The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate novel Chapter 293

Chapter 293: Not Today. Not On His Watch.

Serena felt the impact through the matebond, so sharp and sudden it split her vision. She gasped, inhaling water, choking on it.

A third tentacle wrapped around her waist and ripped her from Gav’s arms, dragging her downward into the black. Her blood spiraled through the water like smoke.

The creature wanted her. It had always wanted her. The men were obstacles. She was the prize.

Her eyes blazed molten gold.

She fabricated a sword, and cut the tentacle in a blur, her instincts taking over.

The sword vibrated, changing into a bow of pure light. She drew the string back, muscles trembling, body screaming, the wound in her side pumping blood into the dark.

She fired.

The golden arrow tore through the water with a low, thunderous hum, then split mid-flight into a dozen smaller arrows that wove together into a massive net of celestial light.

The net expanded around Fin and Dex. It didn’t touch them, didn’t pull them, passed over their bodies as though they were part of the water itself. But when it met the tentacles dragging them down, it snapped tight, binding them in crackling golden light. The creature shrieked, silent and violent, tentacles retracting as though electrocuted, thrashing backward into the abyss.

Gav shot downward in a blur of speed, cutting through the water towards her.

The bow dissolved from her hands. The gold in her eyes flickered. The token was still locked in her fist.

She had nothing left.

He had zero oxygen reserves. His lungs were already convulsing, diaphragm spasming against the emptiness, his body’s involuntary demand for a breath he couldn’t take. The cold had eaten through every layer of warmth Serena’s magic had given him. His muscles were cramping. His vision was narrowing.

He didn’t slow down.

He found her in the dark.

She was drifting. The gold in her eyes was guttering. The token was still locked in her fist by a grip that existed on willpower alone. Blood streamed from her side in ribbons that the sapphire light turned black.

He hooked his arm around her ribs, dragging her into his chest. Her head lolled against his shoulder. Her mouth was open. That terrified him more than the dark, more than the cold, more than the thing still thrashing somewhere below them.

He kicked upward. One arm locked around her, the other clawing through water so cold it had stopped registering as temperature and started registering as pain. His legs were failing. Not weakening. Failing. The muscles in his thighs seized and released in random bursts, firing on instinct instead of command, and every kick sent a white bolt of cramping up through his hip and into his spine.

He kicked anyway.

The surface was a lie. It looked close. It stayed close. It never got closer. The sapphire glow below him was fading, which meant the lakebed was dropping away, which meant he was rising, but his vision was tunneling so fast the logic barely registered. His lungs had stopped spasming. That was worse. That meant his body had quit asking and started accepting.

Ten more seconds. You give me ten more seconds and I will get her out of this water.

He didn’t know who he was talking to. God. Himself. The wolf pacing behind his ribs with a fury that had nowhere to go.

The water above him shifted from black to charcoal to grey. Then he broke the surface for the final time and didn’t stop.

Air hit his face like a fist. He sucked it in so hard his throat cracked, a raw, animal sound that echoed across the lake’s surface. Serena gasped against him, choking on blood and water.

Good. Angry is good. Angry means alive.

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