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My heart ached. All I wanted to do was run and comfort them. Hold them as the agony ripped through them. Reassure them that everything would be okay.
The current had moved me closer to the boat until I was near enough to the ladder that I could reach out and touch the rungs.
To preserve my strength, I gripped the top one while planting my feet on the bottom, but something cut the side of my foot that had me sucking in a sharp breath and yanking my foot away. I awkwardly shifted my position, still hanging onto the rung while lifting my foot out of the water. Sure enough, a barnacle or something had cut a deep scrape into the outside of my right foot and blood flowed down to my ankle and across my shin, disappearing into the water in fat, crimson blobs.
Crap.
Pushing myself up onto the ladder, and avoiding the sharp rung, I glanced over the stern onto the deck.
I could feel three hammering heartbeats. I could smell them and the harsh, sour scent of their sweat. It was the scent of fear sweat. Of stress sweat.
Another scream, this one more like a roar, followed a second later.
Jorik.My grizzly.
And then the agonizing cry of Zane, like someone was slowly flaying him with a hot dagger, had my stomach curdling and my hand flying to my throat.
Crashes and snarls, growls and wails erupted from the cabin, as I stood there frozen on the ladder.
A part of me, despite how graphic the recalling of his detox experience was, didn’t quite believe Zane. I didn’t think it would get that bad. I believed our bond was strong enough now, that no matter what, they’d still know it was me. That if they came face-to-face with me, the human inside that cared for me would prevail, caging up the beast that craved my blood.
I was stupid. Naïve and drunk on the affection that I let it blind me to reality. To the fact that my men, as I knew them, as I loved them, were not currently inside that cabin.
My foot was back in the water, but it’d been out in the air, with my blood dripping, for enough seconds that if they had any of my enhanced senses left, they’d have smelled it.
More crashes, growls, and animalistic snarls rumbled from down below followed by scratches at the door.
The sound of something hard and wooden falling to the ground in the cabin made me gasp and lurch back. The doorknob jiggled, and I gasped.
My feet wouldn’t move.
These were my men. How could I leave them?
We were a team.
Then Rix’s words came back to me.“I want you to shoot me, fucking kill me if I come after you, okay?”
I had no weapon on me.
And I’d never be able to live with myself if I killed the man I loved. If I killed any of the men I loved. The door flew open, but I flung myself backward off the ladder and into the water fast enough I don’t think they saw me. I’d taken a huge breath and swam as far as I could under the surface until my lungs begged for mercy. Even then, I pushed myself a little farther until dark spots clouded my vision and my head got foggy.
I prayed I was far enough away from the boat and that none of them had followed me.
Lifting my head, I sucked in a large sum of air, filling my lungs until they could nearly burst, then dove back under and swam some more. I wasn’t ready to turn around.
I could feel their eyes on me. Could feel their out-of-control heart rates.
When my lungs burned again, I breached the surface and spun around to face the boat. I was a significant distance away now, nearly to the shore, but quite far away from the dock.
But despite the distance, I couldn’t mistake the hungry, savage glint in each of their eyes as they prowled back and forth along the deck of the boat, watching me like starved, penned and beaten animals.
A snarl and a growl from Jorik had my heart spasming in shock.
Fresh tears sprang from my eyes, dripping into the water like grains of sand getting lost in an unforgiving desert. My bottom lip trembled, and my throat ached.
My boys.
I trod water for a few more seconds and was about to turn around and continue swimming toward shore when Zane cocked his head to the side and stared at me.
