Page 5 of Grizzly’s Grump (Shifters of Redwood Rise #1)

CALDER

F ault lines run beneath this place.

Not just under the dirt and stone, but through every tree root, every breath of wind that rattles the top branches. I feel it in the grain of the wood I carve. In the ache behind my ribs when the ley lines tremble. In the pull of something old and restless deep in the earth.

And now there’s her.

Not just a new face in town. Not just a stubborn woman with a too-pink truck and sugar under her nails. No—she’s a disturbance. A trigger. A slow, aching burn in my blood I can’t shake loose.

There’s an erotic charge in the air when I'm near her, like the forest itself leans in closer, like it’s listening.

Her scent—warm vanilla and cinnamon heat—wraps around me and settles low, pulling at things I haven’t let myself feel in years.

It’s not just that she’s beautiful. It’s the way she moves, the way her laugh curves around words, the spark in her eyes that makes me want to touch and taste and claim.

My bear wants her. My body aches for her.

And now—now my mind’s catching up, craving her laugh, her sharp tongue, the way she looks at me like she already knows I’m more animal than man.

It’s not fate tugging me toward her. It’s hunger.

It’s heat. It’s the echo of every lonely night spent building walls I didn’t think anyone could slip past. But she’s already inside them, and the worst part?

I don’t want her to leave. I want more. I want her—all of her—pressed against me, beneath me, filling that hollow space I stopped admitting was there.

It’s dangerous. She’s dangerous. The kind of dangerous that tastes like temptation and feels like fate playing dirty. She’s a risk I swore I’d never take again—but my body doesn’t give a damn, and my bear wants to claim her so badly it hurts. And the worst part? I don’t care. Not even a little.

I bite into the apple galette she handed me on a tray after I fixed her tire—flaky crust, just enough tartness to the apples, buttery without being greasy—and my bear all but purrs.

Damned thing hasn’t made a sound in two years, not since I told him we were done with mates, with trusting fate, with losing what we can’t get back.

But she shows up smelling like fire-warmed citrus and late summer rain, like something familiar and wild all at once, and suddenly my bear—the primal, protective part of me that’s stayed silent for years—is pacing inside me.

Restless. Awake. Agitated in a way I haven’t felt since everything fell apart.

He wants her. Not just to watch or circle or stalk—he wants to move closer.

To claim. And he doesn’t care that she’s human, or that this makes no damn sense.

He knows only one thing: she belongs to us. And he will not let me forget it.

Cilla Morgan. She's sunshine wrapped in sarcasm and bound with sass and snark, all big eyes and stubbornness. Her voice is still echoing in my skull from earlier—'If you’re here to tell me there’s a No Pink Trucks’ ordinance.

.. and I should’ve ignored her. I usually do.

I have rules. Boundaries. Systems to keep things in their proper place.

But she’d fallen right on her ass, cheeks flushed, pride bruised—and instead of huffing off or throwing attitude, she got up, dusted herself off, and handed me a tray of pastries like it was a peace offering.

Or maybe a dare. Her hands were steady, but her eyes held a challenge, daring me not to take it.

I did. Of course I did. Because that’s the kind of woman she is—the kind who surprises you when you’re least ready for it.

Now I’m eating one, even though I'd rather be feasting on her, standing on my porch like a fool, listening to the wind shiver through the trees while my bear pushes forward hard enough that my skin prickles.

Go.

Run.

Find her.

I shove the rest of the galette into my mouth and walk straight into the forest.

The fog is thicker today. It clings low to the ground, coiling around trunks like something alive. The air tastes like cedar and rain, and the earth pulses beneath my boots, slow and steady like the beat of something ancient waking up.

I strip off my shirt, then reach for the button on my jeans.

The shift is already creeping closer, licking at my skin like it knows what’s coming.

I tug the denim down over my hips, stepping out of it along with the last of my resistance.

My boxers follow, then my socks, until I’m bare in the forest—exposed to the wind, the trees, the pull of something deeper than instinct.

I kick my boots aside and step off the narrow trail. The shift starts before I even call it.

Mist rises—first a swirl, then a surge, curling around my legs and spiraling up my spine.

The trees blur at the edges, and the sky above stretches wide and electric.

