EUAN: Outback Shifters #3

by Chant, Zoe

  Euan glanced at Callan and Hector. They seemed to understand the meaning of his expression, and, nodding, they silently left the room, leaving her and Euan alone together.

  “I don’t know if this’ll work at all,” Euan said, “but right now I think it’s our only choice.” He swallowed. “When you woke up from your nap yesterday, you were terrified. It took me a while to even wake you, but you were crying out in your sleep, gasping like you were having trouble breathing. It was… it was terrifying to watch. I didn’t know what was happening.”

  Delilah looked at him, wide-eyed. “How long were you trying to wake me?”

  “About a minute and a half – but at the time, it felt like an eternity. I thought maybe you were just a very heavy sleeper, but now I think the dream didn’t want to let you wake until it’d shown you what you needed to know.”

  “I guess… I guess that makes as much sense as anything else I’ve found out over the past couple of days,” Delilah admitted. “But how can we bring it to the surface?”

  Euan’s eyes were serious, trained on hers. “I think we can use the mated bond to help you remember.” He took a deep breath. “I remember when I first lost my lion, I read a lot of books trying to find out if there’d ever been another case like mine, when a shifter had been forced to suppress his shifted form. I couldn’t find anything about how to fix it. But I did find a lot of information about how the mated bond could work wonders with all kinds of other problems a shifter might encounter, from healing deadly wounds to calming a shifted form if it got out of control. But since I didn’t have my mate, I dismissed it as not being helpful to me.”

  Delilah nodded, holding her breath, waiting for him to continue.

  “One thing I remember reading was that the mated bond, above all else, makes you feel safe. You know that no matter what, it’s there for you. It’s unbreakable. There’s no force on earth that can shatter it.”

  “And you think… if I felt safe, I might be able to remember my dream?”

  “It sounds stupid, I know,” Euan said, grimacing. “Like some kind of New Age thing. But right now, it’s the only thing I can think of.”

  “I want to try it, then,” Delilah said determinedly. “No matter what, if it has even the slightest chance of working, we should at least give it a go. I don’t know much about shifters and mates and whatever else, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned recently, it’s that I shouldn’t just dismiss something as sounding impossible.”

  Euan nodded, admiration shining in his eyes, a faint smile tugging at his lips.

  “I wish I had your optimism about things, Delilah,” he said. “To be honest, I’m not sure we’ll have much luck. But let’s try it.”

  “All right. Well, what do we do?” Delilah asked. She knew that sometimes people could recall hidden memories or dreams while under hypnosis, but she hoped they wouldn’t need to go that far. Could Euan even do that, anyway?

  “I suppose… just close your eyes.”

  Delilah did so, and a shiver ran through her as Euan’s warm hands closed around her own.

  “Try to remember as much as you can about the dream. But know that this time, I’m with you. And I’ll never leave your side. No matter what, you’re safe with me.”

  Safe…

  The word echoed in Delilah’s head as she took a deep breath, trying to concentrate.

  She remembered that in the dream she hadn’t been able to breathe, but not because something was covering her nose and mouth.

  So… it must have been because I was somewhere with no oxygen. Like underwater or something like that…

  At the thought of water, Delilah jumped. Almost immediately, the feeling of crushing blackness rushed back to her, filling her mind and chilling her to the bone.

  She almost opened her eyes, but, feeling Euan’s hands squeezing hers, she forced herself to keep them closed.

  Concentrate. Concentrate. I’m so close…

  Everything around her was dark.

  Delilah forced down the panic she’d felt the first time she’d been here, and instead just tried to focus on what was actually going on.

  Blinking in the inky blackness that surrounded her, Delilah looked around. Was it really as dark as it had seemed at first?

  No… way up ahead of me there’s some kind of light…

  Delilah scrunched her eyes more tightly closed. She could feel Euan’s thumbs sliding over her hands, comforting her.

  I need to find the source of that light.

  Deepening her concentration, Delilah moved toward it. It gradually grew brighter and brighter around her, the faint light penetrating the darkness.

