Chapter 8
JONAH
The shadows want to open the door wider. Over my dead body.
I surge forward in bear form, massive paws tearing through shadow creatures that reform almost as fast as I destroy them.
They're stronger than before. More organized.
More dangerous. And they're all pushing in one direction—north, toward the main convergence point where the tear between realms bleeds corruption into our world.
Not happening.
A shadow creature lunges at my throat. I catch it mid-air, jaws closing on substance that feels like cold smoke wrapped around bone. My teeth pass through but find purchase on something deeper, something vital. The creature shrieks—a sound like tearing metal—and dissipates into nothing.
Two more take its place immediately.
Eli fights on my left, alternating between human and bear with practiced ease.
He shifts mid-strike, human hands grabbing a creature's core before his bear form tears it apart.
Beau guards the eastern flank, his massive grizzly form a wall of fur and muscle.
Sawyer blocks the path to the cottages, roaring challenges that shake the trees.
The women—Cilla, Anabeth, Quinn—fight with coordinated precision. Cilla's bear form is smaller but faster, darting in to strike at weak points. Anabeth and Quinn work in tandem, one distracting while the other attacks from behind.
But there are so many of them.
And my bear is failing.
The transformation flickers. For a heartbeat I'm caught between forms—half human, half bear, muscles tearing and reforming wrong.
Agony rips through my spine. I force myself back to bear, snarling through the pain that feels like being turned inside out.
The corruption spreads like poison through my veins, making every shift unstable.
A creature rakes claws across my shoulder. The wound burns—not just pain but wrongness, like acid eating into flesh. Blood streams down my foreleg, hot and slick. The corruption in the wound matches the corruption in my veins, spreading, consuming.
I'm running out of time.
Three shadow creatures coordinate an attack. One from the front, two flanking. I swing at the frontal assault, claws passing through its form but the impact still solid enough to send it flying. The ones on my flanks strike simultaneously—claws digging into my sides, teeth seeking my throat.
Eli appears on my right, human form grabbing one creature and hurling it away. "Watch your flank!"
I pivot, catching the other creature before it can strike again. My jaws close on its center mass and I shake hard, the way a dog kills a rat. The creature comes apart in wisps of shadow.
But more keep coming.
The battle splits into pockets of chaos. Beau and Sawyer hold the northern line where the creatures push hardest. Eli fights beside me, covering my weak moments when the shift threatens to fail. The women protect the compound itself, ensuring nothing gets past our defensive line.
A larger creature breaks through—easily twice the size of the others, eyes glowing violet-bright with malevolent intelligence. It moves differently. Faster. More purposeful.
It comes straight for me.
I meet its charge head-on. We collide with bone-jarring force. Its claws rake down my chest, my shoulder wound tears wider, but I get my jaws around what passes for its throat and bite down hard. The creature thrashes, incredibly strong, trying to tear free.
Then I feel it.
The connection between us.
Golden and warm and solid, threading through my chest like a lifeline. Maren. She's somewhere behind me, safe with the others, but her presence anchors me. Steadies the bear. Gives me something to hold onto besides rage and desperation.
I lean into it. Use it. Force myself fully into bear form and keep fighting.
The larger creature finally comes apart in my jaws, dissipating like smoke. I look around. Fewer shadow creatures now. The coordinated assault is breaking. They're retreating.
Not destroyed. Just withdrawing. Regrouping for another attack.
We've won this round.
But barely.
I transform back to human, lungs heaving. Blood runs down my shoulder from the shadow-creature's strike. The wound aches with corruption that matches the poison already in my veins. My brothers gather around me, all of them battered but standing.
"They're getting smarter," Eli says, wiping blood from his mouth. "That was coordinated."
"They're trying to overwhelm us," Beau adds. "Wear us down."
"They're trying to reach the convergence point." I glance north where forest shadows seem deeper, darker. "If they open that tear wider—"
"They won't." Calder appears from the stone circle, energy still crackling around his hands. "But we need to seal it. Soon."
Everyone looks at me. At the blood on my shoulder. At the way I'm still breathing too hard, still fighting to keep control.
"The ceremony," Sawyer says. "When?"
"Dawn," I say. No hesitation. No room for doubt. "We move it to dawn."
