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 Midlife Stolen Mate:
Bear Mates Over Forty Book 9

Aline Ash
© 2023 Aline Ash

Midlife Stolen Mate, book 9

All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the
express permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely
coincidental. The characters are all productions of the author’s imagination.
Please note that this work is intended only for adults over the age of 18 and all characters represented as 18 or over.
Kindle Edition

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 Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Epilogue
Also by Aline Ash
About the Author:
 About the book:
Amaryllis
Midlife crisis is no myth. Turns out fated mates aren't either...
Amaryllis and her twin sister's mountain getaway aimed to heal heartache, but it turned into a horror scene when a huge grizzly
crashed their picnic. To save her sister, Amaryllis lured the bear away, witnessing something unexpected.
Was the handsome man the bear shifted into just a creation of her petrified mind?
Back in the city, Amaryllis dismisses it as an illusion. The muscular stranger couldn't have been real, but why does she keep
fantasizing about him?
What if he finds her, appears at her business, and takes her with him? Should she fall for him? Not a chance…

Rhys
There's nothing wrong with solitude. Until your bear thinks otherwise...
Rhys aimed for a simple life, raising his baby brother alone in a peaceful small town while his shifter clan respected his need
for solitude. It seemed like his life was complete. Or was it?
His bear seemed to disagree. Chasing that otherworldly woman in the mountains left him restless. Even worse – his grizzly
couldn't stop spontaneous shifting.
Rhys was always in control of his life…but it looks like he lost it.
To keep his bear calm and his secret from getting exposed, there's only one solution: steal her and bring her to Greenacre.
But what if it's not just his bear who wants them together? What if something far bigger threatens his carefully ordered
solitude?

Book 1: Midlife Bear Twins

Book 2: Midlife Daddy Bear

Book 3: Bear’s Midlife Miracle

Book 4: Bear’s Midlife Surprise

Book 5: Midlife Forgotten Mate

Book 6: Midlife Bear Protector

Book 7: Midlife Wolf's Pack

Book 8: Midlife Christmas Magic

Book 9: Midlife Stolen Mate
 Chapter 1
Rhys
The middle road. The path between two extremes. Neutrality.

He was sure that was the right path. He’d lived his life with that goal in mind. Not peace, but not the extreme opposite. Not the
ideal, but not the antithesis of a dream.

Rhys nearly took his hand off with his chisel. He’d been carving for thirty years—three quarters of his lifetime. Even now, he
knew that if he took his focus off his work for longer than a few seconds, he could do dumb things like maim himself with a
fairly benign chisel.

He didn’t set it aside, even though his mind was turning.

Normally, carving was his escape. The last few days? He didn’t know what was wrong with his head. He thought at first that it
was some kind of virus moving in, but shifters hardly ever got sick, and it was warm and sunny outside, so not the time of year
for Lucian to be dragging home any bugs from school.

Rhys rarely got headaches, maybe that’s why the pounding at his temples was driving him insane. He normally slept decently at
night, now that Lucian was older. He hadn’t had any rough nights since his half-brother was a year old, luckily, he’d started
sleeping like a champion right after his first birthday.

Rhys repositioned the chisel. He couldn’t afford to make a catastrophic mistake at this point in the carving. One wrong move
and the raven’s head that he’d spent hours on would be decapitated. His little brother needed a new bed, at four years old, he’d
outgrown the toddler one. He had an obsession with ravens, which baffled Rhys, but he was going to do his best to make sure
Lucian got exactly what he wanted.

That meant focusing, not letting his mind cycle back to the dream he’d had for the past four nights. Dreams of a dark-haired
woman, slender, beautiful, and haunted.

They’d meet in a meadow. She was picking flowers. Some kind of lily. Bright red, the petals pointed so that the head almost
made a star. She’d look up at him and her mouth always opened in a silent plea. Please. Find me. Save me. Take me. I need
you. Where are you?

And then, the blood. It came pouring out of her eyes.

Rhys shuddered. The dream was just a dream, but it was disturbing as hell.

He’d worked hard over the years to cultivate an inner sense of peace. The middle ground mentality.

Were there mistakes? Yes. Had he done his best to make them right? He liked to think so. It wasn’t so much karma, or
the ‘get what you put into the world’ mentality that drove him. It wasn’t the ease of residing in the cracks, of never joining one
party or other. He didn’t do what some members of his clan preferred and move to the outskirts to live a life of extremes and
denial. He didn’t thrust himself in the opposite direction and charge himself with the wellbeing and leadership of his clan. He
didn’t heal the wounded, nurture the sick or cultivate gardens to provide. He didn’t run a business or teach. He wasn’t involved
in guarding. He blended in. He liked to go unnoticed, yet his work stood out all over Greenacre.

He’d never reach the same level of skill that Bane had achieved, but Bane was twenty years older and had been trained by
some of the best.

For the greatest part of his life, Rhys took things as they came. He realized his own talents and nurtured them through
trial and error. He loved to read. He’d crafted a library in his small cabin, with nearly the entire living room devoted to it.

Before Lucian, his home was very much a strange little hovel. He didn’t need a middle ground there. He didn’t need to blend
in. There, he could live and he could thrive and he could carve, which was pretty much life itself. Before Lucian, Rhys shared
the two-bedroom cabin and large attached shop with his father. Before the clan opened up and female human mates could live
in Greenacre, it was very much closed. A solitary life in the clan wasn’t enough for his dad. Shifters sometimes left the clan,
but they were always welcome back. His dad would be welcomed back even now, but he would never return. Rhys knew that
with absolute certainty. His path had taken him in other directions. Greenacre might be open, but the shifter secret was still a
secret and the woman his dad loved? She wasn’t the kind of woman who wanted to live in a backwoods town well away from
the city. She was young and vibrant. She wanted to live life, so she’d chosen a man who could give her what she wanted, and in
return his father thought that was love.

Maybe it was.

What did Rhys know about it anyway?

He had no mate. In the loneliest hours, he considered going out into the world to find one, or bringing a woman to Greenacre
that he could get to know and love, but something always stopped him. It never felt right.

For the past few years, he’d been consumed with his craft and the raising of his half-brother. His father wanted Lucian, but
Lucian’s mom? Not so much. She’d had the baby on the condition that he be given up for adoption. She never wanted to be a
mother and the pregnancy was a surprise. At sixty-five, Rhys’ father was thirty-five years older than his girlfriend. He would
do anything to be with her, to ensure her happiness. He was blinded by his emotions. Even though he never called her his mate,
he loved her all the same. She didn’t want a child, and since she couldn’t be trusted with the knowledge of shifters, it worked
out that she didn’t have to bear that burden.

Rhys’ father brought his newborn son to Greenacre, and Rhys promised he would raise him and love him. There was nothing
more sacred in the shifter world than their young. At least, in Lucian’s birth, his mother was blissfully unaware what kind of
child she’d given birth to. In the old days of the clan—the days many of them were ashamed to think about—human women
weren’t taken for mates. The clan hadn’t produced a female shifter in over a hundred years, and even though it was against clan
law, men found women. Sometimes they found love. Sometimes they found what each of them wanted—a night where no one
had to be alone. If a child resulted from that night, the women had been bribed or a doctor had, and women were told their
babies were stillborn.

It was awful. It was unholy.

But to the clan it seemed the only way that they could keep their secrets.

Rhys never knew his mother. He did know that his father was young when they’d met. He’d told Rhys many times that he was
also rebellious and stupid. The clan lands came into contact regularly with humans during the touristy seasons of the year. The
mountains called and hikers, nature lovers, and adventurers answered. He’d shared a night with a woman passing through, but
then he’d kept sneaking out to see her. Over and over, he went to Seattle. He never wanted a child out of the bargain, but when
she got pregnant, he stood by her. He was going to leave the clan and go to her in her world, raise the baby in a human world
somehow, possibly before the transition happened, or even beyond that.

Shifter births were often difficult, and Rhys’ mom hadn’t survived.

Rhys’ father was left with an infant to keep him tethered to a world he no longer wanted to live in. He’d taught Rhys his craft,
given him purpose and passion. He’d brought him back to Greenacre so he could be raised by shifters like him. The one thing
Rhys’ father never gave him?

Love.

He didn’t blame Rhys for the death of his mother, but Rhys didn’t even know her name. Other than a very basic outline of
events told to him right after he transitioned and started shifting at ten years old, Rhys’ father refused to talk about her. He’d
been destroyed by that loss. Rhys wasn’t entirely surprised when, on his fiftieth birthday, his father told him he was leaving
Greenacre. Every few months, he’d send a letter. He travelled the world, and he wasn’t specific on the details of how he’d met
Lucian’s mother, but suddenly there was someone else and a new happiness apparent in the tone of those brief communications.

All of it led to a night, four years ago, when his father showed up with a bundle in his arms and a very brief explanation. He’d
left not more than an hour later, and he hadn’t returned.

Rhys hadn’t raised Lucian as his son. He wasn’t his son. Lucian knew he was his half-brother. He knew the basics of the truth
—minus the blow that his mother hadn’t wanted him and his father lied to her about the whole adoption. He knew that the
human world wasn’t always the best place for a shifter. The best place was always going to be the safety of their clan, where
they could truly be themselves. Rhys made Lucian see that their father gave him a gift by bringing him to Greenacre when he
couldn’t care for him, and his mother was human and couldn’t know their secret.

Above all, Rhys made sure that Lucian had something he hadn’t had as a child.

All the love in the world from the man raising him, no matter what the circumstances of that raising was.

Some lies were necessary to protect. They were necessary to keep a heart from breaking.

Rhys didn’t normally lie to himself, but he knew he was lying when he set his chisel down.

It was just a walk. He’d just step outside. Fresh air was good for a headache. A walk was the best cure to quiet internal
chaos. How many times had he walked with Lucian in his arms over the years when he couldn’t sleep, when he was teething,
when he had a pain somewhere that couldn’t be soothed? It almost always worked.

Lucian would be in school for a few more hours. He just needed a walk, and it had no purpose other than exercise. The
buzzing in his head would calm. The quiet of the woods would erase the pressure in his head and chest. He’d be able to
breathe out there.

He still frowned as he left the shop through the back door. His cabin, like many in Greenacre, backed the woods. In a
few steps, he was there, amongst the trees.

Since when had a walk done what carving and carpentry couldn’t accomplish?

Since never.

He closed his eyes and let the wind whistling through the trees guide his steps. The throbbing at his temples nearly took
him to his knees after only a few minutes. It was worse, not better, the further he walked. He didn’t think about turning around.
He didn’t even angle himself in the direction of home. He kept listening to the wind, to that whisper from a non-entity.

He let it invade his head, let it turn into an urging that tore at him like a demon in his chest. It bloomed inside of the
cavity between his organs, behind his ribs like the ideas for his carvings blossomed in his head. This felt like blackness. Like a
stain that would destroy him.

No. He was wrong.

It wasn’t black. It was white. It was all white, coating his insides. Thick and syrupy. It was all light, the pinpricks
piercing through his brain.

He kept walking, but he had no idea where he was heading. He might as well be a marionette with someone else pulling
the strings towards them. He wondered, absurdly, if he really was possessed. First the same dream, night after night, and now
this feeling like there was something else inside of him.

Someone else.

Someone besides the bear.

The woods surrounding Greenacre were thick. They went for miles before they gave way to the land that didn’t belong to the
clan. Broken land, rocky, steep, grassy land. Land with roads and mountains, open sky, a world that he didn’t belong to.

If he walked, it wouldn’t be fast enough. He wanted to shift, wanted to eat up the miles, wanted to run and run until there was
nothing in his head but quiet.

He’d need his clothes after. He was just aware enough, through the fog and light and distance in his head, to shed his t-shirt and
jeans so that he could come right back to this spot after he let the bear loose.

The bear.
 He’d never been out of harmony with the other half of himself, but maybe this was what happened when the bear
wanted something and he wasn’t aware, or he was denying it. The only solution to that problem was to let the bear loose. Let
him choose. Let him decide, or let the bear lead him to what he needed. It was better to surrender than to let the bear rip him in
half. He’d never felt that way before, but it felt like he might actually split down the middle now if he didn’t give in to the urge.

After he stripped down, he dropped to all fours and allowed the shift to come.

His last thought before the bear took over was that there was no way this was any sort of middle ground to anything at all.
 Chapter 2
Amaryllis
She didn’t need touch or palm lines, no cards or costumes. None of the trappings she used to make her gift less offensive and
frightening to others. People who were called charlatans in the past used these deceptions to increase the belief in their mock
abilities. Amaryllis used them to hide.

She knew what her sister’s intent was in bringing her out of the city. An hour’s drive, a picnic blanket, a funky retro basket, her
favorite dessert since she could remember having one—none of that was going to fix her.

“I want you to see someone.” Meredith was so direct that she started right after popping the lid on the basket. Amaryllis wasn’t
even going to get to pretend to enjoy her way through something that she’d once loved, and now tasted like sawdust.

She remained silent. She’d been silent for so many months. Five months and thirteen days to be precise. Though sometimes it
seemed like a thousand years, other times a single blink. Why was time measured in minutes and hours and days when they
were so ultimately meaningless and useless? Time was just an invention meant to bind and restrict. It was made for minds that
constantly refused to grasp the infiniteness of the universe.

“Why?”

Meredith deserved answers. She was worried about her. They were connected by birth. They’d shared a womb. While she
hadn’t inherited the same abilities Amaryllis had, she still felt her suffering. She’d known she was pulling away, that the grief
was eating her. It wasn’t just her wan appearance, the paleness of her skin and the dark circles she tried to hide with makeup,
the clothing that hung on her frame because she’d lost so much weight. Mer would have known even without any of the external
signs.

“It’s only been a few months. I have a right to be fucked up while I’m trying to heal.”

Meredith nodded, ignoring the flat, toneless way that the words came out. They should have been heated. Scorching. Angry.
Boiling over. Passionate. There was just nothing there. A vacuum inside herself, a black hole where all the emotion she was
supposed to feel had gone after the first few days. She didn’t even cry anymore. The soundless tears, her fury, her wrath, the
brokenness had all evaporated like mist under the unrelenting eye of a hot sun by the end of the second day, when she’d been
discharged from the hospital.

“You’re right.” Meredith’s hands played nervously over the picnic basket. “And I have a right to be worried about you.”

“I don’t want to see someone. I don’t want to talk to a stranger who doesn’t get it.”

“They get it. They’ve been trained to get it.”

“It’s false empathy. They’re being paid to try and understand you and sympathize with you. It’s a strategy. After a few weeks,
they’ll tell me I have every right to be angry, I have every right to rail and shake my fists and ask why. They’ll tell me there is
no answer to why, it just is. They’ll validate the numbness that I feel. They’ll give me exercises to get myself out of the hole I’ll
admit to being in. They’ll tell me that this too shall pass, and that there’s a time for everything. I’ll pay them some crazy fee and
they’ll send me on my way with kind words or a prescription to get me back on the right path, and you know what, Mer? I know
everything they’ll say. I know that they’re right and that they’re wrong. I don’t need to pay them to tell me because I already
know exactly what will go on. I don’t need pills. I don’t need the words of a stranger.”

“What do you need then, Ammie, because I’m scared. I’m scared that I’m never going to have my sister back. I’m scared that
you’re never going to laugh again or cry again. I’m so afraid that our lives are never going to be the same.”

“Are you going to tell me that it was barely a baby? What’s the word for a woman who was pregnant but doesn’t become a
mother? Are you going to say that any man who would just leave me when he found out I was pregnant because he was adamant
that he didn’t want children, was just a huge fucking dick and not worth losing sleep for, no matter how many years we’d been
together?”
“No.” Meredith blinked, hurt. She’d ditched her normally immaculate work attire for a pair of jeans, sneakers that probably
had never been worn, and a white t-shirt. She looked like someone Amaryllis didn’t even know. Her sister did not do jeans.
“Why would I say that? Dean was an asshole for leaving you. He hurt you. If I saw him walking down the streets, I’d still want
to cut his nuts off and present them to you in a jar. But god, Ammie, the baby? Of course it was a baby. He or she was your
baby.”

“I don’t even know if it was a boy or girl. Why don’t I know?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart.” Mer had the good sense to control her face. She didn’t touch Amaryllis. She gave her space. It
might have been a foot across a quilt too perfect to have been handmade and too new to have seen any use, but it was space all
the same and it mattered.

Amaryllis didn’t want to be touched.

“Why didn’t I know this was going to happen?” Her anguished hiss filled up the meagre foot between them. “I know every
fucking other thing in the world. All the stupid things that aren’t any of my business. It all just comes to me uninvited. I don’t
even want it most of the time. It’s just there. Invading my brain. Clogging up my chest. Infiltrating my whole body like smoke.
But not my own child. He or she? I didn’t even get to see what the baby looked like.”

“That’s because you started bleeding at home and when you were on the verge of passing out, you called me. I knew that
something was wrong.”

She’d come over. Mer was the one who called the ambulance. Amaryllis was in and out of consciousness. She
remembered being told she was having a miscarriage, and she was going in for surgery because the scan had shown a problem.
She didn’t want surgery. At that point, she knew she was going to lose her child and she would rather have died herself. She
would have done anything to give that baby life. It wasn’t possible. She wasn’t far enough along. She’d woken up in the
hospital bed knowing that she’d lost the baby. The face of the doctor was etched into her mind, telling her how lucky she was.
If she hadn’t presented when she had, then they would never have discovered the massive ovarian cyst that would have
ruptured, and possibly killed her. Lucky? The emergency surgery that saved her life, had also resulted in her left ovary being
removed. Don’t worry, the doctor had told her, you can still get pregnant. Ignoring the fact that she was grieving for the baby
that would never be.

“I know it happens to other people. I know this isn’t even uncommon. I know it’s not something that anyone else would
understand. They’d look at this and say I was barely even pregnant. That because I didn’t give birth, that my child never took a
breath, that he or she was never known by anyone else in the word, that my child didn’t matter.”

“No one would say that.”

“They think it. God, Meredith, they think it. You know that I know.”

“You don’t hear other people’s thoughts.”

“I don’t need to. You know that it’s their vibe that I read. If I can avoid whatever images related to their futures or their
pasts jamming up my brain uninvited.”

“Okay, well, if someone thinks that, then fuck them. You’re your own boss. You don’t have to answer to anyone but
yourself. That said, you have rent to pay. I know you can’t afford to take any more days off work or lose more clients. What you
do does matter. You’re not faking it. You’re turning the lemons life gave you into lemonade, and we need more people like you
in the world. But your bills are stacking up, you’re going to get an eviction notice and have your car towed soon. Since you’re
too stubborn and proud to take a dollar from me, you need to be like everyone else in this country and carry on. You need to
fake it until you start to feel it. That’s how grieving works here. That’s how our society says we need to do it. You can be
whatever you want to be, but unless you let me help you, you can’t keep missing work. You can’t keep not opening your store.”

