Page 5 of A Gathering Storm (Tides of Fate)

GRAYSON

The first wave hits Deepwatch broadside, sending me stumbling against the wheelhouse as forty feet of solid fishing boat lurches like driftwood.

Salt spray lashes across my face, stinging eyes already narrowed against the sudden squall that came from nowhere—no warning on the radio, no darkening on the horizon, just instant fury dropping from a clear morning sky.

My nets are still out, three hundred pounds of weighted mesh dragging starboard as the boat pitches into another trough.

The winch screams protest as I fight to haul them in, muscles burning even with my bear's strength lending power to every pull.

Wind tears at my oilskins, finding every gap, every worn seam, driving cold salt water against skin that's weathered worse storms than this.

But not many that came without warning.

The net snaps with a sound like a gunshot, tension releasing so suddenly I nearly go over the rail.

Half the mesh tears away, disappearing into the churning grey along with this morning's catch.

Thousands of pounds worth of fish gone in an instant, but I barely register the loss because something else has caught my attention through the sheets of rain.

Whales.

A pod of humpbacks, moving in perfect formation through waves that should scatter them.

Their massive bodies cut through the chaos like it's nothing, like the storm exists in a different world from wherever they're swimming.

Seven of them—no, eight—all heading the same direction with purpose that makes my bear suddenly alert beneath my skin.

They're heading for the sacred coves.

Their songs reach me even over the wind's howling, even through Deepwatch's groaning hull and the crash of water against steel.

But it's wrong, all wrong. Humpback song should flow like deep currents, ancient and peaceful.

This is synchronized in a way that makes my teeth ache, harmonies layered wrong, like someone playing a tune backward.

Like a warning siren pitched too low for human ears but clear as breaking glass to anyone with the blood to hear it.

My bear pushes closer to the surface, not to shift but to sense, and through him I feel what's disturbing the water.

It ripples outward from the whales like shock waves, like something fundamental has broken in the deep places.

The ancient harmonies that have hummed through these waters since before humans walked upright—they're fractured, discordant, wrong.

The whales circle the hidden inlet where I learned to swim in both my forms, where generations of shifter young discovered what they were under watchful eyes and protected waters.

Through driving rain I watch them form a living barrier around the cove's entrance, massive bodies breaching in patterns I've never seen.

Synchronized leaps that send walls of water twenty feet high.

Tail slaps that echo like thunder. They're not playing or feeding or mating—they're standing guard.

Warning and warding both.

The squall dies as suddenly as it came. One moment Deepwatch is climbing walls of water, the next she's settling into swells that smooth to glass within minutes. The silence that follows is worse than the storm's fury.

The sea never lies this quiet.

Even on the calmest days, there's always sound—waves lapping hulls, wind across water, the distant cry of gulls.

But this is different. This is the held-breath silence of prey that's sensed a predator, of the moment before everything goes wrong.

My bear growls low in my chest, every instinct screaming danger while my eyes see only empty water stretching to empty horizon.

The whales are gone. Not swimming away—just gone, like they were never there. But their warning echoes in the unnatural stillness, in the way the water itself seems to recoil from the sacred coves.

It takes three hours to limp back to shore with damaged nets and a hold that's more seawater than fish.

I don't head for the main harbor—too many eyes, too many questions about the torn gear and the look that must be on my face.

Instead, I guide Deepwatch through the narrow channel that leads to my private mooring, then lower the skiff and row the rest of the way.

The concealed cove welcomes me with its familiar embrace of kelp-scented air and the whisper of waves on sand older than memory.

This place has been sanctuary since before my grandfather's grandfather walked these shores.

Sacred to those who understand what swims in deeper waters, what power flows through tide and current.

Which is why the boot prints in the sand hit like a physical blow.

Fresh. Deep. Multiple sets crossing the high tide line where no human should know to look. My bear rises fast enough to make my skin ripple, control slipping for a moment before I wrestle him back. Not yet. Need to know what we're dealing with first.

I follow the tracks up the beach, past the drift line, to where they cluster around the rock carvings that mark this place as belonging to the old blood. Centuries of wind and salt have worn the symbols soft, but they still hold power for those who know how to read them. And someone's been reading.

The metallic glint catches my eye first—surveying equipment half-buried in sand, like someone tried to hide it quickly. Maybe heard my boat approaching and ran. But they left their gear, and that tells me either they're coming back or they got what they needed already.

