"Because you've mapped locations that have been hidden from human knowledge for centuries." Declan's tone isn't accusatory, just matter-of-fact. "Either you're the most brilliant marine biologist of your generation, or something is guiding your instruments toward places they shouldn't be able to find."
The pendant flares with sudden heat, and I resist the urge to touch it.
"Why don't we start with why you invited me here?" My voice stays level despite the racing of my heart. "Grayson said you could explain what's really happening in these waters. What the corporation is threatening beyond the ecological damage."
The silence that follows my question thickens, becomes something I can almost touch. Glances pass between the gathered group, a wordless conversation I can't follow. Finally, Declan nods, some decision reached.
"What do you know about the supernatural, Isla?"
The question catches me off guard. "Folklore? Legends? My grandmother used to tell me stories about selkies and sea creatures, if that's what you mean."
"Not folklore." Moira moves to stand beside me, her presence somehow calming despite the strangeness of the situation. "Not legends. What do you know about things that actually exist beyond what science has documented?"
"I'm a scientist. I believe in what can be observed and measured and replicated."
"And yet you've observed things in these waters that can't be explained by any existing scientific framework." Declan holds my gaze without flinching. "Shapes on your sonar that don't match known marine life. Temperature anomalies that violate thermodynamic principles. Whales behaving in ways that defy biological understanding."
Every word lands like a stone in still water, rippling outward through my carefully constructed worldview.
"How do you know what I've observed?"
"Because we've been watching those same waters for centuries." He steps closer, and the air around him seems to crackle with contained energy. "We've been protecting them. Guarding them against exactly the kind of exploitation that Maritime Development Corporation represents."
"We?" My gaze sweeps the room, taking in the predatory stillness that marks every person present. "Who are you people?"
Declan looks at Grayson, who nods. Then he turns back to me, and when he speaks, his voice carries the weight of secrets kept for centuries.
"We're shape-shifters, Isla. Beings who walk in human form but carry something older inside us." He pauses, letting the words settle. "I'm a wolf. Rafe is a panther. Grayson is a bear. Each of us carries an animal spirit that shares our skin, our senses, our lives."
The rational part of my mind wants to laugh, to dismiss this as elaborate theater or collective delusion. But that part has been growing quieter with every strange thing I've witnessed since arriving on Skara, and it falls silent entirely when I look at Grayson.
He meets my eyes without shame or uncertainty. "It's true. Everything he's saying. I carry a bear inside me, and he recognized you the moment you stepped onto my dock."
"Recognized me as what?"
"As someone who belongs to the sea." Finn's voice drifts across the room like tide over sand. "As someone whose blood carries traces of the old magic, whether you know it or not."
My grandmother's face surfaces in my memory, her eyes fixed on the horizon as she told me stories about selkies who shed their skins to walk on land. The photograph in my desk drawer, the young woman clutching something gray and foldedagainst her chest. The letter that spoke of gifts and callings and blood running stronger than she dared believe.
"The corporation." My voice sounds distant to my own ears. "What does it threaten, exactly?"
"Everything." Moira's hand touches my arm gently. "The sacred waters aren't just ecologically significant. They're places where the boundary between our world and something older grows thin. Where shifters can commune with powers that have existed since before humans walked upright. If Maritime Development Corporation dredges those channels, if they expose what lies in those depths, it won't just destroy the ecosystem. It will destroy us. Expose our existence to a world that isn't ready to know we exist."
"And you're telling me this because?"
"Because you're already involved." Declan's voice softens slightly. "Your research has brought you closer to our secrets than any outsider in living memory. And because Grayson believes you can be trusted. Believes you might even be able to help us stop what's coming."
Grayson's hand is steady against my back, an anchor in a sea of impossible revelations. Every instinct screams that I should run, should flee this room full of creatures that shouldn't exist and pretend this night never happened. That's what a rational person would do. That's what a scientist would do.
But rationality has been failing me since I arrived on this island. Since the water started responding to my presence. Since the pendant began pulsing with heat I can't explain. Since the dreams started dragging me down into depths where I breathed darkness like air and found it sweeter than oxygen.
"Show me." The words come out before I can stop them. "If what you're saying is true, show me proof."
Another exchange of glances. Then Declan nods at Jax, who rises from his position near the door with fluidgrace. The scarred man moves to the center of the room, his expression unreadable, and strips off his clothes with efficient, unselfconscious movements—shirt, boots, jeans—until he stands naked before all of us.
I should look away. Instead, I stare, cataloguing the scars that map his body like a history of violence.
What happens next defies every law of biology I've ever studied.
