Page 17 of Roaring Heat (Shifters of Redwood Rise #2)

ANABETH

T he morning sunlight pours across the bedroom floor like warm honey, slow and golden. I wake with a deep ache throughout my body, the echo of last night lingering in the tender hum beneath my skin.

Beau lies beside me, one arm draped across my waist, his breathing slow and even.

The heat of his body seeps into mine, a steady furnace that anchors me to the mattress and blurs the line between where he ends and I begin.

I feel the rise and fall of his chest at my back, each exhale drifting over the nape of my neck in lazy waves that lift goosebumps along my skin.

His arm isn’t just weight. It’s possessive in the most comforting way, a barrier between me and the world, a promise pressed against my ribs.

I shift slightly, just enough to feel the flex of his muscles and the instinctive tug of his fingers, as though even in sleep he refuses to let me go.

The contact is grounding, sensual, and dangerously addictive.

The kind of closeness I didn’t know I craved until now.

My skin tingles where we touch, every brush of breath and subtle pull an unspoken claim.

I let myself sink into the rhythm of him, into the steady thrum of warmth and protection, holding still as though moving might shatter the fragile, perfect spell.

There’s a pull inside me, low and insistent, like a thread tethered between us.

I can feel it when I close my eyes. It isn't just the heat of his body beside mine, but a dense, magnetic pull beneath my skin, as if something primal recognizes him and refuses to let go. A connection I can’t explain, but one that has sunk its hooks in whether I want it to or not.

When I finally ease out of bed, the sheets whisper against my skin, and I reach for my robe with a hesitant hand.

Sliding it over my shoulders, I brace for the invisible tether to him to snap, to vanish like a dream in the light of morning.

But it holds firm, humming with a low vibration like a second heartbeat, steady and unyielding.

Padding to the dining table, I flip open my field laptop and press the power button.

The satellite connection takes a moment, but then my logs pull up, data scrolling fast across the screen.

My jaw tightens as I read the timestamp, a pulse of adrenaline hitting hard in my chest. I blink at the number, then again, heart thudding as understanding clicks into place.

Awe shivers through me like static electricity, sudden and crackling at the edges of my mind, but it’s quickly chased by something even more consuming.

A tremor of fear winds its way up my spine, not just from the data, but from how deeply I already feel tied to him and to all of this.

The realization lands like a blow to the chest, forcing the breath from my lungs.

My stomach twists, cold and hollow, as the sheer scale of what this might mean sinks in.

Last night triggered an unprecedented surge in ley line energy. This wasn’t a subtle tremor or even a rhythmic pulse. It was an explosive upheaval that blew past every recorded threshold, breaking patterns I thought were immutable.

"Well, that’s subtle," I mutter to myself, scrolling through the wave pattern.

The peak hit precisely at the moment Beau and I were together. My heart kicks against my ribs, a sudden flutter of disbelief and something that edges too close to awe. I lean back, swallowing hard, as the weight of what this could mean settles in my chest like a stone.

The ley lines didn’t just pulse or shimmer.

They spiked. They surged in time with us, in sync with that moment of raw, undeniable connection.

I press the heels of my hands into my eyes and take a slow breath, trying to calm the tremor threading through me.

The ley lines responded. Not just to me, but to us.

And I don’t know whether to be thrilled or terrified by that.

Beau stirs behind me, the bedsprings creaking. "You’re up early."

I turn to look at him, hair tousled, eyes heavy-lidded and warm. "Science waits for no orgasm."

He grins, sitting up and stretching, muscles rippling in a way that's hard to ignore. "That a confession or a complaint?"

"A little of both. Come look at this."

He tugs on his jeans and walks barefoot across the floor, the quiet thud of each step matching the tension rising in my chest. He leans over my shoulder to study the screen.

As his eyes lock onto the jagged spike on the graph, the easy curve of his smile falters, replaced by a gravity that pulls the air from the room.

"That’s not normal, is it?"

"Not unless you consider reality getting bent sideways normal." I tap the screen. "This happened the moment we were... together. You were right. The ley lines responded to that. I know you said that, but I don’t even know what to do with that data."

He leans in, resting his hand lightly on my lower back.

The heat from his palm seeps through the thin fabric of my robe, slow and deliberate, like a sunbeam brushing over bare skin.

It lingers there, radiating warmth that curls low in my belly, and I feel it pulse outward, spiraling into every nerve ending.

My breath stutters as the sensation roots itself deep, leaving my skin tingling and my awareness entirely focused on that single, anchoring touch.

A touch that sends a pulse of awareness spiraling down my spine.

My breath catches in my throat, and for a beat, my thoughts scatter, undone by the slow curl of his fingers as they mold to the shape of my waist. It feels intimate, possessive, as though he’s mapping me by touch alone, pressing each contour of my body into memory.

"Maybe stop thinking like a scientist for five minutes and think like someone who belongs here."

I arch an eyebrow. "Was that a compliment or a warning?"

"Both. Get dressed. I want to take you into town."

I blink. "Town? As in people?"

He chuckles. "I need coffee, and you need food and to see what it means to live here."

I toss my keys to my Jeep, grinning unapologetically. "You drive. You know the route better than I do."

We climb in, and he navigates the winding road toward town.

The tires hum over the packed dirt and then the pavement.

The trees part like a curtain as Redwood Rise comes into view.

