Eden woke up with a start. She shivered, and curled up next to the warm fur blanket.

Wait. What?

Her eyes flew open. She was next to a panther. No. Not a panther. Her panther.

How can this be?

She looked around. They were in a cave. A cave? How? What? She felt her panther. Its chest was moving. Its fur smelled burnt.

Things began to come back to her. A horse blanket. Voices. A fire. She was Tranqed. And Piria was angry? Starting a fire?

Eden shook her head, trying to clear it.

Her panther raised her own and looked at Eden with eyes that glittered in the dimness.

“What happened?” she asked her panther.

The panther let out a low snarl that turned into a whimper. Eden rose from leaning against the panther and studied her. Every part of her fur was singed except for her glorious head.

“Piria,” Eden whispered, and wondered where her elemental was.

“Yes.”

Eden snapped her head to the right at the sound of Piria’s voice, not within her head, but out.

In the dimness, seated on a large boulder, a woman watched her. Eden couldn’t see her face, but the voice had already told her was Piria.

Realization came to Eden. She’d heard of this. Of how elementals had their own world, their own space. She’d heard of their hosts and shifter animals being pulled into the elemental’s worlds, too. Yes, that she had. But she’d thought that it took a special hybrid to facilitate this. It took a concerted effort to make it happen.

She’d never heard of an elemental simply pulling its host and shifter animal into their world.

“I’m in your world,” she told the woman sitting in darkness.

“You are.”

Eden shivered again. Outside the wind howled and whistled a menacing harmony.

“You’re cold,” Piria said. “I’m sorry. And you are hardly dressed for the environment here.”

Eden picked up the sound of rustling, of sticks moving. She listened carefully, leaning in to figure out what Piria was doing.

A sudden flare of light, a flame half as tall as she, sprung up suddenly in the middle of a pile of sticks.

Behind the fire, Eden focused her gaze on Piria.

She gasped.

Piria’s face was marred with three parallel jagged scars running down the length of her face on the left side, and where her eye had been, an empty socket stared back at Eden.

Jesus, she kept her comment to herself.

“Not very attractive, is it,” Piria’s tone was self-deprecating.

“A bear?” Eden asked.

Piria nodded. She reached into a pocket and pulled out a piece of fabric. Eden squinted to better see what it was. An eye patch. Piria placed it, covering the gaping emptiness.

“I see why you hate bears.”

Piria’s smile was grim. “Not only that. The bear killed my husband and child.”

Tears pricked Eden’s eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Piria bristled visibly. “No need to apologize. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault but the bear’s.”

The bears.

The reason Eden was in this mess to begin with. Piria’s encounter with a bear.

“That must have been a horrific experience.”

“And you are wondering why I harbor ill feelings toward all bears for the actions of one?”

Eden bit her lip. Yes, she was wondering, but she wasn’t about to tell Piria. They weren’t in the same body now, and she knew Piria had a hell of a way with flames. The last thing Eden wanted was to piss her off enough to spur her into lighting her, or the panther, on fire.

Piria’s eyes narrowed in warning. “Have you ever lost a child?”

Eden fought to keep the testiness from showing in her voice. “You’ve been in my body since I was born. You know everything I’ve done and been through. So, you know I’ve never even given birth.”

Piria’s smile was tight. “Exactly.”

Eden hung her head. She felt ashamed. Of course, she couldn’t relate to Piria’s pain.

Eden’s panther remained silent and unmoving, her lithe, muscular body a cushion for Eden’s.

“Do you plan to keep us here forever?”

Against her back, Eden could feel a rumble building in the panther’s torso. She put her hand out subtly, resting it on the panther’s paw, hoping the panther understood this was the time for calm demeanors, not acts of aggression.

Not to mention, if the panther hurt Piria, Eden and the panther would both be stuck here. Wherever here was. She knew she was in a cave. “What is outside this place?”

“A desolate frozen desert.” Piria stepped closer to Eden.

The scar was even worse up close, breaking Eden’s heart that Piria had suffered the loss of her loved ones, her eye, and had to bear this scar as a living reminder of what she’d gone through.

Eden realized that Piria’s world was indicative of the suffering she lived in. She’d created this world to mirror what was deep within her heart.

“You can go outside and investigate if you wish, but I’d wait until the blizzard subsides somewhat.”

“We’ll wait, but I’d like to go outside later, if you don’t mind. And would you go with me?”

“I can. But there’s no exit to your world outside. That’s not how it works.”

Eden clenched her fists. She knew that wasn’t how it worked, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t keep hoping.