines the way Calder taught me. They're here—faint golden threads that look sickly and pale compared to the vibrant energy back home. But they exist. They connect this realm to mine.

If I can disrupt them from this side, someone might notice on the other side.

The determination settles into my bones like ballast. So I'm trapped—fine. Poisoned by shadow corruption—I've dealt with worse in the field. Stuck in a dimension that shouldn't exist with no equipment, no supplies, no clear exit—just another research problem to solve.

I'm a Hayes. We protect our territory. We guard the ley lines. We don't quit when things get hard.

And now I have something more. That flash of her face—my mate, the woman I didn't know existed until the moment I lost any chance of meeting her—burns in my memory like a North Star.

I start searching for the barriers between worlds, mapping the places where ley lines intersect.

Each convergence point I push against weakens me, feeds more corruption into my blood.

But each disruption sends a pulse back through the network—a pattern Calder should recognize if he's monitoring the flows.

A message in the language of energy: Still here. Still fighting. Come find me.

Days blur into weeks, maybe months. Time moves wrong here—stretches and compresses like reality itself is corrupted.

I map this realm. Because every time I push against the barrier between worlds, I feel her.

Getting closer. Moving through my world while I'm trapped in this twisted reflection of it.

And then—finally—I find it. A weak point where the barrier thins to almost nothing. Where I can taste salt air and smell redwood bark and feel solid ground instead of this nightmare's shifting stone.

I press both hands against the barrier. It gives slightly, like flesh over bone.

On the other side, blurred by dimensional walls but unmistakable, she stands. Not a vision. Her. Real. Moving through my world.

My mate.

She can't see me through the barrier. Not yet. But she will.

The barrier trembles beneath my palms. After pushing against it for what feels like eternity, feeling the corruption spread while I refuse to give up, sending systematic disruptions that scream I'm still here—I've finally found my way back.

She's close enough now that I catch fragments of her scent through the thinning wall. Salt spray and something sweet like honey. Something uniquely hers that makes the grizzly surge with renewed strength despite the corruption eating at us both.

My fingers sink deeper. The barrier stretches. Warmth bleeds through—real warmth from the living world. From home.

From her.

I bare my teeth in a grin that's more bear than man.

Found you.