The pond, normally seeming only right in their back yard, was suddenly a thousand miles away, and as Chris grew paler, Eli became more panicked.
He shook the other man when his head lolled and eyes rolled to the back of his head.
“Chris!”
We’re here, James said, using the inner voice that all alphas could use on their pack members.
Eli looked up. It was as if he’d stumbled into paradise. Adam, Nick, and Andrew were already there. Some blood matted their fur from the attacks of the other wolves, but they stood strong, their hackles raised up high and lips pulled back, snarling at any wolf who dared to come within their circle.
There were so many werewolves. What had Deacon been doing? Putting them through an assembly line?
Eli ran for the clear water and jumped in. The pond wasn’t immediately deep, so he was forced to splash around some as he went further and further in, until the cool liquid completely covered Chris’s body and his own.
Chris’s heartbeat became small and frail as a newborn bird’s. For
one heart-shattering second, he feared that it had stopped completely,
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before he heard it one more time.
Come on, baby, you’re here. You’re going to be okay. Eli pushed them up for air and took in a deep breath when they broke the surface. He only left their heads above the water. Everything else was to remain below.
Nicked bowels. That meant that all the waste from Chris’s body was pouring into his wound, his veins, down his legs, everywhere. It was poisoning him from the inside. But this water had cleansing powers. They didn’t know where it came from, but this water was pure somehow, it would clean out Chris’s wound and heal him.
They tried bringing Eric here. Eric and the other alphas who’d died that day. They had hoped that the same powers that had brought Deacon back from the dead would do the same for them, but it hadn’t
worked.
This was different. Eric and the others had been dead for several
minutes before they’d gotten them to the pond. Chris’s heart was still beating when Eli jumped into the clear pool with him. He was going to live. He was!
Eli looked behind himself to see James and the others all staring at him, waiting for the verdict. The shocking thing was the way the wild werewolves did the same. There were so many of them. Dozens. If they wanted to, they could ambush the lot of them and take this land for their own, but they stood still, eyes glowing as they stood, staring. The fighting had stopped in favor of seeing to the safety of the man with multicolored eyes.
Eli looked back down at his lover. Chris’s face remained pale, but his body was growing cold.
That was just because of the cool water lowering the temperature of his body, Eli told himself. He put his hand over Chris’s chest, to assure himself that the other man’s heart was beating.
He felt nothing.
The water around them had become stained with red, and Eli
didn’t take his hand away, still searching for that elusive beating.
Eli’s Reluctant Mate 99
It was there. It had to be there. Come on, baby, I know you’re still
alive. You’re not dead.
One of the wolves behind him howled, and a human hand touched
Eli’s shoulder.
He jerked away. It was James. He’d entered the water to come and get him.
“He’s gone. I’m sorry, Eli, but he’s gone.”
“He is not dead!” Eli shrieked, shaking Chris in his arms. “Come on, baby. Open your eyes. You’re okay. I know you are. Wake up!”
James didn’t touch him again, and no one else entered the water to come and get him. More wolves howled, and Eli broke down sobbing.
His mate, his mate that he was supposed to protect was dead, and it was entirely his fault.
He stood in the water for what seemed like several minutes before
he finally got his sobbing under control. Eli pressed his face into Chris’s hair, and then he released Chris’s body, letting the water take him until he disappeared within the red haze that had bloomed in the pond.
Romulus and Remus take you.
He wanted nothing better than to let himself sink under with Chris, let himself drown, because his mind and body were both ready to give up. He wouldn’t struggle for air, and if he did, he had the strength to fight his body’s need for oxygen. It wasn’t like there were many people that would mourn him.
In one strange moment, the epiphany hit him. Eli had nothing to live for. His brother, his only family, was gone, and his mate was just taken from him, right before his eyes, and not even the healing power of the pond would bring him back.
What had he done? What horrible thing had Eli done that he was to be punished like this?
He let go of the thought of drowning himself. James would never let him do it anyway. Instead, Eli turned around and waded out of the pool of water. It was bloody again, just like it had been the first time
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Deacon had been thrown in. The water would clean itself. It always did.
Some of the blood stayed on Eli’s skin when he finally emerged
from the water.
Isaac stepped forward. He looked like he was about to say something until Eli glared at him. He didn’t want any sympathetic words from anyone.
One of the transformed werewolves stepped forward. A large brown wolf, with shame in its eyes and bloodied ears.
His head was down, and tail between his legs. Eli snarled as he
recognized the reason for all of his pain.
“You…you killed him!” Eli charged forth, ready to bash his fist into the skull of the werewolf, who stood in place. He cowered but didn’t move away, as though awaiting punishment for killing a man of lycan legend.
Eli had every intention of beating the wolf’s skull in and
