Page 28 of The Right to Bear Claws (Hollow Oak Mates #6)

KAIA

T he moment Kaia's consciousness touched Tobias's memories, she was drowning in centuries of accumulated pain.

The visions came in waves, crashing over her with the force of lived experience rather than simple observation. She wasn't just seeing his past, she was experiencing it, feeling every emotion as if it were her own.

The first memory was almost beautiful. A young man, perhaps twenty-five, standing in a moonlit garden with hands that glowed with gentle silver light. He was healing a woman's broken arm, the bones knitting together under his touch while she watched with wonder and gratitude.

"You're a miracle, Tobias," the woman breathed. "A gift from the gods themselves."

But even in that moment of triumph, Kaia could feel the weight of his isolation. The way he smiled and accepted her thanks while inside, a voice whispered that she would fear him if she truly understood what he was capable of in the realm of dreams.

"I help people," young Tobias said to the empty garden after the woman left. "I heal, I protect, I use my gifts for good. So why do I still feel like a monster?"

The scene shifted, flowing like water into the next memory. Now he was older, perhaps thirty, standing before a gathering of village elders who watched him with expressions ranging from awe to barely concealed terror.

"The dreams of our children have been peaceful since you arrived," one elder said carefully. "No more nightmares, no more night terrors. We are... grateful."

"But?" Tobias prompted, reading their fear as clearly as Kaia could feel it.

"But there are rumors. Stories from other villages about dreamwalkers who lost control, who became corrupted by the very nightmares they sought to banish." The elder's voice shook slightly. "How do we know you won't become such a creature?"

"Because I choose not to," Tobias replied, but Kaia could feel the doubt creeping into his heart. "Every day, I choose to help rather than harm, to heal rather than hurt."

"And what happens when choosing becomes too difficult? When the nightmares you absorb begin to change you from within?"

The question hung in the air like a poison, and Kaia watched as it took root in Tobias's mind, growing into a fear that would eventually consume him.

Years passed in rapid succession, each memory showing her how the isolation built layer by layer.

Communities that welcomed his healing but kept him at arm's length.

People who sought his help in desperate times but avoided his company during celebrations.

The gradual realization that he would always be useful but never truly accepted.

"I could make them love me," she heard him whisper to himself one night, alone in yet another temporary dwelling. "In dreams, I could craft visions that would make them see me as worthy of their affection."

The temptation was there, real and powerful, but young Tobias had pushed it away with horror.

"No. That wouldn't be love. That would be slavery disguised as affection."

But the thought had been planted, and Kaia could feel how it would grow in the fertile soil of his loneliness.

Then came Elara.

Beautiful, intelligent Elara with her dark hair and laughing eyes, who appeared in his life like sunlight after years of shadow. The memory of their first meeting was so vivid that Kaia could smell the jasmine in the garden where they'd spoken, could feel the warm summer air on her skin.

"You're the dreamwalker," Elara said, not with fear but with curiosity. "I've heard stories about your abilities."

"And what do the stories say?" Tobias asked, already half-prepared for rejection.

"That you walk between worlds, that you can heal minds as easily as bodies, that you carry the power to banish nightmares with a touch." She smiled, and it was genuine, unafraid. "They say you're the most gifted healer our land has seen in centuries."

"And that doesn't frighten you?"

"You've used your gifts to help people, haven't you? To ease suffering and bring peace to troubled minds?"

"Yes, but?—"

"Then why would I be frightened of someone who chooses to heal rather than harm?"

The courtship that followed was a blaze of happiness so intense it almost burned Kaia's consciousness. Six months of pure joy, of feeling accepted and understood, of believing that maybe, finally, he'd found someone who could love all of him.

The proposal scene made Kaia's heart ache with vicarious emotion.

"Marry me," Tobias said, kneeling in the same garden where they'd met. "Let me spend my life protecting your dreams, ensuring that your sleep is always peaceful, that your waking hours are filled with joy."

"Yes," Elara whispered, tears beginning to form. "Yes, a thousand times yes."

But then came the night that changed everything.

Kaia experienced it from Tobias's perspective, felt his confusion and growing horror as Elara woke screaming from a shared dream that had been meant as a gift.

"You were in my mind," she gasped, pressing herself against the far wall of their bedroom. "You were inside my thoughts, changing things, controlling?—"

"I was showing you beautiful dreams," he said desperately. "Visions of our future together, of the children we might have?—"

"You were in my head without permission! Manipulating my thoughts, making me see things that weren't real!"

"But they could be real. We could build that future together?—"

"How can I trust that any of my feelings are my own? How can I know which thoughts come from me and which ones you've planted there?"

The accusation destroyed him, and Kaia felt his world shatter in that moment. Everything he'd thought he understood about their connection crumbled under the weight of her fear.

"I would never manipulate your feelings," he said, but she was already backing toward the door.

"You just did. You invaded my dreams without asking, changed them to show me what you wanted me to see. How is that not manipulation?"