  What is it? Some kind of submarine or something? And I’m in the water, but… what water? A river? An ocean? Sydney Harbour?!

  She decided she’d have to figure that out later. Right now, she had to concentrate on the light source.

  Deeper and deeper she went, following her memory. The water seemed to be squeezing her, making her feel like she was being crushed, but she had to remind herself it wasn’t real – it was all in her head. In the real world, Euan was here, holding her hands, keeping her safe.

  Okay. Let’s keep going.

  Delilah was about to force herself to keep going down into the water, when suddenly a bright yellow light flooded her vision. Shocked, she tried to raise her hands to cover her eyes, and she felt Euan’s hands tighten on hers in response.

  She wanted more than anything to open her eyes and see his face, to reassure herself that she really truly was here with him, but she forced herself to stay in the memory, squinting into the sudden brilliance, trying to see what had caused it – and froze.

  It’s an eye. A huge, bright yellow eye…

  Delilah’s brain froze in terror. The eye flickered, the small, slitted pupil ranging jerkily back and forth, just like a cat’s when it had suddenly awoken. But then it stopped, trained directly on her.

  It’s looking at me. It can see me –

  Delilah didn’t have time to think anything else before the eye blinked, and then whatever it belonged to began surging up, sending the water around it furiously bubbling and heaving, knocking Delilah away as if she was nothing more than a dry leaf in a river’s current –

  “Delilah!”

  Euan’s voice recalled her back to herself, and she heaved in a sputtering breath, terror seizing her heart and lungs.

  “Delilah, are you all right?”

  Shaking, Delilah forced her eyes open, finding Euan’s face. She threw herself forward into his arms, wanting to make sure he was real and solid. He enveloped her immediately, pulling her against his chest, his hands going to the back of her head.

  “Delilah, it’s all right,” he soothed her, his hand stroking through her hair. “I promise you, it’s all right. You’re safe.”

  “No,” Delilah said, forcing herself to pull back a little and shaking her head. “No – I don’t think we are safe. There’s something – some kind of monster –”

  “A monster?” Euan asked, frowning. “What do you mean?”

  “In – in the harbor,” Delilah managed to get out. Somehow, she knew it now. Remembering the eye – the creature – had pulled together other pieces of information in her mind: things the man in the alley had been trying to transfer to her. “Lev and Alisa – they’re – they’re summoning something. Something that’s been asleep for a long time, at the bottom of the harbor.”

  Euan frowned. “A water monster?”

  “I know it sounds crazy, but that’s what I saw,” Delilah insisted. “I was underwater. And then there was a huge eye, looking at me. Then whatever was attached to it began to swim upwards, heading for the surface. I don’t know what else it could have been but some kind of… of monster.”

  Euan was looking at her, frowning, but Delilah could tell that he believed her.

  “I… see,” he said slowly. “Well. That I did not expect.”

  “We have to do something to stop them,” Delilah said, g
rabbing his hands in hers. “Before they wake it up, or whatever they’re doing. I think whatever it is has been asleep for a long time. And I don’t think it was very happy.”

  Euan’s expression was grave as he nodded. “Okay, Delilah. I believe you – honestly. But this is more than I know how to deal with. Let me get the others.”

  Delilah nodded, trying to still her shaking hands as Euan went to the door of the meeting room.

  So that’s what they want to do, she thought, the knowledge the man in the alley had given her now much clearer in her mind than it had been before. They’re summoning some kind of monster from the harbor. They want to destroy the city. They want to make humans suffer…

  They had to be stopped. In a panic, Delilah wondered if she should call Jenny.

  She lives right on the water… what if… what if…

  She looked up wildly as Euan returned with Hector, Trent and Callan. Judging by their expressions, Euan had already given them at least a hint of what she’d said.

  “Rosie,” Delilah blurted out. “We have to get her out of here. We have to get everyone out of here.”

  “We will, Delilah,” Euan said.