“So you brought me here for this sisterly picnic to tell me how worried you are about me or to tell me to get my butt
back to being a normal person that the rest of society can understand and relate to?”

“You’re not a normal person.” Meredith refused to look at her with sympathy, which was a good thing because if she
had, Amaryllis was sure that she would have marched right off out of the quaint little picnic site and walked all the way back to
Seattle. “I’ve always been okay with that. I’ve never been scared of what you can do or what you see. You’re my sister and I
love you. You’re my twin. You’re like the other half of me.”

“That’s Richard now.”

“I know you hate him, but I can’t do anything about that. I love him.”

“Credit to you that you did that before he was rich.”

“Stop.”

Right. Her sister wasn’t going to take her being an asshole either. Meredith was the one person in the world that
Amaryllis couldn’t hide any of the truths about herself. Being an asshole about Meredith’s choice of husband? The guy might be
worse than a limp dishrag and about as interesting as dust bunnies gathering in a room that hadn’t been swept in years, but
Richard did treat her sister just fine.

He didn’t want kids. Meredith used to. When Richard’s investments paid off, he wanted a huge house full of the nice
things that he hadn’t had growing up. He was raised by a single mom, and they were poorer than dirt poor. Amaryllis didn’t
need any special gifts to understand the desire not to want to repeat the things that traumatized a person when they were
younger. Richard never wanted to do without, and now, he wouldn’t. He thought he was taking care of Meredith, doing what
they both wanted, giving them a life they could both dream of. He couldn’t see that Mer wasn’t the kind of person who would
ever care about any of that. Amaryllis knew that her sister wasn’t happy. She sensed the longing rolling off her like a pungent
smoke. It wasn’t her business. Mer wasn’t the kind of person who kept it all bottled up. If she wanted to talk about her and
Richard, she would.

Amaryllis once asked her sister if she was going to have children. She and Richard had been together for more than
fifteen years and married for twelve. Richard never wanted them. Meredith wasn’t a pushover. There was something she saw
in Richard that made her want him and made her want his happiness more than her own. Amaryllis couldn’t see it and she
couldn’t understand it.

As twins, they tended to share everything. Maybe they also shared a tendency to be attracted to men who were complete
selfish pricks. Men too childish and too selfish to ever want to care for, or nurture another life. She and Dean were together for
four years. It wasn’t an insignificant amount of time. He didn’t want children. Amaryllis thought he might change his mind. She
hadn’t done anything to get pregnant on purpose, it was just one of those accidents. Dean gave her the ultimatum.

Be a mother or be mine. Either way, I’m not going to be a father.

Right. Because a father was a man who wanted their child. Who cared for them and protected them and saw them
through growing up and into adulthood and well beyond. A father was someone who loved their children with all their being.

“Okay.” Amaryllis said quietly. She twisted her fingers through the grass beside the blanket, letting the lush strands
tickle her skin. “I know what you feel is real. I like that you have that. I’m not jealous, I’m happy for you. Even if I can’t stand
the guy, I’m not the one married to him, so that’s okay. I’ll always hang out with you both for your sake. That’s never going to
change, no matter what an insensitive baboon he can be.”

“He was just raised in a different way. It’s hard for him to be empathetic and emotional. He was taught that men don’t
do those things. Can’t you ever sense that he’s a good person underneath that exterior? That he might be more than he shows?
That I might see that, as his partner, because he trusts me?”

“Yes. That’s why I never told you to stop dating him.”

“Anyway, you’re always going to be my other half. I’m worried about you in every way, that’s why I brought you out
here. I thought it would be nice. I thought the mountains and the fresh air and getting out of the city would help. You loved
coming out here when we were kids.”

“Props to you because you came anyway, knowing this would be the picnic from hell.”

“No props. I love you. That’s all.”

 “I don’t know what to tell you. I can’t just magically be okay about all of this. I can’t force myself to feel or un-feel.”

“Dean broke your heart. He wasn’t there for you. He bailed on you at the worst time possible, in the worst way
possible. He didn’t want a child, but no wonder. He’s a child himself.”

“He gave me a choice. I wanted the baby. I wanted to be a mom.”

Meredith’s lips pinched together. Would she make the same decision if Richard gave her that ultimatum? Honestly, as
much as Amaryllis couldn’t stand her sister’s husband, she didn’t think he would. If Meredith got pregnant, even though it
wasn’t in his carefully laid out plans, he might change his mind. Dean just straight up didn’t want kids. With Richard, Amaryllis
knew it was that he was afraid to have them. He didn’t want to bring a child into the world that would have to go through what
he’d gone through, and no amount of money in the world could erase those years and those memories for him.

“I’m glad he went back to New York. He never should have come here. The only thing that The Big Apple produces are
rotten apples.”

“That’s fair. He did have a Manhattan ego a mile wide. I don’t like Richard all that much and you never liked Dean.
Odd, for twins, wouldn’t you say Mer.” Amaryllis’ eyes widened, “Bear!”

“Don’t think that using my pet name is going to make me drop—”

“No! Bear!” Amaryllis scrambled up.

The blanket bunched wildly underneath her. She grabbed Meredith’s shoulders, wrapping her arms around them. Her
sister froze for a second, but then she sucked in air and scrambled back, knocking Amaryllis on her ass and landing on top of
her. She tried to scramble up again, and it was likely only fear that gave her enough adrenaline to get to her feet. She clawed at
Amaryllis’ arm until she got her back up beside her.

“Oh my god!” Meredith hissed. “Run!”

They both just stood there. “I don’t think we should do that,” Amaryllis panted. There was something wrong with her
voice. With her throat. She couldn’t squeeze out a breath to save herself.

The bear wasn’t near, but it wasn’t far either. At maybe two hundred feet away, where the woods started to break away
from the stretch of green grass where they were sitting, it was way too close. The fact that it was there at all was too close.

Amaryllis did a mental calculation of how far the car was. They’d pulled off the road by the rest spot and lookout point,
climbed down a twisty gravel path, and walked down to the picnic area. How long had that taken them? Ten minutes? That was
going downhill. Then again, they hadn’t been hurrying. Even if they had to scramble the whole way, they could probably make
it in five.

The bear turned its head towards them. She watched as it stepped forward and sniffed the air, and then its gaze locked
right on them.

She should have been too far away to see that.

She needed to get out of there. To get her sister out of there. To freaking move because that bear was huge, and it might
look like a fuzzy tub of soft cuteness, but it was a fast moving, ass kicking machine that would be on them in no time. There was
nothing cute about a grizzly. Weren’t they generally bad tempered?

Save Mer. Save herself. Yes. That was literally what she was supposed to be doing right now.

“Make noise then!”

The huge, shaggy brown grizzly stepped into the clearing in broad daylight without a hint of fear for the humans who
had borrowed a strip of grass in the out of the way glorious piece of wild and unspoiled nature that was his home. To that bear,
he was probably just going about his business. They were the invaders.
 “Hey you, bear!” Meredith screamed. She waved her arms wildly and jumped up and down. Doing burpees and calling
the bear over wasn’t what Amaryllis had in mind.

“Ahhhhhhh!” She yelled, emptying out her lungs beside her sister. “Get out of here, bear!”

Why did it have to be a grizzly? Those bears were fearless and mean. She racked her brain to think of what else she
knew about them besides their huge size and tendency to kick each other’s asses—although wasn’t that just in mating season?

“Fuck this.” Meredith’s hand clamped around Amaryllis’ arm so hard that she cried out at the bruising grip. Her sister
tugged her off the blanket and onto the grass. “We’re running. Now!”

Meredith slipped as soon as they tried to run. She was back up, dragging Amaryllis along with her immediately.

“We shouldn’t run!” Amaryllis repeated. “I think that only antagonizes them. It’s like sport. We’re sport. We’ll never be
able to beat it.”

She looked over her shoulder as their legs pumped, their chests sawing in and out with their painful gulps for air as they
cleared the grass and made it back to the gravel path. The whole area was made of hills. In her mind, she hadn’t remembered
clearly how steep this one was. A streak of blur caught her eye, and she couldn’t hold back a gasp that turned into a scream as
she watched the bear come bounding through the clearing.

Meredith looked behind them as soon as she stumbled onto the path. Gravel churned up under shoes that were made for
the gym, not for slippery rocks—and certainly not for running for her life. “I should have brought the gun. Richard told me to
bring the gun just in case.”

“In case of what? In what situation would it ever be okay to use that?”

“This one?”

“It’ll stop at the food. It just wants the desserts you made.”

Meredith slipped on the path, but she didn’t go down. Amaryllis kept her from falling. She was trying to move, trying,
and getting nowhere. All her muscles burned. She sucked at anything cardio, even if that anything was running for her life.

“I don’t think bears have sweet teeth.”

“They do. They love honey.”

“Isn’t that just an urban myth?’

They had to keep talking. Keep trying to keep the other from freaking out. Panic was the great killer of all killers,
wasn’t it? If they could just keep their heads and keep it under control, they might have a chance of getting up the path and
getting to the car. They were halfway there already.

No, fuck they weren’t halfway there. Of all the things Amaryllis had ever seen, she hadn’t seen her own end. In a
morbid way, she would have liked to know. She’d always thought so. Now, she knew that if this was what was coming for her,
she was glad she hadn’t imagined it. It would have been terrifying, knowing that she was going to meet her end, mauled to
death.

The bear didn’t stop at the basket. It charged right past the blanket and came for them at an astonishing speed.

Now was not the time to plunge herself into that shivery, frigid sensation of having a vision, but it was happening. She
couldn’t stop it. Her sister, a baby in her arms. Not a baby. A toddler. Her belly gently rounded below her arms.

“Amaryllis, come on!” Meredith pulled her out of the sweet image.

If that was her sister’s destiny—and the things that Amaryllis saw were never wrong—then she needed to make sure
that her sister lived to see it. She might be pregnant even now and not know it. Was she? Did she know it and she didn’t want to
say anything because of the miscarriage? Was she afraid that it would tear Amaryllis into pieces? A timeline on the things she
saw would have been nice, but that wasn’t how it worked.

Amaryllis turned and faced her sister’s wild, tear-streaked face. There was no more trying to say funny things to reduce
the black hole of panic into something that couldn’t swallow them completely.

“Go!” Amaryllis shook her sister’s hand off her arm and shoved her hard in the opposite direction. “Get to the car!
Run! I’ll be right behind you. The path is too steep for us to go up holding onto each other.”

She waited just a few seconds to make sure that her sister had followed the instructions before she turned in the other
direction and charged wildly at the bear. She didn’t make a sound until she was at the bottom of the hill and a quick look over
her shoulder told her that her sister was out of sight, over the top.

“Ahhhhhhh, bear!” Amaryllis screamed. “Yes, you!” She tore off in the opposite direction, cutting through the grass,
away from the hill.

The bear paused for a second. Just a second. Then, he stood on his hind legs and let out a roar. It was so strange, but it
didn’t sound angry. Could such a thing be playful?

God, she was going insane. Meredith was right. She needed to talk to someone. If she lived through this, she might just
do that.

Maybe she shouldn’t be thinking about stupid shit when there was a two-thousand-pound animal chugging along behind
her. She could hear the snorts of the animal as it gained ground. That was about all she could hear past the thudding of her heart
in her ears. Did it make sense that she couldn’t feel her body any longer? That would probably come in handy when she was
being mauled to death.

Right. Stop thinking dumb shit and keep the fuck going.

As if the woods were a safe place and not the worst place she could go, Amaryllis charged right for them. She’d never
run so hard or fast in her life, right into danger.

She cut through the trees and then she spun around. If she was going down, she might as well face it. If she made herself
look big and scary and unafraid, would that save her? Or was she supposed to curl up in a ball and play dead? Why couldn’t
she remember these things when it counted? Then again, with bears, there was probably no hard or fast rule.

The bear entered the woods at a slow walk. It wasn’t chasing her anymore. It wasn’t even breathing hard, the bastard,
and there she was, wheezing like her lungs were going to pop up her throat. How was that fair? It wasn’t. This wasn’t going to
be a fair fight.

Fight? No, there was not going to be any fight. She wasn’t going to try to KO a grizzly. Not that she had anything more
than one boxing class ten years ago under her belt when it came to fighting.

There was something unnatural about the way that bear just stopped and stared her down. It didn’t look like it wanted to
make her its next meal. Even more unnatural was the way that her fear bled out of her body. When she breathed in, her breath
was a little bit shaky, rasping in and rushing out. She wasn’t panicked and she didn’t have a death wish. She just wanted her
sister to be okay. To live out that vision. And herself? She certainly didn’t want to meet her end this way. This wasn’t her
making peace with it.

The air shifted the way that it did before one hell of a storm rolled in. The sky was still blue above the treetops, the
world carried on, birds sang, the branches rustled, the breeze didn’t change to a sudden gale. The weather hadn’t shifted. It was
the air.

It felt… tight. Cold. Hot. Burning.

The roaring in her ears wasn’t her heart. There were no black spots in her vision. She watched that bear with a
perfectly unwavering gaze. She wasn’t going to pass out.

There was no storm and there was no roaring, but the air between them was tense and weighted. Something was going
to happen. There was going to be a storm and it was going to happen right there in the woods between them. A storm of silence
and stillness and utter nothing.

The bear kept coming, but she wasn’t going to run. She was a part of this earth, a part of this woods. The massive beast
stopped no more than ten feet away. It studied her with liquid gold, honey soft eyes. There was nothing she could do when it
stood up on its hind legs. It just stood. It didn’t come for her. Didn’t race forward to tear her apart. Didn’t roar.

Amaryllis gasped. Whatever was happening to her wasn’t a vision. She wasn’t going down into one and she wasn’t
seeing ahead. It was something else, a sensation that stole through the woods and soaked into her like early morning mist,
saturating her tense muscles, leaching into her bloodstream.

She could have borne anything except for her most recent loss. With losing her child who hadn’t ever been born, she’d
lost something of her own being. Lost something vital that she’d never be able to return to herself again. She hadn’t cried since
the day after it happened. There was just too much and not enough of anything, the nothingness and the everything weighing her
down.

She brought a trembling hand to her cheeks when they prickled. She realized she was crying. Not just crying, but
weeping. Silently. The tears coursed down her cheeks.

She never took her eyes off the bear.

The moment expanded between them, and the construct of time unspooled itself.

Amaryllis had been whole once. The loss broke her into pieces. They were reduced to ash and scattered all over the
world in the wind. How could she hope to be the person she was before it? How could she ever find all that she’d lost and
pick it up to put herself back to what she was before?

“Come,” she heard herself say to the bear. The voice didn’t belong to her, but it did. “You found me. You weren’t
searching, but I was. I’ve been searching for me. I found you instead.”

Her brain didn’t register the words, didn’t produce them. They came from nowhere. They didn’t make any sense to her
and yet she knew they were perfectly true and right.

The bear shook his head, back and forth. He kept shaking, like a great hive had dropped from the trees and there were
endless bees swarming him. This time, he did let out a roar, but it was too late. He couldn’t run. He was transfixed and rooted
by the same elemental forces she was.

No, he could move. He dropped down to the ground and let out a snort. He shook his head again, side to side, tossing it
until strands of saliva flew through the air. With a great shudder that sounded as if he was tortured and in pain, the bear fell to
his side. He writhed in the dirt. Amaryllis wanted to rush to him, like she could do anything to protect such a magnificent, huge,
dangerous beast. She could do nothing. She was useless.

She was dreaming.

She had to be dreaming.

Bears didn’t just splinter apart. They didn’t shrink and they didn’t glow. They didn’t lose their fur and they didn’t
resume a different shape. They didn’t shapeshift.

She wasn’t up to speed on her familiars. Did that even exist? She had visions and feelings about things that often came
true. She wasn’t a witch, and she didn’t dabble in any kind of dark arts.

Clearly, this guy did. This had to be magic. Whatever had made him, he was no longer a bear.

“Holy shit,” Amaryllis gasped out when those same soft brown eyes stared out at her through a rugged human face.

Her words were met with silence.

“What the actual fuck just happened here? Tell me. If you don’t, I’ll probably go crazy trying to figure it out, and oh my
god! You’re naked.”

As if her noticing his lack of clothing was the final shove he needed, the man darted upright. He ran. Faster than any
human she’d ever seen. He broke away from her and crashed through the trees. He must have known where he was going,
because he was out of sight in an instant.

“Wait!” She hadn’t even taken a step to follow, even though the tug inside her compelled her in that direction, when she
heard her name called distantly.

She turned around. One path led into the woods. There was no real path, but metaphorically, if she followed that
direction, she knew she’d find that man. Her heart swelled in her chest and beat so hard that beads of sweat broke out on her
forehead. She forced herself to turn away from the woods, even though it felt like she was tearing off and scattering more
pieces of herself behind which she’d never get back.

Amaryllis swayed after two steps. She really was going to pass out. She’d hallucinated all of it. None of that could
have happened.

“Amar—”

She heard the first part of her name called again, distantly.

Meredith’s voice was a pull back to reality. A tether to the world she belonged in. She couldn’t let her sister come back
down the incline looking for her.

Get out. Be safe. Make sure that above all, Meredith is okay.

The twin in her, the part of her being that was always going to belong to Meredith, won out. Amaryllis put one foot in
front of the other, leaving the woods behind, and when she reached the last tree, she broke into a dead run.
 Chapter 3
Rhys
What good would blending in do when impulse and instinct were stronger? The truth was, he wasn’t just a man. He had a wild
animal living inside of him. How could one stay neutral when for just over fourteen days, he’d been pulled apart from the
inside out? Rhys found that, on making it through one night, there was always another coming. One storm defeated and another
lay ahead. What peace he’d known was dashed on the rocks of that wild afternoon.

She’d been in his head.

The woman from the dreams.

How could he have dreamed of her before he met her?

The bear didn’t hold memories the way that his human side did, but as a man again, her face stuck with him. The soft sage
flecks in her moss green eyes, eyes the color of new life, of spring, of the woods and the earth. He recalled in vivid detail the
golden hue of her skin, tanned softly by the whispering kiss of summer sun. He knew her trembling limbs like they’d been his,
but he still recalled the undercurrent of bold, reckless fearlessness that emboldened her to stand her ground.

From one paranormal creature to another, he knew she wasn’t just a woman. No mere human could look into him and see the
man inside the bear. She’d called out to him like those blocks of wood he carved. Cried out to be something else, to be freed,
to be claimed and turned and given life by his hands.

None of that made sense, and yet it made total sense.

Rhys knew his neutrality was at an end. He couldn’t sit by and do nothing any longer.

So, that morning after he dropped Lucian at school, he got in his old four by four seventies truck with the peeling rust-red paint
and the faded, ripped bench seat, and drove straight to Seattle.