The argument that followed was vicious, desperate on both sides. Tobias trying to explain that he'd meant it as a gift, a sharing of his deepest hopes. Elara trying to make him understand that intention didn't matter when the result was violation.

"I can't stay with someone who has that kind of power over me," she said finally. "I'll never know if what I feel is real or if it's just another dream you've crafted."

"So you're leaving me? Just like that?"

"I'm protecting myself. And maybe I'm protecting others too." Her expression hardened with resolve and fear. "The village elders were right to be concerned. You're too powerful, too dangerous. Someone like you shouldn't be walking free among ordinary people."

The betrayal that followed was swift and brutal.

Elara going to the authorities with tales of dream invasion and mental manipulation.

A mob forming outside his home, torches and pitchforks and voices raised in righteous anger.

The frantic flight into the woods, pursued by people who'd once sought his healing but now saw him only as a threat.

"I should have listened to my instincts," he snarled as he prepared the ritual that would take him into the dream realm. "I should have known that acceptance was just another lie, another trap."

The crossing itself was meant to be temporary, just long enough for the furor to die down. But Kaia could feel how the realm changed him, how the isolation and bitterness began to warp his perception of reality.

Years passed in the dream realm, then decades, then centuries. She watched as he forgot the joy of healing, as his powers twisted from protection to predation. The first time he fed on someone's nightmare instead of banishing it, she felt his shock and self-loathing.

"Just this once," he told himself. "Just until I'm strong enough to return, to face them on equal terms."

But once became twice, twice became habit, and habit became nature. The bitter poison of isolation had done its work, turning a gifted healer into something that fed on the very fears he'd once sought to cure.

"This is what love gives you," he'd whispered after centuries alone. "This is what happens when you trust someone with your heart. Better to take what sustenance I can from fear—at least it's honest in its intentions."

Now, experiencing the full weight of his transformation, Kaia understood why her words about love and acceptance had enraged him so much. Not because he didn't want them, but because he'd trained himself not to hope for them.

"You see now," Tobias said, his voice echoing through his memories. "You understand why your pretty stories about belonging mean nothing. Love is just fear wearing a prettier mask."

"No," Kaia said firmly, pulling back from the depths of his despair. "Love is what happens when someone sees all of you and chooses to stay anyway."

"Coming from someone who hasn't lived long enough to be truly betrayed."

"You're right. I haven't lived as long as you, haven't suffered as much." She turned in the memory-space to face him directly. "But I have lived long enough to learn the difference between one person's fear and everyone's capacity for love."

"One person's fear destroyed my life."

"One person's fear destroyed your faith in yourself," she corrected. "But Tobias, what you did to Elara—entering her dreams without permission—that was wrong. Not because you're a monster, but because consent matters even in relationships built on love."

His form flickered with rage. "She claimed to love me?—"

"And she did. But she also had the right to privacy in her own mind, the right to dreams that were hers alone." Kaia's voice gentled. "You made a mistake, Tobias. A big one, born from loneliness and the desperate need to be understood. But making a mistake doesn't make you irredeemable."

He scoffed. “Look what I became. Look at the centuries of fear I've fed on, the lives I've touched with nightmares?—"

"I see someone who's been in so much pain for so long that he forgot what healing felt like." She reached out, not with judgment but with understanding. "Let me show you what I found in Hollow Oak. Let me show you what acceptance actually looks like."

Before he could refuse, she shared her own memories.

The moment Twyla had welcomed her with genuine warmth despite sensing the darkness that clung to her.

Miriam treating her like a beloved daughter without knowing anything about her past. Maeve's gruff acceptance and protective loyalty.

The way an entire town had rallied to keep her safe not because she'd earned it, but because that's what communities do for their own.

And Elias. Elias who'd known she was his mate from the moment he touched her but had courted her slowly, gently, respecting her even when his bear demanded immediate claiming. Who'd followed her into this nightmare realm not to control or possess her, but to stand with her in the darkness.

"This is what love looks like," she said as the memories flowed between them. "Not perfect, not without mistakes or misunderstandings, but consistent. Present. Willing to do the hard work of understanding rather than demanding immediate acceptance."

The memories swarmed Tobias, and she felt his ancient defenses beginning to crack under the weight of genuine affection freely given.

"Stop," he whispered, but there was less conviction in his voice now.

"I won't stop," she said firmly. "Because you deserve to remember what hope feels like. You deserve to know that isolation isn't your only option."

Around them, the shadow-cocoon began to shudder, hairline fractures appearing in the walls he'd built from centuries of pain. Light seeped through the cracks—not the harsh light of judgment, but the warm, steady glow of possibility.

But even as his prison began to crumble, Kaia could feel his resistance hardening into something desperate and dangerous.

"You don't understand," he snarled, his form becoming more monstrous as fear overtook hope. "I am what I chose to become. I am what love made me. And I will not be unmade by your naive dreams of redemption."