Covenant Read Online Free

stop it!” I can
tell by his tight expression it’s taking everything he has to rein
her in, but her will is stronger.
    This isn’t supposed to
happen, Celia tells me over the girl’s
violent screams. At that moment, she thrashes hard to the left,
throwing the man against a jagged piece of wreckage. His mouth
opens in shock before he passes out, his arms releasing her
completely.
    Lev, listen to me. You have
to calm her down. Be kind. I don’t care that you don’t much like
for humans. This is important. She’s important, and if you don’t
help her, you will regret it.
    There’s that word
again , I think. Regret.
    She doesn’t wait for my
answer. Instead, she slips once again into the dark depths, leaving
me with Elizabeth, who now flails wildly, as though her body has
forgotten how to swim. She, too, is sinking fast. While I do not
believe Celia’s talk of regret, I don’t have anything else to do,
so I force myself to dive after the girl. By the time I find her,
she’s gasping for air and sucking in water instead. Her time is
limited if I don’t get her back to the surface.
    Her eyes widen as again she
sees me, her hands frantically grasping for me. Calm yourself, I think, knowing she
will hear my words. Yet that does little to stop her frantic
motions. Her eyes blink slightly, and I can feel her giving in to
the water and hurl both of us to the surface where to my dismay I
realize she isn’t breathing. The shore isn’t far, and I can see
Celia already dragging the man that way. She’s just about reached
the seam where water and earth meet.
    Unsure what else to do, I
force myself to swim quickly and tow her limp body toward the
shore. Even at angel speed, it seems to take forever to get her out
of the water. I lay her in the damp sand and quickly push the long
hair from her face to see if she is breathing. While part of me
wonders why I’m doing this, saving this girl, part of me feels how
right it is, and that’s a first. She shouldn’t matter.
    But she does.
    Her arms splay uselessly at
her sides, and I quickly begin giving her CPR, trying to expel the
water from her lungs. In my peripheral vision, I see Celia has
succeeded in her task: the man is sitting up despite her intention
to keep him on the ground.
    “ Lizzie?” He scans the
area, and the sunlight burns amid the fresh blood on his head. I’m
in the middle of a set of compressions when he spots
her.
    “ You need to lie down,”
Celia tells him. “There’s nothing you can do for your daughter like
this.”
    That doesn’t stop him from
struggling to get upright. Celia sets her hand atop his chest and
whispers, “Calm down, sir. Please.”
    He struggles to get from
under her, but the pain in his head must be kicking in as he starts
to fall. Celia is right there to catch him. As I watch her tend to
him, I lean over and breathe for the girl, wondering if she will
pull through this. The moment my lips touch hers, I feel a
familiarity, as though we have been this way before, many times. I
lose myself in her nearness, and I struggle to remember to breathe
for her; it takes everything I have to pull back and start the
compressions again.
    This isn’t right. She’s
human. I’m not.
    I find myself lost in her
expression. I can sense the warmth of it. It makes me think I have
seen her smile many times, and I find myself unable to concentrate.
I complete another set of compressions and lean over to breathe for
her.
    My mouth fills her body with
air, and I whisper, “Breathe, Elizabeth. Breathe.” Had I not been
around so many humans, I would scarcely have recognized the
emotions in my voice—desperation, fear, longing. I feel myself
drawn toward her, and now, sitting so close, I can feel Celia is
right. Whatever beckons me to her has nothing to do with being a
sojourner, and everything to do with a connection of the most
sacred sort—a covenant.
    I try to understand why I
would give her any promises and why she should matter, but why is
of no