You're like me, the presence seemed to whisper through the sand and wind and waves. You carry the ocean. You cannot use it. You are hunted for it.
Jasmine had fallen to her knees in the shallow water, tears streaming down her face. "You brought us here to save us."
But there was more. She could feel it pressing at the edges of her awareness. The island hadn't just been a refuge. It had been waiting. For years—centuries, maybe—it had existed in patient isolation, sustained by the sacrifice of the woman who'd created it. Waiting for someone like her. Someone who carried the same impossible power.
Someone who might finally be able to use it.
Because the woman who'd created this place had done so with a purpose beyond simple survival. She'd been preparing. Building a sanctuary, yes, but also a crucible. A place where power could grow without interference. Where someone like her might one day arrive and, protected by the isolation, finally learn to access what had been locked away.
The child, the presence whispered. She is why I drew you here. She will do what we could not.
Jasmine had understood then. The crash—or whatever had brought them to this place—hadn't been an accident. The island had reached out across the barriers between worlds and pulled them here. It had sensed her pregnancy, sensed the merging of her impossible energy with Althander's shifter power, and recognized that the resulting child would be unprecedented.
So it had acted. Had violated its own isolation to bring them here, to this protected space where the child could gestate without interference, where that vast ocean of power could pour into the developing life without drawing the attention of those who would seek to control it or destroy it.
"We were never trapped," Jasmine had told Althander that night, her voice hollow with the weight of understanding. "We were chosen. This island chose us. Chose her." She pressed her hand to her swollen belly. "It's been protecting her since before she was even conceived. Preparing a safe place for something it knew was coming."
Althander had been silent for a long time, processing. Finally, he'd asked the question that mattered most: "Then why can they find us now? If this place is supposed to be hidden, why are those lights getting closer?"
And Jasmine had known the answer to that too, though speaking it aloud made her want to scream.
"Because she's too powerful now. The island's protections were designed to hide someone like me—someone carrying dormant energy. But she's active. She's using that power, shaping it, organizing it. Every time she reaches out, every time she pulses energy like she did earlier, it's like lighting a beacon in the darkness." She'd looked at him with desperate eyes. "The island brought us here to keep her safe while she grew. But now that she's near term, now that she's so powerful she can't help but radiate energy... the very power that the island wanted to protect is making her impossible to hide."
They were caught in an impossible paradox. The island had given their daughter a safe space to develop her unprecedented abilities. But those very abilities had grown too strong for even this pocket dimension to conceal.
The hunters were coming. And all the ancient magic that had sustained this refuge for centuries wouldn't be enough to stop them.
The truth about who was coming—and why—revealed itself to Althander three nights before the birth.
He'd been patrolling the perimeter of their shelter when he'd caught a scent on the wind. Not physical. Spiritual. The kind of marker that only shifters could detect, a signature left deliberately for him to find. His wolf had recognized it instantly, and every hair on his body had stood on end.
Garrett. His father.
But not just his father. The scent carried the weight of the entire Silver Ridge Council—all seven elders, their combined presence like a fist wrapped around his throat even from miles away.
They'd found him. After four years, his clan had finally tracked him down.
He'd returned to Jasmine white-faced, his hands trembling. "They're not just hunting us. They're coming to execute a verdict."
She'd stared at him, not understanding. "What verdict?"
"The one they just passed. On all three of us."