Chapter 68. Too Beautiful

ARDEN

The water didn’t feel so cold anymore. I was floating on it like it weren’t the very thing I had once feared most. I didn’t even realize how far I had come until Cade let out a soft chuckle behind me.

“What?” I asked, turning my head over my shoulder to look at him.

“You’re doing it.”

“Doing what?”

“Swimming.”

I paused mid-paddle; the motion felt so natural now that it didn’t even register in my senses. I had pushed through the lake without clinging to him, without hyperventilating or freezing up. The fear that had once paralyzed me was... gone. Or, maybe not entirely erased—but drowned out by something undeniably stronger. By him.

I turned around, floating gently toward him. The moonlight caught the angles of his face, casting shadows across his cheekbones and highlighting the water that dripped from his jaw.

“I guess I am,” I whispered.

A small smile appeared on his lips. “I told you I wouldn’t let you drown.”

That