“Zara Stormwright. Ambassador from the Integration Alliance.”
Recognition flickers. “Stormwright. You’re Kael’s sister.”
Even here. Even with a clan that hasn’t contacted the surface in generations.
“I’m Zara Stormwright.”I force the words through gritted teeth. “My own person. Not just his sister.”
He studies me. Then: “Torin Blackwater. Sentinel of the Deep Runners.”
A name. A rank. More than I expected.
“I came in peace. Take me to whoever can decide my fate. That’s all I ask.”
For a moment, I think he’ll refuse. Then he reaches for me—to help me sit up—and his fingers brush my arm.
Lightning arcs from my skin to his.
It’s not voluntary. Not controlled. Not anything I’ve ever experienced before. Pure electrical current leaps between us like a living thing, and where it meets his water-slicked skin,steam rises.
We both freeze.
Something is happening. Something beyond physical contact, beyond simple magic. I feel it hook into my chest—a pull, an anchor, a chain made of fire and water that wraps around my heart andtugs.
Torin’s eyes have gone wide. The gray-green is shot through with something else now—gold, maybe, reflected lightning dancing in their depths. He looks at me like I’m a bomb about to explode.
Maybe I am.
“What—” My voice shakes. “What was that?”
He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t move. Doesn’t even seem to breathe.
But I see the horror dawning on his face. The recognition. The denial that wars with something deeper, something instinctive, something that reaches toward me even as he tries to pull away.
Oh no.
Oh no.
I know what this is. Every shifter knows the stories, even if most never experience it. The bond that transcends species. The connection that demands acknowledgment.
Mate bond.
I’ve just crash-landed into enemy territory with a broken wing, and the universe has decidedthisis the perfect time to bind me to a man whose people just tried to kill me.
The bond pulses between us—electric and aquatic, impossible and undeniable—and neither of us looks away.
2
TORIN
Iglide through the delta currents in shifted form, and for a few precious moments, I remember what peace feels like.
This is where I belong. In the dark. In the depths. Where the water speaks to those patient enough to listen.
My body cuts through the murky water with barely a ripple—sleek and powerful, scales catching the faint bioluminescence that marks our territory. In this form, I’m more otter than man, though the scales and webbing set me apart from the surface creatures we once resembled. Evolution, the elders say. Adaptation. We became what the water needed us to be.
The river talks to me as I swim. Currents carry information like whispered secrets—the flutter of fish heartbeats downstream, the slow pulse of sediment shifting against the riverbed, the distant vibration of our patrol markers humming their warnings to any who venture too close. I feel it all through my skin, through the sensitive scales along my flanks, through the water itself as it flows past my gills.
This is the magic of the Deep Runners. Not flashy. Not violent. Just... connection. The river is alive, and we are part of it.
