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“Ciara, I need you to get out of here, please do this for me,” Mam said before turning and rolling down the car window.
Even though the car was only half submerged, water began to pour inside even faster. The hole in the front windscreen began to crack outward, causing both Mam and me to look over at it.
“You need to go now,” Mam said and hit the seatbelt, sending me falling forward into the back of the seat in front of me. “Climb, leanbh, climb and then swim.”
Her mouth moved, saying something else that I couldn’t quite make out as I shimmied out of the window and into the river.
My head was immediately pulled underwater as I tried to remember everything I knew about swimming—which admittedly wasn’t a lot. I loved going to the local pool as much as the next person, but I was always too much of a coward to go past where my feet couldn’t touch.
And they definitely couldn’t touch right now.
I wasn’t sure how I managed it, my body flailing as my head finally rebroke the surface of the water and I sucked in a lungful of air with a scream.
Then my body was being thrown into the stone column with enough force to take the breath I’d just inhaled clean out of me.
Gripping the stones, I scrambled up onto the flat surface as every inch of me screamed with an ache. I glanced over just in time to see the car’s bumper dip beneath the surface.
“Mam!” I screamed as the sounds of sirens filled my ears.
A garbled scream left my body as I sat up straight in bed, trying to get free of the tangle of sheets and failing entirely.
Overwhelming panic caged in my chest as I grabbed blindly at the edge of my blanket, trying to yank it away from my legs.
“Ciara,” a man’s voice was in my ear, grabbing at my hands but I fought, trying in vain to get a full lungful of air.
“Ciara, gorgeous.”
Hands gripped my face and I finally realized where I was and why my legs felt trapped—it was because they were. By the bodies of the two men and two golden retrievers in Artie’s nest.
A strangled sob rippled out of my chest as I managed to take my first full breath since waking up.
The scent of oranges and cloves surrounded me as soft hands took over from Wiz and I turned to find Artie’s concerned face as he tried to soothe me through the bond.
“Talk to me, sweetheart,” Artie’s fingers traced my expression—something he’d been doing more and more frequently over the past month and a half since I’d bitten him and formed the bond.
The door to Artie’s room opened and two sleepy alphas stumbled into the room.
“What’s goin’ on?” Enzo slurred, rubbing at his eyes as he tried to see in the dark. “I felt fear through the bond, woke me up out of a dead sleep.”
Leith was already crawling into the nest, glancing between the three of us before reaching over Artie to the bedside table lamp and switching it on.
“Oh, mo ròs,” he sighed, pulling me into his lap and cradling me there. “What happened?”
Enzo hesitated for a moment and I could feel his indecision down the bond. Reaching out, I patted the nest, giving him nonverbal permission to join us.
Wiz and I had spent most of our time melting into the Santoro pack, Wiz seeming to fit in as if he’d been there all along. He and Artie were close and when the omega wasn’t with Leith or one of his other alphas, he and Wiz were up to no good. Things were going well—so well that I sometimes couldn’t believe it.
But even after a month Enzo still seemed to keep me at an arm’s length and without realizing it, I think I may have done the same.
Enzo’s shoulders sank and he crawled into the nest, his face level with mine. “Was it a nightmare?”
I shrugged, not wanting to share anything about the ever-fading dream that seemed to be haunting me more and more over the week leading up to the anniversary of the accident.
“I don’t really want to talk about it,” I mumbled and turned my face into Leith’s neck, trying to push away the encroaching nausea that always accompanied my lovely nightmares.
Unfortunately, Wiz wasn’t going to let me off that easily. “It’s the anniversary of your mom’s death—right?”
I peeked at him from over Leith’s shoulder, taking in his concerned expression and rumpled hair.
