Luna, Who No Longer Recognized Him Chapter 04

Luna, Who No Longer Recognized Him Chapter 04

I woke up crying.

The sedative hadn’t fully worn off, but I stumbled out of the luxury cabin anyway, crashing into walls as I went.

On deck, Declan had changed into dry clothes. His face was still pale.

A large rescue vessel was docked alongside the yacht. Pack marine guards in uniform stood on its deck.

“Put the tracking harpoon away,” Declan said coldly.

“Don’t let it get near Aurora again.”

I threw myself against the railing.

The beluga’s white shape was gone from the water.

Far in the distance, a faint wash of red drifted through the waves, slowly dissolving.

The color was so pale it could have been sunset bleeding into the sea.

But I knew it wasn’t sunset.

A piece of my chest caved in.

Declan stood behind me, his voice tired and flat.

“Aurora, I nearly died in that ocean for you.”

“It won’t be following us anymore. You’ve had your tantrum. It’s over.”

In that instant, the only sound left in the world was the wail from my dream.

My beluga was out there. Waiting for me in the sea it loved most.

I climbed onto the railing.

Under Declan’s horrified, wide-eyed stare, I threw myself into the ocean.

“Swim slow.”

“I’m coming to find you.”

Seawater flooded my nose and mouth.

I wasn’t afraid at all.

Shark shadows drifted in the distance. The rescue vessel’s alarm screamed behind me.

I didn’t see any of it.

I only wanted to find that white shape.

But the ocean was so vast.

So vast that I once believed all I had to do was call, and it would appear.

Now no matter how many times I called, there was no answer.

I swam deeper, harder.

Oxygen deprivation turned my brain to static.

As consciousness blurred, I thought I finally saw it.

That familiar white shadow, carried by the current, slowly sinking.

A splash behind me.

Isolde screamed from the deck.

“Declan! Are you insane?”

“There are sharks out there! Do you have a death wish?”

A hand seized the back of my collar from behind.

Declan dragged me toward the surface with an iron grip.

I thrashed. I kicked. I bit his wrist with my teeth.

He wouldn’t let go.

I was so close.

Just a little more, and I could have reached my beluga.

Back on the yacht, Declan held me so tight it was like he was clutching something he’d lost and found again.

But all I felt was cold.

So cold that even my wolf stopped growling.

She lay curled in the deepest corner of my chest like something dead.

For the first time, Declan’s voice shook.

“Aurora, don’t be scared.”

“You’re just sick.”

“I’ll take you to the Pack medical center. You’ll get better. Everything’s going to be fine.”

He forced me away from that stretch of ocean.

He was certain I would recover.

He didn’t know that without the sea, without the beluga, I was already nothing but a shell.