Then, like it was playing a game, it touched him on the other shoulder, and he spun again, and stopped.
Before him was a giant red octopus, barely four feet away, its arms moving like a pulse, a heartbeat.
But his eyes.
He had copper-coloured eyes.
It was him.
Ciaran.
Astounding. It was really him. Striking and other-worldly—and utterly beautiful.
It should have scared the shit out of him. Sawyer should have wanted to fight or flee, to escape, but no...
It felt right. Like something clicked inside him, slotting into its rightful place.
Sawyer smiled and reached out his hand. He wanted to touch him. To see if he was real...
A red tentacle slid around his wrist, smooth and powerful. Then another around his thigh, and his other leg, and one around his waist, his back.
He knew this feeling.
In his dream, this was what had been holding him down. It wasn’t many hands that restrained him while someone fucked him. It was this.
It was Ciaran.
It had been Ciaran, the real Ciaran, all along.
Then he was being pulled upward, shooting up to break the surface. He’d forgotten about air, about his need to breathe.
He wanted to go back down there. He wanted Ciaran to wrap himself around him, restrain him, hold him....
Instead, he found himself being hauled onto the pier, and soon he was lying on the wood, coughing and spluttering.
Freezing.
Then a blanket was being wrapped around him, towels were drying his hair, and people fussing. Fraser, with the blanket, and... Kellan? Sawyer wasn’t sure. He was trying to catch his breath. Trying to get oxygen. Trying to find Ciaran.
“Ciaran,” he mumbled.
“He’s right here,” Kellan said. He sounded annoyed, then peered down at him, and his face was annoyed too.
Sawyer didn’t care. He looked around him, trying to find...
Ciaran was on the pier, human now, naked but pulling some pants up. Sawyer wasn’t quick enough to see anything. Ciaran’s hair was wet, his face flushed, and he?—
“Do you have a death wish?” Kellan asked angrily, his face in Sawyer’s. “Jesus Christ.”
“Ciaran,” Sawyer mumbled again, trying to look past Kellan.
“I’m here,” he said, coming to kneel beside him.
The relief Sawyer felt was immediate and pure.
“Do you want him to die?” Kellan barked, this time at Ciaran. “What were you thinking, Ciaran? My god. His face is blue. He’s shaking.”
Whose face was blue?