My hands close around a waterproof case, the kind researchers use.

Inside: GPS coordinates marking every sacred site along this coastline.

Depth charts of the kelp forests where selkies shed their skins and merfolk gather under the full moon.

Photos—dozens of photos—showing angles and approaches no human should know existed.

The scent on the equipment makes my bear growl louder.

Strangers, multiple, but that's expected.

It's the other smell that sets every instinct on edge—chemicals, industrial solvents, the petroleum stink of heavy machinery.

The smell of exploitation, of resources to be harvested, of sacred turned to profit.

They're not just mapping. They're planning.

I leave the cove with the evidence, but the silence follows me all the way to the stone circle.

The ancient site sits on its windswept cliff like it has for a thousand years, weathered stones watching the restless sea with patience I can't summon.

Storm debris litters the ground—branches torn from trees, seaweed flung impossibly high, the detritus of nature's fury.

Declan stands at the circle's edge, his back to me but aware of my approach. Always aware, that one. The weight of alpha sits on his shoulders like armor, even when he's alone. Especially when he's alone.

My boots crunch on scattered kelp and broken shells. I don't try to move quietly—we're past the point of stealth. Past the point of pretending the old ways of careful distance and maintained boundaries will save us.

"The whales are warning us." No greeting, no preamble. There's no time for the niceties that smooth interaction between alphas of different species. "Humans have found the sacred waters. The deep places are compromised."

He turns, those storm-grey eyes sharpening from weary to alert in an instant.

I hold out the surveying equipment, watch understanding dawn across his features.

This is worse than clan feuds or territorial disputes.

This strikes at the heart of what we are, what we protect, what we've killed to keep hidden.

"How many sites?" His voice carries the same grinding weight as mine—stones worn smooth by endless tides.

"Every one from here to the northern reaches. They have the kelp forests mapped, the seal rookeries, the deep channels where things older than us sleep."

His jaw tightens. We both know what this means.

Humans with industrial backing don't map sacred sites for scientific papers.

They map them for profit, for resources, for development.

And once they start, they don't stop until everything special about a place is stripped away, leaving only empty water and dead stone.

"The brotherhood?" he asks, and I know he's thinking of the others—Rafe with his shadow networks, Jax with his fury, Finn with his healing hands, Kian with his ability to walk between worlds.

"We'll need them all."

The admission hangs between us, heavy and undeniable.

I've kept to my boats and my bears for fifteen years, content to guard the deep places without alliance or obligation.

But the whales don't lie, and their warning was clear—this threat won't respect the boundaries between species any more than it respects the boundary between sacred and profane.

Every instinct tells me to retreat to familiar waters, to guard what's mine and leave the rest to fate. But the sea herself is calling, and when she calls, those of us bound to her depths have no choice but to answer.

"I'll stand with you, MacRae." The words taste of salt and commitment, of depths I haven't plumbed since I was young and believed in things like brotherhood. "The sea demands it, and the sea doesn't lie."

He nods once, understanding passing between us that needs no words. We're different species, different worlds in many ways, but we share this—the knowledge that some things are worth the fight, worth the risk, worth setting aside old habits of isolation.

The surveying equipment weighs heavy in my hands, full of human ambition and greed. But it's also evidence, a warning, a chance to act before they bring their machines and their chemicals to waters that have run clean since the world was young.

"When?" I ask.

"Soon. I'll call the others." He looks back at the sea, where clouds are building again on the horizon. Another storm coming, or maybe the same one circling back. "Whatever they're planning, they'll move fast once they realize their equipment is gone."

I grunt agreement. Humans always move fast when money's involved, faster still when they think they've found something worth exploiting. But they don't know what they're really dealing with. Don't know that the waters they're mapping have guardians who've killed for less provocation than this.

The wind picks up, carrying the smell of rain and something else—that chemical tang again, stronger now, coming from the direction of the harbor. They're already here, already working, already threatening everything we've fought to protect.

My bear rises again, and this time I don't push him down. Let him taste the air, learn the scent of our enemies. We'll need his rage before this is over, need his strength and his willingness to do what must be done.

"The deep places remember," I say, old words from old times, from when my grandfather first taught me what it meant to be guardian of the sacred waters.