Then Sawyer did the darndest thing. He walked over, took Ciaran’s hand, and walked them to the door. “We’re going in the water, and you’re going to show me the real you.”
Chapter
Fifteen
SAWYER
“The water is toocold for you. It’s not good for you,” Ciaran said as they crossed the street, but Sawyer was determined.
He wanted to see this with his own two eyes.
He needed to.
Did he believe Ciaran when he’d said they were some octomorphic cephawhatevernonhumans?
Yes, he did.
Was it weird?
Fuck yes.
Actually, weird didn’t even begin to describe it.
But hedidbelieve him. He didn’t knowwhy, but he trusted Ciaran. He believed what he said and everything he told him.
About being drawn to him—fated mates or whatever it was called.
He felt the truth.
He felt it behind his sternum, beneath his ribs, in his very core.
Is that what this mate-bond thing was?
Sawyer wasn’t sure. He still had a hundred questions—and he would be asking all of them—but first he needed to see.
Was it cold?
If Sawyer had cared to stop for a second, he’d have realised it was freezing, and he still didn’t have shoes on.
And he still had hold of Ciaran’s hand.
He stopped at the edge of the pier and turned to find Ciaran looking down at their linked fingers, and he was struck by how beautiful he was. His copper hair at night, tousled in the wind, his lips parted, and when he looked up, his copper eyes blazed.
“Sawyer,” he whispered. “You don’t... you can’t?—”
Yes. Yes, he could, and he was going to. He wanted to see Ciaran in his freeform. He wanted to see what he was talking about for himself.
He let go of Ciaran’s hand and took a step back. Ciaran’s eyes went wide, shocked and afraid, but all Sawyer could do was smile as he went backward into the water.
The cold should have shocked him. It should have seized his lungs. It should have scared him.
But it didn’t.
It was so dark and beautiful, like he was suspended in a liquid galaxy. Tiny diamonds of light glistened in the darkness, moving slowly around him. He saw a flash of something red out of the corner of his eye, and when he spun to look at it, it was gone. Then again on the other side, a shot of red materialized but disappeared before he could truly see it.
Then it touched his opposite shoulder, and he spun the other way, only catching the briefest glimpse of red tendrils...
Tentacles.
