Free Awaken by Cabot Meg

it as they were. And with those blinding white feathers, she should have been easy to spot — much easier than John, who could be halfway to the bottom of the lake by now ….
    I hadn’t told him I loved him. Why hadn’t I told him I loved him?
    Better not to think of that now. But I had no better luck spotting Hope anywhere on the shore than I did John in the water, since Alastor, like the ravens, had been stunned by the sound of the colliding ships and panicked in response to the assault on his sensitive ears. He reared, frantic to get back to the castle and to his comfortable stable, where birds didn’t plummet from the sky and people weren’t screaming at the sight of the birds’ mutilated corpses all around them. Though I tried to soothe him, it was like trying to calm a thrashing shark.
    “Careful!” Kayla ducked as the stallion’s enormous, silver-clad hooves swung dangerously close to her face.
    I was holding on for dear life, but I managed to get out two words: “I’m trying.”
    There was nothing I could do but allow Alastor to go where he so badly wanted to. He was too strong for me to control when he was in this agitated state, and the more he tried to resist me, the more likely he was going to hurt someone … probably me.
    Alastor wasn’t the only one panicking, either. The people standing at the front of the pier, who would have been the first to board the boat if it had actually arrived, were instead the first to suffer the aftereffects of the ships’ collision.
    In the moments following the initial impact, the boats sprang apart as lake water rushed in to fill their empty passenger holds. What I could also see from my high vantage point on Alastor’s back — whenever he twisted in that direction — was that a four-foot wave filled with debris was surging outwards from the crash and heading directly towards the pier.
    “Get everyone off the dock,” were the last words I was able to gasp out before Alastor wheeled around, practically whipping my head off.
    Fortunately, it seemed as if Henry had heard me. He must have, since behind me, I heard him bellow, “Everyone, please, it’s too dangerous to stay here. We’ve got to follow Miss Oliviera — she’s the lady on the big black horse. Walk, don’t run —”
    That’s all I heard before Alastor took off thundering down the pier, his hooves flying so quickly I wondered if they were making sparks. At the speed he was going, the wind whipped my face so fiercely my eyes began to water. All I saw ahead of us were blurred shapes. I could only hope the horse wasn’t knocking people down in his frantic flight to escape.
    Though I couldn’t see, I could hear. Once I no longer heard the hollow drumming of Alastor’s hooves on the wooden boards of the dock, but the much deeper thud of his feet hitting dry sand, I began to pull his reins as hard as I could to the left, knowing that when a horse’s eyes are forced to look in a direction he doesn’t want to go, he has no choice but to slow down, and eventually to stop or turn in that direction. I knew, of course, that the castle was where I was supposed to be heading, but I couldn’t leave the beach without turning around for one last look for my bird and the boy I hadn’t told I loved.
    Alastor wasn’t giving up without a fight. I thought he was going to pull my arms from their sockets, but he finally slowed down — with considerable snorting — and eventually stopped, pawing ill-temperedly at the ground.
    “Sorry,” I said to him. “But you’re not the only one who’s suffering here.”
    I twisted in the saddle to look behind me and saw that very few of the departed had listened to Henry’s advice of walk, don’t run . People at the end of the dock had already begun to shove against those in front of them, desperate to get to what they perceived as the safety of the shore before the waves of debris-filled water hit them.
    I didn’t blame them, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before