Page 67 of Loched in Love

A half dozen sleek wet heads pop up through the glowing surface of the lagoon as a family of river otters scrambles onto the smooth mossy stone. Their chocolate brown fur glistens like satin as they shake off the glowing droplets of water, and two of the smallest otters trot right over to my heavy boots, standing on their hind legs and chirping curiously about Elena.

“Are those otters?” Elena asks, her gaze wide as she looks down at them completely smitten by their bright black beaded eyes. “You have an army of furry otters?”

“They’re more like roommates who don’t pay rent,” I chuckle, shifting her weight in my arms so she can take it all in. “But they keep the place lively.”

I carry her past the lagoon, walking along a path where the scent of the rich ocean mixes with something sweet and metallic. As we round the bend, the blue light of the water collides with a blinding, dazzling shimmer. Nestled into a massive, naturally carved cave system of basalt rock is an absolute mountain of wealth.

Chests of dark mahogany overflow with heavy, centuries old gold doubloons that overflow the cave floor in a gigantic hill of gold. Glittering diamond tiaras catch the ambient blue light, firing off icy fractures of color against the cave walls. Heavy silver chalices encrusted with rubies sit stacked near ropes of priceless iridescent pearls that pool on the stone floor like spilled milk. Gemstones of all sorts and sizes glitter among the gold, throwing rainbows of color along the shining cache of gold coins.

Elena stares at the dazzling fortune then blinks up at me, a highly amused and sarcastic smirk tugging at the corner of her lips.

“Well,” she says, gesturing toward the literal hill of gold. “Suddenly I feel a lot less bad about wrecking the rental car. That mound looks like something out of a pirate’s wet dream.”

I burst out laughing, the sound echoing off the ancient walls like thunder. I tighten my grip on her, stepping toward the grand wooden stairway leading up the side of the galleon ship. “Consider the car fully insured, love. And we won’t be having to use Frank’s wee card any more, I assure you. Welcome to my lair.”

Chapter 26

ELENA PIERSON

The contrast is instant the moment we step across the threshold. Behind us lies nearly eight hundred feet of crushing pitch black water, but inside here the air is warm and dry, smelling faintly of sea salt and cedar. It feels cozy and safe like a hidden sanctuary built specifically to keep the dark abyss at bay. Thank god.

I know several friends back home who’d give their left arm to see the cross section of loch wall we just walked through. But if I had to sit under it another second, I probably would’ve had a spectacularly human meltdown right in his arms, and I’ve had enough of water to last me a lifetime.

The scientific part of my brain still can’t process the physics of everything I’ve witnessed. My heart still hasn’t stopped thudding like a really fast-paced metronome as Lachlan walks up the grand wooden gangplank of a literal Spanish galleon, our luggage and cooler floating behind us like a line of well-behaved ghosts are bringing them.

This is so nuts!

I slowly release the death grip on his jacket and realize my knuckles are very white and tense with soreness for hanging onto him like a lifeline for so long. But looking up at the big ship masts and the glowing amber lanterns, my breath catches in my throat.

As a biologist major at heart, my brain is short-circuiting, and I’m actively trying to keep myself from crashing out.

The preservation of the centuries old oaken ship defies every law of decomposition I’ve studied, so much so that if I could show a picture of this to any one of my professors back home, they’d immediately call it out for being made by artificial intelligence.

But it’s real.

I glance at the sedimentation in the corners of the cave, untouched by the modern world and protected by a freaking magical barrier and my hands start to quake.

I blink. “Lachlan, you live on a pirate ship, inside a cave, underneath a freezing lake.”

“Aye, but technically that’s a treasure galleon,” he corrects me mildly. A smug and gorgeous smirk plays at his lips as he finally sets my feet down onto the pristine and polished deck. “And it has excellent insulation. After all, I needed something to sleep in. You didn’t think I’d have my lady fair sleeping on a slab of stone did you?”

I take a tentative step, my hiking boots sounding loud against the wood. I turn in a slow circle, trying to take in everything at once as the sheer absurdity of what I’m looking like has me shaking my head where I stand.

How the hell did he even get it down here?

“Okay, but seriously. How did you even get a sixteenth century galleon treasure ship down into a huge cavern beneath Loch Ness? Did you assemble it like a massive flatpack of furniture from Ikea?”

Lachlan bursts out laughing a deep and rich sound that echoes off the cavern walls. “Not quite, my flower. It actually sank during a massive windstorm a few hundred years ago and I simply claimed it from the ocean floor before the woodborers could ruin it.”

I blink, staring at the flawless wood under my feet. “But we’re miles from the ocean?”

“Aye, but I can swim through the undercurrents and get to it. This cavern has been my home since I found it, but the ship? I broke down its elemental components using the trident and flowed it through the water fissures underground straight into this lagoon. Then I knit the timber back together with a bit of domestic magic. It did take some time, but it was worth it,” he says with a wink.

He freaking recycled a shipwreck.

I walk over to the heavy oak doors of the main cabin and push them open, stopping dead in my tracks.

Expecting a cramped and dusty captains’ bunk, I’m blown away. The interior is a sweeping grand hall frozen in time, and I glance at the sleek walls and gasp.