Maren appears at my side, fingers finding mine. She's got dirt on her face and determination in her eyes. "Dawn," she agrees.
The others nod and disperse to tend wounds and prepare.
Maren stays close as we walk back to my cabin at the edge of the compound.
She doesn't say anything about the way I'm moving carefully, favoring my injured shoulder.
Doesn't comment on the tremor in my hands or the sweat on my brow despite the cold.
She just stays.
Inside the cabin, I collapse onto the bed. Every muscle aches. The corruption pulses through my veins like a second heartbeat, foreign and wrong. Maren brings water, brings bandages for the shoulder wound that's already starting to heal wrong—too slow, too painful.
"Sleep," she says. "I'll wake you before dawn."
"Stay."
She curls against me, careful of my injuries. Her warmth is better than any medicine. The mate bond hums between us, keeping me grounded. Keeping me human.
I close my eyes.
The nightmares come within minutes.
I'm back in the shadow realm. Darkness presses from all sides, thick and suffocating. Not the darkness of night—this is absence. The complete lack of light, of warmth, of anything living. The corruption burns through my veins like acid, worse here where it originated, where it belongs.
I run through the void, paws striking ground that feels wrong—too soft in places, too sharp in others. The bear is exhausted. I've been running for days. Weeks. Months. Time doesn't work right here. Every direction looks the same. Endless shadow stretching in all directions.
I can't find the way out. Can't find the tear that leads home.
Panic claws at my chest. The human part of me knows I found it once. Fought my way back. Made it home to Maren. But the nightmare twists reality, makes me forget. Makes me believe I'm still here, still trapped, still searching.
"Maren!" I try to call her name but the bear can't speak. The sound that comes out is just a roar that echoes in the emptiness and comes back wrong, distorted, mocking.
Shadow creatures move in the dark. I can't see them but I feel them watching. Waiting. They're in no hurry. They know I'm dying here. Know the corruption is eating me from the inside. Eventually I'll just be another shadow, another lost thing wandering this realm forever.
Maren's face flashes in my mind. Her smile. The way she looked at me without fear even when I shifted in front of her. The way she chose to stay.
She's waiting for me in a world I'll never reach again.
The realization crushes me. I fought so hard to get home. Six months of hell, clawing my way through darkness and shadow creatures and the corruption that spreads through my bear like infection. I made it back. Held her. Kissed her. Told her what she was to me.
And now I'm here again. Trapped. Lost.
The shadow realm stretches on forever. There is no home. There is no Maren. There is only this—
I wake up roaring.
The bear surges out wrong. There's no silvery mist, no instant transformation.
Instead pain explodes through my body—bones cracking and reforming when they should simply change.
Fur erupts across my skin in painful waves instead of flowing naturally.
The shoulder wound tears open as I grow, fresh blood matting my fur.
This isn't how a shift works. This is corruption.
The cabin walls close in as my massive form fills the small space. Maren scrambles away from the bed—smart—putting distance between us. My shoulder slams into the table, shattering it. Claws tear through the mattress.
Rage.
Pure, incandescent rage at being trapped. At the corruption poisoning me from within. At shadow creatures and dimensional tears and everything that's tried to keep me from home, from her, from claiming what's mine.
A snarl rips from my throat.
Maren backs toward the door but doesn't leave. Stands there in the doorway instead.
My bear swings toward the sound. Sees her. I know I should stop, should control this, but the rage is too strong. The corruption makes everything unstable. The bear tries to move toward her but the cabin's too small—I'm wedged between destroyed furniture and walls.
"Jonah Hayes, you get control right now."
Her voice cuts through the frenzy. Not scared. Not pleading. Commanding.
"I didn't choose a mate who gives up. Not after shadow attacks and my asshole ex and eight months documenting this place waiting for you to come home. So you shift back. Now."
Her command hits something primal in me.
My bear hesitates. The rage still burns but her presence—her strength—provides an anchor. The mate bond flares between us, golden and demanding. She's not backing down. Not running. Not treating me like I'm fragile or dangerous or something to be managed.
She's commanding me.
And I respond.
I force the shift. Pain tears through my body as bones crack back into human form. Fur recedes. I collapse to my knees on the destroyed floor of my cabin, gasping, naked and shaking and barely in control.