Chapter 13 #2
"We'll see about that." Planting my paws, I dig claws into stone for purchase.
My muscles coil, every fiber straining as I reach deep into the ley line connection.
The power burns as it flows through me, searing along pathways that weren't meant to channel this much energy this fast. Golden light blazes brighter, so intense it casts shadows in a realm that shouldn't have them.
Not just my own energy now, but pulling from the lines themselves, using our bond as a conduit to channel raw power into this corrupted place.
Heat builds under my fur. The stone beneath my paws begins to crack from the energy pouring through me. My vision edges with white, the strain of holding this much power making my eyes water.
Jonah charges the anchor point while I focus on maintaining the flow.
His massive bear form slams into the construct with devastating force.
The impact sounds like a building collapsing.
Cracks spider across the surface, and the faces trapped inside wail soundlessly.
His claws tear at the woven darkness, muscles bunching and releasing with each strike.
Each swipe rips chunks away that dissolve into nothing, but the construct tries to repair itself, shadow matter flowing like living tar to fill the gaps.
He roars in frustration and hits it again, harder. His shoulder drives into the weakening structure. Something cracks—the construct or his bones, impossible to tell. Blood streaks his fur where the corrupted energy burns on contact, but he doesn't stop. Can't stop.
More power flows through the bond, feeding him strength even as exhaustion claws at me. The golden barrier around us pulses with each heartbeat, expanding and contracting like lungs breathing light into darkness.
The Guardian screams.
Shadow forms erupt from every surface, attacking us from all sides. But the golden barrier holds, burning through anything that gets too close. I'm the shield. Jonah's the weapon.
Together, we're unstoppable.
Or we would be, if exhaustion wasn't dragging at my limbs. Channeling this much power through a body that's barely learned to be a bear is costing me. My vision blurs at the edges. My legs shake with effort.
The Guardian senses my weakness. Its voice slides into my mind, bypassing my ears entirely.
Images flood my consciousness. The car accident that killed my parents.
The foster homes where I never quite fit.
The moment Derek told me I wasn't worth the effort.
Every abandonment, every rejection, every time someone chose to leave me.
"You're alone," the Guardian whispers. "You've always been alone. Even now, even bonded, you know he'll leave eventually. They all leave. You're not worth staying for."
The words hit harder than any physical attack. Old wounds tear open, bleeding despair I thought I'd healed from. My concentration wavers. The golden light flickers.
Jonah falters too. The Guardian is showing him his six months here. The isolation. The corruption spreading through his bear. The certainty that he'd never escape, never see home again, never find the mate his instincts insisted was waiting.
"This is truth," the Guardian hisses. "Suffering. Loss. Solitude. Everything else is illusion. Light is temporary. Shadow is eternal."
No.
The denial comes from somewhere deep and absolute. Yes, I've been abandoned. Yes, I've been alone. But that's not the whole truth.
I've also been found.
Everything the Guardian is trying to steal, I pour back into Jonah through the bond. My love. My certainty. My absolute refusal to give up on us. He's not alone anymore. Neither am I. We chose each other, and that choice is stronger than any despair the Guardian can manufacture.
The golden light surges back, brighter than before.
Jonah roars and tears deeper into the anchor point, ripping through corrupted ley energy with renewed strength. His gratitude, his love, his determination floods back through our connection, warming me from the inside out.
The faces in the construct begin to fade. The trapped souls, released from whatever holds them, dissipate like morning fog. Without their suffering to feed on, the anchor point starts to crack.
The Guardian makes one last desperate attempt. Its forms coalesce into a single massive shape, all its manifestations combining into something that towers over us. It slams into our protective barrier with the weight of centuries.
The golden light holds.
Barely.
My legs give out. Collapsing onto the stone, every ounce of strength burned away by the effort of maintaining the shield. Through blurring vision, I watch Jonah deliver one final devastating blow to the anchor point's core.
It shatters.
The explosion of shadow energy knocks us both backward.
I hit the ground hard, forced back into human form by sheer exhaustion.
Naked and shaking on cold stone, I watch the anchor point disintegrate.
The pillar crumbles, the corrupted ley energy rushing back toward reality like water finding its level.
The Guardian's scream is everywhere and nowhere, rage and disbelief and something that might be fear.
The realm itself begins to collapse. Stone formations crack and fall. The colorless void darkens, then lightens, then fractures into impossible colors. Without the anchor holding it stable, the shadow realm is tearing itself apart.
And the tear back to reality is sealing.
Jonah shifts back to human, grabbing my arm and hauling me to my feet. "We need to run. Now."
My legs barely support my weight, but he doesn't let me fall.
We sprint through collapsing chaos, the realm dissolving around us.
Chasms open beneath our feet. Shadow creatures throw themselves at us in suicide attacks, trying to delay us long enough that we'll be trapped when the tear seals completely.
Jonah knows the way. Six months gave him an intimate knowledge of this nightmare landscape. He navigates by instinct, pulling me through paths that close behind us immediately.
But I have something he doesn't. My ley line sensitivity acts like a compass even here, pulling me toward reality with magnetic certainty. When he hesitates at a fork in the crumbling path, I tug him left.
"Trust me," the words tear from my throat.
He does.
We run through space that's rapidly becoming absolute nothing. The realm is unmaking itself, returning to whatever void it came from. Shadow creatures dissolve around us, unable to maintain form without the anchor's corrupted energy to sustain them.
The Guardian makes one final attempt. The path ahead shimmers, and suddenly there's another me trapped under fallen stone, crying out for help. Every protective instinct Jonah has screams at him to go to her, to rescue her.
His hesitation pulls at me through the bond. His body angles toward the illusion.
"Jonah!" My scream cuts through the chaos. "I'm right here! Stay with me!"
Everything I have left pours into him through our connection. Not power, I'm too drained for that. Just certainty. Truth. The real connection between us versus the Guardian's lies.
He trusts the bond over his eyes.
We keep running.
The tear appears ahead of us, barely visible in the disintegrating landscape. It's closing fast, reality sealing itself now that the anchor no longer holds it open. Maybe three feet wide. Two. Shrinking with every second.
We're not going to make it.
Yes, we are.
One last burst of speed, pulling Jonah with me. We leap together, the bond stretched taut between us like a rope pulling us forward. The tear's edges brush against us, burning cold as we pass through.
We burst into reality, the tear snapping shut behind us with a sound like thunder.
Solid ground. Real air. The forest of Redwood Rise surrounding us with living green instead of dead grey. Pine and earth flood my senses. I've never been so grateful for the smell of anything in my life.
We collapse together, both naked from the forced shifts, both shaking with exhaustion and relief. The golden bond between us pulses weakly but steadily.
We made it.
Voices converge on us. Jonah's brothers, their mates, all of them gathering around with relief and concern written across their faces. Someone drapes blankets over both of us. Someone else checks Jonah for injuries.
Standing seems like a good idea. My legs don't agree. The moment I try to rise, my vision goes dark at the edges. The cost of channeling that much power catches up all at once. My newly turned body simply doesn't have the reserves to recover this fast.
Jonah's arms catch me as I fall. His voice, rough with panic, calls my name.
The world goes grey at the edges, then black. His arms are the last thing I feel.