He didn’t know where that woman lived, the flower from his dreams, the starred lily, but he’d trust the storm inside of him to
quiet the closer he got to the horizon. She was the horizon. She was the future in the distance. She needed him. The dreams, the
wild impulse, the pain inside of him that led him straight to her—they were all signs. To ignore them was to be damned and he
didn’t care much for the way the last two weeks of his life had gone. He had no more fight left in him.

Rational? No, it wasn’t. Well thought out with perfect sense? No, absolutely not.

She was a human in the human world, and he was a shifter in a clan that had been closed off for all of history save for a few
short years, but there he was. Driving like an absolute ninny, his foot pressing down harder than it should on the gas pedal, the
old truck screaming and shuddering, jarring at every bump in the road, leaving his careful, safe, predictable life behind.

Going out on the freeway when he rarely left Greenacre didn’t feel safe.

Entering the city didn’t feel safe.

It might be ridiculous, but he let his inner instincts guide him the way he often turned his life over to the bear and checked out.
When he was in that form, his human side took a back seat. It was like living in a house with a pitch black, soundproofed
basement and throwing yourself down there, only to emerge hours later, with no idea what went on above your head while you
were safe in that darkness.

Whatever was guiding him, he followed it like a beacon through half the city. He didn’t notice the time ticking away. He
checked his impatience and choked back the suffocating feeling that rose in his throat at being locked and jammed into the crush
of humanity when his daily routine was to breathe fresh air in the quiet of the woods, protected always by the immovable
shadows of mountains that had stood watch for more years than his brain could stitch itself around.

At least he didn’t have to venture into the busy downtown area. He skirted around, those tall buildings like manmade
mountains, always to his right on the horizon.

It wasn’t a sense of rightness or some dreamlike mystical moment that made him wrench the truck out of traffic to the tune of at
least three blaring horns, and jam it up against the far sidewalk. All at once, panic surged up his throat. The adrenaline of
leaving clan lands, the thick busyness surging all around him, the sheer volume of humanity, threatened to undo him.

It threatened more than that.

The bear sensed his uncertainty, his fear, and what he perceived as danger. If he wasn’t careful and didn’t calm down, swallow
back the hot, bitter acid in his throat, then he was going to have a real issue.

He twisted his head to look out the window, to focus on a point and keep his attention there, out of himself, until he could
breathe.

He’d carved in his head for as long as he could remember. He literally couldn’t conjure up a time in his past when he didn’t
have pictures, scenes, animals, figures, mythical beasts, terrifying creatures, suns and moons, the past and the future, the known
and the unknown, all battling to get out. Sometimes, they were patient. Other times, they took him over. He imagined the ravens
he was carving out for Lucian. Their jet-black feathers, blue bright under sunlight or moonlight. Intelligence in their eyes, that
otherworldly harbinger of mystery and lore. He wasn’t calmed, but he was able to take a breath.

He could draw in another. His eyes locked on the window of the shop where he’d pulled over. They slowly worked over the
curved black letters. They hadn’t even processed into words in his mind, and there she was.

The lily from his dreams.

Beautiful and golden, the sun and the fields, the fresh air and the flowers.

She had her hair curled into a jet-black mass, black as those raven feathers. She wore it like a cloak as she streaked past the
glass.

Rhys fumbled with his keys. He got them twisted back and pulled out of the ignition then dropped them out of his wooden
fingers. When he ducked to snatch them up, he cracked his head on the steering column.

He twisted his neck back, rubbing the sore spot, immediately watching the window again, but she was gone.

Why was he even there? It wasn’t courage, whatever it was that had driven him from his cabin and clan, and now his
adrenaline was practically gone. There was something in its place, a sensation so out of control at being led straight to her that
he was back to breathing raggedly. His heart thundered crazily in his chest.

Was that his destiny? To be led to this woman he was inexplicably bound to, and then promptly expire of a heart attack right on
her doorstep at finding it all far too real?

No. No, he wasn’t.

But what was he going to do? Go in there and talk to her? Tell her she seemed to be his destiny and he knew that because he
was the bear in the woods who scared her shitless, then when she stood her ground, it was so otherworldly that the bear lost
his shit and didn’t want to be there, abandoning him to deal with the aftermath as a naked man who shifted right in front of her?

Yeah. He’d had to get the hell out of there.

She probably thought she was going insane. Maybe she thought it was all fear induced. That she’d seen things, imagined things,
that the bear drove her to a near state of unconsciousness and weird things happened before she came to and found herself
alone.

What if she didn’t want to go with him?

What if he couldn’t convince her that she wasn’t going crazy, but he was? That one more minute without her in his life and he
was going to be wretched? That he could do nothing. Not sleep, not eat, not carve—and carving was his blood. It was his
backbone, his breath, his lifeforce.
Maybe she’d listen.

He sensed that she wasn’t entirely human either, or at least not a regular human. There was something about her. Something the
bear reacted to, something that put her in his dreams and in his blood. However it happened, she’d been placed in his path, and
he couldn’t leave her alone now. He had to save her, even if saving her meant taking her.

She’s really going to like that.

You’ll never know if you don’t go in and talk to her, dumbass.

Great. Now even his thoughts were getting snarky in his head.

He decided to get out of the truck and go into that little shop. He didn’t bother locking the doors. He wanted to walk boldly
towards that particular space of sidewalk fronting the small, average looking little building, but he stayed locked in position at
the side of his vehicle. The letters on the window swam out into an array of words that he finally put together. Tarot readings.
Crystals. Tea. Herbs. Bookstore.

“Fuck.” He twisted back, literally falling into the front corner of the truck hard enough to bruise his tailbone.

He’d sensed there was something other about the woman, but what if beings beyond even the comprehension of a shifter
existed? What if she was a fairy or a witch? Was there worse? Better? Maybe she didn’t need saving that badly. What if she put
some kind of ball shriveling spell on him?

Are you serious right now? Ball shriveling or not, she’s linked to you. Man up, collect what balls there are left to shrink,
get in there and have a chat with her. You owe her that much for scaring her witless in the woods, then pulling a shifting
stunt right in front of her. She might be anything, but you acted like an asshole toad.

Looked like he was doing this, if only to shut his brain up.

As he pushed open the door with the pleasant little jingly bell, he hoped that she wasn’t something dangerous, whatever she
was. Two unnatural beings going at it in a tiny little retail store? Probably not so great for flying under the radar.

There was no one inside other than the woman, his flower, which was a stroke of luck. He locked the door with a swift flick of
his fingers on the metal bolt. She’d whipped around and her brows shot up long before the clang of the lock.

“You,” she breathed. Her face blanched. She backed up to the counter slowly, so slowly. “The bear man from the woods. You-
you aren’t supposed to be real.” She made a sound like she was trying to breathe, but it just wasn’t happening. She went still,
the way a terrified creature did when backed into a corner. This was a different kind of fear than the one he’d scented in the
woods. It had been there and then it was gone. This one persisted just like her wide-eyed look of disbelief.

“I’m real,” he said gruffly. He sounded like a man who rarely spoke. Rusty, his throat ill-used. “But what are you? Why are you
in my dreams?”

“Your what?” She scrambled for something, but all her palm did was knock items off the counter. They clattered to the floor
without breaking. He didn’t look at them. “No. No, that’s not possible. You can’t- you- you can’t be real, and you can’t be here.
Not when I didn’t dream about you. Not when I didn’t see you.”

Rhys wasn’t sure what that meant exactly, but he could hazard a guess that the store he was in—the metaphysical trappings and
the tarot card readings, were probably a new age cover for some seriously real abilities.

His flower grabbed for something behind her. She twisted around and came back with a potted plant, the kind that people
crocheted and put a happy face on. This one did indeed have a big smile.

“Stay back,” she warned him ominously. If she’d said she could shoot fireballs out of her hands or eyes, he might have
believed her. He wouldn’t have known if she was bluffing. But that fake plant? It wasn’t going to do much damage, even lit on
fire.

“You need to come with me,” he said flatly. “Right now.”

“Are you insane?” She wheezed.

She was having a hard time breathing. He was experiencing no such difficulty. As soon as he stepped foot in the shop,
the opposite happened. It was like surfacing from a long spell underwater. He liked the way she smelled. A light floral scent
that stood out amongst the incense in the shop, which was fitting.

“Not at all. Those dreams mean something. It’s my job to keep you safe. We’re connected. Neither of us have to like it, but you
need to leave this shop and come to my home where I can keep watch and keep you from harm.”

“No.” She shook her head. No more wheezing. This time she laughed. She laughed and giggled until it was borderline
hysterical. “Jesus. Maybe I should take my sister’s advice and go on some kind of medication. I clearly need it. You’re
probably not even real. Bears don’t turn into people, and people don’t dream about other people and—”

That was rich, coming from someone who clearly had otherworldly abilities. Either way, it was obvious she wasn’t going to
come with him. Her determination was stamped all over her face. She leaned against the counter like it was a tall mast in a
raging storm.

Her agreeing to listen, open her mind, and go with him even if it didn’t make sense at the time, was the best-case scenario.
What he was going to have to do was the worst, but do it he must. His mission had been clear to him for days. He’d lost the
fight holding out against it. When destiny called for you, there was very little anyone could do to escape its clutches, and the
harpy of fate had its talons sunk deep.

A rack of colorful scarves was very conveniently placed to the left of the door. All it took was a sidestep and he had two in his
hands. Silky. Soft. He tested their strength with a sharp tug. They’d hold.

“No!” His flower wasn’t going to back down. Maybe she had sharp claws too. He wasn’t the kind of man who got invigorated
by a fight. He took no pleasure in what was going to happen.

It happened fast.

His flower tried to run. He was faster. He had one hand wrapped around both her wrists before she could take a breath or a
step. He wrapped and tied the scarf quickly, knotting it no harder than he had to. Before she could even struggle, he wrapped
the other around her mouth. She got her hands up as she thrashed her head from side to side. She tried to punch out with both
hands bound together. He dodged easily. She tried to headbutt him next, which he also dodged—lucky for her, or she’d have
one hell of a headache.

Before she could hurt herself, he picked her right off her feet and hefted her over his shoulder.

He couldn’t just walk out the front door with a woman clearly captive and tied up. This wasn’t sport. There were people who
could and would report this woman missing. If there were cameras, he’d be all over them.

It’s too late for that. You’ve been seen walking in. However you go out, you’re totally fucked if she has security, or if the
neighboring businesses do. Should have thought about that in your master ass plan that wasn’t a plan at all.

Had he really just thought she’d come with him? Maybe. Yes. He was convinced that he had to find her and save her—and
given that his instinct steered him right to her, it was probably safe to assume that should he not heed the warning from his
dreams and the absolute sense of chaos pervading him since their meeting, they’d both be up every kind of creek without any
paddles.

He was just going to have to risk it.

If he could talk his flower down in the truck, or after getting back to the clan land, then she could say she was taking a holiday.
Make excuses. Tell whoever mattered that she hadn’t really been kidnapped. Because he wasn’t kidnapping her, this was for
her own good. He had to do it, or else… or else what? He didn’t know, but there was a reason.

Her phone. Her purse.

He spotted them both on the counter. With his free hand, he grabbed the purse, slung the phone into the gaping top and threw it
over his arm. A set of car keys sat next to the purse. He had a good eye for detail, and when he unlocked the front door and
walked out, flipped the open sign to closed, and then correctly guessed which key locked the store.

Out in the open, his flower started to struggle. She sensed the worst was happening to her. She thought she was being
kidnapped. She wasn’t. She was being saved from whatever was out there that wanted to harm her. The images from the dream
assailed him as he opened the passenger door of his truck and shoved her in as gently as he could. He tugged the seatbelt over
her, for once thankful that it was a total bastard and was nearly impossible to get out of the metal buckle once it was in—even
for someone who had both hands free. He pressed the lock down on the door and shut it hard. He made it to his side quickly
and threw himself in.

There was a full-on war going on with the scarf bindings, and a heck of a lot of angry sounds behind the one over her mouth.

He waited until they were driving down the road before he slipped it off. No one could see that her hands were bound, but the
gag was a red flag and the last thing he needed was to be pulled over. He wasn’t worried about her getting the door open. The
seatbelt would keep her in place, but even if she somehow got it off, the lock was faulty as hell, and she had no hands to work
it with.

The perks of an old truck.

She was too angry to say anything at first, but the shock only lasted for a few minutes and then a string of foul language that
shocked him followed. His flower had a filthy mouth. That should not send a shiver up his spine. He wasn’t supposed to be
shivering about this at all. This wasn’t a romantic saving. Whatever destiny decreed for them, even if this woman was his mate,
he wasn’t going to love her. He didn’t want a mate at all, but if he didn’t get a choice in the matter, then he could choose how
he felt about it. Mates meant connection. It was up to the two people sharing that connection as to how they wanted to be
connected. He knew that mates lasted a lifetime, but that two mates might not even be in the same corners of the world in a
lifetime.

The more his flower struggled, the angrier she got. Her cheeks bloomed pink, and her eyes shot fire at him.

“Careful,” he admonished. She could move too much in that seatbelt with just her hands bound. “If you hit me, then we’ll both
crash and this truck doesn’t have airbags. Smashing up would have the opposite effect of keeping you safe.”

“So does kidnapping me, you asshole.”

Rhys focused on the road. He made quick time getting out of the city, even with his flower squirming all over her side of the
bench seat, trying to work her hands free and the seatbelt off.

“It’s not going to come out of that buckle,” he informed her. “And that door isn’t going to open either. Old truck again.”

She stopped dead with the fighting right about the same time he took the exit to get on the freeway. Only an hour and he’d be
back at Greenacre.

If all went well.

If his flower’s death stares didn’t incinerate him or obliterate him on the spot.

Come to think of it, he probably should have made sure that she didn’t have some secret flame shooting, fireball out of her eyes
type powers.

“Are you human?” Might as well just ask her deadpan.

She looked at him askance. “Are you?” No one could say she wasn’t feisty. That was good. Whatever was coming for her,
she’d need spirit to fight.

“Not exactly.”

She went so bloodless that he had no doubt that she was, and that she didn’t know that things like shifters even existed. How
had she handled seeing him shift in the woods? She’d obviously been telling herself that she’d imagine the whole thing, but did
she truly believe that? Or was it just a way for her to keep herself from breaking with reality and her sanity?
“I had dreams,” he stated again. She needed to hear it one more time. “In those dreams, if I didn’t find you, didn’t reach you,
something terrible happened. Even if something terrible isn’t coming for either of us, the fact that I found you in those woods
when you were near, and found you again today by blindly trusting my gut and whatever else is pulling us together, just proves
that we do need to get through this as a team.” Wow. Nice peptalk, asshole.

“Fuck you, bear man.”

He deserved that. What’s more, he liked the way her words softened and curved around fuck like it was a compliment and not a
curse. “I’m sorry. This is for your own good.”

“Said every monster ever.”

“I’m not going to hurt you. You won’t be tied up when we reach my house.”

“I’ll run first chance I get.”

“In a community full of men who are bears like I am?”

She gaped at him. She was having trouble comprehending that it was indeed real. The bear must have had a plan, or the
universe did, when he’d accidentally lost control and resumed his human form right in front of her.

“If I wanted to hurt you, I could have done it that day in the woods. The bear knew you. He knew you were special. I never
leave my carving, and I left it that day. I couldn’t focus. I didn’t know you were out there, but I was called to you.”

“That sounds like a bunch of stalker nonsense. There’s an explanation for all of this and it’s probably sinister as hell. You’re
probably obsessed with me. Saw me somewhere. Couldn’t get me out of your head. You listened to the creepy voices, and they
told you that you had to have me. Take me. Own me. Save me, if that’s what you believe you’re doing. You stalked me. That’s
how you knew where I was in the woods. That’s how you knew where I worked and when I’d be alone.”

“No.”

“You probably have a pet bear because you moonlight as a magician, or maybe that’s your real job, and that’s how you did that
weird trick in the woods. Or you let me get chased by a bear and—”

“What? No!”

“It has to be!” She spat and thrashed in the seat, pulling at her bound wrists. She looked around frantically, but what was it that
she was trying to escape? The truck or the knowledge in her head?

“Otherwise, what? What’s going to change for the world if shifters are real? So what if I can turn into a bear. You do things
with your mind. People fear you. Should they?”

“Not really, but what I have is a curse.”

“I don’t see what I can do that way, but maybe some people do. I know it’s hard to fathom and that’s why it’s a secret. For that
reason and many others. Because what people don’t understand, they fear, and what they fear, they want to stamp out or
understand and both have deadly consequences. You know that. That’s why you were hiding what you can do in that shop.”

“I can’t do anything for god’s sake. I just… sometimes see things. Like a dream.”

“So you do believe in the power of dreams.”

“It’s not that kind of dream. I’m always awake. I just tell people it’s like a dream because I can’t explain it to them any other
way. It’s more like memories playing back at you, but I’m seeing them before they happen.”

“You always see it?”

She threw a wicked scowl his way, but she growled out a response all the same. “Most of the time. Sometimes I get weird
feelings I can’t control. Like how your body responds to adrenaline or how you feel sweaty and shaky before you throw up,
except it’s not bad like that. I rarely ever feel sick until after, when I understand what I’ve seen or felt, if it’s about someone I
love and it’s not good.”

“You said you didn’t see me coming.”

“No, I didn’t freaking see you coming, bear man. I didn’t know I was going to get kidnapped, and I didn’t know I was going to
run into a bear in the woods. If I had some foresight about that, don’t you think I would have packed bear spray both times?”

He grunted out a short burst of laughter. “I’ve never been maced before.”

“Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure it sucks. Watch out!”

He’d come up on a slow-moving car too fast, doing a fraction of the speed limit it was supposed to be doing, and he’d barely
noticed. He needed to focus. He didn’t drive on the freeway or int the city very often.

“Ugh.” She slumped in the seat when he slowed down, and then passed as soon as it was safe. “You’re going to kill us both.
How does a bear even have a driver’s license? Not that you’re a bear. There’s still a different explanation for that.”

“I can shift for you when we get to my home. You’ll see it’s real.”

“No!”

“The bear is a part of me. You don’t need to be afraid. You don’t need to fear that knowledge or the reality of it either. I’m just
like you, with a little bit extra on top of your extra.”

“There are people,” she switched topics, threatening him. “People who love me. If I don’t check in with them, they’ll call the
police. They’ll find your bear ass and I’m guessing that you don’t want to be found and your big secret revealed.” The added
sharpness in her tone told him that she didn’t mean it. She wouldn’t expose him. She wouldn’t tell anyone. Even if she had a
chance to scream it out in front of a crowd right now, she wouldn’t.

