Those were his parting words. Bryce shoved his hands in his pockets and ambled off into the night. He whistled; a cheerful tune which echoed mockingly behind him.
Lachlan remained on his knees for long minutes, staring into the darkness. A tearingcrackthat resounded across the neighbouring hills suggested part of The Lucky Teapot’s roof had caved in. The sign had fallen from over the door, blackened and unreadable in the dirt.
He was roused by a worried, high-pitched voice coming up the hill. He swayed, blurrily focusing on the approaching form of Meredith. She was speaking very fast, hands flapping and waving her phone in the air. Something about having called the fire brigade, and asking what had happened, and why was there a wolf in a hoodie, and where was Cam, and where…
Meredith shook Lachlan by the shoulders. Her eyes were glassy with fear. ‘Where’s Cam?’
* * *
Cam’s first thought was that he was drowning. He was deep underwater and trapped in murky darkness. A stream of bubbles escaped his mouth. When he managed to clamp his jaw shut again, he was relieved to find his lungs weren’t yet burning with the need to breathe. In fact, they were strangely comfortable. Like he could keep holding his breath for hours without having to worry about it at all.
Next, he clocked the weirdness of his limbs. How they weren’t exactly where he expected them to be. Everything was bigger, clumsier. He couldn’t curl his fingers. His tail dragged on the silty loch bed, kicking up a swirl of peat and stones.
His tail?
Cam tried to twist and found that his body was shockingly flexible. His neck—hislongneck—curved right over his back to squint at the reptilian tail flowing from his humped spine.
Oh my god.
He twisted again, bringing his face to brush against smooth flippers. With the bottom of the loch right beneath him, he finally had a proper sense of up and down. He righted himself and decided to swim upwards. The use of his flippers came surprisingly naturally. Cam felt nearly weightless in the water, flying rather than swimming through it.
Faint light broke through the murk as he got closer. Instead of a rippling surface he encountered cloudy ice and bumped his head. Cam grunted in frustration, spewing another stream of bubbles.
He reared his head and butted into it again.
The crash of breaking ice was loud enough to startle him. He realised, upon bursting into fresh air, that he’d overestimated the amount of force required and had sent tremendous cracks scoring across the icy surface of the loch.
He heard some shocked gasps, and then distant voices calling his name. Cam whipped his head round, disoriented by both the length of his neck and the sudden heaviness of it being out of water. His gaze landed on the small shapes of Meredith and Lachlan, standing on the wooden jetty at the foot of Lachlan’s hill.
He tried to call back. It came out as a loud and nervous bleat that reverberated off the landscape, startling him again. Cam ducked his head, splashing nose-deep back into the water.
Lachlan and Meredith waved desperately at him to come closer. Did they think he was going to disappear into the loch and never come out? Meredith sounded especially scared.
Cam pushed himself forward, wincing internally at how the ice creaked and groaned as it was gradually demolished by his passage. When he reached the pier, it dawned on him that he could see Meredith and Lachlan clearly despite the darkness. There weren’t even stars peeking out of the cloudy sky, and the only light those two were using was the torch from Meredith’s phone pointed at the ground.
Cam pushed as close as he could, feeling the underside of his belly start to scrape along the shallow bottom this close to the shore. He stretched out his neck to reach over the pier and Lachlan dropped onto him immediately with a loud sob.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Lachlan blurted against his skin. He threw both arms around Cam’s neck, squeezing as tightly as he could. ‘I couldn’t think of another way. I’m so sorry.’
Don’t be sorry.Cam tried to nudge him gently with his nose.You saved my life.
Meredith hovered awkwardly behind Lachlan. Her voice quavered. ‘Cam, baby? Is that you?’
Cam endeavoured to nod with Lachlan still clinging onto him. He hoped Meredith could recognise some part of him in his eyes. She held out a hesitant hand and placed it on the bridge of his nose. His snout, Cam supposed.
All things considered, he felt awfully calm about the situation.
Maybe it was because the full weight of it hadn’t really sunk in yet. Or maybe it was because he was alive, and so were the two people he loved most in the world, and that was all that mattered.
He tried to make a small sound of reassurance, like the little trills he’d heard Lachlan make in his Nessie form. It was a bit harsh as he figured out his new vocal chords, but at least it was quieter than the embarrassing bleat from earlier.
Meredith gulped, giving his snout another pat. ‘Okay, honey. It’s okay.’
Lachlan’s shoulders were shaking silently. Tears fell in streams down his cheeks. Cam warbled another sound, this time of dismay. Was Lachlan all right? Was he hurt?
He nudged Lachlan away, easily breaking the hold on his neck, and anxiously looked him up and down. Lachlan’s clothes were singed but he looked okay. Although his expression said he was anything but.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Lachlan whispered again. He seemed to gather himself, wiping down his cheeks. ‘Bryce is gone. We, um. The Wulver still needs help. We stopped the bleeding but he’s still unconscious. Um. Meredith thinks we should take him to Glencoe. And I… I don’t want to leave but…’
