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“I mean…” Her brows pinched together. “They could have gotten swept away on a current. They could be hanging onto those rocks over there,” she said, motioning to the rocks nearby, “or…”
“No,” Dave said, cutting her off. “Not or… Those rocks are closest. We’ll go check them. Greg, you go out and check around to see if they got caught up in a current.”
They didn’t need to clarify for me to know that ‘or’ meant something could have happened and they could have drowned. Since she was diving with Eric—who was also missing—I knew it was a possibility. Fear skittered down my spine. I was out of my element out here. If she was lying on the bottom of the ocean right now, I’d tear this fucking boat apart. Eric, on the other hand, was as good as fish food.
Greg moved the boat into a cove created by the massive rock formations surrounding us. They went a good twenty feet into the air and towered over us. As he nudged the boat forward toward the rock a scream pierced the air, overpowering the sound of the engine.
It was all I needed. Bending, I jerked my laces from my boots, toed them off, shucked my jeans and t-shirt and was over the railing before anyone could stop me. “Stay there!” I shouted at Drew.
If something happened to me, I needed him to help Marina. It wouldn’t help her if Eric got the drop on us. I swam toward the rocks and pulled myself out of the water. I might hate the water, but I could muscle my way across it when I needed to. Ignoring the pain of walking over rocks with bare feet, I started to climb.
It wasn’t until I made it to the other side that I saw my siren. She was in a fight with Eric. I saw fucking red when he backhanded her. I was still a few feet up, on an outcropping of rock, and he was starting toward her. Studying the angle of me to him, I made a plan. He’d get to her before I could get down there, unless…
I jumped, hitting him in the shoulders and taking us both into the waiting sea below. We both crashed into rock as we tumbled down into the water. Pain exploded in my shoulder and then I was swallowed by the ocean.
Surging to the surface, I sucked in a breath and wiped water from my eyes. Eric came up a few feet away, face bloody and sliced from falling, his eyes straying over to where Marina was picking herself up off the rocks above us. Her eyes were wide and on me. Her lips formed my name, but I couldn’t hear her over the water crashing below.
This asshole had hit my woman. Was trying to kill her to get to me. He’d had a death sentence before this, but now I was going to make him regret every decision he’d made in his life that landed him here in the water beside me.
Taking a deep breath, I lunged and pulled him down with me. He struggled against my hold. Salt water stung my eyes as I watched him fight against the hold I had on his wetsuit. It gave me something to grip onto. He didn’t have nearly as much luck since I was only in my fucking underwear.
The water was freezing, my lungs were burning, but I wasn’t going to stop until I was sure he wouldn’t be coming back up.
He kicked frantically, trying to get me to release him. His dive boot hit my shin and I grunted. I didn’t retaliate. I needed to conserve my air. He was struggling, fighting, and it was going to cause him to drown faster than me. That’s all I could hope for because I didn’t have my gun, or any other weapons. I just held on, slowly sinking us to the bottom of the ocean.
Eric’s eyes bulged as the lack of oxygen began to affect him. A strange sense of calmness settled over me. I’d been following this prick for far too long and now he was going to die by my hands. I couldn’t imagine drowning was a pleasant death, so even though I wanted to rip his balls off and put more than one bullet through his head, this would be satisfying enough.
Motion caught my eye and I jerked my head over. It better not be a fucking shark.
It was a siren. My siren. Marina swam over, moving through the water as gracefully as the mythical creature I’d nicknamed her for.
My lungs were screaming at this point. I wasn’t a water kind of guy. Hell, I’d only learned to swim recently. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to last down here longer than Eric. We seemed to be on even footing, sinking lower down below the water’s surface.
Hands cupped my cheeks and Marina turned my face toward her. Her lips pressed to mine and my brows drew low. This wasn’t the time for kissing. Air brushed my skin and I instinctively opened my lips a little. She blew her breath into my mouth. I sucked it down into my lungs. I had no clue if there’d be enough oxygen in it to help, or if I was just breathing in carbon dioxide, but Marina seemed to know.
She blinked hard, a warning, and we both closed our lips. I watched her swim hard for the surface. She’d given most of her breath to me, and my lungs weren’t aching as badly anymore. I wasn’t dead yet, so it must have worked.
Glancing over I saw Eric doing this morbid fucking shaking thing in my grasp. His whole body was convulsing as his mouth gaped open and closed. He was drowning. Watching the light fade from his eyes, I decided I never wanted to die this way.
I waited until he stopped moving, eyes wide open and unseeing, before I let him go. He floated there for a minute before he began to sink downward. He was still wearing a dive belt that had lead weights on it and it was dragging him down to the bottom. That was fine by me. Less mess to clean up that way.
Hands settled under my arms and I looked up as Marina dragged me up toward the surface. I didn’t know how far we’d been under, but the sun got bigger and brighter with every kick of her powerful legs.
We broke the surface and I wheezed in a breath. My lungs were all but weeping with gratitude. Marina’s arms went around my neck as we treaded water.
“Oh my God,” she breathed into my ear. “You’re okay.”
“Thanks to you,” I told her, my voice hoarse.
“You saved my life,” she said, awe filling her tone.
I looked down at her and cupped her jaw in my hands, looking into her gorgeous amber eyes. “You’re mine. I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”
The sound of a motor had us glancing over. There were questions in her eyes, but she didn’t ask them as Dave brought the boat toward us.
“What do we tell them?”
“Say there was an accident and he drowned. You did everything you could, but you couldn’t get to him.”