From one outsider to another, it hurt, having that otherness preyed on. She was used to having an extra vulnerability to guard
and secret, just like he was.

“I brought your purse and phone. You can text them. You can tell them that you went out camping. Spur of the moment. Life
shit.”

She went utterly still, her face freezing over, her expression hard and frozen as an iced over lake in the dead of winter. “What
do you know about my life shit?”

Nothing. He knew nothing about her life.

He needed to know.

How could he help her if he didn’t? That dream. He considered now that maybe he’d got this all horribly wrong.
Maybe the bad wasn’t coming for her. Maybe it already had, and she needed him not to keep it from happening, but to unravel it
and heal. What if that was the mission all along?

If it was, he’d adapt. He’d help her no matter what it cost him.

He had to. His path had intersected with hers and from that point in the woods going forward, those roads would be
irrevocably joined.
 Chapter 4
Amaryllis
What did it say for her sanity, that instead of planning an escape from the worst thing that ever could have happened to her, she
was sitting there studying the broad, muscled line of her kidnapper’s shoulders? Her eyes didn’t stop there. They took in every
detail. This guy wasn’t just some run of the mill, medium build asshole who she could get away easily from.

Yes. That’s why she was studying him. She wasn’t noticing how ruggedly beautiful he was, and she definitely wasn’t thinking
about what he looked like in the buff in the middle of the woods the last time she’d seen him. She was gaining intel.

All of it told her this wasn’t a man that she was ever going to be able to escape. She couldn’t incapacitate him. She was nearly
five ten and he was a mountain compared to her. She was slim, but she was strong, but that was nothing compared to this guy’s
muscles.

Beefcake. If that was a real word, it definitely applied to him.

Beefcake has definitive sexy suggestions.

Right. Best that she stayed the hell away from that then.

She should have turned her head to the window and memorized the passing miles, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from her
captor. It was better to watch him. He was vastly more dangerous than anything she’d ever encountered. This man wasn’t just
towering and muscled with an undertone of natural, rugged rawness. He was completely unhinged if he believed he was a bear.
He’d taken it further than that. According to him, he lived in a land of men who were bears and he used the power of dreams to
foretell the future.

She didn’t do that. That wasn’t even remotely close to her abilities. Just saying.

Also just saying? She didn’t truly believe that what she’d seen in the woods was real. It had to be a trick, even if it was just
played by her brain. Shock and fear did wonderful things for the imagination.

They were doing wonderful things to her now. She was paralyzed in the seat. She should be moving, trying to get the door
open, get her seatbelt off, get out, and run.

Going fifty miles an hour on the freeway, you’re going to get the door open and launch yourself out, pick yourself up, and
run all those miles back to the city to get help before this guy catches you? It would be more realistic to believe this man
truly was a shifter.

No matter who this guy was or what he wanted with her, if he was taking her to an area with other people, that meant that she
had a chance. Unless they were also hell bent on murdering her, like he probably was. He said he was going to save her, but
then he also spouted a lot of nonsense, so saving could mean anything from minorly sinister to majorly murderous.

The shock still hadn’t worn off. The right amount of fear wasn’t dumping into her bloodstream as it should have.

She used the opportunity to think, before her head got muddied with adrenaline. If shock was going to clear her brain instead of
dampening it, then she might as well harness what power she had left to her.

She had her mind. She wasn’t going to out-brawn this guy. She was never going to overpower him, and running from him at any
point? He’d easily catch her. He’d lift her over his shoulder as quickly and easily as he had in the store. She should get him
talking. Figure out where he was taking her. He’d taken her purse and phone. If she could get to them, then she could call for
help. Knowing where she was would only help her.

“Where are we going?”

Mr. Totally-Not-A-Bear turned his head to her. She was struck by the way the sunlight came through the windows and
illuminated an amber ring around his pupil. The rest of his iris was honey brown. No one would call this man model hot. He
was too built, too muscled, too hard in the jaw and nose and brow to be conventionally attractive. His eyes were way too
intense. They’d break any camera that tried to capture them. Just looking into them set her heart pounding. Fifty miles an hour?
That felt like nothing compared to the speed of the organ pumping inside her chest.

She focused on those eyes, tried to fall into them, tried to use her gifts for the first time in her life. Ironically, she’d spent years
wishing it away, and now she was trying to force a vision or some feeling to come.

There was nothing.

Why? What good was it to see freaking things about everyone else and about life and not this? If she couldn’t even save her
own ass from this psycho, then what good was any of it?

She hadn’t seen the worst day of her life coming either.

It had never been more frustrating that she couldn’t harness her talents and use them at will than right at the moment. She’d
spent a lifetime trying to do just that, and it had amounted to a lifetime of fuck-all. You know what’s like a bear? My mind.
Wild. Untamed. Deadly. Impossible to train.

The guy’s lips clamped shut and he turned his eyes back to the road. Whether he was concentrating or not, she didn’t like that
he didn’t answer her. He’d been plenty talkative enough before.

Rapport. Maybe that’s what they needed. If she was going to outsmart this guy, it would help to know him. If she had to
get in his head the old-fashioned way instead of with her gifts, then so be it.

“Hey. If you took me and you want to save me and you’re trying to keep me safe, it’s important that we communicate.
My name’s Amaryllis.” He probably knew that already, so she felt safe giving it. “What’s yours?”

He didn’t hesitate, so that was probably a good sign. “Rhys.”

“Rhys?” The name was untamed in her mouth. A little bit wild. It suited him perfectly. “Do you have a last name?”

“Bear.”

She laughed dryly. “No, really.”

“Lots of us use that last name. It’s shifter humor, and it fits.”

“Alright, Rhys Bear, what do you do for a living when you’re not kidnapping innocent women.”

He snorted and reached up to sweep his too long, mahogany hair out of his eyes. He tucked the strands behind his ear,
exposing the side of his neck. It made him look oddly vulnerable, or maybe it made her feel like he was showing her a weak
spot when he exposed the soft skin of his neck. He was clean shaven, but his jawline was always going to be so masculine.
She studied his ear. It was a strong ear and matched his face, but a little tickle formed in her belly. She had to look away.

“I’m a carpenter. Kind of. I carve mostly. Don’t make a lot of furniture unless it’s for my own use. We have another man
who does that. He’s more skilled than I’ll ever be.”

Great. If this guy carved things out of wood, then he probably had all sorts of scary tools—chisels, hammers, long
pointy things, horrible things—that he could use as torture devices.

What if the real reason he’d taken her was because she’d seen him go from a bear to a man, and no one was supposed
to know that was a thing? Maybe she should assume it was real for a minute and play along.

“I won’t tell anyone about what I saw. You were right about me. I do have gifts that I’m used to protecting. Your secret
is safe with me. Who would believe me anyway?”

She had no idea if she was convincing or not, because Rhys yanked the steering wheel to the right, and the whole truck
swayed and jerked. She was buckled in tight, which saved her from being thrown against the window.
 “What the hell?” she yelped, swallowing back her fear as the truck shuddered to a stop. She saw the side road come out
of nowhere.

Dark eyes swept to hers. She expected him to have some mask in place, but the opposite was true. His eyes flickered
and burned while the rest of his face was seized by emotions she couldn’t understand.

“I need you to drive.”

She gaped at him. “You have to be kidding me. I’m not going to abduct myself!”

“You know where we’re going. Think about it. You were just there. Up in the mountains.”

How could she not have noticed that? He was right. They were on the same freeway Meredith took. The same road they’d
travelled often as kids in the summer. But as kids, everything looked different, and when she’d been with Meredith, she was so
focused on her sister and on what was going on in her own head, the black pit she’d been trying to keep herself from drowning
in, that she hadn’t given the road much thought at all.

“Why would I drive? What’s wrong with you?”

She watched the emotion drop away from his face, and she had to admit, he looked tired. She hadn’t slept well since that day in
the woods, but he looked like he hadn’t slept properly in a lifetime. He jammed the truck into park on the road that wasn’t
actually a road at all. It was just old tire tracks through land that turned into hard packed mud with a few trees surrounding it,
the grass growing up all around.

They were only a few feet from the highway. If she could get past him, could she run out and flag someone down?

When he leaned towards her, her brain shut off to everything except his face. She fell into his eyes, and what the hell? Did he
have to smell so good? What was wrong with her body? Shock couldn’t make her realize how gorgeous her kidnapper was.
That was surely Stockholm Syndrome to the max—could it even develop this quickly? Ugh. Really? She was going to be one of
those women? She’d been disgusted with things she’d done in the past, but she’d never known this level of self-revilement
before.

“I’m not feeling well. We’re not going to make it there if I keep driving.”

“You’re not feeling well?” She thrust her bound hands into his face. “I’m not feeling well! I’ve been taken from my store, my
city, my life, my family, my friends. You kidnapped me! You’re a criminal. You’re going to go to jail for this for a very long
time.” Stop antagonizing him. Use this to your advantage. You can be angry later. Right now, is the time to be smart. “Wait.
If you’re not feeling well, that means that you’re probably having second thoughts about this.” She hoped all the anger was
wiped away from her face and that she only showed sympathy. “You can take me back. It’ll be okay. Everything can just be like
it was. I’ll be more careful about my own safety in the future, and you can just go on and live your life. We’ll both just forget
this happened. I won’t call the police, I promise. You actually haven’t hurt me. You just scared me.” She raised her bound
hands in front of her. “Just untie me and I’ll drive us back. I’ll drop myself off and get a cab home. It’ll all be alright. I’ll take
care of everything. Just… untie me.”

Now the mask slammed in place. A second ago, he looked like he was fighting with himself, but then all the walls crashed
down, and his face was hard and emotionless. Now he looked like a scary killer more than anything. Blank. Frightening.
Devoid of warmth or kindness.

Amaryllis sucked in a breath. She had to try and reach him. Her hands were bound at her wrists, but he was close enough that
she could touch him. She planted her palm on his shoulder and-

She’d never seen a person explode before. Literally.

It wasn’t all brains and guts and blood.

No, it was an exhale of raw breath torn from lungs, a scramble for the doorhandle, mad clawing and tearing. Rhys spilled out.
He hit the ground knees first, but used his back to slam the truck door shut. Seat belted in, hands still bound, she could do
nothing except stare at the window.
Stretch the seatbelt. Lock his door. The keys are in here. Don’t let him back in. Hurry!

Whatever the hell was happening, this was her ticket to saving herself, if only she could just… she thrust all her weight against
the seatbelt and, miraculously, it spooled out at her shoulder. Just enough that she was able to thrust herself across the rest of
the bench, throw her hands out and press that little black door lock down.

“Yes!” She yelped. Her cheeks burned and stung. They were soaking wet. She was sobbing.

She’d done it. She’d locked the door. All she had to do was get the stupid seatbelt undone and then she could turn the truck
around and get the hell out of there. The door might be locked, but she still wasn’t safe. Rhys could break the window. He
could unlock the door that way. He could still take her and torture or murder her.

Or save you. Like he said.

That was not an option. The guy was crazy. He might genuinely believe that he was doing something good, but shit. That was
probably half of the criminals in the world who’d done terrible things.

Her hands were shaking now. Her breath rasped out of her lungs like she’d run all the way from Seattle to this point.
Adrenaline could be a shitty thing, but at the moment, it gave her strength and focus that she channeled into pressing and
jamming down on the buckle until the seatbelt released.

She didn’t cheer or scream. Her hands were bound tightly, but she could drive like that. She had to. The whole time she’d been
in the truck alone was probably under a minute, but she knew there wasn’t time. She could pull over later and try and get the
scarf off.

Her whole body screamed at her, tearing her in half, but even though her movements were jerky and shaky, she threw herself
into the driver’s seat. She twisted the keys in the ignition, but the truck just groaned and whirred and refused to start.

“No. Please. Please, please, start. Please!”

She tried again. Nothing.

“Fuck!”

Both palms smashed into the wheel. Beating it wasn’t going to do anything. She had to think. Control the panic.

It’s an old truck. She knew someone in high school who drove a classic car. He’d said something about having to pump the
thing to get it started. Pump what? How much? Is that what he really said? She’d just overheard him talking to friends. It was
crazy how something like that swam into her brain from over twenty years ago.

She jammed her foot down and slammed it onto the gas and back up a few times. This time, when she twisted the key, she kept
the motion going, up and down.

The old beast fired back to life.

“Oh my god!”

She didn’t have time to sit there crying, but the tears rolled down her cheeks as hot relief flooded her body. With her bound
hands, she grabbed for the shifter, ready to throw it in reverse.

The driver’s side window darkened abruptly and when she whipped her face around to study the shadow, her eyes locked with
the soft brown ones of a grizzly. It opened its mouth and let out a throaty roar, raked its long claws over the side of the truck,
then leapt into the back. Literally, leapt. It barely had to make a step up and it was in. The pickup groaned under the weight,
rocking and swaying violently. Were these trucks made to take that sort of weight?

Her heart stopped.

Medically, that wasn’t possible, or she’d be dead, but she felt like it was real. The roaring in her ears didn’t stop. The freight
train of fear chugging through her brain, smashing through her head, didn’t stop. The wild sensations rushing through her blood
didn’t let up. What the hell was she supposed to do now?

She hit the bench and covered her head with her hands. That wouldn’t save her.

Could anything?

This all had to be a dream. A nightmare. It wasn’t real.

But it was. It was all very real. That day in the woods, that bear, the man. All of it was real. And here she was, bound and
locked in an ancient Chevy pickup, with a freaking bear in the back.

The bear didn’t move, and the truck stayed exactly where it was. The world was so silent she could hear the blood rushing in
her ears. Slowly, she straightened. She twisted and pressed her bound palms to the back glass. The grizzly stared at her with
the same golden-eyed expression she knew from the woods.

“Okay, Rhys,” she heard herself whisper. The words were beyond her. All of this was beyond her now. “I believe you.”
 Chapter 5
Rhys
No one could accuse Amaryllis of not being decent about the whole thing.

Amaryllis. Not a lily, but a flower. His flower. How fitting.

Right now, she was staring through the back glass. She kept her eyes on his face, even after staring the bear down and then
watching him shift back into human form a few minutes later. He’d just lost it in the truck, the same way the bear lost it in the
woods. As a seasoned shifter, he should have been used to the pain. Maybe the shift was more violent and out of control both
times, but his whole body ached. Steamrolled? Please. A steamroller had nothing on the way his bones cracked, broke, and
reformed to make one being from another.

His stomach was still twisting. It came out of nowhere in the truck. The bear wasn’t some stunt to make her believe. He could
have done that later. He’d been driving and then felt sick to his stomach. Not the puking flu sickness. This was the hurt yourself
so badly that you throw up because there’s nowhere for the pain to go, impulse sickness.

None of this had ever happened to him before.

It happened that day in the woods.

Not before that, but ever since. If this was his new normal, it was going to suck ass. He felt like shit and the bear wasn’t doing
any better. He wasn’t struggling or fighting to get out. He wasn’t demanding to be the one in control of the shifts.

Amaryllis moved, tearing her eyes away. She ducked down in the truck. He waited, his body garbage incarnate in the back of
the truck. At least it was warm today. The sun overhead sucked some of the ache out of his bones, but the pounding rays made
his head hurt worse. His mouth was so, so dry.

He felt the truck shift almost imperceptibly as Amaryllis moved around inside. There was something about her. Her touch. That
had been the last shred. He’d thrust himself out of the truck just in time.

She had to be scared out of her mind. He’d done everything wrong.

The truck door creaked open. It didn’t shut. He wanted to turn his head and look, but any movement and he’d probably upchuck
all over the place. He’d never, ever felt like this after, or before a shift.

A scuff of a shoe on the back bumper. Hands on the tailgate. He twisted his head and gasped in a quick breath before he
pinched his lip shut against the acid in the back of his throat.

“You don’t look very good, kidnapper dude.” He deserved it, but her eyes held no scorn or anger. She was trying to be brave.
Funny. She was so courageous. She studied him without backing down. She wasn’t paralyzed by her fear, but she wasn’t
fearless either. She hung over the tailgate, two scarves flooding out from her hands in colorful bursts. “You should probably put
these on. I see that your clothes and shoes were obliterated, and it doesn’t seem like you have anything else with you.” Her lips
quivered like she was trying to suppress a smile. “You’re lucky these could double as a sarong.”

He dug his cheek back into the warm, rusted metal box.

“Hey!” She banged the tailgate with her open palm. “No. You need to put these on and get into the truck. I’ll drive.” She kept
staring at him. She was the one in charge now. The brave one. She was phenomenal. Beautiful. All her dainty features and her
bright green eyes all sharpened into fierce focus. There was no escaping her. He was her captive now. God help him, it was the
only thing that felt good at the moment. “I’m going to take you to a doctor,” she decided. “Do you have someone you trust?”

“We have one where I live. Clan grounds.” She didn’t know what that meant. “Our community. Yes. There’s a doctor there.”

He was disgusted with himself that he felt too sick to move. He should probably just stick his head over the side, empty his
stomach, and get on with it.
“I can’t get in there with you again. It’s too dangerous. I don’t know what’s happening and I can’t control it.”

She shook her head. Her hair was mussed and wild, strands all over the place, from her whole ordeal so far. Her sweet,
innocent beauty slammed into him like a fist connecting with bone. “You said you felt sick. If you feel that way again, tell me
and I’ll pull over. We need to get out of here. Tell me how to get where you were taking me. Where it’s safe for both of us.
We’ll figure the rest out later.”

“What about your family?”

Her eyes flashed. She let the scarves flutter down from her hands like broken butterfly wings. “You’re not taking me
anymore. I’m making a choice to go with you. I’ll text them and tell them I’m taking a few days off. Life shit, as you said. It’s a
legit thing for me to do. Soul searching. They all think I need it. they’ll be glad. We had lots of memories out this way. They
won’t worry.”

What had she already endured? The echoes of his earlier thoughts came back to him. What if the harm had already been
done? What if saving her meant healing her? Then again, who was he saving when he was flat on his back in the back of his
truck “It’s too dangerous. I’ll ride out here.”

“You will not!” She snapped. “Firstly, that’s not safe. Secondly, you’re stark naked. Anyone sees you and we’ll both be
arrested. You lose control in a cop car? In a jail cell? What’s going to happen then?” She softened. “Do you want me to help
you?”

No. God, no. That would be beyond anything he could endure. “I’ll be fine.”

“Are you ill?”

“Honestly, I don’t know what I am.” What he was supposed to be was a grown man, capable of controlling his bear and
taking care of himself. He was also supposed to reach the high aspirations of riding in like a prince on a white horse to save
this woman. So far, that hadn’t gone so well.

He shoved himself up onto his elbows. She quickly looked away. He took the scarves he’d bound and gagged her with
and tied them around his waist. Had there ever been anything more ridiculous ever?

With her back to him, she sighed. “Are you going to tell me where we’re heading?”

