The second diver's camera swings toward me, his hands shaking as he tries to focus. I move before the lens can capture anything clear. One swipe of my paw and the device tumbles from his grip, spinning down into the darkness below. Their evidence gone.
The first diver makes a small sound—a whimper I hear even through his regulator.
Message delivered. Time to leave.
I surface slowly, making sure both divers break for their boat. They're swimming fast, panicked, no longer worried about documenting their findings. Desperate to get out of the water and away from the impossible creature that shouldn't exist.
Good.
Deepwatchis waiting where I left it, Isla at the rail. She spots me immediately. This is the moment.
I expect fear. Disgust.
What I see instead is wonder.
Her eyes go wide, tracking my approach through the water. I move carefully, aware of how I must look with water streaming from dark fur and claws extended. I surface alongside the boat.
I shift before I can think about what I'm doing, the transformation pulling me back to human form in seconds. I surface as a man, treading water beside the boat.
She leans over the rail. Her expression stops me cold.
"Beautiful." The word comes out breathless, awed. "You're absolutely beautiful."
Not terrifying. Not monstrous. Beautiful. Any ordinary human would be screaming or scrambling for the far side of the boat. She leans closer instead, watching me as if something inside her has been waiting for this moment her entire life.
"You're not afraid." My voice comes out rougher than the ocean around us.
"Of you?" She laughs, and the sound is warm despite the cold evening air. "I've been watching you for days, Grayson. Learning how you think, how you move, how you protect these waters like they're part of your soul." She reaches down, offering her hand to help me aboard. "Seeing your bear doesn't change what I already knew. You're a guardian. In either form."
I take her hand. The contact burns. She hauls with surprising strength while I pull myself over the rail, and then I'm standing on deck, dripping and naked.
She holds my gaze. Doesn't let her eyes drop to catalog the scars that mark my body, the evidence of fights won and lost in defense of these islands. She just watches my face like she's trying to memorize this moment.
"The divers?" Her voice is steady despite the charged air between us.
"Gone." I grab the towel she hands me and wrap it around my waist. "They got footage of the trenches but I destroyed their camera. They saw me, but they won't be able to prove anything."
"Good." She moves toward the helm. "We should get back before they report to Maritime. Declan and the others need to know they're actively searching for proof of something—probably something in the supernatural realm."
But as she starts the engine and guidesDeepwatchtoward harbor, she glances back at me. The same awareness burns in her eyes. The same recognition that we've crossed a line we can't uncross.
She called me beautiful. She looked at my bear, at the most dangerous thing I can become, and saw beauty instead of ugliness.
The water glows beneath us in the fading light. Seals cry somewhere in the distance. Isla's head turns toward the sound, and something crosses her face—recognition, longing, something I can't quite name. The water darkens around us.
Her fingers tighten on the helm before she releases it, and somewhere in the harbor, the water pulses with reflected sunset that matches the rhythm of my heart.
She called me beautiful.
Dangerous. This is dangerous.
But asDeepwatchcuts through darkening water toward harbor, Isla's hands steady on the helm, I can't convince myself to care.
"It's late," I say finally, though neither of us moves. "You should get some rest. The challenges ahead won't wait."
"I know." But she doesn't step away. "Grayson?—"
"I'll walk you back." My voice is rough. "Make sure you get there safely."