The town looks like something from a postcard, the mist curling around towering trees, crooked signs pointing to general stores and bait shops, and buildings tucked into the hillside like they grew there naturally.

The Rusty Fork Cafe rests on a sun-dappled corner, its wraparound porch lined with chipped red chairs that rock gently in the breeze.

Flower boxes spill over with bright blooms, their color faded by the salt air and time.

As we step through the worn wooden door, a tarnished bell above it jingles, announcing our arrival to a room that pauses mid-breath.

Heads swivel toward us, some subtle, others brazen. A hush ripples through the room, cutting through the clink of silverware and low conversation like a blade. Then come the murmurs, rising like the rustle of dry leaves before a storm.

A man in a denim jacket leans close to his tablemate, muttering too low to hear, but his narrowed eyes never leave me. His brow pulls tight, and his lips press into a hard line. "Out-of-towner."

A woman near the register frowns as if she's trying to place me in a memory she doesn't like. Her grip tightens around her coffee mug.

Another older man openly stares, fork frozen halfway to his mouth, eyes wide and wary. "He brought her here?"

"That’s her," someone says from behind the counter.

"Bad timing," another adds, voice clipped and tense.

A teenage busboy mutters something under his breath. A couple seated by the window share a long, weighted glance before turning their attention back to their plates, jaws tight.

The atmosphere crackles with restrained judgment, not loud enough to confront, but pointed enough to cut. Every expression in the room lands somewhere between suspicion and warning, tinged with the kind of fear that simmers beneath politeness.

Whispers curl through the air like smoke, coiling tighter with each glance cast our way.

I feel them brushing against me, uninvited and unwelcome, little threads of doubt and unease looping around my shoulders.

They don’t really know me, but that doesn't stop them from deciding what kind of threat I might be.

I feel their stares crawl over my skin like insects. Some are curious. Others are clearly wary. A few are downright hostile.

Beau presses a hand to the small of my back and leans in. "Ignore it."

"They think I’m trouble."

"You are." He smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. "But not the kind they should worry about."

We slide into a booth near the window. The waitress, a silver-haired woman with sharp eyes and no name tag, moves with a brisk efficiency as she sets down two steaming mugs and a laminated menu.

Her gaze lingers on me for half a beat too long before she says, "Morning, Beau. We’ve all been curious as to how close you two may have gotten. Your brothers know?"

"I suspect if they didn't when we parked, they do by now. And all of you better get used to it Anabeth is here to stay." He leans over to me and in a pseudo whisper adds, "News travels fast in a small town.

The waitress snorts. "Let me know if you need anything."

"Why don't you bring us a couple of western omelets with home fries and a biscuit." He looks at me. "All right with you?"

I nod as the waitress writes it down, Once she’s gone, I sigh. "Your brothers know? Is that going to be a problem? Here to stay, huh? That a prophecy or a demand?"

"Both. They already know who you are, and they aren't stupid. They’re just trying to figure out how much you know about them and about me."

We eat in relative silence, the murmur of conversation slowly rising again around us, but never returning to normal. I recognize it for what it is. They know something’s coming. Maybe they don’t know what, but their fear has roots.

When breakfast winds down and the last few bites of biscuit disappear from my plate, Beau reaches into his pocket and tosses a few bills onto the table. He rises smoothly, glancing out the window with a brief ripple of tension pulling taut his jaw before turning back to me.

"I need to stop by the shop, check on a few things. You good to head back on your own?"

I nod. "Yeah. I want to go over the ley line readings again."

His expression sharpens. "Lock the door behind you. Don’t open it unless it’s me. Or one of my brothers."

"Got it. Big bad wolf rules."

"Grizzly," he says with a wink. Then he leans in and kisses me, not softly. Not gently. A kiss that tells me I’m his and he damn well means to keep it that way.

The drive back to the cottage is quiet, each step cushioned by the thick carpet of pine needles beneath my boots.

The woods stand still, unnaturally so, as if the trees themselves are holding their breath.

The air crowds close around me, dense with a silence that hums with tension.

It clings to my skin, the weight of it creeping slowly along my spine until every hair on the back of my neck stands on end.

I feel watched—not with eyes, but with something older, deeper.

My nerves pull taut, stretched thin and trembling like a wire strung too tight.

Inside, I lock the door and settle at my desk. The laptop hums as it loads, and I scroll back through the readings from the last two weeks. Something clicks. The spikes aren’t random. They're increasing. Not just in intensity, but frequency. What started as subtle pulses now verge on instability.

And it started the day I arrived. The very ground beneath me had responded like a struck chord, sending vibrations I didn’t recognize until now.

Every datapoint since has been a drumbeat toward something I can’t yet name, but it’s building.

Waiting. And I’m tangled in it whether I want to be or not.

My hands tremble slightly as I reach for my journal. I flip to a clean page, scribbling down the most recent reading. Another surge is coming. The ley lines aren’t just reacting... they’re waking up.

Something is stirring in the earth. Something ancient.

Its presence presses against my skin like a low hum.

The pressure crawls upward, making my pulse stutter and my breath catch.

The floor beneath my feet feels alive, thrumming with an ancient rhythm that matches the frantic beat of my heart.

My breath catches, heart skipping a beat as the sense of being observed tightens around me.

Not with eyes, but with awareness. It sees me. It knows I’m here. And it’s waiting.