“We have a small town not far from here.” He checked the knot at his waist. “A little over half an hour.”

“Okay. Can you make it? No.” Her voice turned to steel. “You’ll make it. I know you will.” She angled around and
finding him decent, she stuck out her hand. Come on. I’ll help you out of there.”

He instinctively drew back. White hot hurt flashed through her eyes like a jagged bolt of lightning touching down on
barren earth. “I shouldn’t, when you touched me, that was my undoing. I’m afraid that if it happens again, I might lose control of
myself and the bear as well. I need to protect you, not harm you.”

She nodded and backed up.

He climbed out of the box and down the tailgate. It jarred him, shooting pains through his legs, when his feet touched
the packed mud trail.

“Did something happen for you?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?” She knew what he was talking about. When her palms connected. Why had that brief contact felt so
powerful when he’d thrown her over his shoulder and carried her out to the truck before?

“I’m sure.”
 “I don’t understand what’s happening.”

“Well…” She swallowed hard. “That’s promising.” It was so clearly not promising. Their eyes locked again. She
backed up like he was in bear form, and she was trying not to startle him. She rounded the truck and got in behind the wheel.

He raked a hand through his hair. The movement sent a thousand bright lights through his painful skull. He should have
brought some water. A single sip would have felt like heaven. What the hell time was it? Jesus. Lucian. He had to be back
before school let out. A glance up at the sky scorched his eyes, but it looked to be just after noon. He still had time.

Garbage incarnate, or not, he was going to have to keep it together for another thirty minutes. Until they reached
Greenacre.

Whether he’d face the wrath of the clan for what he’d done, bringing Amaryllis among them, he knew that they’d always
be there to help. He’d never asked for anything as long as he could remember. Never made himself known or visible.

That was all about to change.

Amaryllis unlocked the passenger door from the inside using skills that must be magic. That lock was sticky at the best
of times. Another magic trick? Heaving himself into the other side and getting the belt done up. Shifters rarely got sick, and
he’d never felt so terrible. The one mercy? He didn’t have to worry about having a physical reaction to the beautiful woman
who still looked and smelled good, even with her hair and clothing mussed up, even after her ordeal. In a fucking sarong with
fringe on the end, that would have been one humiliation too many.

She started the truck, pumping it to get it going, and then backed out carefully. “Which direction?” she asked when she’d
pointed it at the freeway. “The one we were heading, or was that some trick?”

“Northwest. I was heading home.”

She was quiet for a long time after she turned out and got the truck up to speed. She seemed more at ease than he was
behind the wheel, even after the nightmare of a day that she’d had. Her silence gave him too much time to think.

He wasn’t the first shifter to come back half naked in a truck, but this was a first for him. This was going to make
people notice him. He didn’t want the attention. He felt the prickle of unease in his already sore, tired muscles.

He was bringing a woman back with him. His mate. Mate… Yeah, that was a killer. Somewhere on the ride home he’d
figured that’s what she was. Not that he had any interest in a relationship, or even any experience with relationships, come to
think of it—he just had to keep her safe. Would people understand it wasn’t romantic, what was happening between them?
Would they laugh at his desire to keep it that way? Would they force questions on him about why he wanted to be alone? Would
they ask what the hell was wrong with him, because before Greenacre opened up, he’d never snuck out to find someone to ease
that loneliness with. If Amaryllis found out that he’d never even kissed a woman before, what would she say?

She’d never have a chance to say anything, because she’d never find out.

This wasn’t about him, it was about her.

He just had to figure out what he was supposed to do now that he had her with him. How did he stop that dream from
becoming a reality? How did he make her pain better, if something dark and horrible was festering inside of her?

The thinking made his head hurt even more, which made his stomach roil. He must have made a sound, because she
turned slightly, her face in beautiful profile against the sunlight. Her eyes flicked to him, and they were full of understanding
and softness.

“Do you need me to pull over?”

“I’ll make it.” That was a hope in hell if he’d ever heard one.

Her hand flexed on the wheel like she wanted to reach out, but she curled her knuckles tighter. “When we get there, do
you want me to take you right to the clinic?”
 “No,” he ground out. His voice sounded like he’d been screaming for days and days, it was so worn out. “Take me to
my cabin. I have to be there for Lucian when he gets home from school, or he’ll worry. I want to keep this between us for as
long as I can, even if that’s just a few extra hours, until we have a plan.”

“School? You have- oh my god, you’re a father?”

“He’s my younger brother.” He wasn’t getting into the whole family history here. This wasn’t about him. This was
about her. He wanted to keep it that way.

She looked at him, eyes alight like she noticed him. She did what everyone else in his clan could not. She saw. He
didn’t like the feeling of being stripped naked.

He was naked.

He could deal with that. Part of being a shifter was being comfortable with being naked and at home in both forms. He
didn’t like the way he felt bare.

“Uh- how did that happen? You’re what? Forty?”

“Something like that. It’s a long story. My dad had me young. He had Lucian when he was in his sixties. It happens.”

“Raising a child wasn’t in his life plans at that age?”

“More like it wasn’t in Lucian’s mom’s.”

There was no mistaking the pain in her body. The dark sadness that cycled through the truck like a wet mist on a frigid
day. His heart squeezed in his chest. When was the last time he’d felt it do anything other than play at being dead? He loved
two people in his life. His father and Lucian. He loved his clan, but not the same way. They were family and yet, they weren’t.
They were friends. Kind of. They’d never set him apart. They weren’t unkind. They would have included him in anything he
asked and gladly. They would listen and help. They shared with him as part of the clan. They gave him a job and a purpose and
praised his skills. But love? He didn’t think of his clanmates as his literal brothers. They weren’t close to him that way. He’d
never had a best friend. He’d never had any friends, really.

He loved carving so much because it was quiet, and it was painfully loud. It was all the things in between. What he
carved wasn’t a substitute for friendship or family or love, but he made those things. He breathed life into them. He alone
brought that beauty forward out of nothing. That gave him a sense of rightness and pleasure he’d never found anywhere else. It
was easy to lose himself in it and he had.

“Are you okay?” Soft. Compassionate. She asked him again. She was asking him, when he should have been asking her,
so what the hell was his face doing, and why was it so easy for her to see him. It made his skin feel like it was going to
combust.

He closed his eyes and breathed, doing a mental check of his body. Was the feeling like he was about to combust
because of the strange emotion? Or because the bear was going to burst out of him again, as confused as he was about it all?

“There’s a gas station!” She turned off before he could tell her not to. Amaryllis knew how to read a room. She parked
at the far end of the lot, the cab facing into empty nothingness. “I’ll only be a minute. I need something to drink or I’m going to
start gagging here my throat is so dry. What can I get you?”

Why and how? Why was she the one taking care of him and how had any of that even happened?

“I’ll get you some water too. Maybe some ibuprofen if they have it?” He should tell her not to bother. “Maybe just…”
she made a lowering motion with her hand. “Scooch down a little. You’re too noticeable.”

She slammed the door in his astonished face.

He still hadn’t got himself together by the time she was back with a white plastic bag looped over her arm. She climbed
back into the truck and set it between them. “Water. Ibuprofen. Gas station sweats and a t-shirt. I had to guess at your size, XXL
do?”
 How could a small kindness like that make his throat so closed tight?

She climbed in, banged the door shut, and put her hand on his forehead. He jerked away, heart racing. “I can guess that
the AC barely works in this old beast. I’m surprised it even has it to be honest. But I don’t think you’re just sweaty hot. I think
you’re feverish.” She shook a few pills out of the small bottle. “Here. Take these. If anything, it might help with that.”

“I’ve never had a fever before.”

She blinked at him. “What?” She dumped the pills into his palm and uncapped a bottle of water. He tossed them back.
That first sip was as heavenly as he’d imagined. He drank too much, too fast, but he couldn’t stop.

“Shifters do get sick, but not often. I don’t think I’ve ever had one, that I can remember.” He wiped his mouth with the
back of his hand.

“I don’t think touching you triggered that shift.” She did it again, this time pressing both her palms gently to the side of
his face. She either had great courage, or a blatant disregard for her own safety—or she was trying to kill him. Her eyes
screwed shut. “Nothing. I still can’t see anything. I wish I could force it, but it’s not going to happen.” As if she hadn’t just done
the craziest, most monumental thing in the world, she took out a grey pair of sweats and white t-shirt with the gas station’s name
on it. “It’s not fancy, and this was the biggest size they had. I think it’s better than looking like you’re going on a tropical
vacation, that involved eating inadvisable mushrooms.”

It felt impossible to smile, but it happened. “I’ll pay you back.” When had she even grabbed her purse? He hadn’t seen
her do it.

“Don’t worry about it. Here. I’ll turn around while you put them on.”

The truck was far too silent as he forced himself to manage in the cramped space. Amaryllis breathed loudly and his
heart kept time with the pattern of it. She reached for her water and the sound of the cap twisting off was unnaturally loud.
Twisting his body into those clothes was a new brand of hell on his head and stomach, which now felt like it was churning from
the water he’d downed, but he managed.

It was a relief to twist the scarves up and stuff them back into the bag.

When Amaryllis turned, her eyes met his and she breathed even faster, her shoulders rising with the breaths. The sun
highlighted her effortless beauty and brought out those sage green spokes in her eyes again. She dropped them quickly away,
down to her hands, which were folded in her lap.

“What’s going to happen when we get to your clan? You said you wanted to put it off for as long as possible. I’m not
going to be welcome, am I? No one knew about this. Is it going to be bad? How should I prepare myself? How old is your
brother? What is he going to think? Am I going to be staying in your home? What does it look like? Are they going to try and
force me out? I can just go, if that’s true. I should go. Back to Seattle. It’s where I live. My life is there. I’ll be-”

The pain that lanced through him was so brutal that his breath hitched so obviously that she stopped rambling. “They
won’t force you to leave. I’ll just have to talk to our alpha. He’s like… the mayor of the place. Or our leader. I’ll explain. You
can stay with me, or they’ll find you a place. No one will harm you. You don’t have to be afraid. There are other humans there.
Mates. I mean, wives. Girlfriends. They have children of their own with my clansmen.”

“O-oh.” She didn’t look reassured.

He wanted to, but he was no good at it. He’d never wanted to get close to another person before, and now he was
forced into this by reason of losing his physical health, his sanity, his connection with his bear.

Amaryllis shifted that mantle of bravery around her shoulders again, bit down on her bottom lip, and nodded. She
started the truck, pumping the perfect amount so that the old beast purred, and backed up.

“I thought once I was going to die. Not the ordinary way, but from what people would call a broken heart. Grief. I never
thought it was possible. Maybe it’s not. I’m still here. I survived. I’m surviving. If I could get through that, I’ll get through this.
All of it. Whatever this is.”

The response that stirred in him was a physical power, a restless energy, a renewed strength in his muscles. He wanted
to find whatever and whoever had hurt her and hurt them. Hurt it. Revenge. Justice. He’d be the bringer of doom. He’d never
felt such an unholy anger. It half invigorated and half terrified him.

“Aren’t you going to ask what happened?” How did she manage to sound half amused and half like she was going to
shatter right there, all with a layer of grit that he didn’t understand?

“No. Do you want to talk about it?”

She snorted. “No. No. I. Do. Not.”

He spent the rest of the trip only speaking when directions needed to be given. The reality of what he’d done had
started to sink in deeper and deeper, the closer they got to Greenacre. A sense of apprehension took hold, and he knew there
would be consequences. Instead of figuring out exactly what he was going to say to Sam and to anyone else who asked why
he’d suddenly broken with reality, he found himself studying the soft black strands of Amaryllis’ hair. He wanted to know what
it would feel like to run it over his palm, between his fingers, what it would smell like if he buried his nose there.

Before he could wonder about anything else, he looked out the window to gather his thoughts. He’d tell his alpha the
truth.

When Sam asked him to explain himself, he’d do so with complete and utter honesty, and if that damned him, then so be
it. Amaryllis wasn’t going to leave unless she was ready and she was safe, and if that tore him to shreds—physically or in any
other way—he’d pay that price because that was his fate and a person couldn’t change that, so there was no use being afraid of
what was coming, no matter how unnerving, unsettling, and painful it was.
 Chapter 6
Amaryllis
It wasn’t just the babies that hurt.

It was seeing mothers everywhere with children. Children of all ages. She’d seen the small group of women walking as they
drove through the center of town, and she’d tried to breathe through the rising panic. It destroyed her, her chest combusting, her
roaring heart making it impossible to breathe through the pain. Would it ever stop? Probably not. Would it fade with time? She
could only hope. She sometimes wondered why she had such an extreme reaction for a pregnancy that ended too soon, because
other women managed to move past such a tragedy—or did they? Because you never truly knew what pain people hid deep
within themselves.

Maybe part of her grieving was for what the baby represented? At forty years of age, it was probably her last chance at
motherhood, and as the surgery had taken one of her ovaries, what remaining odds she had at conceiving—should she actually
meet someone new—were halved.

She’d pulled the truck up to a smaller log cabin after driving through the town that appeared to comprise solely of a single main
street, with a few other log cabins of varying sizes and builds scattered off it. Entering the cabin behind Rhys, she caught sight
of a huge white hammock hung between two broad, towering trees. Green grass surrounding the cabin, but beyond that spread
the untamed woods, thick and unbroken. He’d gone to change, but he’d kept the gas station t-shirt on, even though it was too
small and too tight. She couldn’t stop looking at him. He was beautiful and captivating. But more than that, she watched him for
signs that he wasn’t alright. That she should have taken him straight to the clinic instead. They sat in his living room, her on the
couch and Rhys on a large leather chair, saying nothing. The time ticked on. She’d wanted to break that silence so many times,
but she didn’t know what to say. She was trapped in thoughts and then bogged down with memories. She cycled between the
two while Rhys looked lost in thoughts or plans of his own.

When the door suddenly opened, Rhys shot out of his chair like he’d been hit by a bolt of lightning that crashed its way through
the house.

Amaryllis watched the little boy with the same mahogany hair and dark brown eyes rush across the room. He left the door
open, left his backpack on, and opened his arms. Rhys picked him up and hugged him close. The rush of pain Amaryllis
expected, hit her like another bolt of lightning. A personalized one that was sent straight to either stop her heart or kickstart it
back into beating. Her chest felt like a minefield that there was no way she could traverse safely.

Lucian noticed her right away. “Who’s that?” he asked Rhys, still clinging to his neck.

Rhys set him down. “This is a friend, bud. She’s going to spend a few days with us, or here in Greenacre at least. Her name is
Amaryllis.”

The little boy scrunched his nose up shyly. “Why? Why is she staying?”

“Because sometimes people need their friends to help them.”

“No! You’re not friends!” Lucian insisted. He gave Amaryllis a malevolent little boy stare like he was onto her game. Rhys set
him down and took his hand. “She’s a friend that I just met a few weeks ago. I have to talk to Sam about her staying and I figure
he’ll probably be here soon, because word has likely reached him already that someone new to the clan is here, but I really
hope she can stay.”

Rhys took Lucian’s backpack and hung it on the row of wooden pegs beside the wooden front door. The inside of the cabin was
beautiful. The rounded, rough logs on the outside had been covered up with tongue and groove pine on the walls and ceilings.
The flooring was made of large planks, sanded down and stained. The floor took away from the more modern look of the cabin,
giving it an authentically historical feel.

He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “Are you okay with her being here, Lucian?”

The little boy studied Amaryllis solemnly, his expression was so earnest she fought the urge to laugh, her pain dissipating under
his scrutiny. “Do you make cookies?”

If that was the one prerequisite to being here, at least she could meet it. “I happen to make all sorts of very good
cookies.”

“Okay.” His chin tipped up, but he still didn’t smile, he appeared to be considering her words carefully. “Rhys never makes
them. The only time I get any is at school, because some of the kids’ moms bake them for everyone. He says we should eat
healthy, and cookies aren’t healthy.”

“Hey. I said treats are okay sometimes, but I can’t make them because I’ve never been good at baking,” Rhys cut in, defending
himself. “There’s a restaurant in town,” he told her. “Sometimes we go there, also as a treat, because my cooking is about as
bad as my baking.”

“The only thing Rhys can make is grilled cheese. Oh, and he cooks meat on the grill, but that’s it.”

“That’s not all we eat! We have fresh vegetables or canned in winter. As part of the clan, we get a portion of the garden shares.
I make potatoes and rice and pasta.”

“Yeah, but not good. You burn it half the time and sometimes, it’s dry, sometimes it’s mushy.”

“Goodness. Well, if your stipulation for my staying is that I cook while I’m here, I could do that.”

Lucian was a shrewd bargainer, and he wasn’t going to let her off without an ironclad agreement. “Cookies too?”

“Cookies too. Just because I said I can bake them, doesn’t mean that I would, but I’m in full agreement. If Rhys says it’s okay?”

“Can you make enough for my whole school like the other moms do?”

“Lucian—”

“Sure. I- maybe. How many is the whole school?” She wanted to know what she was committing to, having sudden thoughts of
batch baking hundreds upon hundreds of cookies.

“It’s about thirty kids now,” Rhys admitted reluctantly. “Plus two teachers. Connor and Loretta. Stephanie was helping out at
the school, but she had a baby last month.” He flushed slowly, like he wasn’t sure why he’d given that extra information.

“Then I could definitely do that.”

“Okay, Cookie Lady.” Lucian stuck out his hand. As far as kids went, he wasn’t overly shy, and he was funny. Smart for his age.
At four, he was still small, but he had a mighty mind and a big spirit. She suddenly had a thought—was he a bear like his
brother? How did that even work? Her mind was swimming with so many questions, but maybe focusing on something so
mundane as baking was keeping her from losing her shit. “You’ve got a deal.” He stuck out his tiny hand and she got up from
the couch, bent down in front of him, and took it with a smile. He shook hard with a good grip.

“Rhys?” A deep male voice drifted through the door that had been left slightly open by Lucian. Rhys whipped around and
Lucian nearly leapt at Amaryllis. “It’s just me. Can I come in?”

Amaryllis instinctively put her arms around the little boy, who leaned into her harder. Rhys lost some of the tension in his face,
but it remained in his body. He waved a hand towards them like he was trying to offer reassurance. “It’s alright. It’s Sam.”

“I thought we were supposed to go and see him?” She’d been surprised by his comment about Sam showing up at his house, but
it made sense. In any small town, news travelled fast.

“Is he going to make you leave?” Lucian looked up at her, his big eyes filled with worry. He clearly didn’t want to lose his
promised cookies before they materialized. Still, he clung to her like it was more than that.

She wanted to tell him everything would be fine, but as she scooped him up and brought him over to the couch to sit down with
him on her lap, hugging her like he’d known her for his whole life and not a mere five minutes, the words wouldn’t come.
“Rhys will talk to him,” she said, smoothing her hand over Lucian’s hair. It was long, past shoulder length, and soft, with a few
wind-tangled snarls in the strands that she was careful to brush her fingers around.

