Page 38 of Grizzly's Grump
CHAPTER 14
CALDER
The ground splits with a groan that echoes through my bones, a deep, seismic crack that starts under the soles of my boots and climbs straight up my spine. The vibration isn’t just sound—it’s sensation, like the mountain itself is trying to speak.
My knees flex automatically, instincts kicking in before thought can catch up. The scent of scorched bark, turned soil and molten rock hits me hard, sharp and wild, riding in on air that feels too still, too wrong. Somewhere behind the food truck, birds take off in a frenzied scatter, wings beating like a warning. I swear I hear the deer crash deeper into the trees, their hooves a panicked drumbeat fading into the distance. Even the insects fall silent.
The forest knows. And whatever’s coming, it isn’t natural—it’s ley-fed, alive, and angry. Before I even have a chance to react, the earth heaves under my boots, and a deafening crack rips through the clearing like a tree snapping in two.
One moment, Cilla’s standing behind her food truck, cheeks flushed from baking and sunshine, laughing at something Sawyer said. Next, the wind whips sideways and the sky turns the wrong shade of blue. The ground bucks beneath us with alow, grinding rumble, and I know—I know—the ley lines have snapped wide open.
"Cilla!" I bark, already running. Fen’s voice flashes through my head—'she might make it worse’—but I shove it down. I don’t care if the whole damn mountain comes apart. I won’t let it take her.
Mist rolls in fast, wild and violet-tinged, not the soft shimmer we’ve seen before but a violent, pulsing wave of power. Trees sway at unnatural angles. Branches crack and fall like broken bones.
She doesn't scream... doesn’t run. She freezes, her eyes locked on the swirling chaos crawling out of the forest like a living thing. Her lips part on a breath I can’t hear, but her eyes—fuck, those eyes—find me through the storm like I’m the only solid thing left in her world.
I don’t think. I don’t shift consciously. My bear rips free with a roar that feels like it tears the sky apart. The sound is raw, guttural—less a noise, more a primal warning that vibrates through the marrow of the earth. The mist detonates outward in a violent rush, swirling with violet and gold, enveloping me like a living storm as the shift slams through me. It’s a detonation in my blood—heat and instinct and force merging in a single blinding second. My spine stretches. My bones reshape. Every nerve catches fire. It’s not pain, exactly—it’s too intense for that. It’s a tearing open, a becoming, like the mountain itself is building me into something fierce enough to fight the sky.
The ley lines fuel the shift as it surges through me, wild and unrelenting, as if recognizing what I’ve become. Their energy tangles with my own, filling me until I’m nothing but motion and fury and purpose. The shift completes in a breath, and I land hard on four paws, the earth cracking beneath my weight. I blink through fresh eyes, vision sharper than glass, breath sawing through my lungs as the scent of scorched redwoods andley-burned moss hits me like a strike to the face. I’m massive, hulking, charged.
And she’s behind me. She’s not like anyone else the lines have touched. Not hikers. Not strangers. Not even other shifters. They react to her. I felt it the second she arrived. And now it’s undeniable—this storm, this surge—it’s not just happening around her. It’s because of her. Or something in her.
The smell slams into me—sharper, more vivid than anything I could register in human form. The heat of the ley lines singes the edges of the mist, and behind it all, Cilla’s scent hits me like a beacon: sugar, sunlight, and something uniquely hers. My hearing sharpens until the world screams with clarity—her breath catching behind me is thunder, her heartbeat a wild, galloping drum I would chase into death. Every instinct in me tunnels down to one thing—her. She’s behind me. She’s in danger. And nothing—nothing—is going to touch her.
The forest becomes a war zone of movement and sound, branches shrieking as they fall, the ley surge snarling like a beast of its own. My bear doesn’t see the chaos—it sees her, small and vulnerable and precious, and everything in me zeroes in on that one truth. Protect. Shield. Keep her safe at all costs. My paws dig into the earth as I surge forward, a wall of fur and fury between her and whatever the ley lines think they’re doing. There’s no pain, no hesitation—just instinct and need and her.
I launch forward, throwing my body between her and the falling limb above her head. The branch crashes against my back and splinters harmlessly. My paws hit the earth, and the impact sends a shockwave through the surge. The mist snarls and recoils.
I stand tall on my two hind feet, massive, fangs bared, fur bristling. A challenge to the ley lines themselves. My roar drowns out everything. The storm pauses—just for a second—but it's enough.
The pulse that had been building in the earth falters. The swirling mist slows, curling back toward the forest like smoke pulled by a wind no one feels.
I stand between Cilla and whatever might be trying to take her, chest heaving, muscles trembling with the aftershocks of the shift. The surrounding storm is receding, the mist curling away in lazy tendrils, but I don't shift back. I can’t. My bear is still clawing just beneath the surface—too raw, too wound tight with her scent and the primal rush of needing to protect her. Every breath I take is thick with earth and scorched bark, and her—sweet and warm and mine. My claws dig slightly into the soil as I stay rooted above her, every instinct screaming to shield, to claim, to never let harm close again.
“Calder!”
It’s Beau’s voice, distant but sharp, carried on the ley-charged wind. I barely register it through the haze, through the roar still in my ears.
“Calder, listen to me! You’re too close to the line. You’re not fully in control.”
But I’m already between Cilla and the danger, already bracing for impact. His warning cuts through like a thread of clarity—too late to stop me, but enough to wedge in the back of my mind.
"Cilla, keep away from him..."
She shakes her head. "I have nothing to fear."
And then, she steps toward me—slow and steady, like approaching something sacred and wild. The mist still curls at our feet, the air charged with a thrum of energy that hasn’t quite faded, but she doesn’t hesitate. Her gaze never leaves mine. Each footfall is deliberate, her breath hitching slightly as she crosses the space between us, fearless and fierce. Her presence carves through the chaos like sunlight through fog, and with every step, the roaring in my blood quiets just a little more.
She’s trembling, but it’s not fear—it’s adrenaline, awe, something electric and reverent that has her vibrating with belief in what just happened, in me. Her chest rises and falls in shallow bursts, like her body’s still catching up. One hand curls at her side, fingers twitching as if she’s resisting the urge to reach for me too soon. Flour smudges her cheek, and a strand of hair clings to her lips, but her eyes... they’re locked on mine, full of something fierce and unwavering.
She’s not crying. Not panicked. Her hair’s a wild halo from the wind and mist, but her hands are steady as she steps closer, palm up—not cautious, not tentative, but certain. Like she’s greeting something ancient and revered, something she already knows by heart. A creature of myth made flesh—and still, somehow, me. Trust radiates from her in waves, unshaken and fearless, a quiet force that stills the primitive thing within my soul.
“Calder,” she says softly. “I know you’re in there.”
My bear growls, low and conflicted. Not at her—never at her—but at myself, at the storm, at how close it came.
But her hand touches my chest, right over the space where my heart thunders in both man and beast. And just like that, my bear settles.
