SYN
Worry sickened me. My men were still missing in the lake.
With it came an urgency, the need to be doing something other than waiting around. The ache in my body remained, and with each harsh breath, I inched closer to the lake’s edge.
Enter, a voice sang in my head, but I had no idea if it was my own panicked mind or something else. Something meaning ill intent.
Silence.
I waited and it killed me.
The angry sky darkened, and from my vantage point, I could see the whole lake, the glint of green appearing on its surface, but no air bubbles. No sign of distress. Where in the world had the guys gone? Was there some kind of creature under there that had killed them?
The longer I lingered there, the more I shuddered that I wasted time. My palms were slick with sweat, and I hated how I kept losing my breath.
Finally, it became too much, and I stepped into the water with bare feet, still wearing my clothes. The water rushed up my skin, its bite cold.
A shiver ran up my legs. I lifted my head, saying, “This would be a good time to give me some advice, ghost thing, or whatever you are.”
Nothing. Of course nothing responded.
“Fine then.” I huffed just as something floated to the surface of the water up ahead.
My heart thundered, and I stepped closer, making out that they were lying on their stomach. His head was submerged, spine arched. And he wasn’t moving.
It had to be one of the guys.
I might have screamed in panic as I threw myself into the water, madly pushing myself through the lake. Pulse hammering, I ran as fast as I could. Then I threw myself at him, hastily, grabbing his arm and twisting him over onto his back. Hendrix!
That was when I noticed all the blood pouring from the huge bite mark on his shoulder. The purple bruises on his ribs made me sick.
He looked white in the face, and my heart stopped. What did this to him?
“No, no, no.” I clasped him on either side of his face. “Hendrix, don’t you dare leave me.” I shook him out of pure shock. I’d thought I’d lost him earlier to drowning and now this. Distraught, I wrapped an arm around his chest and hauled him across the water, needing to get him to shore.
Tears drenched my cheeks, a low snarl in my chest from my wolf growling her agony.
Echoes of my heart shattering flooded my mind when a croaky sound came from Hendrix.
Frantically, I whipped around to see his eyes fluttering open. My stomach hit the back of my throat as I cried out.
He was staring up at me, blinking crazily like something was in his eyes.
“Syn,” he murmured. “Is that really you?” He reached out, his hand stroking the side of my face. “I can see you.”
“Hendrix, yes, it’s me.” I threw myself at him, embracing him, crying like a baby. I splashed water everywhere in the process, but I didn’t care.
“I’m okay. I think I’m okay,” he cooed, though by the shock on his face, I suspected he’d had quite the ordeal. He looked half-dazed and kept touching me like I wasn’t real.
Shifting to stand up in the water on his own, he leaned and kissed me. It was soft and tender, and I sensed his tremble. “I thought I’d never see you again,” he kept repeating, and it scared me.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I reassured him. “I’m right here.”
He kept staring at me, looking like he was so far away. “Something strange happened in the cave. I went blind and all I could think about is never seeing you again, not being able to see our baby’s face.”
The guy was completely shaken, not even seeming bothered by the bruises on his chest or the vicious bite mark on his shoulder. Blood rolled down his arm and into the lake, and still, he only stared at me, holding me close.
I held onto him too, scared for him.
A sharp whine had me twisting around and spotting Caspian popping up from within the lake, seeming to splash uncontrollably in the water with a frantic look on his face.
I gasped, my heartbeat completely out of control.
Hendrix and I rushed over to him, grabbing hold of him.
“Caspian,” I cried out, holding onto both sides of his face, trying to make him look at me while Hendrix took hold of him from behind to hold him up. But he kept pulling away from us, dunking himself underwater. Blood dripped from the bite mark on his arm.
Hendrix grabbed hold of him again, wrenching him back out from under the water. “Casp, what are you doing?”
“My leg, my leg’s back,” he gasped, staring at us incredulously as if seeing me for the first time. “Syn?" Then he took in the surroundings, really looking around to see we were all in the lake. He gave a low whine, looking hopeless, and yet he smiled. “It’s back.”
“It’s back? What was wrong with your leg?” I asked, not understanding. I embraced Caspian around the middle, terrified to see him so disoriented. “Your arm is bleeding. What bit you?”
But he didn’t notice and instead embraced me, and Hendrix was there too, doing the same. “You are ours. And I have my leg back.” He chuckled almost madly.
They clung to me, both of them shaking, like they were afraid they’d lose me.
“My good leg had been taken from me in the cave. It felt so real. Goddess, I believed it.” His shoulders squared and he slowly began to look every inch the powerful alpha I loved, though fear still clung to his gaze.
“You’re okay,” I said, and putting two and two together, it seemed whatever happened underwater had played a cruel joke on them.
“River, where’s River?” Hendrix finally asked.
We turned to scan the water just as his body bobbed to the surface. He came up head first, his shoulders curled forward and defeated, blood pouring from his neck from a bite just like the other two.
My heart constricted at seeing him. What in the world had my men just been through?