Rhys was already moving to the door. The cabin’s living room opened up to the hallway, but she couldn’t see him until he came
back around that small partition of wall, another man behind him. Her eyes widened and she was glad she kept her gasp to
herself. She didn’t think it was possible for anyone to be as tall and broad as Rhys. As far as men went, he was probably in
first percentile. Were all the men in his clan, bear shifters, this huge?

The clan’s alpha had hard features, that, combined with his size, would scare anyone easily, but his eyes were soft and kind. He
nodded at Amaryllis and Lucian and took a seat in the chair that Rhys had just occupied. There was a scrap of room left on the
couch and Rhys sat down beside them, so he didn’t have to stand. She had no idea what the protocol was.

A few hours ago, she had no idea that any of this even existed. In those few hours, she’d been taken against her will and then it
wasn’t so against her will. Truly, what was she doing here? That’s what she needed to figure out. It was like starting blind at
the beginning of a maze and trying to find your way to the end through the most convoluted path filled with traps and dangers.

Was it? Or was that just life in general? She’d been blinded by the events of the past months. Her heart was cut open and bled
out. She was tired and weary. She was never going to be the same. A part of her had been stolen away and she’d never be that
same person she was before it. She was shouldering the weight of new grief and it changed how she saw everything and
thought of everything.

What if this wasn’t the maze? What if Rhys was just the one who stepped out of a side door and offered to lead her through it
safely?

How is he supposed to do that?

She didn’t know. She tucked her chin near Lucian’s head and breathed in the scent of fresh air, trees, and soap.

“Rhys, I heard that you’d brought someone here,” Sam started. He sounded a little bit unsure even though he didn’t look
nervous. “I can see that it’s true.”

“She’s my destiny.” Rhys shook his head and brushed a hand through his hair. He didn’t look nervous. He looked
uncomfortable. She could see how tense he was again—and wait, what? Destiny? “I couldn’t do anything to avoid it. I had to
go get her or I was… I just had to go and get her.”

She waited for him to tell Sam about the bear, about how he’d lost control, how he wasn’t well earlier. He wasn’t so pale now.
As soon as they’d walked in the door to his cabin, he looked like he could breathe again. Maybe it was the pills that helped,
but his color came back, his breathing evened out, and he didn’t look like a caged animal about to fly wildly up against the
bars.

“I know I should have asked permission before, but she knows now. She knows everything.” Rhys brushed his palms over his
thighs. “I’m not going to apologize. I’ve never asked this clan for anything, but I’m asking now. I need her to stay. I need to keep
her safe.”

“Safe from what?” Sam asked, but he kept his tone polite. His face, open and kind, said he wasn’t there to pass judgement.

Rhys’ shoulders heaved with a sigh that was pure frustration. “I don’t know. I had a dream. A series of dreams. The same
dream multiple times. I was compelled to find her. I can’t explain it, I was led right to her. As the bear and as a man.”

Sam’s brow rose a fraction. “And she came with you, just like that?”

Amaryllis could only see the side profile of Rhys’ face, like when he’d been driving in the truck, but she saw him flinch.

“I had a hard time believing some of this at first,” she said before she even knew she was speaking. “But I’m here now because
I want to be here. I don’t fully understand, but I think this is where I’m supposed to be. I don’t know what I’m meant to find
here, but- I- this is right, at least right now. I told my family and friends I’m taking a vacation.” She’d sent the text right after
walking into the cabin, still in disbelief that she was making this her new reality. “I own my business. I’ll put a notice up on the
website and social media that I’m taking a few days off.”
“A few days?”

“Yes… I think it would be appropriate to start with that.” Saying it out loud to someone sounded crazy, like whirlwind turn
your life upside down crazy, but ever since she’d lost her baby it felt like she was in freefall—maybe this place was meant to
help her heal? If only she could see her own destiny…

Sam shifted in his chair. “As alpha of this clan, it’s my duty to protect the land we call ours, and the people of it. Everyone
here, born here or not, is under my protection. I need to know if there’s something coming, or someone.” He looked at Rhys.
“You said you wanted to protect her, but you don’t know what you’re protecting her from. Do you have any idea what that might
be?”

Amaryllis didn’t like the prickling feeling that gave her all over her body. Lucian curled up tighter into her. “I don’t know of
anything,” she said. How could she explain that the blackness was already inside of her? Had life sent her this man and this
place, this child, this community, when she needed it most?

Even with her gifts, she had a hard time believing in destiny or fate.

“It was inside of her,” Rhys spoke up. “In the dream.”

He hadn’t said that. She didn’t know what he’d seen. But really, she should have figured that it must be haunting, for him to bust
ass all the way to Seatle and kidnap her. Or attempt to.

“You want me to beg you for this, Sam?” Rhys asked sharply.

“No,” Sam responded evenly. “No begging needed.” He smiled at Amaryllis and Lucian. “You’re welcome here for as long as
you’d like to stay. I don’t need to comment on the sanctity of this place or how important it is that we remain hidden in plain
sight, or how disastrous it would be if the secret of us became known in the world.”

“No.” She breathed in against Lucian’s hair again. “Of course you don’t.”

“You need any medical care, we’ll see to you. Any kind of care at all, you just let someone here know and it’s yours. You’re
under my protection now, for as long as you remain in Greenacre. I’m satisfied that you’re here of your own will.” He stood
and cleared his throat. “Destiny works in strange ways sometimes. I’ve believed in it before, but then it brought me a mate and
my children. My life hasn’t been without tragedy and hardship, but through that, I’ve been granted unbelievable happiness. I
hope it’s the same for you both.”

“We’re not mates, it’s not like that,” Rhys blurted, standing abruptly. “This isn’t romantic. I have no interest in that.”

Thanks. Amaryllis nearly rolled her eyes at the near desperation in that statement. She let the sting of that comment pass over
her. Just because she’d realized, bone freaking deep, that Rhys was an attractive man—okay, he was insanely hot—didn’t mean
he had to find her attractive. His comment wasn’t meant to wound. He was helping her because they’d found their lives
inexplicably linked together for the next undetermined number of days. It had nothing to do with him falling for her.

Romance was the last thing on the list of things she needed in her life.

Her long-term relationship had ended abruptly. She thought that she’d been in love, and then she wondered if she even knew
what love was. She’d thought that same thing before, but with Dean, it was closer to love than anything before it. To have him
just sever things and walk away scored her deeply. She’d had to be strong for herself and for the baby.

That was real love.

Those three months were filled with the purest love she’d ever known.

Sam clapped Rhys on the back like a father patiently reminding a son that he was older, wiser, and had been there himself. But
there was nothing patronizing in his manner, just affection. “Welcome to Greenacre,” he said over Rhys’ shoulder. “My house is
always open to you both, as are many other homes here. I know you’ll find a great deal of warmth and friendship waiting for
you.” Why did it sound like that was for more than her?
For both of them?

Rhys stood up abruptly and walked Sam out.

Lucian turned to look up at her. “Can we make cookies now?”

She laughed. “If we have the right things here to make them, we certainly can.”

Even if she wasn’t sure about bear shifters, the man who had come for her and called her his destiny but not his mate—like it
was the worst thing in the world, hidden clans, an alternate reality, leaving Seattle and her life even just for a few days, she
was sure about making this sweet little boy happy.
 Chapter 7
Amaryllis
“He’s here, Mer. He’s so beautiful. Come see. Come meet him.”

The thrill of new life and that overwhelming love banished the fresh pain in her body. She couldn’t feel anything except the
warm weight in her arms. Her son. She leaned in and smelled his hair while her sister walked across the hospital room. Both
of them started crying at once.

“Oh, he’s wonderful,” Meredith breathed. She carefully threaded her arms through Amaryllis’ and lifted the baby. She stared
down at him, cooing. “Sweet baby. Sweet darling. You’re the most beautiful baby in the world, aren’t you. The loveliest baby.
We adore you so much. So, so much.”

Meredith slowly started backing away, rocking the baby, cooing at him. She kept walking and Amaryllis realized with horror
that her sister wasn’t going to stop. She tried to get out of the bed, but her body was too heavy. Every limb a deadweight. She
couldn’t move.

“Meredith!” she cried. “Mer, please! Bring him back!”

She didn’t bring him back. She kept doing that weird backwards walk, that loving smile fixed firmly on her face.

“Meredith! Please! He’s my son! He’s my son! Come back!”

Her sister disappeared through the door. Gone. Her son, gone. Amaryllis knew the emptiness of being childless. She felt that
barrenness inside of her, her body empty of life. She was a broken vessel.

***

“Oh my god!” She shot up in bed, heart racing, her skin feverishly hot. Where the hell was she, and what the fuck was that
dream?

Right. She was in Rhys’ room in the cabin. Next door was the smaller bedroom where she’d tucked Lucian in last night because
he’d asked her to.

Either cookies were the fastest way to a little boy’s heart, or he’d taken an instant liking to her. Lucian was a good boy. He
helped eagerly and anticipated the small things that he could do. When Rhys asked him to brush his teeth at eight, he hadn’t
argued once or begged to stay up longer. After, he appeared in the living room where she was sitting, wearing a red pajama
onesie like the lumberjacks used to, and he’d asked for her to tuck him in.

She hadn’t done that for a child since she was a teenager and she’d babysat regularly for six different families. She’d always
been great with kids. She was responsible. Didn’t party. Didn’t have weird boys over. Didn’t break any rules. Word got around
and she had regular work and did until she graduated and went to college.

Her first impulse, now that her heart had settled enough to be rational, was to grab her phone and check it. She resisted. She’d
turned it off last night, after assuring everyone she was fine. She needed time to decompress and that didn’t involve being on
her devices constantly.

Bad habits won out. She turned it on just to double check that Mer and her parents weren’t having second thoughts and a heart
attack over the whole thing. She didn’t need anyone calling the cops in a fit of panic because she’d uncharacteristically
disappeared.

What exactly was out of character for her the past few months? To anyone else, her life had completely unraveled. Meredith
worried that she’d unraveled along with it. She was a little surprised to see that she didn’t have any texts. She wasn’t going to
check her personal or her business email. She suddenly noticed the time and leapt out of the bed.

It was past nine. She hadn’t slept so late in her entire life.
She had her clothes from the day before, which she threw on. She’d slept in a borrowed t-shirt, trying hard to ignore how it
smelled like Rhys. It was mostly laundry soap, but she drove herself mad for an hour until she’d finally drifted off with
thoughts of him.

She thought of him now.

Lucian would be in school already and Rhys? What did he do during the day? They should have figured things out last night, but
there was so much to say that it all jammed up and after making cookies with Lucian—enough for his whole school as he’d
requested—she’d just sat down in the living room with Rhys, and they said nothing. They’d eaten dinner the same way, just
grilled cheese with pickles, Lucian winking at her when she looked at him, and Rhys appearing to be lost in his thoughts. It
wasn’t an uncomfortable silence, but it wasn’t easy, either.

After Lucian was tucked in, Rhys suggested she must be exhausted as well. He’d insisted that she take his room and he’d take
the couch. He made the bed up with fresh sheets and had left her to it.

The cabin was quiet. A few dirty bowls and a mug sat beside the sink. The kitchen was like the rest of the cabin, with knotted
pine on the walls, and cupboards that were well crafted from the same blonde wood. The furniture looked to have been created
by the same maker. The only furniture in the house that wasn’t hewn from wood were the couch and chairs in the living room.
Instead, they were the oversized, over-padded, super comfortable type, so she hadn’t felt too guilty at Rhys’ suggestion that she
take his bed.

She moved into the living room and found no one. A muffled thud sounded from the other side of the wall. It took her a second
to recall what Rhys said about his carving. Did he have a shop attached to the cabin? She hadn’t done any exploring the day
before as she’d been too busy processing the whole, ‘shapeshifters are real and now I’m in a town with a bunch of them’ thing.
She looked for a door and when she didn’t find one, she slipped into her shoes and walked around. She got a good view of the
hammock, the trees, the sun already high and warm overhead, a whole lot of green. A few other cabins lined the street—if a
dirt track cut through the forest could be called that—so they had neighbors, but there was no one stirring in them or walking
around outside.

The morning was a lovely one, but Amaryllis found herself crossing her arms around her chest like she was cold. She told
herself that she wasn’t afraid of being here. No one would hurt her. It wasn’t as if there were going to be bears milling around
all over the place. Thanks to Rhys’ quietness the previous evening, she still hadn’t learned too much about the town of
Greenacre—but given the town’s mayor or whatever he was, had looked like a regular man, and Lucian went to what sounded
like a regular school, she guessed the people were in human form most of the time.

She saw no one, but she did discover the small lean-to structure with a sloped roof and slanted walls at the back of the house.
It was done in the same log siding, but she could tell it had been an addition. She realized that the one wall slid away or
opened up, but there was also a smaller, conventional door. She tried the handle on that one. It was unlocked so she stepped in.

The space was well lit with windows on the one wall and overhead bare bulbs in white sockets.

The man moving inside looked huge in the small shop. He’d look larger than life anywhere, not just larger than regular men. He
hadn’t noticed her come in. Hadn’t heard her. She got to watch him for a few seconds undetected. He moved with grace and
ease. He was using some kind of tool, a chisel maybe, to work in carvings on a post of wood that was already so alive. Birds,
Amaryllis noted. The whole post was full of birds and ancient symbols. Not just birds. Ravens. Her favorite bird. It was the
most beautiful work, intricate and so detailed, those ravens looked like they were going to take flight, right off that post.

Rhys was a carpenter, a carver, an artist. Her eyes flicked around the shop, landing on the wooden figures, the larger carved
out animals, a gargoyle in the corner, wooden scenes mounted to the walls in all different shapes, the mermaid on the
workbench on the far side of the shop. She came back to the post with the ravens, back to Rhys’ broad shoulders and his huge
back. She didn’t notice that he was finely crafted himself or anything. She didn’t let her eyes travel down the hard, muscular
planes of him, down his powerful back, to his ass in the faded out, worn in jeans.

God, that’s exactly what she did. She felt like a voyeur.

She should announce herself. She didn’t feel right about just standing there watching. She felt like she’d invaded his space.
“Hi.” Her voice sounded gravelly and sleepy.
He whirled. He took her in, sharp chisel suspended mid-air. He’d taken her because he thought it was right. He thought it was
what the universe wanted and demanded, but what if that was yesterday and this morning was something different? Was that
why he let her sleep? Was it why he suddenly looked almost guilty? She’d seen regret on a lot of people before, and it looked
different on everyone—but on him, it made her lungs feel like they were full of frosted air.

She exhaled forcefully. Regret wasn’t a straight up emotion.

“You let me sleep late,” she said, trying to be casual. It sounded guarded.

Instantly, she watched Rhys become the same way, his guards slamming up in place, his expression flat and inscrutable. She
missed the way he’d looked in the truck, even if she’d been so worried because he was tired, broken down, and feverish. She
didn’t want him to feel that way or for him to lose control of himself in any way. She just missed how he’d let her in for that
brief span of time.

She felt the urge to burst into tears. Whatever. If he’d changed his mind about all of this, then so be it. She’d go back to Seattle.
She shouldn’t be upset about her would be kidnapper changing his mind. It meant nothing if he had. She’d just go back to her
life. She was perfectly capable of putting her own self back together. Her bottom lip started to tremble anyway. She bit down
on it.

“If you don’t want me here, you can just say so. You don’t have to pretend like I don’t exist, like last night.”

“I’m just overwhelmed.” He sighed. She noticed the shadows under his eyes and felt guilty. He hadn’t slept all night while
she’d had a great sleep… until that dream.

“Or maybe you made a mistake. Maybe we both did. What do we do about it? Should we figure it out, or should I just go? I feel
so bad that you introduced me to your little brother and made him all hopeful, but he’ll forget that I was ever here. Kids are like
that. Resilient. If you learn how to make cookies, you’ll replace me in his memory in no time.”

She was still living her life. She was still the same person she’d been before yesterday. Why did it cut her apart to realize how
much she’d changed in a single day? She was the same person out here, but different. Thinking about going back to the city felt
oddly like a loss of freedom.

He didn’t say anything. The silence crept into her already wounded soul and burned like disinfectant.

“I used to believe that there was endless good in the world. I still want to believe that. I’ll be fine. You don’t have to take me
back. I’ll go to Sam and see if he can drop me at the edge of the city and I’ll get a cab back home. Like I said, your secret is
always safe with me. You don’t ever have to worry about that.”

He blinked and slowly lowered that tool to the workbench. When she looked down, she realized that the legs on it were
intricately carved as well. She forced her eyes back to Rhys. He didn’t turn all the way back to her, like he didn’t want to let
her see whatever he was thinking.

“Rhys.” She tried his name. Tried not to say it impatiently or with frustration. “I need you to talk to me. Talk with me. You’re
allowed to change your mind, but please, let’s just get this figured out. I need to know why you went so quiet last night, and
why you’re looking like you think this whole thing is a mistake.”

More silence. He scuffed his boot on the broad wood floorboards. Like the ones in the house, but coarser. They were still worn
smooth from all the walking on top of them.

She snorted in pure frustration. “You talked to me just fine before. You came to the city and you took me! What’s going on? Why
can’t you even say a few words to me now? I’m a grown woman and it doesn’t matter what they are, just tell me what you’re
feeling.”

He turned all the way around and she was met with his back. She stared at it. She thought that arguments could best be avoided
by not getting emotional, or waiting to talk until emotions could be controlled and thought could be rational. She’d spent all her
life trying not to be explosive or abrasive, and as a result, she’d hardly ever fought with anyone. She just talked things out.
That wasn’t going to work. She’d never wanted to scream at anyone more than she wanted to scream something at Rhys.

Talk to me! Look at me! What the hell?

She swallowed it back. She wasn’t going to attack him. He didn’t deserve that. His shoulders suddenly bunched. It was the
smallest movement, but it was like watching someone get an invisible knife in their back. Was that what he thought of her? How
he saw her? With mistrust? Was she nothing more than a burden to him? Had he not wanted to do any of it, the kidnapping and
the bringing her to his home? He hadn’t seemed so reluctant yesterday, but maybe it was straight adrenaline he was running on,
or base instinct and reason had nothing to do with it.

The whole thing was a disaster with the unplanned shifting and the way it seemed to wreck his body afterwards, but that
seemed to resolve once he got back to his home. He drew strength and comfort from the familiar log cabin, it seemed. He
hadn’t become tense until he’d talked to Sam, and there was no reason for it. The clan’s alpha seemed to be a kind, reasonable
man.

