Beneath the water, I felt safe.

With Bryce’s hand on mine, I felt safe.

But we weren’t safe. Not by a long shot. Jeremiah’s pack was above us on the bridge, scouting, sniffing the air for our scents, their eyes probing every inch of darkness for movement.

And my lungs were starting to burn.

I’d started to count when we went under, and I’ve just reached forty seven. My record for holding my breath when I was younger had been just shy of a minute – but that’s when I was younger and in shape. Being confined to a single room for the last year had taken its toll, and my body was crying out for oxygen.

But I knew my life was on the line – and not just mine, the life of my fated mate as well.

Bryce…

I couldn’t believe it when he came through that door. For years I’d dreamt of seeing him again, so I could explain myself to him and we could be together again. But I’d given up on that when Jeremiah took us to Stone Falls. There was no way he’d be able to find me there.

So when I caught his scent on the wind, it was almost incomprehensible. How had he found me? My mind was filled with questions, swirling like the cold water rushing past my body, but if we didn’t make it through this, I’d never get any answers.

I felt Bryce’s hand jerk against mine and knew he was running low on breath as well. The water was freezing and I felt the goosebumps on my skin.

If only I could hear them! I thought as my mind raced in the darkness of the river.

My chest was on fire. The spasms started to hit me – my body forcing me to take a breath. I knew I couldn’t hold out much longer, but I couldn’t just rocket to the surface and attract attention. If I was going up, I’d have to try and be quiet.

Slowly, I pulled myself toward the surface, my hand against the concrete at the base of the bridge. I felt the temperature change as I reached the surface, and just before I emerged, tilted my head back as far as it could go.

Only my lips surfaced. I opened my mouth, fighting back the urge to gulp air as fast as I could, and took a slow sip to fill my lungs.

I half expected to hear a splash as Jeremiah’s pack spotted me and leapt into the waters beside me, but to my surprise, nothing came. The pain in my lungs began to vanish. Slowly, I brought my eyes out of the water and opened them.

I didn’t see anyone, but without turning my head much, there wasn’t a whole lot I could see but the bottom of the bridge. Taking another chance, I twisted my head to the left, and then to the right, but saw nothing.

I jerked my hand against Bryce’s, letting him know it was okay to surface.

He emerged from the water beside me, gulping air quickly. Then, his other two companions appeared beside him.

“I don’t see them,” I whispered as quietly as I could, almost mouthing the words.

He motioned to me to be quiet, then signaled for me to stay. Using his hands against the concrete wall, he maneuvered himself upstream to the edge of the bridge and gazed up into the darkness.

I watched his eyes as he searched the landscape for Jeremiah’s pack. But from his reaction, it appeared as though we just might be in the clear. After a moment, he let go of the wall and let himself float back downstream to me.

“Red,” he said quietly. “I think they’re gone. If we’re gonna go, we have to go now before they come back with more and fan out to across the area. We swim upstream until we reach the rocks, then make our way up as far as we can before we get back to land. That should mask our scent as much as we can. Got it?”

Red, a tan man with strawberry red curls, nodded but said nothing.

“Kitchi?”

The other man, smaller but dangerous looking, nodded as well.

“Come on, Clarence,” Bryce said, placing his arm on my lower back and ushering me upstream.

The current wasn’t bad, but the water was deep here and our feet couldn’t touch the bottom, so making progress wasn’t easy. When we came out from beneath the bridge, I felt instantly exposed.

The moonlight lit the area around us, and I knew any shifter with even poor eyesight would be able to see us instantly. Our only hope was that they’d gone off in another direction and hadn’t left a scout in the area.

I was on edge the whole way up until I finally felt something solid beneath my feet. We’d reached the rapids at the base of the falls, and although the current was even stronger here, I was able to get a foothold that allowed me to push forward more quickly.

Bryce pulled me along, taking the lead, guiding me across the wet rocks toward the largest of the falls, which was probably a good ten feet high.

“We can’t go up this,” I told him nervously.

“We’re going around,” he said, stepping onto the bank on the opposite side of the river from the motel. “Stay as close to the water as you can.”

I followed his lead, up the wet terrain to the top of the falls and looked back over my shoulder at the flickering lights of the motel. I’d escaped, but my heart went out to the omegas still trapped there – Peter, Timmy, and the others who were Jeremiah’s prisoners.

But there wasn’t time to think about that now. We’d come back for them, I knew, but right now we had to get to safety.

I was with my fated mate again, and as we stepped back into the water above the falls, I finally allowed myself to believe again – believe that I might not be confined to a life of misery and despair and that I could be happy, maybe even more than happy, with Bryce.

My fated mate…