He spotted a glimpse of something ahead that seemed to sparkle and moved toward it. He lost it for a moment as the trees thickened, and then he realized what it was. The lake. He certainly hadn’t gone looking for it, but now that it was there…
He wasn’t going to go in it. Even though he loved to swim, he respected Geir enough to listen to his “it’s forbidden” warning.
But he did wonder what had made Geir so nervous about it. Declan could come up with hundreds of possibilities, and he went through them in his head as he wandered vaguely closer to the water. Spy lab, cannabis farm, hidden spaceship, gold mine, motorcycle club, artist workshop… there were just so many good ones. He considered a puppy mill, but he didn’t think Geir would hurt animals like that.
He also went through the practical options, too. Quicksand, dangerous animals, a place where someone he loved had drowned, sinkholes. Though were sinkholes different from quicksand? He thought they were.
Declan pulled himself up along a steep incline, and when he got to the top he realized he was much closer to the lake that he’d realized. In fact, he could see Geir, standing at the end of a little dock, absolutely naked.
Oh, hell yeah. Skinny dipping? There was no way he was missing out on that one. It wasn’t like he could even see Geir’s front. Just his muscular legs and well-formed ass. That little dimple at the base of his spine, and his muscular shoulders that sported a tattoo that he couldn’t quite make out. He definitely wanted to know more about that tattoo.
Maybe tomorrow he could casually bring up skinny dipping, suggest he’d like to try it, and see where that led. Cold water would definitely be worth it for naked Geir.
In a perfect, shallow swan dive, Geir entered the water. Declan watched as he came up a few yards out, and then submerged again. He came up a bit farther away, then did a few lazy crawl strokes, more playing around than trying to get somewhere as far as Declan could tell.
Then he dove back down.
And didn’t come back up.
Declan almost stopped breathing himself.
Geir really wasn’t coming back up.
A flash of color stretched out across the surface of the lake where Geir had gone under. But it slithered back into the water. Was there some debris down there? Was he trapped?
Declan took off down the hill, dropping his sketchbook without a thought and wrenching his hoodie off as he went. He’d been a lifeguard in high school, and his training kicked into gear.
Seconds counted, but if he was weighed down too much by loose, soggy clothing or inflexible shoes, he could get trapped himself or lack the strength to pull Geir back. As soon as he hit the dock, he simultaneously pulled his shirt over his head and kicked off his shoes. He shimmied out of his pants, knowing that he was wasting time. He’d already worked out that he needed them off to preserve the stuff in his pockets, which he might need if he took Geir to the hospital. And it would give him the most flexibility.
Then he was in the chilly water, pulling hard toward the place where he’d last seen Geir.
He cursed how murky the water was, even though it was probably pretty clear for a lake. He was used to swimming pools, though, where you could see straight down to the pale blue bottom.
Another shimmery flash of pinks and greens caught his eye and he moved toward it. Hopefully this was what had Geir stuck.
He got close enough that he could see it just below, a long iridescent green tube undulating beneath him and a second one crossing beneath it. No sign of Geir, though.
He blew all of the air from his lungs so that he was ready to suck in a deep breath just as he reached the surface. Then, he pushed back down. Under water, he could hear his heartbeat racing in his own ears, but he couldn’t see anything. Just more of those squirming iridescent shapes with white bumps on the underside. They could be seaweed, but they looked much thicker.
He swam deeper, reminding himself to stay calm so that his air would last as long as possible. One of the squirming shapes brushed his arm. It was soft, in the way of underwater things, slimy and velvety.
Then suddenly, they all drew back, as if pulled by a string. He wasn’t sure if he was seeing everything right, but they seemed to darken, turning almost instantaneously from a pale greenish rainbow to a dull brown. The water, which was already murky, turned to an almost midnight black. He knew the strange, undulating lengths were nearby, but he couldn’t see them. He couldn’t see anything.
He was starting to get worried now, his active imagination moving into overtime. That was totally a giant squid. A mutant octopus. It was the only thing that could change color that quickly and then hide itself in a cloud of ink.
But he’d watched enough nature shows to know that they didn’t live in freshwater. Something about maintaining the salt concentration in their bodies.
But it sure as fuck looked like an octopus.
He moved in the direction that he hoped was toward it, both terrified and intrigued. Maybe it was some top-secret military device. Or an alien.
Not that it mattered because he needed to find Geir. The man had been down there for way too long. CPR long. Hospital long. Brain damage long. He wouldn’t let himself think of anything else.
Declan’s lungs were starting to burn, and his head was feeling light. He gave a few powerful kicks to propel himself to the surface. He would swim a little closer to the thing and then dive again.
He blew out bubbles as he rose, maximizing his efficiency. The second he hit the surface he sucked in air until he thought he would explode, barely blinked open his eyes, and powered back down again.
Focused on his mission, it took a second for his brain to process what he’d seen.
He slowly rose back to the surface.
“Geir?”
Yes, he was definitely there, healthy and solid and very, very pissed.
Chapter 4
Geir
Geir felt frozen. This was worse than anything he’d expected. Worse than anything that had happened in hundreds of years.
He hadn’t needed to shift. Could have gone weeks more without it. But there was something about Declan that made him act irrationally. Made him feel like he was losing control. And he’d needed to get back into the water, into the slow, solid mindset of his other self to regain balance.
And now Declan was here. Frantic and pink-cheeked and determined.
Geir already knew that he would deny everything. He’d done it before. Told people that they’d counted wrong. That they’d just missed seeing him. That he couldn’t possibly have been underwater for as long as they thought. That they’d seen the pale skin of his arm or leg, a bit of driftwood, the flicker of a fish.
And when that didn’t work, he’d moved. First to different towns, then to different countries. As he’d aged, he’d gotten better at going longer periods without shifting. He’d gotten better at living on his own and learned to form alliances with other shifters.
But it was exhausting.
He wasn’t sure he had it in him to go through it one more time. And it would be harder, now, with identification and things. The world was moving too fast, and he was too slow.
He didn’t know much about the internet, but he knew that what Declan had seen today could be all over the world within an hour. And Geir wasn’t sure if there was anywhere he could go to escape that.
“I told you not to go near the lake.”