If all she was to him was trouble, a burden he didn’t need or want, then she’d take care of that herself. She hadn’t asked for any
of this to happen to her. It had, and what’s done was done, but it could be undone. She’d just leave.

She whirled, leaving the homey comfort of the workshop with its scent of pine behind. She flew outside. She didn’t feel the
warmth of the sun. She was ice cold on the inside. She hadn’t come to a place of safety. All that nonsense of destiny and fate
was just that. She wasn’t sure why she couldn’t get the memo about life being a constant disappointment. Was she really still
that innocent and naïve after everything?

Whipping around the corner of the cabin, she stalked past the hammock strung between those two trees. It was nice. One of
those huge ones with the macrame that hung down all along the front, ending in little tassels. The woods surrounding the cabin
weren’t the right direction to anywhere, but she headed for them anyway. She needed to work off her bristling anger before she
approached anyone for a ride back to the city. She didn’t want to be abrasive. She didn’t want anyone to blame Rhys. She’d
just say that she’d done enough soul searching or that she’d decided she wasn’t in any sort of imminent danger.

How fucking absurd.

Her heart raced as she changed her pace, going from a walk to a run. She pushed through the woods, her anger fueling her
movement. The rage washed away the fear she might have known as she went deeper and deeper into the unknown.

So what if she was from the city? So what if she wasn’t wearing hiking shoes. So what if she—the root rose up out nowhere.
She pitched forward, twisted at the last moment to keep her face from plunging into the dirt, nearly hitting her head on an
overhanging branch to her right, and twisting again, all in a fraction of a second. Her ankle didn’t twist as easily as her body. It
stayed wrenched under the root. Pain like fire embers sewn into the marrow of her bones shot up her leg.

“Ow!”

Carefully, breathing too hard, she turned her body to stare at her ankle. It didn’t look gruesome. It just hurt. She got
herself up and leaned over. It wasn’t easy to untie her sneaker, but she worked it off and then slipped her foot out. She tried
turning it left and right, rotating slowly. It hurt like hell, but nothing appeared broken. She whimpered when she put her shoe
back on, the constant pain in her ankle throbbing sickeningly.

Was she that far into the woods? Surely she could trace her steps back. She looked around. Nothing seemed familiar. It
wasn’t like there was a path she’d followed.

Wow. If I’m lost and injured, that would just be great. How could I have been so dumb?

Should she just wait? Stay put? Hope that someone found her? Should she try calling for help? The only name she
thought to cry was Rhys, and she wasn’t going to humble herself to do that. She might be a grown woman who could darn well
handle rejection and get on with it, but she wasn’t ready to choke back that amount of humiliation yet.

She didn’t need to call.

A few minutes later, she heard movement in the woods. She backed up until her spine hit one of the trees and hoped she
could blend in if it was a wild animal. Her hands shook as she tucked them between her knees. She bit down hard on her lower
lip so she didn’t cry out.

Whether he was good at tracking or he had uncanny instincts, Rhys materialized right in front of her. She actually
blinked to make sure he was real.

The regret on his face was different than it had been in the shop. “Amaryllis,” he whispered, her name hitching on the
last syllable. He dropped to his knees. “Are you hurt?”

“Would you care if I was?”

His hands were shaking when he reached out. “Yes.”

“I’m fine.” That hand didn’t stop. His fingertips brushed against her hair, then her temple, and her cheek. She flinched
back. “Don’t.”

“I’m sorry.” His hand dropped back to the mossy floor of the woods. It was all alive.

“I just meant it might make your bear freak out. Yesterday…”

“I don’t think that had anything to do with what was happening.”

“Are you hurt?” he asked again. It looked like he wouldn’t forgive himself if she was.

“Not really. I tripped over a root, but I’ll survive.”

She arched forward to hug her legs and her hair curtained her face. He tucked a strand behind her ear before she could
object. She looked up and rolled her eyes at him. “You don’t get to be nice after being an asshole. You can’t be both. Either you
want me to leave because you want your well-ordered life back, or you want to figure this out. That can’t be both either.”

“You’re right. I’m an asshole.”

She couldn’t laugh and cry at the same time, but she wanted to. She might just do it. The tears felt close. She blinked
fast, trying to clear them away. They had no right to fall. Zero right. She was tougher than this. Look at all the shit she’d
survived so far. This man was nothing to her. He was less than nothing. He couldn’t hurt her feelings, couldn’t cut at her the
way not even Dean’s leaving could do. He was just a stranger. He was—

Fuck, he was reaching out again, tucking her hair back again, and she wanted to lean into his hand. She wanted him to
keep it there. She wanted to throw her arms around his neck and admit that she was scared she was lost in the woods, that her
ankle hurt, that all of her hurt and had for months and she was more afraid of that constant grief than she’d ever been of
anything. She wanted to tell him how her soul hurt. How it hurt and hurt and hurt. She wanted him to carry her back to the
cabin, or just lift her and snug her into his arms, to take the heavy burden of it all away from her, just for a few seconds.

Letting this man who yesterday thought he might mean something to her, and then decided he didn’t overnight, touch her
wasn’t going to make anything better. It wasn’t going to make her less fucked up on the inside. It wasn’t going to make it easier
for her to cry, which she still hadn’t done, even though it wasn’t just numbness inside of her anymore. With a twisted, gnarled
up heart and a body full of pain, tears should come easy. They didn’t.

She jerked away. Rhys let his hand drop. He didn’t try and force it. He also didn’t try and steady her when she got to
her feet. “Just point me in the direction of Sam’s house so I can tell him that I’m leaving and ask him if anyone can give me a
ride.”

“You don’t have to leave.”

She huffed. “We’re not going to play this back-and-forth game. Whatever told you to come and get me, it was wrong. I know
you don’t feel it right now. Do you?”

His eyes darted away and the void where all the words that should have been spoken fell into was answer enough.
Another random document with
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Mitscherlich’s audience on the occasion of its first performance by
him. The author has since discovered no less than six other cases of
substances which exhibit crossed-axial-plane dispersion of the optic
axes, in the course of his investigations, one of which is illustrated in
Plate XIII., facing page 108; and, moreover, has arrived at a general
explanation of the whole phenomenon, the main points of which are
that such substances, besides showing very feeble double refraction
(the two extreme of the three refractive indices being very close
together), also exhibit very close approximation of the intermediate
refractive index β to either the minimum index α or the maximum
index γ. Also, change of temperature, or of wave-length, or most
usually both, must so operate as to bring the two indices closest
together into actual identity and then to pass beyond each other,
these two indices thus exchanging positions, the extreme one
becoming the intermediate index. In other words, the uniaxial cross
and circular rings are produced owing to two of the three refractive
indices (corresponding to the directions of the three rectangular axes
of the ellipsoid which, in general, expresses the optical properties of
a crystal) becoming equal at the particular temperature at which the
phenomenon is observed to occur, and for light of the specific wave-
length in question. The ellipsoid of general form which represents
the optical properties of a biaxial crystal thus becomes converted into
a rotation ellipsoid corresponding to a uniaxial crystal. Brookite and
the triple tartrate are excellent examples of the predominance of the
effect of change of wave-length, for the optic axes are separated in
both cases widely in one plane for red light and almost equally widely
in the perpendicular plane for blue light. The new cases observed by
the author are sensitive both to change of wave-length and to change
of temperature, and so fall midway between the cases just quoted
and the case of gypsum. The cause of it, in four of these new
instances, is a very interesting one, connected with the regular
change of the refractive indices in accordance with the law of
progression in an isomorphous series according to the atomic weight
of the alkali metal present, which will be discussed in Chapter X.
A further most important discovery was made by Mitscherlich in
the year 1827, which also profoundly concerns the work of the
author, namely, that of selenic acid, H2SeO4, analogous to sulphuric
acid, and of the large group of salts derived from it, the selenates,
analogous to the sulphates. He showed first that potassium selenate,
K2SeO4, is isomorphous with potassium sulphate, K2SO4, and
subsequently that the selenates in general are isomorphous with the
corresponding sulphates; consequently it followed that selenium is a
member of the sulphur family of elements. This element selenium
had only been discovered ten years previously by his friend Berzelius,
and doubtless Mitscherlich had seen a great deal of the work in
connection with it during the two years which he spent in the
laboratory of Berzelius at Stockholm, and was deeply interested in it.
The discovery has proved a most fruitful one, for the selenates are
beautifully crystalline salts, particularly suitable for crystallographic
researches, and their detailed investigation has afforded a most
valuable independent confirmation of the important results obtained
for the sulphates.
Again in 1830 Mitscherlich, following up the preliminary work
already referred to, definitely established another fact bearing on the
same series, namely, the isomorphism of potassium manganate
K2MnO4 with the sulphate and selenate of potash; moreover, on
continuing his study of the manganese salts he further substantiated
the isomorphism of the permanganates with the perchlorates, and
isolated permanganic acid. This also proved a most important step
forward, as these salts likewise afford admirable material for
crystallographic investigation, and such an examination, carried out
by Muthmann and Barker, has yielded most valuable results.
Much later in his career Mitscherlich also described the
dimorphous iodide of mercury, HgI2, one of the most remarkable
and interesting salts known to us, the unstable yellow rhombic
modification being converted into the more stable red tetragonal
form by merely touching with a hard substance. Also we are indebted
to him at the same later period for our knowledge of the crystalline
forms of the elements phosphorus, iodine, and selenium, when
crystallised from solution in bisulphide of carbon.
From the record of achievements which has now been given in this
chapter it will be obvious how much chemical crystallography owes
to Mitscherlich. The description of his work has taken us into almost
every branch of the subject, morphological, optical, and thermal, and
although it has consequently been necessary to refer to phenomena
which have not yet been explained in this book, it has doubtless
proved on the whole most advantageous thus to present the life work
of this great master as a complete connected story.
 CHAPTER VIII
MORPHOTROPY AS DISTINCT FROM ISOMORPHISM.

It has been shown in the last chapter how Mitscherlich discovered

the principle of isomorphism, as applying to the cases of substances
so closely related that their interchangeable chemical elements are
members of the same family group; and also how the principle
enabled him to determine the chemical constitution of two hitherto
unknown acids which he isolated, selenic H2SeO4 and permanganic
HMnO4. For he observed that the selenates were isomorphous with
the sulphates, and the permanganates with the perchlorates. It was
further made clear that the principle as bequeathed to us by
Mitscherlich was only defined in very general terms, and its details
have only recently been precisely decided.
Before proceeding further (in Chapter X.) with the elucidation of
the true nature of isomorphism, however, some important
crystallographic relationships between substances less closely related
than family analogues must be referred to, as the outcome of a series
of investigations by von Groth, chiefly between the derivatives of the
hydrocarbon benzene. Also, some suggestive results obtained by the
author from an investigation of an organic homologous series, that
is, one the members of which differ by the regular addition of a CH3
group, may be briefly referred to.
The interval between the work of Mitscherlich and that of von
Groth was one of doubt, discouragement, and somewhat of discredit
for chemical crystallography. The chemists Laurent[3] and Nicklès[4]
carried out during the years from 1842 to 1849 measurements of
numerous organic substances and of some inorganic compounds, the
former chiefly halogen or other derivatives of particular
hydrocarbons or salts of homologous fatty acids. Laurent, for
instance, found that naphthalene tetrachloride, C10H8.Cl4, and
chloronaphthalene tetrachloride, C10H7Cl.Cl4, crystallise in different
systems, the former in the monoclinic and the latter in the rhombic
system. Yet the primary prism angles of the two are less than a
degree different, namely, 109° 0′ and 109° 45′. Laurent named this
kind of similarity “hemimorphism,” a most unfortunate term as it
was already employed in crystallography in its other well-known
geometrical significance, that is, to denote a crystal differently
terminated at the two ends of an axis. Many other like similarities
were discovered by Laurent, and he again coined an objectionable
term, now discarded, to represent the cases of similarity extending
over more than the same system, namely, “isomeromorphism.”
Nicklès observed similar facts in connection with the barium salts
of the fatty acids, which crystallise in different systems with different
amounts of water of crystallisation. But their prism angles are all
within a couple of degrees of each other, varying from 98° to 100°.
Thus the phenomenon of “isogonism,” a term much less
objectionable than those invented by Laurent, appears to be a
common observance not only for different kinds of derivatives of the
same original hydrocarbon or other organic nucleus, but also for the
case of homologous series. But Nicklès missed the real point by
including salts with different amounts of water, which, it will be
shown later, entirely upset the crystalline structure. When this is
eliminated the resemblance between true similarly constituted
homologues, differing by regular increments of CH3, is very much
closer than would appear from Nicklès’ results.
Unfortunately, some of the work of Laurent and Nicklès was not
carried out with the care and accuracy which is indispensable for
researches which are to retain permanent value, and critics were not
slow to arise. Kopp,[5] in 1849, unmercifully exposed these failings, so
that the real kernel of the work, which was of considerable value,
came into discredit.
Pasteur,[6] however, in 1848, besides the important observations
regarding enantiomorphism, to be described in Chapter XI., had
noticed similar zonal likenesses between related tartrates, amounting
only therefore to isogonism and not to isomorphism; for here again
the system often differed, particularly when the members of a series
compared differed in their water of crystallisation. Thus there was
ample evidence of a really significant series of facts in the work of
these authors, but they were not properly arranged and explained.
So high was the feeling against the whole subject carried, however,
after Kopp’s memoir, that had it not been for the steadying influence
of Rammelsberg and Marignac, who themselves carried out many
crystallographic measurements as new substances continued to be
discovered with great rapidity, the science would have suffered a
serious set-back. Moreover, even Rammelsberg was led astray in the
direction of the views of the chemists of the time, that isomorphism
could be extended over the crystal system. Frankenheim, whose
discovery of the space-lattice, to be referred to in the next chapter,
will ever render his name famous, strongly opposed this view.
Delafosse, on the other hand, recognised some truth in both views,
and assumed that there were two kinds of isomorphism, that of
Mitscherlich on the one hand, and the broader one of Laurent on the
other hand, and that in the case of the latter kind the overstepping of
the system is no bar.
Hjortdahl,[7] in the year 1865, supported the views of Delafosse
more or less, at any rate so far as to assume the possibility of the
existence of partial isomorphism, that is, of isogonism. He was very
definite, however, against accepting the proposition that any general
law could be applied. He himself discovered a partial similarity of
angles in several homologous series of organic compounds.
About this time Sella[8] uttered a warning which is one worthy of
being prominently posted in every research laboratory, namely, that
It is unwise to make hasty generalisations from the results of a
small number of observations. Were this principle more generally
followed, much greater progress would in the end be achieved, and
without the discouragement and discredit which inevitably follows
the detection of errors due to lack of broad experimental foundation.
It is certainly an incontrovertible fact that only such generalisations
as find themselves in accordance with all new but well-verified
experimental facts as they are revealed can stand the test of time and
become accepted universally as true laws of nature. And it is
unreasonable to expect any generalisation to be of such a character
unless it is already based on so large a number of facts that there is
little fear of other new ones upsetting them.
 Some order was, however, introduced into this chaotic state of
chemical crystallography in the year 1870 by P. von Groth.[9] He
investigated systematically the derivatives of the hydrocarbon
benzene, C6H6, many of which are excellently crystallising solids
suitable for goniometrical measurement. He showed that although
the crystal system may be and often is altered, yet there is a striking
similarity in the angles between the faces of certain zones, which for
the purposes of comparison he arranged to be parallel to each other
in his descriptions of the crystals, so that the relationship would then
consist in an elongation or a shortening of this particular zone axis,
which was usually a crystallographic axis. He recognised that this
was a totally different phenomenon from isomorphism, and called it
“morphotropy.” Although it may possibly be permissible from one
point of view to regard isomorphism as a particular case of complete
morphotropy along all zones, such a course is not advisable, as
morphotropic similarities are frequently of a comparatively loose and
often indeed of a somewhat vague character, while isomorphous
relationships are governed by very precise laws.
Thus von Groth showed first that benzene, C6H6, crystallises in the
rhombic system with axial ratios a : b : c = 0.891 : 1 : 0.977. Next,
that when one or two of the hydrogen atoms are replaced by hydroxyl
OH groups the substances produced, phenol C6H5.OH and resorcinol
C6H4(OH)2, are found also to crystallise in the rhombic system, and
in the second case, for which alone the axial ratios could be
determined, the ratio a : b proved to be very similar, but the ratio c :
b was different, the actual values being a : b : c = 0.910 : 1 : 0.540.
Pyrocatechol, the isomer of resorcinol, also crystallises in the
rhombic system, but the crystals have not been obtained sufficiently
well formed to enable any deductions to be made from any
measurements carried out with them.
Similarly, the nitro-derivatives of phenol, orthonitrophenol
C6H4.OH.NO2, dinitrophenol C6H3.OH.(NO2)2, and trinitrophenol
C6H2.OH.(NO2)3, also crystallise in the rhombic system, and with the
following respective axial ratios: 0.873 : 1 : 0.60; 10.933 : 1 : 0.753;
0.937 : 1 : 0.974. Again, the value for the ratio a : b is not very
different from that of benzene itself, while the ratio c : b differs
considerably in the first two cases. Similar relations were also found
to hold good in the cases of meta-dinitrobenzene, C6H4(NO2)2, axial
ratios 0.943 : 1 : 0.538, and trinitrobenzene, C6H3(NO2)3, which
possesses the axial ratios 0.954 : 1 : 0.733.
The introduction of a chlorine or bromine atom or a CH3 group in
place of hydrogen was found by von Groth to produce more than the
above effect, the symmetry being often lowered to monoclinic, a fact
which had also been observed to occur in the cases of certain isomers
of the substances quoted above, ortho-dinitrobenzene for instance.
But it was nevertheless observed that the angles between the faces in
the prism zone remained very similar, the angles between the faces
of the primary prism (110) and (1̄10), for instance, only varying in
eight such derivatives of all three types, whether rhombic or
monoclinic, from 93° 45′ to 98° 51′.
The crystallographic relationships of organic substances, however,
are very much complicated by the possibilities of isomerism, the
ortho, meta, and para compounds—corresponding to the
replacement of the two hydrogen atoms attached to two adjacent,
alternate, or opposite carbon atoms respectively, of the six forming
the benzene ring—generally differing extensively and sometimes
completely in crystalline form. Consequently, the phenomenon of
morphotropy is best considered quite independently of
isomorphism.
An interesting intermediate case between morphotropy and true
isomorphism was investigated by the author in the year 1890,
namely, a series of homologous organic compounds differing by
regular increments of the organic radicle CH3. They were prepared
by Prof. Japp and Dr Klingemann, and consisted of the methyl, CH3,
ethyl, C2H5, and propyl, C3H7, derivatives of the substance triphenyl
pyrrholone, all of them being solids crystallising well. The problem
was somewhat complicated by the development of polymorphism,
the methyl, ethyl, and propyl compounds having each been found to
be dimorphous, and not improbably trimorphous, but only two
varieties of each salt were obtained in crystals adequately perfect for
measurement. That the production of these different forms was due
to polymorphism and not to chemical isomerism (different
arrangement of the chemical atoms in the molecule) was shown by
the fact that one variety could be obtained from the other by simply
altering the conditions of crystallisation from the same solvent. Their
identical chemical composition was established by direct analysis.
The methyl (CH3) compound crystallised in rhombohedra and in
triclinic prisms. The ethyl (C2H5) derivative was deposited in triclinic
prisms exactly resembling those of the methyl compound in habit
and disposition of faces. A crystal of the triclinic methyl derivative
which would represent equally well the ethyl compound is shown in
Fig. 56. The angles also of the crystals of the two substances are so
similar that one might infer the existence of true and complete
isomorphism. The actual angular differences rarely exceeded three
degrees.
Besides the triclinic form the ethyl
derivative was also obtained in monoclinic
crystals, one of which is represented in Fig.
57. This illustration might serve equally well,
however, for a corresponding monoclinic
form of the propyl (C3H7) derivative, and the
angles of these two monoclinic ethyl and
propyl compounds are even closer than those
of the triclinic methyl and ethyl derivatives,
the closeness increasing with the advent of
symmetry.
This similarity of
angles in the cases of
the two pairs of
triclinic and
monoclinic
compounds is not only
true about particular
zones, but about all the Fig. 57.—Crystal of
zones, so that it is a Ethyl Triphenyl
case isomorphism Pyrrholone.
rather than of
isogonism
Fig. 56.—Crystal of (morphotropy). The similarity of optical
Methyl Triphenyl properties is also very close, and so much so
Pyrrholone. in the cases of the monoclinic crystals of ethyl
and propyl triphenyl pyrrholone that both
 exhibit very high dispersion of the optic axes.
In the case of the propyl derivative the difference between the
apparent angle of the optic axes for red lithium light and for green
thallium light amounts to 11°. In the case of the ethyl compound this
difference is enhanced so considerably that the crystals afford a
remarkable instance of dispersion of the optic axes in crossed axial
planes, resembling the case of gypsum discovered by Mitscherlich
and described in the last chapter, except that the sensitiveness is to
change of wave-length in the illuminating light rather than to change
of temperature. The optic axial plane is perpendicular to the
symmetry plane for lithium and sodium light, as it is also in the case
of the propyl compound; but in the ethyl derivative it crosses over for
thallium light and rays beyond that towards the violet, into a plane at
right angles to the former plane, namely, the symmetry plane itself.
The total dispersion between the two axes as separated in the one
plane for red light, and as separated in the other perpendicular plane
for blue light, is more than 70°. Fig. 58, Plate XIII., shows the nature
of the interference figures afforded in convergent polarised light of
different wave-lengths by a section-plate perpendicular to the first
median line. The figure at f represents what is observed in white
light, as far as is possible by a drawing in black and white. It consists
of a series of concave coloured curves, falling in between the arms of
the cross, and looping round the axes, a figure very much like that
afforded by brookite and triple tartrate of ammonium, potassium,
and sodium, the substances already mentioned in Chapter VII. as
being similarly very sensitive to change of wave-length. The figure in
red monochromatic lithium light is shown at a in Fig. 58, and that
for yellow sodium light at b, the axes being now much closer
together. On changing to green thallium light the line joining the
optic axes becomes vertical instead of horizontal, as shown at d.
When, instead of employing monochromatic flames, the
spectroscopic monochromatic illuminator (Fig. 75, page 193),
described by the author some years ago to the Royal Society, is
employed to illuminate the polariscope, the source of light being the
electric arc, the change of the figure from that given by the extreme
red of the spectrum to that afforded by the violet may be beautifully
followed, and the exact wave-length in the greenish yellow
determined for which the crossing occurs and an apparently uniaxial
figure of circular rings and rectangular cross is produced. For it is
possible with the aid of this illuminator directly to observe the
production of the uniaxial figure. The wave-length is either directly
afforded by the graduation of the fine-adjustment micrometric drum
or is obtained from a curve of wave-lengths, constructed to
correspond to the circle readings of the illuminator. The appearance
of the interference figure for this critical wave-length is shown at c in
Fig. 58. The remaining figure at e represents the appearance when a
mixture of sodium and thallium light is employed, which clearly
indicates the four extreme axial positions, and assists in elucidating
the nature of the figure f exhibited in white light.
The second form of the propyl derivative belongs to the rhombic
system, and a similar rhombic form of the ethyl compound was once
obtained, but lost again on attempting to recrystallise.
These interesting relationships of the homologous methyl, ethyl,
and propyl derivatives of triphenyl pyrrholone thus appear to form a
connecting link between cases of isogonism or morphotropy and of
true isomorphism.
 PLATE XIII.

