I shoved those thoughts to the back of my mind. I wasn’t going to even entertain them. I couldn’t afford to. I just had to trust that whatever was calling to me would help Elias.
We kept maneuvering through the tunnels for what seemed like forever. They twisted and turned. Time came to a standstill, becoming meaningless. I couldn’t even tell you which direction we were going. We came to forks in the tunnel from time to time. Each one, the tug guided me down one of the tunnels. I had no idea where those other branches led, and neither did I particularly care. It didn’t matter.
As we moved deeper and deeper into the tunnels, my certainty began to wane again, growing fainter as Elias’s breath began to fade. Just as I was debating to turn back, to deem this a fool’s errand, a gentle sound began echoing from deeper down the tunnel. My heart leapt at the unmistakable sound of trickling water.
“We’re almost there,” I said, and increased our speed.
I could see the tunnel widening, and what looked like a large space behind it. When we finally cleared those final few feet, I couldn’t help it. I gasped.
A large pool of deep water filled the center of the cave, the water gently rippling and shifting, as if fed by some underground water source. Vibrant green moss clung to the stone walls. Water dripped from overhead and trickled down the walls. Cool air—crisp but not unpleasant—brushed across my skin.
It should have been pitch-dark, but the whole area was illuminated in silver light, as if the moon shone down from above. Except when I craned my neck upward, I saw no sign of an opening. Nowhere for the source of light to come from.
I blinked, then realized, perhaps a little prematurely, that I had no idea what to do. Then my eyes landed on thepool, crystal clear and stunning. And all of a sudden—somehow, inexplicably—I knew exactly what I needed to do.
I helped Elias into the spring, then stood back and waited, heart thundering in my throat.
Chapter 15 - Elias
I was in a hidden spring, tucked behind a series of winding tunnels. Off to the side, sitting on a patch of moss, Emma waited, her expression filled with apprehension and uncertainty as anxiety mixed with her scent.
My vision swam in and out of focus. Water had soaked into my bandages, coolness pressing against the wounds. Instead of pain, there was a sort of pleasant hum. I focused on that as a tingling sensation ran up and down my injuries, as if something was knitting them back together, healing me. I could feel my strength returning as the water dipped into the wound, my breathing growing deeper and more regular. But everything around me continued to blur and spin as if I wasn’t entirely there. As if the water was transporting me.
Then, the stone and moss and dripping water vanished.
I was a kid again, walking through the woods with my father as he gave me one of his life lessons. This one is about the importance of duty to the pack.
“The pack always comes first,” he growled. “You can’t put yourself before the pack. There are going to be times when you have to do something you don’t want to do, but you will, because it’s for the good of the pack. The sooner you learn that, the better.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“You can’t let your emotions take you away from your duty,” he said. “That comes to your luna as well.”
I wrinkled my nose in disgust. I was barely ten. The last thing I wanted to think about was a luna.
If he saw the expression, he ignored it and kept talking.
“You need a strong luna, but one who will listen to you at the same time. You should pick a female who can shift, and preferably comes from a strong line. A family like the Davies, for instance.”
“But they don’t have any girls—”
Dad waved me off. “Doesn’t matter. You get my point. You need someone strong and who the pack can respect.”
“What if I don’t like her?”
He let out a growl. “I already told you. You can’t let your emotions take you away from your duty. Find someone you can tolerate, if only so you don’t show disunity before the pack. But affection is a weak emotion. And it sure as hell shouldn’t come in the way of whoever you pick when the time comes.”
I nodded, holding those words tight, absorbing them the way only a kid could. Dad would never give me bad advice. They lingered throughout my teenage years and into adulthood.
Then the scene dissipated, replaced by a new one.
I was walking into my room the day after a party, my mouth filled with cotton even as I smelled the campfire and whiskey from the night before on my clothes. I paused when I saw the figure in my bed. Still naked, she had the blanket drawn up over her chest, doing nothing to conceal her curves. Her auburn hair was mussed, with strands sticking up all over the place. She stared at me nervously, biting her lip in a way that drove my wolf insane.
“Hi,” she said.
I played out the scene that had replayed in my head more and more frequently since the Oracle’s declaration. I told her it was time for her to leave. I told her it was never going to happen again, that it was a mistake. I laughed at her when I realized sheactually thought something was going to become of what had amounted to a drunken one-night stand. She was weak, couldn’t even shift. It wasn’t like we were going to have a future together.
I watched as her heart broke. I didn’t really care. I had other things to deal with today, and she was making this way harder than it needed to be. I waited, somewhere between bored and annoyed, as she took deep, shaking breaths, grabbing her clothes and throwing them on as quickly as possible. All the while, she kept her head angled away from me, as if not wanting me to see her stricken face.
