glistening in the water. Upright once more, his hair smoothed back, he watches the children jump or wade in, all of them paddling around. It’s the littlest ones, the ones who aren’t used to the tiny squat noses, so unlike the longer muzzles, who have so much difficulty keeping themselves above water. There is a lot of coughing and flailing, but only for the moments it takes for an adult to swim closer. Then little fists curl around the long guard hairs and they lean their heads into the fur, their unfamiliar bodies swaying to the rhythm of their protector’s strokes.
Constantine swims around them, sleek and muscular, strong and fast, making ever-widening loops. He’s not guarding them anymore, not watching. He’s just a shining hint of gold and dark heading out into the middle of Home Pond.
With a ferret-quick twist, he turns his body, spreads out his arms, and floats, far removed from everything.
“Should I send Arne?” Leonora says. “Before he gets too far.”
I raise my hand. Wait.
I stare after him.
Come back. Stay there. Show me how. Help me.
Where is this coming from? He’s an interloper, an outsider. He has no purpose in the Pack. I must choose someone like Poul. Or maybe Lorcan. Let them fight it out for cunnan-riht. For fucking rights. Between the two of them, it’s a rock and a hard place. A pot and a kettle.
John was my friend. We knew each other. I trusted him, and when he died, my heart shriveled and dried. Why is it when this, this…this Shifter looks at me, touches me, I feel just how parched I have become?
Lifting his head from the water, he combs his hair out of eyes with long fingers. He looks around like he’s only now realizing how far he’s gone. Catching my eyes, he starts back with a slow and exaggerated stroke, coming for me.
Chapter 22
Constantine
Fuck, it’s glorious. Spring fed and cold, but nothing like the frigid rough seas off the coast of Nova Scotia. After the numbing shock comes an almost blissful thaw.
Water flows through my hair and over my skin. Stroke by stroke, it covers me, coddles me. The liquid thickness buoying me, making it easier to forget, to get away, to go loose to my very bones. Everything is erased except the pleated shadows of summer sun rippling across my closed eyes and the wash of water as my arms slice through the surface.
I flip over, my chest to the sun, my back to the deep. Warm on top, cold underneath. The splashing near the dock has subsided to a gentle slosh that licks my body and whispers against my ears.
Eventually, I lift my head, realizing just how far I’ve gone from the distant yips and voices at the dock. Combing my hair from my face and the water from my eyes, I see the Alpha at the distant dock, her eyes fixed on me.
Next to her, Leonora watches tensely.
With a slow and exaggerated backstroke, I start back so she will understand that I am not making a break for it. At the compound, I dreaded the moment when some asshole would shatter the sky with a .460 Magnum, so there would be doubt that I was being summoned from the water that took me in and made me part of something bigger. I hated each stroke back to the rocky beaches and whatever smug Lukani had been sent to fetch me. I hated feeling myself growing smaller.
Now I don’t.
By the time I reach the edge of the dock, the children are gone, tumbling in the grass surrounding a crumpled blanket that is empty except for a few plates of food.
The Alpha is alone, sitting with her arms wrapped around one knee, the other foot tracing patterns in the water. I grab at the corner of the dock, pretending that I don’t feel the tiny waves lapping against my nipples. That water isn’t tracing paths down the muscled curve of her calf. That if my mouth forms the word Alpha, her name won’t emerge instead.
Evie.
“Are you getting out?” she says.
No, I’m not getting out. I’ve got an erection the size of a two-by-four stuffed into 80 percent cotton and 20 percent Spandex.
It’d frighten the children.
“I think I’ll swim a little more,” I say. “Not far. Just near the dock.”
Someone calls to her and she pulls her foot out of the water. I reach for it, unthinking, but stop before I touch her.
“Would you teach me?” she says, looking over the