Fig. 58.—Interference Figures in

Convergent Polarised Light of
different Wave-lengths afforded
by the Monoclinic Variety of
Ethyl Triphenyl Pyrrholone; a, in
Red Lithium Light; b, in Yellow
Sodium Light; c, in Greenish-
Yellow Light of the Critical
Wave-length for Production of
the Uniaxial Figure; d, in Green
Thallium Light; e, in mixed
Sodium and Thallium Light; and
f, in White Light.

(Reproductions of Drawings by
the author.)

We are now, therefore, in a position to approach the question of

true isomorphism, and as leading up to the fuller treatment of the
subject in Chapter X. we may conclude this chapter by referring first
to one important investigation in which the necessity for extreme
accuracy of measurement and perfection of material was fully
appreciated. This was an admirable research carried out in the years
1887 and 1888 by H. A. Miers[10] on the red silver minerals, proustite,
sulpharsenite of silver, Ag3AsS3, and pyrargyrite, the analogous
sulphantimonite of silver, Ag3SbS3, which afforded a further
indication of the existence of real small differences of angle between
the members of truly isomorphous series. These two minerals form
exceptionally beautiful crystals belonging to the trigonal system, the
hexagonal prism being always a prominent form, terminated by the
primary and other rhombohedra, scalenohedra and various
pyramidal forms, many of the crystals being exceedingly rich in
faces. When the crystals are freshly obtained from the dark recesses
of the silver mine they are very lustrous and transparent, but they are
gradually affected by light, like many silver compounds, and require
to be stored in the dark in order to preserve their transparency. A
magnificent crystal of proustite from Chili is one of the finest objects
in the British Museum at South Kensington, but is rarely seen on
account of the necessity for preservation from light. Pyrargyrite is
generally dark grey in appearance, and affords a reddish-purple
“streak” (colour of the powder on scratching or pulverising).
Proustite, however, possesses a beautiful scarlet-vermilion colour,
and affords a very bright red streak.
Now these two beautiful minerals are obviously analogous
compounds of the same metal, silver, with the sulpho-acid of two
elements, arsenic and antimony, belonging strictly to the same
family group, the nitrogen-phosphorus group, of the periodic
classification of the elements according to Mendeleéff. Consequently,
they should be perfectly isomorphous. Miers has shown in a most
complete manner that they are so, that they occur in very perfect
crystals of similar habit belonging to the same class of the trigonal
system, the ditrigonal polar class, both minerals being hemimorphic,
that is, showing different forms at the two terminations, in
accordance with the symmetry of the polar class of the trigonal
system. But the angles of the two substances were not found to be
identical, although constant for each compound within one minute of
arc, there being slight but very real differences, which are very well
typified by the principal angle in each case, that of the primary
rhombohedron. In the case of proustite it is 72° 12′, while the
rhombohedron angle of pyrargyrite is 71° 22′.
 This interesting and beautiful investigation of Miers thus gave us
an inkling of the truth, that small angular differences do exist
between the members of isomorphous compounds. It paved the way
for, and indeed partly suggested, the author’s systematic
investigation of the sulphates, selenates, and double salts of the
alkali series of metals, a brief account of the main results of which
will be given in Chapter X.
 CHAPTER IX
THE CRYSTAL SPACE-LATTICE AND ITS MOLECULAR UNIT CELL.
THE 230 POINT-SYSTEMS OF HOMOGENEOUS CRYSTAL
STRUCTURE.

The interval between the morphotropic work described in the last

chapter and the present time has been remarkable for the completion
of the geometrical and mathematical investigation, and the
successful identification, of all the possible types of homogeneous
structures possessing the essential attributes of crystals. It has now
been definitely established that there are 230 such types of
homogeneous structures possible, and the whole of them conform to
the conditions of symmetry of one or other of the thirty-two classes
of crystals. This fact is now thoroughly agreed upon by all the
authorities who have made the subject their special study, and may
truly be considered as fundamental.
There has long been a consensus of opinion that the crystal edifice
is built up of structural units which can be likened to the bricks or
stone blocks of the builder, but which in the case of the crystal are so
small as to be invisible even under the highest power of the
microscope. The conceptions of their nature, however, have been
almost as numerous as the investigators themselves, everyone who
has thought over the subject forming his own particular ideas
concerning them. We have had the “Molécules intégrantes” of Haüy,
the “Polyhédres” of Bravais, the “Fundamentalbereich” of Schönflies,
the “Parallelohedra” of von Fedorow, and the fourteen-walled cell,
the “Tetrakaidecahedron” of Lord Kelvin, and again the “Polyhedra”
of Pope and Barlow. Ideas have thus been extremely fertile, and
indeed almost every variety of speculation has been indulged in as to
the shape and nature of the unit of the structure which can exhibit
such remarkable evidences of organisation and such extraordinary
optical and other physical properties as those of a crystal.
There is one inherent difficulty, however, which renders all such
speculations more or less chimerical, until we know very much more
as to the structure of the chemical atom, and the organisation of the
corpuscles composing it. Such speculations, however, are deeply
interesting, and the difficulty alluded to accounts largely for the great
variety of conception possible. It is this, that the matter of the
molecules, and again that of the atoms composing them, is not
necessarily, nor even probably, continuous and in contact
throughout, but that on the contrary the space which may
legitimately be assigned to the unit of the structure is partly void.
How much of this unit space is matter and how much is unoccupied,
and how the one is related to the other as regards its position or
distribution in space, we have yet no means of knowing, although
there are signs that the day is not far distant when we shall know at
least something concerning it. The recent brilliant work of Sir J. J.
Thomson and his school of physicists has rendered it clear that the
chemical atom is composed of cycles of electronic corpuscles, the
orbital motions of which determine its boundaries.
In this condition of our knowledge obviously the only safe course is
to consider each atom of the chemical molecule as occupying a
“sphere of influence,” within the limits of which the material parts of
the atom, the corpuscles in organised motion, are confined. The
“Fundamentalbereich” of Schönflies and the “Sphere of Influence” of
Barlow, are the conceptions which in all probability have the greatest
value in the present state of our knowledge, and if we adopt the latter
we shall not be committing ourselves to anything more than the
experimental facts fully warrant.
It may be quite definitely stated, however, that there is a
considerable amount of experimental evidence that the unit of the
space-lattice of the crystal structure is certainly not more complex
than the chemical molecule, the idea of an aggregation of chemical
molecules to form a “physical molecule” acting as a structural unit
having proved to be a misleading myth.
Fortunately, however, there is no necessity whatever to introduce
the subject of the actual shape of the unit, and the greatest progress
has been effected by disregarding it altogether, and agreeing to the
representation of the unit by a point. This leads us at once to
perceive the importance of the brilliant work of the geometricians,
who have now completed their theory of the homogeneous
partitioning of space into point-systems possible to crystals, the
structural units of the latter being regarded as points. The
investigations extend from those of Frankenheim in the year 1830 to
the finishing touches given by Barlow in 1894, and prominently
standing forth as those of the greatest contributors to the subject,
besides the two investigators just mentioned, are the names of
Bravais, Sohncke, Schönflies and von Fedorow.
Bravais, perfecting the work of his predecessor Frankenheim,
made us acquainted with the fourteen fundamentally important
space-lattices, or same-ways orientated arrangements of points. If we
regard each chemical molecule as represented by a point,
disregarding the separate atoms of which it is composed, then these
fourteen space-lattices represent the possible arrangements of the
molecules in the crystal in all the simpler cases; three of these lattices
have cubic symmetry; the tetragonal, hexagonal, trigonal, rhombic
and monoclinic systems claim two space-lattices each; while one
space-lattice conforms to the lack of symmetry of the triclinic system.
The fourteen space-lattices of Bravais thus represent the
arrangement of the chemical molecules in the crystal, and determine
the systematic symmetry. The points being taken absolutely
analogously in all the molecules, and the whole assemblage being
homogeneous, that is, such that the environment about any one spot
is the same as about every other, the arrangement is obviously a
same-ways orientated one, the molecules being all arranged parallel-
wise to each other.
But the fact that the structure is that of a space-lattice also causes
the crystal to obey the law of rational indices. To enable us to see
how this comes about it is only necessary to regard a space-lattice. In
Fig. 59 is represented the general form of space-lattice, that which
corresponds to triclinic symmetry. It is obviously built up of
parallelepipeda, the edges of which are proportional to the lengths of
the three triclinic axes, and their mutual inclinations are those of the
latter. As we may take our representative point anywhere in the
molecule, so long as the position chosen is the same for all the
molecules of the assemblage, we may imagine the points occupying
 the centres of the parallelepipeda instead of
the corners if we choose, for that would only
be equivalent to moving the whole space-
lattice slightly parallel to itself. Hence, each
cell may be regarded as the habitat of the
chemical molecule.
Now the faces of the crystal parallel to each
two of the three sets of parallel lines forming
the space-lattice will be the three pairs of
axial-plane faces, and any fourth face inclined
to them must be got by removing
Fig. 59.—Triclinic parallelepipedal blocks in step-wise fashion,
Space-Lattice. precisely like bricks, as already shown in Fig.
12 (page 28) in Chapter III., in order to
illustrate the step by step removal of Haüy’s
unit blocks. It will readily be seen that if one more cell be removed
from each row than from the row below it, the line of contact
touching the projecting corner of the last block of each row will be
inclined more steeply than if two more cells were removed from each
row. Moreover, the angle varies considerably between the two cases,
and if three blocks are removed at a time the angle gets very small
indeed. Hence, there cannot be many such planes possible, and we
see at once why the indices of the faces developed on a crystal are
composed of low whole numbers and why the forms are so relatively
few in number. Owing to the minuteness of a chemical molecule, all
the irregularities of such a surface are submicroscopic, and the
general effect to the eye is that of a smooth plane surface.
The space-lattice arrangement of the molecules in the crystal
structure thus causes the crystal to follow the law of rational indices,
by limiting and restricting the number of possible facial forms which
can be developed. It also determines which one of the seven systems
of symmetry or styles of crystal architecture the crystal shall adopt. It
does not determine the details of the architecture, however, that is,
to which of the thirty-two classes it shall conform, this not being the
function of the molecular arrangement but of the atomic
arrangement that is, of the arrangement of the cluster of atoms
which form the molecule, and this leads us to the next step in the
unravelling of the internal structure of crystals.
 The credit of this next stage of further progress is due to Sohncke,
whose long labours resulted in the discrimination and description of
sixty-five “Regular Point-Systems,” homogeneous assemblages of
points symmetrically and identically arranged about axes of
symmetry, which are sometimes screw axes, that is, axes about which
the points are spirally distributed. Sohncke’s point-systems express
the number of ways in which symmetrical repetition can occur.
Moreover, the points may always be grouped in sets or clusters, the
centres of gravity of which form a Bravais space-lattice.
This latter fact is of great interest, for it means that Sohncke’s
points may represent the chemical atoms, and that the stereometric
arrangement of the atoms in the molecule is that which produces the
point-system and determines the crystal class, while the whole
cluster of atoms forming the molecule furnishes, as above stated, the
representative point of the space-lattice.
This, however, is not the whole story, for the sixty-five Sohnckian
regular point-systems only account for twenty-one of the thirty-two
crystal classes, the remaining eleven being those of lower than full
holohedral systematic symmetry, and which are characterised by
showing complementary right and left-handed forms. In other
words, they exhibit two varieties, on one of which faces of low
symmetry are developed on the right, while on the other
symmetrically complementary faces are developed on the left; that is,
these little faces modify on the right and left respectively the solid
angles formed by those faces of the crystal which are common to
both the holohedral class of the system and to the lower symmetry
class in question. In some cases, moreover, these two complementary
forms are known to exist alone, without the presence of faces
common to both the holohedral class and the class of lower
symmetry. The two varieties of the crystals are the mirror images of
each other, being related as a right-hand glove is to a left-hand one.
Further, the crystals of these eleven classes very frequently exhibit
the power of rotating the plane of polarised light to the right or to the
left, and complementarily in the cases of the two varieties of any one
substance, corresponding to the complementariness of the two
crystal forms. The converse is even more absolute, for no optically
active crystal has yet been discovered which does not belong to one
or other of these eleven classes of lower than holohedral symmetry.
 The final step of accounting for the structure of these highly
interesting eleven classes of crystals was taken simultaneously by a
German, Schönflies, a Russian, von Fedorow, and an Englishman,
Barlow, who quite independently and by totally different lines of
reasoning and of geometrical illustration showed that they were
entirely accounted for by the introduction of a new element of
symmetry, that of mirror-image repetition, or “enantiomorphous
similarity” as distinguished from “identical similarity.” These three
investigators all united in finally concluding that when the definition
of symmetrical repetition is thus broadened to include
enantiomorphous similarity, 165 further point-systems are admitted,
and the whole 230 point-systems then account for the whole of the
thirty-two classes of crystals.
Schönflies’ simple definition of the nature of the structure is that
every molecule is surrounded by the rest collectively in like manner,
when likeness may be either identity or mirror-image resemblance.
Von Fedorow finds the extra 165 types to be comprised in “double
systems” consisting of two “analogous systems” which are the mirror
images of each other. Barlow proceeds to find in how many ways the
two mirror-image forms can be combined together, there being in
general three distinct modes of duplication, including the insertion
of one inside the other. He also shows that all homologous points in a
structure of the type of one of these additional 165 point-systems
together form one of the 65 Sohnckian point-systems, the structure
being capable of the same rotations or translations, technically
known as “coincidence movements” (movements which bring the
structure to exhibit the same appearance as at first), as those which
are characteristic of that point-system.
This fascinating subject of mirror-image symmetry, and the optical
activity connected with it, will be reverted to and the latter explained
in Chapter XI.
We have thus seen how satisfactorily the geometrical theory of the
homogeneous partitioning of space has been worked out, and how
admirably it agrees with our preliminary supposition that a crystal is
a homogeneous structure. The fact that the 230 homogeneous point-
systems all fall into and distribute themselves among the thirty-two
classes of crystals, the symmetry of which has also now been fully
established, affords undeniable proof that as regards this branch of