My fingers tightly lace around Dove’s. I don’t let go, holding on tighter this time. I can’t see her head. The panic she’s feeling radiates through me, the bond a hum of electricity, zapping at my need to protect her until my last breath.
Gravity seems to be winning as Dove’s delicate fingers strain to hold onto mine, the skin around her bones slipping with every tug from the water.
I’m barely able to process a thought in this state, a ravaged need surfacing, wanting to keep her from the monsters that lie below us.
I can’t let her go.I promised.She’s never leaving my sight. But with the way my fingers are bearing down on her hand and twisting, her skinturning red, a smallsnapmoves through my body, followed by pain, and I know—
I broke the delicate bones of her hand.
The bond cries out in agony.
My own heart crumbles at the sound.I never want her to hurt under my hand, and I just snapped her hand in two.Yet I don’t let go.
I can’t let go.
A heavy, pulsating pounding is sounding off in my ears. I try to ignore it. She’s going into shock.Shit.
What do I do?
Broad hands are on my back, pushing. My mind is a jumbled mess, and I fall headfirst into the puddle, dragged through the water by Dove’s hand.
With my eyes open under the stinging, salty depths, I try to move my other arm to grasp her body, but I’m tackled from the side by a blow so devastating it tears us apart. Bubbles trail out of my mouth when I scream for her.
“Dove… DOVE,”I cry the word down the bond. She doesn’t respond. Looking up, I see the human-sized hole we were dragged through surrounded by hundreds more, drawing the light of the suns on us.
What in Oona’s name is going on?
“ARGH,” I growl into the water before my leg is grasped underneath me and I’m tugged again by clawed hands, rushing through endless water until I find myself free-falling through…Air?
I’m no longer inthe water?
The confusion about my situation is quickly replaced when my dense body slams into a pool of water below, my head finding a hard rock to knock against.
The last thought that travels through my head is Dove … Getting her back.
I promised.
nineteen
Gideon
WhenIhearthatsmall but subtle snap of her bones, I break—
I’m in my human form, pushing the fae male down the hole with my songbird. It’s the only way. We aren’t pulling her up without hurting her, so that means we are going in after her.
Once Rivern’s body is through the hole, I jump feet first into the shimmering depths. I don’t even spare the moment it would take to look at the Silver Sands princess.
I don’t care if she comes or not. My job isn’t to protect her—it’s to safeguard Dove. If that means I have to jump into strange pits of questionable origins, that is what I will do.
Nothing surprises or scares me anymore.
However, that is not entirely true, now, is it?
No.
She scares me.
Now, fully immersed in the water, I resist the urge to shift, my wolf form eager to rip whatever has taken her from us to shreds. Looking up, I notice, for the first time, just how many puddles are connected to the large underground lake of water I now find myself in.
