He crashed down, sliding across the stone, his nails digging in hard to slow himself.
“Tyler!” I lunged toward him. Danny beat me to it, taking hold of his wrists. Tyler was almost completely underwater. Danny kept him just above the surface, straining against the pull of the Naiads. I joined Danny and grabbed his other hand. “Kick your legs!” I shouted. “They aren’t as strong as we are.” I scrambled into a good position, using the shore to brace myself.
Tyler thrashed in earnest and all around us the water started bubbling and moving. Green kelp strands, as thick as Christmas ribbons, broke the surface, betraying the monsters beneath.
I readjusted and slid my hand down farther, dipping under the water to grasp Tyler’s biceps. I pulled with all my strength, my wolf snarling in my mind, my muscles flexing tightly. All at once Tyler soared out of the water in a rush. Danny and I staggered backward, not missing a beat, backing up onto the shore as fast as we could, dragging Tyler along with us.
As we watched, hundreds of heads broke the surface, only to duck down again in the blink of an eye.
It was only a matter of time before one streaked out to grab us.
Or more than one.
I bared my teeth at them and snarled. “We’re not going easily, you know!” I growled to the masses. “Do you hear me? Did you get a good look at Goldilocks? Do you want to end up like her?” I had no idea if they could understand me. So far none of them seemed to be coming after us. How could Selene control, or conjure—or whatever it was she did—an army of Naiads? It seemed impossible.
“Hurry,” Naomi urged from somewhere above us. I turned and saw her on a high ledge halfway up the hill. “They cannot risk their lives by coming out of the water this far. You will be safe if you can reach us.”
Tyler gained his footing and we all started to run.
“How many supernaturals exist that we have no knowledge about?” Danny cried. “How can we best things we don’t know exist? It’s a bloody minefield around here.”
I heartily agreed. “If this is the beginning of a war, the wolves are going to need an extensive education in all things supernatural.”
Wolves were way too confident about their place at the top of the food chain. A Naiad who occupied a remote part of the world didn’t constitute any alarm whatsoever. But it certainly did now.
“Did you see the size of the ones that surfaced?” Danny said as we continued to climb upward. “I think the one we bested was a wee one.”
“You mean a baby?” I craned my neck around to look back at the stream, but there was no trace of them. “No wonder all she knew how to do was bite me and scream. If that was the baby, there’s no way we’re going head-to-head with a grown-up.”
“Come. Just a little more over this rise,” Naomi urged. “We will be safe here.”
Naomi stood on a shallow ledge just above us, a limp Ray laid out next to her. It was the second time I’d seen him passed out at her feet. Had only one day passed? God, it felt like a lifetime. “Is he alive?”
“There is a faint heartbeat.” Naomi nodded. “He seems to be a strong-minded human.”
“He’s a pigheaded sonofabitch,” I said as I pulled myself onto the rocks. “But it looks like it’s working in his favor this time.”
17
Once we were all on the ledge, I gazed down to the stream. It seemed innocuous, the water calm, nothing disrupting the smooth surface. I knelt next to Ray and ripped the front of his shirt open, putting my head to his chest. I could hear the faint beat without physical contact, but I wanted to be sure.
Tyler stood next to us, his legs covered in dried blood where the Naiads had bitten and clawed him. Since neither of us had reacted to their evil bites, they must not be too detrimental. Tyler was just short of shifting, fur sprouting along his wounds, he was so angry. “Why would you risk your life—scratch that, all our lives—for this human?” Tyler’s jaw clenched, tension radiated outward. It rang through our new blood connection, making me edgy. “It doesn’t make any sense why you would do such a thing. If you keep taking chances like that, there’s no way any of us will make it out of here alive.”
I glanced up at him. “Nobody asked you to join me. And this human has as much right to live as you or I, and while we’re on the topic, who made you lord and superior over the entire world? Human or supernatural? You don’t get to choose. A life is a life.”