Page 49 of Tide Touched

They’re here, I think dully. Here to take me back. To capture me again. Goosebumps break out over my body, still treading water. I can’t let them take me. My heart starts racing.

Moira stays in human form, better to wield her fire with. She sends out a burst of flames just as Elijah, beside her, sends the earth shaking, fending off a few wolves.

I watch the conflict, unable to move. The water holds me protectively in its embrace, telling me sternly that I don’t want to move. I don’t want to leave.

As Killian lunges for another wolf, three Water Pack encircle him. One takes on Moira’s fire with their water, nearly an equal match. Killian cries out as jaws close around his shoulder.

‘Get back in the water!’ I shout. ‘I can protect you!’ I can’t explain how, but they all come running. A swell of something stirs in my belly. As soon as their feet touch the water, it rises, the current changing, swirling, as though the water itself is bringing them to me.

‘Katie?’ Moira yells. ‘What the—’

We’re all swept up in the water as a great hole appears before us, leading deep, down into the depths of the ocean. Without knowing how, I know what to do. ‘Follow me!’ I swim toward the hole, leaving the Water wolves uncertain on the shore.

We all fall into the hole, and something shifts under us. We fall for a long time, a tunnel of air and water guiding us someplace safe.

I hope.

A vision comes to me, a memory from a long time ago, stored at the back of my mind. My mother and I on a beach. I must be about three years old. My mother sits back on the shore, the gentle waves lapping at her outstretched feet. She’s more beautiful than I remember. She watches me carefully as I splash my hands in the water, smiling. ‘That’s right, Katie,’ she says. ‘The tide is a part of you.’ I watch as my chubby little legs wade further into the water, though my mother doesn’t look worried. The water up to my little chest, I kick up, then I’m floating on my back. A born swimmer in the Fire Pack.

Someone presses on my chest as I open my eyes. Killian’s pinched, concerned face hovers blearily over me. ‘Hey.’ He tries to cradle my head—a totally normal thing to do for someone who has nearly drowned—but I flinch anyway.

Moira’s face comes into view, smacking Killian away. ‘Leave her alone. Hey, Katie.’ She helps me up and I try to hug her, but water spurts out of me. ‘That’s it, get it all out. Are you okay?’ She makes a point not to touch my hair or my head, instead rubbing soothing circles over my back.

I glimpse Elijah’s worried green eyes, too.

‘My chest hurts.’

Moira rounds on Killian. ‘I told you not to do that—’

I shake my head. ‘No, from the water. It hurts inside.’ My dream-memory comes back to me. For the first time, I take in my surroundings. Instead of soft sand under us, it’s a rocky cave, water lapping behind us. I realise now that our voices carry a slight echo. ‘Where—’ My voice cracks, croaky and raw from spewing up the water. ‘Where are we?’

Killian stands, the roof of the cave nearly brushing his hair. ‘I have no idea. This isn’t in Fire Pack territory, I assure you.’

Moira helps me to my feet.

‘I had a dream, Moira. About my mum. I was little. We were at the beach, and I was swimming.’

Killian turns to me. ‘It’s rare for a Fire wolf to learn how to swim at all. How old were you?’ His voice is gentle, sensitive to the topic of my dead mother, even though it’s been a long time.

‘About three.’

The corner of his mouth kicks up. ‘You must have taken to it like a fish.’

Something in the back of my mind stirs. There’s something I’m missing. I can feel it.

‘We should move,’ Killian says. ‘At some point the tide could come in here and flood this place. It wouldn’t take much.’

Moira looks around the narrow cave nervously. It’s barely wide enough for two people to stand abreast. Elijah slides his hand into hers, squeezing reassuringly.

I walk forward, as though pulled. ‘Something feels familiar.’ I reach out to touch the cave wall, its surface strange under my fingers, almost soft. Wet. They let me lead the way.

Killian walks beside me. ‘I’m sorry.’ He attempts to speak low, but the cave—the tunnel—carries his words. ‘About, you know, when you woke. You don’t seem to like people touching your hair.’

‘Leave it alone,’ I whisper back. I don’t feel like exploring what seems to be a triggering trauma for me. I think about Carter. I don’t know if it’s the physical distance between us now, but my wolf doesn’t miss him too much. She’s much, much more interested in Killian.

Carter, or his uncle, sent wolves after me. Will he send more?

I glance at Killian, remembering the way he’d torn out that wolf’s throat. Could that have been a wolf just following orders? I shudder to think of my handmaid, Ella, someone who was kind to me, being slaughtered like that.

---