The scream is short, cut off by the rocks below. I don't wait to see if he survives. I just run, following the path that winds down toward the water. The ocean is calling me with a voice that bypasses language and speaks directly to something ancient in my blood.
More pursuers emerge from above and below, cutting off my escape routes. They're herding me. Driving me toward a specific destination. Toward capture, toward Carrick, toward whatever fate he has planned.
Movement catches my eye above—the grey wolf reaching the tree line at the top of the cliffs. Jax made it to safety. He stops at the edge, watching me, but there are too many attackers between us for him to help. I'm on my own now.
The path ends at a rocky beach, waves rolling in with hypnotic rhythm. Nowhere left to run except into the water. And that's suicide—the ocean here is treacherous, full of riptides and hidden currents that pull swimmers under and don't let go.
But the pendant is molten against my chest, and the water is singing.
'Trust us,'the waves whisper.'Come home.'
I hear boots hitting stone behind me. Voices shouting coordinates, closing the trap. The beach offers no cover, no escape, just thirty feet of exposed sand and rock between me and the churning sea.
So I do the only thing that makes sense in a moment where nothing makes sense.
I dive.
The water closes over my head, shockingly cold. I kick deeper, away from the surface, away from the hunters, away from everything except the ocean's welcoming embrace. The pendant blazes against my chest, hot enough to burn, and power surges through my body with overwhelming force.
Mist erupts around me underwater. Thunder rolls through the depths, a sound that bypasses my ears and resonates in my bones. Silver and blue light flares so bright I have to close my eyes against it.
When I open them, everything has changed.
I'm no longer human. The transformation happened in a heartbeat—one second drowning, the next surging through the water with effortless grace. My body is sleek and powerful, built for the ocean in ways my human form never was. Flippers propel me through the depths with speed that makes my heart sing. Mywhiskers sense pressure changes, current flows, the presence of living things all around me.
This is what I was always meant to be.
The ocean welcomes me like a mother welcoming home a long-lost child. Water flows past my streamlined body, and I understand it—not with science or data but with instinct that goes bone-deep. I can taste the water's moods, feel its ancient rhythms, sense every fish and crab and drifting strand of kelp. The pressure that should crush me feels like a comfortable weight, holding me safe.
Above and behind, my pursuers are struggling. Human bodies weren't meant for these depths. Even supernatural ones have limits. But I belong here. This is my element, my birthright, my home.
I dive deeper, following currents that sing through the water. Bioluminescence blooms around me, organisms responding to my passage with cascades of light. They're welcoming me too, recognizing what I am. What I've always been, sleeping under human skin.
Joy floods through me, pure and uncomplicated. Every movement feels right. Every breath of water through my lungs is natural and perfect. I could stay like this forever. Swim away from land, from danger, from everything except the endless ocean and the freedom of this form.
The thought is intoxicating. To just... be. No more pretending to be fully human. No more fighting what I am. Just endless water and the joy of moving through it as I was meant to.
But even as the temptation pulls at me, something else anchors me to the surface world. Grayson's face in the tower this morning. Jax's wolf fighting to buy me time. An island that Carrick wants to exploit, and the ancient power sleeping beneath these waters that he wants to control.
I can't abandon them. Can't choose the easy path when people I care about are in danger.
The decision is harder than it should be. My seal form doesn't want to leave the water. Every instinct screams to dive deeper, swim farther, embrace what I've become and leave the human world behind. But I'm still Isla underneath the sleek fur and flippers. Still the woman who fell in love with a bear guardian. Still the scientist who came to protect these waters.
So I turn back toward shore, toward the surface, toward the life I'm not ready to abandon. My body protests, wanting to stay in the depths where everything makes perfect sense. But I force myself upward, following the light filtering down from above.
Breaking the surface is like leaving paradise. Air feels wrong after breathing water. The sounds are harsh and discordant after the ocean's gentle whispers. But I keep swimming toward the rocky beach, toward the waiting threat, toward everything that matters more than my own comfort.
When the water grows shallow enough that I can't swim anymore, the transformation happens again. Mist swirls around me as thunder rumbles across the bay. Silver and blue light flares bright enough to make my eyes water. My body convulses with the change—seal one second, human the next, sprawled in the shallows gasping for air my lungs have to remember how to use.
The exhaustion hits like a physical blow. Two transformations in quick succession have drained something essential from me. My limbs shake as I drag myself from the water, barely able to stand. The pendant has cooled against my skin, its work done for now, but I can feel the echo of what it gave me. The memory of perfect freedom, of belonging completely to the sea.
The beach is empty now—either my pursuers gave up or they're regrouping for another attempt. Either way, I haveminutes at most before they come back. I force myself to move, climbing the rocky path back toward the cliffs with legs that barely support my weight.
When I look down at my hands, they're fully human. No webbing, no shimmer, just ordinary flesh and bone. But I know what they can become now. What I can become. The seal is part of me, sleeping just beneath my skin, waiting for the next time I need her.
A shadow moves at the cliff edge above. Too far away to identify, but the way it stands—patient, watching, calculating—sends a chill through my exhausted body.
Carrick. Or one of his people. Waiting to see what I'll do next.
