The pier stretches out over dark water that shimmers with reflected starlight, and I walk to the end and stand there, staring down at depths that no longer feel alien. The cold wind tugs at my hair, pulling strands free from the braid that's mostly unraveled over the course of this impossible night. Below me, the water moves with currents I can somehow sense now, patterns that make a kind of intuitive sense even though I couldn't have articulated them yesterday.
I hear his footsteps before I see him. Heavy boots on weathered wood, the solid weight of a man built for strength and endurance rather than speed. He stops beside me, close enough that his warmth cuts through the chill, and for a long moment neither of us speaks.
"My bear led me here." Grayson's voice is rough, stripped of the gruffness he usually wears like armor. "He knew where you'd be."
"She told me what I am." I keep my gaze fixed on the water, not ready yet to face whatever I might see in his expression. "What my grandmother was. Why the sea has called to me for longer than I can remember."
"And?" He looks at me with something that might be hope or might be suspicion. "What are you going to do?"
I turn to look at him finally, and what I see in his face steals my breath. Not judgment or wariness or any of the careful distance he's maintained since I first appeared on his dock. Instead, I see something raw and unguarded, a vulnerabilitythat seems wrong on features usually carved from stone and stubbornness.
"I'm staying." The words come out steadier than I expected. "I'm going to help fight Maritime. I'm going to protect the waters my grandmother left behind."
He doesn't respond immediately, but I feel something pass between us, a current of understanding that has nothing to do with words. His hand rises, hesitates, then settles on my shoulder with a gentleness that seems at odds with his massive frame.
"It'll be dangerous." His voice is low, meant only for me. "Carrick knows what he's hunting. He has resources, connections, artifacts that give him power no human should possess. Standing against him means risking everything."
"I know."
"And you're still choosing to stay."
"I was always going to stay." I cover his hand with my own, and the contact sends that familiar electricity racing up my arm. "I think some part of me knew it the moment I stepped off the ferry. This is where I belong. This is what I was meant to find."
Something changes in his expression, some final barrier crumbling that he's been holding in place since we met. The vulnerability remains, but underneath it I glimpse something fiercer, something hungry that makes my pulse quicken and my breath catch.
"My bear knew." His voice drops even lower, barely audible above the waves. "From the first moment. He recognized you before I understood what I was seeing."
"Recognized me as what?"
He doesn't answer with words. Instead, his hand tightens on my shoulder, drawing me closer until I can feel the heat radiating from his body, until his scent of salt and wind and something wild fills my lungs with every breath. His gaze holdsmine, and in the depths of those eyes I see the struggle between duty and desire, between the guardian who's spent his life keeping others at a distance and the man who's standing on the edge of something he can't control.
The silver at my throat grows warm, and out in the harbor, the water begins to glow with the same faint luminescence I saw in the hidden cove. The sea's responding to us. To me. To whatever impossible thing is building between a bear shifter and a woman with selkie blood awakening in her veins.
The moon watches as we stand on the pier together, two people caught between worlds, between choices, between the safety of what was and the terrifying promise of what might be. The water glows beneath us, and the wind carries the distant cry of seals singing somewhere out in the darkness.
"It's late," Grayson says finally, though his hand doesn't move from my shoulder. "You should get some rest. The challenges ahead won't wait."
"I know." But I don't step away, not yet. "Grayson?—"
"I'll walk you back." His voice is rough. "Make sure you get there safely."
His fingers tighten almost imperceptibly before he releases me, and somewhere in the harbor, the water pulses with light that matches the rhythm of my heart.
The sea chose me long before I chose it back.
And standing here with Grayson beside me, the pendant burning against my chest, I realize my grandmother's story isn't the only one about to unfold on this island.
This time, the selkie stays.
CHAPTER 9
GRAYSON
The sun hasn't cleared the eastern cliffs when Isla boardsDeepwatch, her bag slung over one shoulder and a travel mug steaming in her free hand. She moves with the confidence of someone who's spent the last few days learning the boat's rhythms, stepping from dock to deck without hesitation.
"Morning." She sets her bag down and pulls out a waterproof case containing data loggers and sampling vials. "I want to check the eastern trenches first. The temperature readings from yesterday were off."
No small talk. No complaints about the early hour. Straight to work, the way I prefer it.
