Jade. A land hidden from humans in the Swiss Alps. When the resident males reach full development, they can turn into bears, jade bears. They go outside into the world to hunt, for women who are compatible and willing. They rescue their offspring later and bring them to Jade to increase their gene pool. Now two are trapped on the outside. Amanda is clueless about Jade or even this world. Damash of Three knows and wants to return to Jade, with Amanda, his love who is always out of reach. He has a plan for them to make it back together if possible.

Excerpt:

The Beginning of the End

Damash of Three was on his knees, his forehead resting on his arm, pressed against the green crystal prison where he resided for the last fourteen years. His arm stopped some of the sweat dripping down his face. He was exhausted and recovering from the anxiety of the events beyond his prison, dying to interfere, but happy with the present results.

Damash was part of a hunting and rescue party fifteen years earlier when they were discovered for some odd reason. The protection they usually enjoyed failed. Of the fifteen hunters, he was shot by the locals who did not take the time to understand what they saw. As with most encounters with human hunters, it was shoot first and worry about the wrong later, if ever.

He remembered bitterly the others departing, hastening to summon the portal, his country’s only entrance and exit to Jade. They must have considered him dead, and he groaned as he watched the portal blink out of sight in the sky. Around him, the humans who had discovered them were hastily searching for Damash of Three, following the trail of blood. The beams of their flashlights passed through him, and he groaned again as he realized that the pain had snapped him into the zone of nothingness between the Earth and Jade. They walked through him and found nothing except the blood spots in the soil. He moved aside and watched them for a while as he looked to the west, hoping to find the portal reappear in the sky. In a way, he considered himself lucky. He would not die from the wounds he sustained, but the bad part was he could not enter the Earth’s atmosphere, and he could not return to Jade.

Jade was a dimensional glitch, a world that had popped into existence from an experiment in science and remained for nearly 4000 years. It rested in the Swiss Alps, totally unknown or detected by the Earth’s residents. Jade, however, was very knowledgeable of Earth, its climate, and its species. Jade residents were very human in appearance, but their mental capabilities far surpassed that of humans. They had mastered dimensional travel, and in one final experiment, a vast section of their world disappeared and became attached to Earth in the Swiss Alps.
The situation resolved to be beneficial for Jade. The absence of female births resulted in Jade nearing extinction level. But with the advent of the portal and their secluded spot on the globe, they soon discovered that mating with earth’s females was possible and very sustaining for their species.
*
Damash stood and stretched. He wiped the sweat from his face and pressed his forehead against the crystal wall again to view Amanda.

“Yes, it’s still there. This is good, Damash. We might make it this time,” he said.

He was not a full Jade Bear, the final phase of Jade male development, but since his confinement to the netherworld, he had made some progress in that direction without using the Paraclipse. He could touch the Jade Lines that were abundant in the world, unseen by humans. He knew much of it was driven by the love for the woman lying on the bed before him. The other factor was his determination not to remain an accidental prisoner forever.

After he recovered from the shock of being left for dead, Damash of Three wandered around the earth for a long time. He constantly looked for the portal signal threads in the barrier around him, but they remained elusive. He finally concluded that the Council must have decided to close the portal. He could understand that the mishaps and accidents were becoming more frequent. That was the price of an increasing human population and decreasing wildlife territories. His wanderings took him to South Africa, where he found a replica of a Jade Bear in a tent bazaar in Johannesburg. The likeness was so astonishing that he realized the sculptor must have had the opportunity to observe one at length.

It was exquisitely beautiful. Jade-colored crystal, with the hair in fine detail. Silver fangs jutted downward from the opened mouth. Even in the dimness of the tent, it stood out, begging for attention.

Damash bided his time in the area, and one day, a trader named Randolph Watson came to the bazaar, and the owner of the Jade Bear launched into a long and pleading diatribe about the magical quality of the Jade Bear. Damash chuckled at the lies, but they had a good effect on Randolph. He purchased the bear, and Damash made his decision. He sought and found the transferring threads and launched himself into the Jade Bear before Randolph dropped it into a velvet sack provided by the owner.

So, Damash of Three eventually made his way to America and was given to Amanda Blake. Amanda kept him on her dresser and wished on him many times until nothing happened, and she stopped. But she would not hear of his departure, destruction, sale, or anything else that would separate them. Uncle Randolph said he was magical, and she promised that she would always believe, and she did.

Amanda was married five years later, and it was a delighted marriage. It even made Damash’s head spin inside the Jade Bear. He was torn between fits of jealousy and happiness as the groom, Joseph Matkins, began to love his bride. Life was a garden of roses and joy until the accident.

The light turned green, and the pedestrian light switched to walk. Amanda stepped into the street, well inside the cross walk lines and ahead of the other people. She heard the squeal of tires before she had a chance to stop or even think. She never had the opportunity to turn her head before the car hit her at 65 mph, and she flew through the air like a rag doll to land on the ground 75 feet behind the vehicle. She was lucky, for what it was worth. Her life hung on by a thread for several minutes.

She was declared dead on the scene, and then she reacted. In the hospital, she was declared dead six times more. She remembered each one and the growing frustration of the doctor. The seventh time, he begged her to die and stop the torture. That’s when Amanda’s spirit rallied, and she returned to the living if it could be called such.

Her injuries were many. She had a brain injury. She could not remember her name, her friends, where she worked, nothing. Both broken legs and crushed right hip had to heal. Her broken back and collar bones were longer in healing. Joseph accepted his responsibility, and he tried to care for her at home, but her invalid status lingered and soon grew into a burden that he could not handle. That is when the real problems and the beatings started.

The last one was the worst. But with the final blow came a very odd but welcome change. Capillaries in a section of her interior brain broke, and blood started trickling to the parts not usually stimulated in humans. And her mind responded dramatically to the life-giving fluids. Damash could scarcely believe what happened as her brain waves developed a new pattern, one that he could feel and touch himself.

There was no doubt in Damash’s mind that the woman was Jade.

“How is that possible. I’ve been with her since she was twelve, and nothing even hinted at this possibility. How is that possible?”