23. Chapter Twenty-Three
~Kalo~
The meeting in Felix’s office ended with a renewed sense of purpose.
Calista took Brendan’s book, eager to read through its pages and see what she might be able to learn.
Felix would get to work on gathering the rest of the materials needed to create the reaper trap, and hundreds of miles away, the Ravenstone pack would be searching their mountains for the iron we needed.
Everyone had something to do. Everyone… except for us.
When Leo asked what needed our attention, Felix told him to try to relax. Although I hadn’t known Leo nearly as long as Felix had, I already knew that wasn’t on the cards.
We went next door to Leo’s office, simply so we wouldn’t be in anyone’s way, and Leo crossed the room to the window, scanning the forest in the distance. Sunlight caught in his hair and outlined the tension in his shoulders. For a long moment, he said nothing.
Finally, I cleared my throat. “Well, I’m sure you have work to do.”
“We’re supposed to stick together,” he reminded me, his gaze never leaving the world outside.
“I know, and I’m not planning on running away. I can sit in the corner and read. I can entertain myself.”
With those words, he turned to face me, and I caught just a hint of fear and frustration in his expression before he pushed it all down. “I don’t want you to entertain yourself.”
“Okay? I’ll just sit and do nothing instead.”
Leo winced. “No, that’s not what I…”
He shook his head, his arms falling to his sides as he walked back over to stand in front of me.
“There’s a reaper after you.”
I did my best to match his serious expression. “I’m aware of this.”
“We don’t know why it’s waiting or what it’s planning. We have no idea if trapping it will help. You might not have much time left.”
“This is a great pep talk, thank you.”
His lips pursed, and I honestly couldn’t tell if he was amused or annoyed at the interruption. “What I’m saying is that if this is one of your last days alive, why would you spend it reading in the corner? You’re free, remember? No master. No curse. So, what do you want to do today?”
That… was a damn good question, actually.
With the shock of the mate bond and the threat of the reaper, I really hadn’t had a chance to enjoy my new freedom, other than those stolen moments with Leo in my bedroom.
And even though nothing was settled, Leo was right about one thing: each day of freedom was a gift, so why waste it?
Memories I’d buried long ago swam back to the surface, stirred up by all of Leo’s questions about Akkara, and the answer rose to the tip of my tongue before I could even question it.
“I’d like to go swimming.”
Surprise registered in Leo’s blue eyes, followed by a slow blink that I’d come to learn meant he was processing what had just been said. “Swimming? Like, in a pool?”
“No.” I’d never been swimming in a pool, and although it probably had its charms, it wasn’t what I had in mind. “Outdoors, in a lake or a river. Just water and sky. Like I used to.”
The memory burned brighter of water lapping over my skin while the hot sun shone down, and my toes digging into the clay beneath my feet.
“It’s October,” Leo said, each word coming out reluctantly. “The lake on our territory is going to be freezing.”
My brief flare of excitement dimmed as reality set back in. There were no sun-baked clay riverbanks in the Rocky Mountain foothills. “Ah. Right. Of course.” I forced a shrug, trying to appear nonchalant. “Forget it.”
“No.” Leo’s refusal was so loud, it seemed to startle us both. “I’ll figure something out. Go and have some breakfast in the dining room, and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
I almost reminded him, as he often did to me, that we were supposed to stick together, but he charged out of the room with a determined stride before I got a chance.
With another shrug towards the empty room, I made my way down the hall to the dining room, where I found Evalina and Felix’s father finishing their meal.
Evalina’s mother was there too, apparently, but I still couldn’t see her.
They invited me to join them, and after grabbing a small plate, I did. Their conversation was friendly and light, distracting me from my curiosity about what exactly Leo had in mind.
When he finally appeared, he had a backpack strapped over his shoulders, and my coat slung over his arm.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
“For what, exactly?”
“Trust me,” was the only answer he gave, and strangely enough, I found that I did trust him enough not to ask any further questions as I put on the coat and followed him outside.
The fresh, crisp forest air immediately lifted my spirits, and the sky stretched overhead in a flawless, cloudless blue.
Neither of us spoke as we made our way through the trees.
Leaves in shades of copper and gold crunched underfoot until the trees opened to reveal a small lake tucked into a natural clearing.
Its surface shimmered silver-blue beneath the sun, perfectly still except for the occasional ripple of wind.
It was nothing like the wide riverbanks of my youth: no clay, no olive groves, and no Akkara.
But it had a different kind of beauty, and a different beautiful man beside me, who cleared his throat as we came to a stop by the water’s edge.
“We’ll need wetsuits if we don’t want to freeze. That’s what I went to get.”
He slid the backpack off his back and unzipped it, pulling out a thick, black suit and handing it to me.
“No skinny dipping, then?” I teased as I took it from him.
A flash of heat flared in his eyes before he could mask it. “Absolutely not.”
Changing into the suits was a clumsy affair. The material clung to my skin, and Leo had to help tug it into place. Even through the fabric, the familiar sparks sizzled along my skin wherever he touched.
I wanted to return the favour, to help him with his suit and steal a few touches of my own, but he pulled his on with the same calm efficiency that he approached most tasks with.
“Here goes nothing,” he muttered, more to himself than to me, as we took our first steps into the water.
I gasped as the ground sloped away beneath us and the water reached my hips. He hadn’t been kidding. The cold wrapped around me, biting and bracing and shocking every nerve awake. It drove the lingering fatigue from my limbs and replaced it with something bright and electric.
I felt alive.
Leo hissed in a breath next to me, and I began to laugh.
“What’s funny?” he grumbled.
“This.” Reaching down to the water’s surface, I swept it towards him in a wave that reached up and splashed across his face.
Eyes wide, he stared at me. “I can’t believe you just did that.”
My laugh grew stronger. “What’s the matter? Can’t handle a…”
He lunged before I could finish the taunt, knocking me off my feet and sending us both underwater. The lake swallowed sound and light for a brief, thrilling second before I broke the surface again, sputtering and laughing at the same time.
Next to me, Leo surfaced too, looking smug. “Don’t start something you can’t finish…”
My leg hooked his beneath the water, pulling him off balance again and sending him back under.
Launching myself further into the lake, I tried to swim away before he regained his balance, but he caught me easily, grabbing me by the ankle, pulling me backwards and dunking me completely.
We repeated the game over and over, splashing and wrestling, and pulling each other under again and again until we were both breathless and grinning.
“Truce?” he offered as he stretched out onto his back, effortlessly floating on top of the water.
“Truce,” I agreed and followed suit, letting the water hold me in its embrace as I stared up at the crystal-blue sky above us that filled my entire field of vision. Leo’s hand found mine without looking, and the sparks between us pulsed warmly against the water’s chill.
“This is nice,” he murmured, the words barely audible as the water lapped gently around my ears.
‘Nice’ was an understatement. I’d thought that swimming belonged to Akkara, that the memory of water and sunlight would always be tangled up with him.
But lying there beside Leo, staring into a sky that had never seen my homeland, I realized I’d been wrong.
Those memories weren’t his. They belonged to me, and so did the ability to make new ones, free from his ghost.
Given the choice between that sunny river and the man I once loved, or this cool lake and the steady, strong man beside me, it didn’t take any magic to know which one I would choose.