Page 24 of Roaring Heat
"It’s not just physical. My bear recognized you the second he saw you. So did I. Everything in me says you belong here. With me."
She presses her lips together. "And if I wanted to belong more fully? If I wanted to be... like you?"
My heart stops.
"You don’t have to decide now," I say, voice rough. "But if you ever wanted it, I could turn you. Make you one of us. It would bond us completely. Physically. Emotionally. Energetically. The ley lines would anchor you."
Her breath hitches. "What would that mean? What would I lose?"
"Nothing essential. You’d gain strength, heightened senses, longevity. You'd still be you. But you’d be grizzly too. And mine in a way that binds deeper than words."
Anabeth goes quiet.
I let the silence stretch.
She finally whispers, "Would it hurt?"
"No. It's ceremonial, deliberate. There’s a sacred circle, a ritual blade to draw blood from our palms, and a binding sash to join us together. My DNA will overwrite yours and you will transition. It’s not just change. It’s a vow written into the fabric of who we are."
She turns to face me fully, eyes wide and uncertain. "I don’t know what scares me more. That you’re real, or that I’m considering this."
I brush a knuckle along her cheek. "I’m not going anywhere. You don’t have to do anything except stay. Just be here with me. The rest can wait."
Anabeth exhales shakily and leans into me.
"Okay. I’ll stay."
With those words, something inside me steadies. But I know the storm hasn’t passed. Not even close. The weight of what'scoming knots low in my gut, pressing hard and biting, the air thick with things unseen and still on the horizon, but moving toward us.
Something is coming. I feel it like a low hum under my skin, a warning threaded into the bones of the mountain. The air tightens, charged with an unease I can't name. A vibration, distant but familiar, prickles along the back of my neck.
Now that she’s mine, I’ll level Redwood Rise before I let it take her from me.
CHAPTER 12
ANABETH
The morning sunlight pours across the bedroom floor like warm honey, slow and golden. I wake with a deep ache throughout my body, the echo of last night lingering in the tender hum beneath my skin.
Beau lies beside me, one arm draped across my waist, his breathing slow and even. The heat of his body seeps into mine, a steady furnace that anchors me to the mattress and blurs the line between where he ends and I begin. I feel the rise and fall of his chest at my back, each exhale drifting over the nape of my neck in lazy waves that lift goosebumps along my skin. His arm isn’t just weight. It’s possessive in the most comforting way, a barrier between me and the world, a promise pressed against my ribs.
I shift slightly, just enough to feel the flex of his muscles and the instinctive tug of his fingers, as though even in sleep he refuses to let me go. The contact is grounding, sensual, and dangerously addictive. The kind of closeness I didn’t know I craved until now. My skin tingles where we touch, every brush of breath and subtle pull an unspoken claim. I let myself sink into the rhythm of him, into the steady thrum of warmth and protection, holding still as though moving might shatter the fragile, perfect spell.
There’s a pull inside me, low and insistent, like a thread tethered between us. I can feel it when I close my eyes. It isn't just the heat of his body beside mine, but a dense, magnetic pull beneath my skin, as if something primal recognizes him and refuses to let go. A connection I can’t explain, but one that has sunk its hooks in whether I want it to or not.
When I finally ease out of bed, the sheets whisper against my skin, and I reach for my robe with a hesitant hand. Sliding it over my shoulders, I brace for the invisible tether to him to snap, to vanish like a dream in the light of morning. But it holds firm, humming with a low vibration like a second heartbeat, steady and unyielding.
Padding to the dining table, I flip open my field laptop and press the power button. The satellite connection takes a moment, but then my logs pull up, data scrolling fast across the screen. My jaw tightens as I read the timestamp, a pulse of adrenaline hitting hard in my chest. I blink at the number, then again, heart thudding as understanding clicks into place. Awe shivers through me like static electricity, sudden and crackling at the edges of my mind, but it’s quickly chased by something even more consuming.
A tremor of fear winds its way up my spine, not just from the data, but from how deeply I already feel tied to him and to all of this. The realization lands like a blow to the chest, forcing the breath from my lungs. My stomach twists, cold and hollow, as the sheer scale of what this might mean sinks in.
Last night triggered an unprecedented surge in ley line energy. This wasn’t a subtle tremor or even a rhythmic pulse. It was an explosive upheaval that blew past every recorded threshold, breaking patterns I thought were immutable.
"Well, that’s subtle," I mutter to myself, scrolling through the wave pattern.
The peak hit precisely at the moment Beau and I were together. My heart kicks against my ribs, a sudden flutter of disbelief and something that edges too close to awe. I lean back, swallowing hard, as the weight of what this could mean settles in my chest like a stone.
The ley lines didn’t just pulse or shimmer. They spiked. They surged in time with us, in sync with that moment of raw, undeniable connection. I press the heels of my hands into my eyes and take a slow breath, trying to calm the tremor threading through me. The ley lines responded. Not just to me, but to us. And I don’t know whether to be thrilled or terrified by that.
