Chapter 38. Beneath the Ice

Louis’s POV

The crack of the ice echoes through my skull like a gunshot. For a heartbeat, everything freezes: lycan, rogues, the women, everyone, before the river’s frozen top splinters and collapses beneath Lotus’s feet.

“Lotus,” her name bursts from my lips.

I scream it against as she plunges through the ice. One second, she’s standing there, power swirling around her, and the next she’s gone, swallowed by black water.

I don’t think, letting my feet carry me to her.

The fight behind me blurs into nothing but noise and is already fading as I sprint to her. My claws shred the snow, and I hear Levi call out to me, but I am already diving into the water.

The icy water cuts like a knife in my lungs and shocks my body hard enough that I almost lose my grip on reality. It’s black, colder than death, full of shards of ice. I dive deeper, my eyes burning. I can’t see her.

My lycan maintains control, searching through the water. A flutter of