CHAPTER 16: THE FALLS
1070 Words
Aurora’s POV
Lucas wouldn’t tell me where we were going. After leaving Logan’s place I thought we were going home straight. I wasn’t in the mood for anything else, but he changed routes and it’s obvious we were going somewhere else.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
“Lucas.”
“Just trust me, Aurora.” He said smiling.
He drove for about twenty minutes outside the city, off the main road and onto a narrow track through the trees that I was fairly certain wasn’t on any map.
The sky had gone that deep orange color that happens right before the sun gives up for the day, and the light came through the trees in long gold strips across the windshield.
I watched him drive because I didn’t have anything else to do. He had his window down and his elbow resting on the frame, he looked really relaxed. His smile seems more natural than the fake one he always shows.
“Is this your most favourite place in the entire world?” I said.
He glanced at me. “How did you know?”
“You have a face.”
“I have a great face.”
“You have a very readable face.”
He laughed and pulled the car off the track and cut the engine.
“Come on.”
——
I heard a low rushing sound that built as we pushed through the tree line, and then the trees opened up and I stopped walking and just stood there. It was a waterfall.
It wasn’t very large but it was perfect, dropping clean and white off a shelf of dark rock into a pool below that caught the last of the sunset.
The whole place glowed with the magic that nature had. Orange and gold on the water, the rocks deep purple where the light didn’t reach, the trees around the edge so still they looked painted.
“Lucas,” I said pointing at the perfect scene befire me.
“I know.”
“This is…”
“I know.”
I walked forward without thinking about it. The ground sloped toward the edge of the pool and the spray hit my face and I kept walking, right to the lip of the rock, looking down at the drop and the churning white water below. Just one step and it will feel like I am flying.
“AURORA.”
Something hard hit me from behind, as, two arms locked around my waist, yanking me back before I’d even processed the shout.
I stumbled into him and we both went down, his back hitting the ground with me on top of him, and for a second neither of us moved.
“What…”
“Don’t.” His arms were still around me, tight. “Don’t do that. Don’t stand at the edge like that.”
“I wasn’t going to fall.”
“You were two inches from a thirty foot drop.”
“I was looking at it.”
“Aurora.” His voice had lost all its lightness. I shifted to look at him and his face was pale under his usual color, jaw tight, and his eyes had something in them I hadn’t seen before. Something raw. “What if I lose you. What do I do then?”
I went very still.
He hadn’t meant to say it like that. I could see that too, the way his jaw worked after the words came out, like he was deciding whether to take them back. He didn’t take them back.
I sat up slowly and he let me, his hands dropping from my waist, and I looked at him properly.
He looked like Logan. Same jaw, same grey eyes, same height and build. But that was where it stopped. Everything Logan made hard and cold, Lucas wore open. He had done nothing but be nice to me since I arrived.
He drove me to school, made me eat, held me when I fainted, brought me to the most beautiful place he knew when I needed to breathe.
My wolf felt nothing for him.
I hated her for it, a little.
Because I liked him. I actually really liked him. He was just genuinely good, and I didn’t have enough of that in my life to treat it carelessly.
He sat up too. We were close, close enough that I could see the last of the gold light in his eyes, and he reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.
“Hi,” he said quietly.
“Hi.”
His hand moved to my jaw. Tilted my face up.
I let him.
His mouth found mine, it was soft at first, careful, like he was asking a question. I answered it.
His hand slid to the back of my neck and the kiss deepened and I closed my eyes and let myself feel everything without thinking about anything else. I sucked his lips gently waiting to feel that tingle.
Then he pulled back. His head turned.
I felt it at the same second. Something moving through the trees on the far side of the pool. More than one.
“Lucas.”
“I know.” He was already on his feet, pulling me up with him. “Come on.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know yet.” He kept his voice low, his hand tight around mine. “Let us find a place to hide first.”
He pulled me forward, fast, away from the edge and back toward the tree line, ducking off the path and pushing through the undergrowth until we were behind a shelf of rock that jutted out from the hillside. Big enough to cover both of us. He pressed his back against it and pulled me in front of him.
“Mask your scent,” he murmured against my ear. “Whatever you can do, do it now.”
I nodded.
I pressed myself flat against the rock and listened.
The footsteps were closer now. Four sets at least, maybe more.
Lucas’s hand was still in mine, and I felt him go very still beside me. The easy grin he always wore fell revealing a hard look underneath and I remembered very quickly. That he was a Pierce Alpha’s son.
I held my breath.
And waited.
- Writer
