In This Iron Ground_Natural Magic by Marina Vivancos

Author:Marina Vivancos [Vivancos, Marina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-09-03T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

Time slipped by. It’d been a long time since it treated Damien so kindly.

Summer arrived with a swell of heat, evaporating the school days into a stretch of freedom.

Damien and Koko were allowed to invite Olive to the house, and the three of them would spend their time hidden in the cave of Koko’s room or out in the forest, seeking trouble and not often finding it.

At seventeen, Hakan had his own group of friends and would often be out with them. Some days, however, it would be him and Damien out in the wild.

They picked a Wednesday to go to one of the further, smaller lakes, unoccupied by other pack members. By the time they reached their destination, Damien was sweating through his shirt and panting. Hakan, and his asshole werewolf Ousía, were barely affected. They stepped onto the long, wooden dock that pierced the circle of the lake, supported on creaky stilts that poked from the water.

“I need to get into the water right freaking now,” Damien said. Hakan looked over to him, smirking. “And shut your face, too,” he grumbled. Hakan snorted, setting their stuff down and taking out their towels.

“Last one in is a loser,” Hakan said, stripping off his shirt.

Damien threw a shoe at him. “You’re on.”

The cool water was a blessing. Damien felt everything in him realign as he threw himself into the deep. He stayed under the surface for as long as his lungs let him, feeling himself float.

“Jesus, thought you’d died,” Hakan said as Damien surfaced.

“Drama queen,” Damien said, rolling his eyes.

“First one to the centre wins,” Hakan said, smiling mischievously.

“Oh, yeah, sure Wolf-Man. That’s a fair race. I’ll see you there in thirty minutes. Let the poor human drown.”

“And you call me a drama queen,” Hakan said, but he kept pace with Damien as they swam towards the floating island in the middle of the lake.

There in the water, in the cool amidst the heat, Damien watched Hakan haul himself up onto the swaying surface of the artificial island. Watched his brown skin in the light, the way water streamed between the animal movement of his shoulder blades. His dark hair was plastered to his head, his neck. He looked back and his dark eyes were as bright as the sun.

Damien didn’t know if he was floating or drowning.

These feelings weren’t new. They had been trembling awake for months. But in that sunlit moment, they coalesced into something tangible. Something Damien could feel in the pit of his stomach, a shuddering creature as new as it was ancient.

Damien closed his eyes and let himself be swallowed by the black water around him. The world muffled and lost shape. He waited until the burning in his lungs was worse than the one in his stomach.

He surfaced and gasped for breath.

They made a competition out of jumping from the island and into the water. They swam around the lake and Damien watched as Hakan cut through the water like a human would never be capable of doing.

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