“Look, I’ll stay here if you—”
“No,” I snapped. “I’m staying. You…you go get some rest.” I couldn’t come up with a plan if he was hovering over me.
He hesitated, licking his lips. At my stare, he finally relented.
“I’ll come check on you later tonight,” he said.
I nodded, not looking at him as he and Rachel walked away, muttering under their breath. My fingers tightened around Elias’s as I stared down, watching his ragged breath with gnawing dread. I groaned, forcing myself not to scream as I sat, still clutching Elias’s hand as I stared into the water that was doing nothing to save him.
Internally, my wolf howled and thrashed, panicking. I could sense her fear, felt it seeping and melding with my own. Our mate was hurt. He could die. Instinctively, I wanted to stay here, to be with him. It would quell some of my wolf’s desperation. She wanted to be near him, to curl up next to him. But I knew that wouldn’t help him. All that would happen was that I would watch him die. And I wasn’t about to let him die.
I took a deep breath, and then another. I needed to get myself under control. I focused on the mating bond, searching for him there on the other side. I could sense him there, sense his pulse, his life force. He was still there, but weak. He wouldn’t live unless a miracle happened.
And I didn’t think the oasis was that miracle.
I doubted the oasis was the source of the magic, but I did believe there was one somewhere. Rumors always had a kernel of truth to them, and this legend has been a part of this land for centuries. It had to evolve and develop somehow. And of course, if the pack had heard of a magical water source, it was no surprise that they would think of the waterfall and its oasis, the largest source of water. And it did feel as though it had a magical quality to it. The lush greenery surrounding it and the perfect waterfall cascading into sparkling blue water, which you normally only saw in movies, gave it an almost mystical feel.
But it wasn’t. It couldn’t be, because Elias would be fine right now.
My hand slipped from his as I got to my feet and began pacing. At first, my worries muddied my thoughts, making it near impossible to come up with anything. Then an idea struck with such force that I actually gasped, coming to a halt mid-pace. The underwater spring, the one mentioned in the book, where I had read about my great-grandmother. The Spring Coven had believed there was a magic spring somewhere nearby.
What if it were true? And what if the reason the rumor about the oasis’s magic properties came to be was because the water came from the underground spring?
The instant the idea crossed my mind, I knew it was true. Something deep in my bones told me that I was right.
I stared at the water, the waterfall.
If you’re connected to the spring at all, please help me,I thought desperately, trying to tap into the magic that I had first sensed when I was here with Grace. Please let me save him.
I didn’t know what I expected. Nothing? A voice like the first time?
What I didn’t expect was a sudden tug right behind my navel, pulling me to the edge of the waterfall.
Almost trancelike, I followed the tug. It grew more insistent the further I walked, almost like a game of hot and cold. Once again, that deep intuition wrapped around me, practically begging me to follow it. Somehow, inexplicably, I knew it was the only way to save Elias’s life. And despite everything he had put me through, despite all the heartache and grief, I cared about Elias. And I sure as hell wasn’t about to let him die.
Taking a deep breath, I walked back to where Elias was lying. Without fully understanding what I was doing, as if some instinct I hadn’t realized I even had was guiding me, I lifted him to his feet.
“What are you doing?” Elias asked, rousing a bit.
“I need you to trust me,” I said.
“I’ll always trust you,” he muttered. I wasn’t sure if he even realized what he was saying.
I helped guide him up the slope as we followed the water until it disappeared through the cracks in the rock at the bottom of a giant mesa, one so steep that it would be impossible to climb. My heart sank. Maybe I was just crazy. Maybe I had imagined the entire thing. Maybe I had just doomed Elias to death.
But then I felt that unmistakable tug again, this time stronger than it had ever been, pulling me to a certain part ofthe mesa. I forced myself to move forward, following the tug until we came to a seemingly unremarkable spot along the rock formation.
I couldn’t see anything from here, but I could sense in my bones that I needed to look closer. Gently, I set him up against the rock, bidding him to stay there as I followed that jerking motion, using it as a beacon, until I came to a spot on the rock face.
My eyes widened as I sucked in a breath. There was a gap in the rock, large enough to slip through, but hidden in a way that it was impossible to see from the outside unless you knew where to look.
Barely daring to hope, I went back to Elias, lifting him to his feet and wrapping one arm around my shoulder as I tugged him toward the crevice, nudging him through before taking a deep breath and wedging myself through the narrow gap.
I almost didn’t squeeze through, but when I managed to push past the narrow entrance, I stumbled into a large tunnel, too irregular to have been human-made, yet spacious. Something about it felt intentional, as if it was always supposed to be there.
I didn’t have the time to think about it. There were other, far more pressing issues that I needed to address. Slinging Elias’s arm over my shoulder, I helped him deeper into the tunnel, that telltale tug in my navel guiding me. I didn’t like the fact that his breathing seemed to be getting worse, that he was putting more and more weight on me as we continued on.
Panic threatened to consume me. I didn’t know what would happen if this failed. If we got to the end of this tunnel, and those tugs I had been following turned out to be nothing at all.
