Lucas ripped his eyes away and hopped down to another boulder. Hopefully, the pond was good and cold.
17
Lucas followed the stream to the pond.
It wasn’t as easy as it sounded. With his mind occupied by certain female assets, he had no memory of having climbed a mountain of prone trunks between it and the rock ridge. But he must have done so, because there they were.
By the time he reached the pond, it was full dark. The water was inky black, barely reflecting the moonlight through the network of branches above. Staring down at it, Lucas experienced his first qualm. It looked deep as well as murky.
But then another bug bit him, and he slapped at it before picking his way over a trunk lying partway in the water.
He dangled a foot in. It wasn’t cold, but almost lukewarm, like a drawn bath left a few minutes too long. With a sigh as to its lack of bracing properties, Lucas decided to leave his bloodstained pants on. Might as well wash them at the same time.
He slid into the water. It was deep. One step, and it closed over his head. He let it happen, dunking beneath before popping back to the surface and treading water. He dipped down again, then swam across until his feet found the bottom along the other bank. His toes sank into the sludge, and he grimaced. If there were leeches in this water, it would not impress him.
The cuts stung as he scrubbed at them, and his breath hissed through his teeth. Some had been quite deep, but the Morph healing ability had already closed the worst of those, at least to the point they were reduced to shallow grooves. They would soon heal and join the other scars.
Maybe Aria would think they added character. Warriors were supposed to respect things like that. The thought inspired Lucas as he propped himself up on a log. He let his feet dangle into the water as his fingers reached for the sensory hairs beneath his arm.
With Aria’s hips such a recent visual, he was gasping after three strokes, his body tightening...
Something brushed against his leg.
Lucas froze, his heart pounding. Likely a fish.
Then the “fish” wrapped around his leg and pulled him off the log and under the water.
As he thrashed in the darkness, another whipcord tentacle wrapped around Lucas’s throat below Demeti’s cursed collar, choking off all air. He caught an impression of multiple, thin tentacles reaching eagerly through the water.
The collar stopped him from doing a complete morph. Desperate, his instincts reached for his most recent absorption from Aria, and he modified his fingernails to Dragon talons.
Blackness closed in on the edges of his vision, hampering his efforts to concentrate. But the talons emerged, and he slashed at the tentacles, severing one. Instead of encouraging the creature to retreat, the move seemed to galvanize it. More tentacles wrapped around him and pulled him into the depths...
A burst of brilliant red penetrated the dark water. It passed by Lucas and struck the predator. For an instant, red forks of energy outlined its body, and Lucas caught a glimpse of the true size—a huge amorphous shape that shuddered beneath the onslaught.
The tentacles hesitated. Then they quivered. And in a single, smooth motion, they whipped away from him as the creature retreated.
Lucas kicked for the surface, breaking into the humid air, gasping it into aching lungs. He barely had time to register the tall form looming over him before a powerful arm shot out to pluck him from the water.
Nikolai set Lucas’s feet down on the moss with a thump. His face was in shadow, but the red lightning shot through the black fog swirling over his skin. Black also drifted across the eyes that gleamed at him.
“I told you to stay near the rock ridge,” the big guy scolded.
Any gratitude that Lucas might feel toward him evaporated. “Iamnear the rock ridge. If you knew there was an octopus in the pond, you should have said something.”
The remark seemed to confuse Nikolai. “That wasn’t an octopus.”
“I know it wasn’t a freaking octopus.” Lucas shook all over. It had been too frigging close, and he owed Nikolai his life, but be damned if he’d thank him for it.
The Bellati? Liberi?—what the hell was he, really?—shook his head and turned toward the water, raising his hands, palm-down, over its surface. A soft, blue glow emanated from them, sinking slowly into the water.
Lucas had been set to stalk back to the rocks—although stalking was tough when you had to scramble over things. But instead, he frowned at Nikolai. “What are you doing?”
“I’m repairing the damage. It was only doing what came naturally. It doesn’t deserve to suffer for it.”
Lucas’s mouth dropped open. He was healing the predator? It had been doing its own thing, he supposed. A blood drenched morsel going for a swim would have been just too tempting to pass up.
Of course, when it had attacked him, the blood had been pulsing to another part of him altogether... Lucas sighed. So much for that idea.