  “Brooke’s on her way over,” Trent chipped in. “And as soon as Euan came out and told us what you’d said, we sent out a message via our official channels to prepare for a mass evacuation along the water,” Trent chipped in.

  Delilah blinked. “What did you tell them? A feral water monster was on the loose?”

  “Uh. No,” said Trent. “I went with ‘freak weather occurrence warning’.”

  As one, all four of them turned to look out at the office window at the late afternoon sunlight and the completely clear blue sky, without a cloud in sight.

  “I did say it was a freak weather occurrence,” Trent said.

  “Well, let’s hope they take it seriously,” Callan said dubiously. “If we don’t see any movement, we bump it up the chain a bit.”

  “I notified Robb too, obviously,” Trent said. “He has more clout just in case people don’t seem to be getting their arses into gear. But it’ll take some doing – it’s a nice day, and it’s a Sunday. Things’ll be packed out there. People won’t want to clear out.”

  “Especially if nothing ends up happening,” Hector said. His eyes went to Delilah’s. “I’m not doubting your word,” he explained. “But I think our water monster schedule is… some guesswork at the moment, isn’t it? All we have to go on right now is ‘too late to stop’, which I’m guessing means ‘soon’. But how soon?”

  “I don’t know,” confessed Delilah. “Things weren’t that clear. In the memory the man passed on to me, the monster was already awake. But I don’t know if that was something that had already happened, or a warning of what would happen.”

  “Given he passed those memories to you two days ago and nothing’s popped out of the water yet, I think we can safely say it’s a warning,” Euan said. “Regardless, we need to figure out how to stop it. If it’s not here yet, then it’s not too late.”

  Delilah nodded, though she admitted she could feel hopelessness rising up within her. What could they do? Where did you even start to find a way to put a once-dormant water monster to sleep after it had apparently been roused by some evil alicorns bent on revenge for… something, anyway?!

  “Sydney Harbour is huge,” Callan said. “The first thing we need to do is figure out where that thing even is, if it’s there at all, and not coming in from somewhere out to sea.”

  Delilah was chilled, despite Callan’s calm, efficient tone. But something told her that no, the monster wasn’t arriving from elsewhere.

  “I – I don’t think so,” Delilah said, frowning and trying to find the information she wanted within her memories. “I think it really is… sleeping, maybe, somewhere on the floor of the harbor.”

  “Hang on, wait,” Callan said, raising a hand, his forehead crinkling. “I don’t really want to be the first one to say this, but… those earth tremors that’ve slowly been getting worse over the past few days. Is there a chance those could be connected to this?”

  A chill settled over the room as they exchanged glances.

  “Earth tremors aren’t exactly unheard of in Sydney,” Euan said slowly. “But you’re right, these ones have been a little bit out of the ordinary. And it’s just a little too much of a coincidence for my liking.”

  “As much as I don’t want to, I have to agree with that,” Delilah said, heart clenching. “But how do we even find this thing?”

  “Hmm,” Hector said thoughtfully. “They do regular 3D image mapping of the harbor floor, to make sure shipping lanes are clear. If something other than shopping trolleys, seaweed and a bunch of cars used in gangland murders were down there, they would have spotted it by now.”

  “Let’s look,” Euan said, striding across the room to where a computer monitor was set up. Delilah and the others came over to join him as he typed, leaning down to look over his shoulder. Just a few keystrokes later, Euan had pulled up a complete sonar map of Sydney Harbour.

  Delilah was happy to admit that she wasn’t the best at map-reading, but, scanning her eyes over the image, she felt a chill at a deep, dark blue oval in the middle of the harbor, starkly contrasted against the yellows and reds of the rest of the map.

  “What’s that?” she asked, throat tight, her voice barely above a whisper.

  Euan glanced at her. “That’s a deep spot – forty-five meters deep, according to this.”

  Delilah swallowed, staring at the deep, dark mark on the map.

  That’s it. That’s got to be it.

  She didn’t know how she knew it, but she did.

  No, that’s not true, she thought a moment later. Of course she knew how – the man in the alley had given his life to bring her this information, to try to warn them all of what was coming.

