Unwanted Fates | Book Two ✔️

Twenty-six | Revelation

"Noone was taken last night, thanks to you," Natalie said, slapping Sylvie on the back beside the roaring campfire.

The logs had been shifted back multiple times as the heat scorched her eyelashes, but the warmth seemed to follow her. 

Sylvie stood, placing her half-eaten lunch platter beside the sawn log and walked towards the lake, serenely lapping along the shore as the midday sun beamed overhead. "Hey, why're you walking away?"

The blood stains from the night before had been calculatingly washed away by the other shifters, and the bodies were long gone, but the memory still seared behind Sylvie's eyelids.

"I'm gonna take a walk."

"Oh-kay..."

All the other shifters were still training, and her mates were M.I.A with Kerensa planning for their trip, which Kian promised they wouldn't leave for without her.

Her feet scuffed the loose pebbles as she approached the water's edge. It called to her. Just a dip, it said.

Before she knew it, she was waist-deep, fully clothed and blindingly numb from the cold.

"Vee? I don't think that's such a good idea."

Rosie's cheerful voice took on a wary edge from the shore, but Sylvie didn't turn back. She'd be fine. She could still touch the bottom-

"Vee! Ugh. That's it; I'm getting Alpha." Rapid footsteps scampered away, only to be replaced by Natalie's grating voice.

"Bitch, what are you doing? You can swim, right?"

No.

"Go away," Sylvie croaked back, letting the water rise over the swell of her breasts to her neck. Chin. Mouth.

She pressed onto her toes to suck in more air when her foot slipped on a mossy boulder, and she swallowed a mouthful of lake and algae.

Her feet gripped the slippery ground, desperate for traction as she coughed and sputtered, using her hands to flail at her sides. Surely, if she kept swiping them down, her body would float up to the top. 

Her face breached the surface just in time to gulp one last breath before she sank, wide-eyed into the darkness. It almost felt peaceful in the icy depths when a burning hot grip clasped her waist and hoisted her about the surface, as she coughed and heaved breaths past blue lips.

"What are you doing, woman?" Rowan hissed, slapping her back as she collected herself.

She wrapped her legs around his taut abdomen and his flesh against hers sent waves of pleasure straight to her pussy. With a whine, she rocked her hips lightly.

Rowan scoffed, cutting through the water like a sea beast as she clung to his neck. "It's the full moon," she whispered, hiding her flushed cheeks in the crook of his neck.

His chest rumbled quietly, almost purring, before he dropped her with a splat at someone's feet. 

Kian.

Tears slipped from her eyes as Kian pulled her up, turning her chin this way and that to check her over.

"I wish I could have been there last night to stop you," he whispered, pressing his head to hers. The way he knew her deepest pain and sent her peace made her sob, her hands covering her face as he held her tightly.

No judgement marred his voice. He knew she did what she had to do to protect Natalie and the shifters. So why did it feel so bad? Memories of Trion resurfaced, and she pushed herself free from Kian to vomit the small contents of her stomach and lake water on the ground.