"Supernatural." I taste the word, trying to fit it into a framework built on empirical evidence and peer-reviewed science. "Dragons are real. What else is real? Werewolves? Vampires? Fairies?"
"Shifters. Phoenixes. Sea witches." His mouth hardens into a grim line. "Things you don't need to know about because you're leaving."
The pieces snap together with sickening clarity. The drownings look like ritual sacrifices. The algae concentrationssuggest deliberate cultivation. Finn's cave was filled with bioluminescence that moved like it was breathing. The cellular structures I couldn't classify came from something that isn't supposed to exist.
"The algae." My voice sounds distant, clinical, the scientist in me cataloging data even as my worldview crumbles. "Someone is harvesting it. Using it to kill humans. Some kind of magic powered by marine biology."
"Yes. Blood magic to be specific."
“Blood magic?”
“Yes. A kind of forbidden form of sorcery that utilizes blood as a power source to fuel spells, rituals, or curses.”
“Do you actually believe that?”
“Yes.”
"And you knew. The whole time I've been investigating, collecting samples, building a case. You knew what was really happening."
"Knew. Didn't care." His tone holds no apology, no regret, just flat acknowledgment. "Your investigation. Your problem. Until you became mine."
"But someone else knows now." I glance toward the shadows where that presence watched us. "Whoever was in the forest. They saw you transform. They know you're protecting me."
Raw fury crosses his face, possessive and violent. "Which is why you leave before they use you against me."
I take a step backward, then another, until rocks press against my spine. The collection bag lies where I dropped it, the zipper torn open from impact. Vials roll across volcanic stone, samples I spent days gathering now exposed to contamination.
The combat knife reflects moonlight, and I notice an etched symbol near the hilt, geometric and deliberate, like a brand or marking of ownership.
I file it away as evidence I don't understand yet but might become important.
"I need to go." The words come automatically, survival instincts finally catching up to shock. "I need to process this. Figure out what I'm dealing with."
"You're dealing with people who gut anyone who sees too much." Finn doesn't move closer, but his presence fills the space between us. "Pack. Leave. Forget Skara exists."
"Forget." A laugh bubbles up, edged with hysteria I refuse to acknowledge. "You transformed into a dragon in front of me. Rewrote every law of physics I know. Confirmed that mythology is real and science is incomplete. And you think I can just forget?"
"I don't give a damn what you can or can't forget." His expression goes cold. "You stay here, you die. Simple as that."
The threat hangs between us, brutal and honest. He's not trying to scare me. He's stating facts. Whatever else he is, whatever impossible nature he's revealed, he doesn't want me dead.
I bend down and retrieve the collection bag. Most of the vials survived the fall intact. The samples inside represent days of work, patterns that prove deliberate environmental manipulation—evidence that could expose an operation responsible for multiple deaths but evidence I can't use without explaining how I know what's really happening.
"I'll leave." The words taste like defeat. "But I'm keeping my research. Whatever is happening here, people are dying. And if dragons and blood magic and supernatural trafficking are real, then someone needs to document it."
"Document it and they'll gut you for the evidence." His voice drops to something that scrapes across my nerves. "That how you want to die? Choking on your own blood while they rip your research from your corpse?"
I meet his eyes. The aquamarine glow is fading now, humanity settling back over features that shifted from man to dragon and back again. He's beautiful, terrifying, impossible—everything I thought I understood about the world condensed into a form that defies classification.
"I'm a scientist." My voice steadies despite the tremors running through my hands. "I document truth. Whether that truth fits existing models or shatters them entirely."
A dark, possessive look crosses his face. "Then document it somewhere you might survive the week."
He turns and walks toward the forest. The darkness takes him, and the only proof he was ever there is the attacker’s combat knife on the ground and my vials at my feet.
I stand alone on the coastal path, surrounded by tidal pools and evidence of a transformation that violated every principle I've built my career on. The silvery mist and thunder. The instantaneous change. The complete cellular reorganization. The wings that spread wide enough to block the moon. The eyes that glowed with light that has no source in human biology.
A dragon.