Thunder cracks somewhere in the distance, not so much heard as felt, a low-pitched thrum in my bones.

The air bends inward, pulling tight around me like a held breath.

And then my body gives way.

There’s no pain. Just pressure. My limbs reshape, bones shifting with fluid certainty, my spine lengthening as muscle thickens and skin gives way to fur. My hands become paws. My breath deepens. Heat roars through me, primal and grounding, until the human in me steps back—and the bear takes over.

Four paws. Heavy breath. Wild heart.

The shift is done, and the forest welcomes me home.

The forest stretches wide and silent around me, alive in a different way when I move as the bear.

I don’t run, not really—bears don’t glide like wolves.

We barrel. We crash. Each stride is power and grit, muscles bunching beneath thick hide as my paws churn up earth and scatter leaves.

Branches snap. The ground shudders beneath my weight.

I don’t care. It feels right. Primal. With every step, the tension I’ve been carrying sloughs off like a second skin.

No words. No expectations. Just the thud of my heartbeat in sync with the forest’s pulse.

That’s how I come back to myself. When the world crowds in—her scent, her laugh, the damn weight of wanting—I let the bear run wild. Let instinct scrub clean what thought can’t fix.

It’s how I reset.

I weave through the trees, darting past moss-covered boulders and low-hanging branches, until the only things that exist are breath and rhythm and the expanse of wilderness all around me.

But she’s still there. In my head. Smiling. Cursing. Laughing.

My bear circles back toward the edge of town before I catch myself.

Instinct pulls my bear toward her, toward the scent that’s still lodged in my lungs, but I wrestle control.

We veer inland instead, angling southeast, deeper into the untouched ridges where the ley lines hum like buried wires.

These hills roll higher than the coast, thick with old-growth redwoods and silence.

It’s the only direction that feels safe—far enough to quiet the part of me that aches for her, but still close enough to feel the earth’s strange rhythm pounding underfoot.

Something’s off. It’s not just the ache beneath my ribs or the hum in my bones—it’s the ground itself.

The pulse of the ley lines feels warped, tugging sideways, as if the whole ridge is caught in a hush too deep to be natural.

Energy that once moved like a steady river current now loops and buckles in on itself, stuttering through the earth like a circuit gone wrong.

The ley lines were never meant to be touched by humans.

They’re wild—meant to carry memory and instinct, not curiosity or greed.

But lately they’ve been… responding. Not just pulsing.

Reacting. Like something—or someone—woke them up.

And they don’t like it. They’ve become twisted, unpredictable, unnatural.

It’s like the forest is bracing for something it can’t name—and so am I.

I reach the old cairn at the ridge’s edge and stop, chest heaving.

The cairn is a stack of weathered stones, shaped by hand and balanced with purpose—an old trail marker, maybe, or a boundary line from before the town ever had roads.

No one remembers who built it, only that it’s always been here, watching the horizon.

The ley lines hum beneath it louder than anywhere else, like the earth itself placed the stones and dares anyone to move them.

A flock of birds lifts suddenly from the trees below, screeching into the clouds. The bear rocks from paw to paw, uneasy in a way that makes the forest feel smaller, tighter around us.

Danger.

Change.

I stay until the tension bleeds back into the earth. I go back to where I left my clothes, and only then do I let the shift unravel. I’m human again, naked in the mist with my back pressed against a tree to ground me.

I dress slowly. My hands shake.

This isn’t just about Cilla. It’s not even just about the ley lines.

Something ancient is shifting just beneath the surface—deep and slow and full of teeth.

It isn’t just the magic contained within the ley lines.

It’s more than that. More than memory. It's hunger. The kind of power that doesn’t announce itself, only waits until the right moment to rise.

And I’ve got a damn pastry truck parked right on top of it.

By the time I make it back to the workshop, I’ve spent the better part of an hour arguing with myself—logic versus instinct, control versus craving.

I tell myself I’m fine. That I can keep my distance.

That I’m stronger than whatever this thing is pulling me toward her.

But it’s not just want—it’s inevitability.

Like something ancient in my blood already knows how this ends.

And no matter how many rules I break to stop it, the bond keeps threading tighter.

She doesn’t even realize it yet. That’s what terrifies me most.

But then I see her.