  And more than that, he’d given her the powers to save Euan’s life when she’d needed to. Whether he’d intended to do it or not, Delilah knew she owed him her thanks for that.

  She hoped one day, somehow, she would find out his name and who he was – what he was – so that she could thank him properly, even if it was just by remembering him as the man who’d saved them.

  “Literally anything could be down there,” Trent said. “It’s too deep for the mapping tech to effectively reach.”

  “I have a terrible feeling you might be right when you say ‘anything.’” Hector glanced at Delilah. “So, not to try to hurry you along or anything, but did you happen to remember anything about how to stop this thing from… from awakening, or whatever the hell it’s actually going to do?”

  Delilah shook her head. Maybe the knowledge was there, but it was still buried. “Not yet. But I think… I think I may be able to. If I actually went out there…”

  She trailed off, looking dubiously at the deep, dark hole on the 3D map and feeling unease crawling over her skin. It was well within range of even a small boat, though – it wouldn’t take much time at all to head out there.

  “No,” Euan said a moment later. “No way. That’s far too dangerous. We have no idea what this thing even is. There’s no way I can ask you to get that close to it.”

  “You’re not asking me to do anything,” Delilah shot back. “I’m saying I’ll do it. I can’t remember yet if there’s any way of stopping this thing. But if I do remember, then I need to be there to… to do it. Or to tell one or all of you what to do.”

  Euan was shaking his head, eyebrows drawn together. “Delilah –”

  “She has a point, Euan,” Callan said quietly. “As much as I don’t want to admit it.”

  Euan stared at him, anger clouding his features. “If it were Ella, would you be so quick to agree to let her put herself in danger?” he asked, voice low and harsh.

  Callan had always seemed very mild mannered every time she’d met him – but now, his face darkened. “What the hell, Euan. No, I wouldn’t be happy about it, but if there was no other way, I’d listen to her and
let her make up her own mind. When she needed to be involved in the operation to save her father from Hargreaves, I realized there was no other way, and put my personal feelings to one side, no matter how much I wanted her to be far away.”

  “Gotta agree, that was a pretty fucked thing to say, Euan,” Trent chimed in. “Like it or not, Delilah’s the only one who might be able to know how to figure this out. If she says she thinks she needs to be closer to the source, then I don’t see why we shouldn’t listen to her.”

  “You don’t understand,” Euan argued back, voice growing heated. He swallowed heavily. “When Ella had to help you, you could shift. You could protect her. What am I going to do if things turn ugly? Even if there’s no… no thing out there, what if Lev and Alisa come back? I couldn’t do anything against them when they came to the gallery. What would I be able to do now?”

  “Look, I couldn’t do anything against Ruby’s mind-whammy powers when she was basically a newborn and I could shift,” Hector pointed out. “Shifter or not, it’s no protection against alicorn mind control. So that’s not an argument.”

  Euan looked like he wanted to say more, but Delilah had had enough of listening to this. She didn’t need all of them to stand around arguing on her behalf – not when there was a water monster to stop.

  “Okay, okay, enough,” she said, holding up her hands for quiet. “I can make up my own mind, all right? And I can see the situation for what it is. I have to find a way to get to those memories. And whatever we have to do to stop the whatever-it-is, we have to do it soon. So let’s go hijack a ferry or whatever, and get out there.”

  Chapter 15

  As much as Euan didn’t want to admit it, everyone else was right, and he’d been wrong. He, Hector, Rhys, Callan and Trent were gearing up, ready to head out into the harbor, while Delilah said goodbye to Rosie to reassure her, before sending her off to safety with Brooke and Ruby. He glanced across at his teammates – the people who’d been way more supportive of him than he ever could have expected they would be. Shame welled up inside him as he remembered what he’d said to Callan.

  “I’m sorry,” he said gruffly, realizing his tone was completely at odds with what he actually wanted to say. He knew he’d fully earned his reputation around the office for being prickly and hard to get along with.