Page 146

Just like the one Cove wears from a chain.

Intuition creeps up my limbs. I break into a run, slapping my way through needled branches and pinecones. I skid to a halt beside the grassy bank where the creek widens. Streams are usually shallower than this, yet the current darkens into an obsidian well, suggesting a considerable depth.

That winking bead pulsates among wildflowers and stems of green. I kneel and track the droplet’s radiance, brushing my fingers through the undergrowth.

My hand freezes. Everything in me freezes.

Tucked inside the vegetation is a stray necklace, resting there as if abandoned or lost, with a pendant shaped into a waterdrop.

The bauble is unmistakable, as familiar as the cuff around Lark’s thigh or the bracelet entwining my arm. Cove would never relinquish this gem. Not unless she’d been forced to or had gotten hurt. Or not unless she’s too dead to care.

“Cove,” I whisper, snatching the gem.

Some sort of tide courses through the stream, marking the path of a fish. On the opposite end, the serpentine current narrows and glides into the forest.

What sort of creek makes this much noise? It sounds more like a river.

The hairs on my nape stand on end. Instinct catapults me to my feet, but I’m a huntress. I know when it’s too late. I know when a predator has spotted me first. Which is why a masculine hand punches through the watery surface, seizes my ankles, and yanks me under.

37

The well swallows me whole. A ruthless funnel suctions my body down, shackling my limbs and pulling, pulling, pulling. It drags me into its maw, water clogging my lungs and nose, a school of bubbles frothing around me.

I flail my arms and kick my feet, trying to reach the surface, which sparkles overhead like liquid glass. The flood sluices down my throat. My lungs burst into flames, struggling for oxygen. In my family, only one sister can hold her breath underwater for an expert length of time. And that sister isn’t me.

A savage tug alerts me to the fingers banded in a vicelike grip around my ankles. Something—or someone—forces me down. My frantic mind conjures up crocodiles, sharks, and reptilian sea creatures. But then I remember the human-shaped digits.

It’s not an animal. But whatever it is, whoever it is, the monster’s hold migrates to my knees and fastens around them. The current accelerates, a whirling blur of teal blue slamming into me as though I’m made of parchment—frail, shreddable. I may as well be trapped beneath a tsunami, in a raging vortex hundreds of leagues under the sea. The flux impairs my vision, blotting out my predator. I can’t see its figure, only feel those steely, ferocious hands strapping me in a boa’s clamp.

It feels as though we’re traveling, surging into oblivion. Then suddenly, the profusion stops. I float, whiplashed in place.

As I force my eyelids to open, a masculine outline ripples from the murk. I claw at the giant silhouette, to no avail.

A mane of oil-black hair cascades to his hips, all other details obscured from the waist below. Olive skin burnishes his naked chest, the torso wobbling like a watercolor painting. Metallic scales encrust the joints—elbows, knuckles, and cheekbones.

A water Fae. The creature comes into hazy view, the manifestation of a hard, angular countenance. From below, a tapered tail lashes the water, then disappears.

Not like a merman or siren. No, like a cobra.

Or like a sea serpent.

Terror and oxygen deprivation constrict my lungs. I feel my eyes bulge, my gaze slamming into a pair of pitiless orbs. They flash gold, their intensity unlike anything I’ve ever beheld, as if I’m gawking into the sun while it detonates. Before I can fully register the spectacle, a terrible light blasts from his face, from those blinding irises.

I swerve away, dots swimming in my vision. One of his hands links around my neck, and he slams me into a foundation. My back rams into a spongy wall where stalks of teal seaweed jostle like tentacles.

Lightheadedness fogs my brain, my view turning fuzzy around the edges. I feel myself suffocating, dying. I’m on the verge of going limp, so that he won’t need to choke me anymore.

Those dazzling eyes make it impossible to focus, impossible to punch him. My thoughts sail to Lark’s face, Cove’s face, Papa Thorne’s face.

The satyr’s face.

Summoning the last vestiges of my strength, I thunk my boot against the serpent’s tail. He hisses, the slippery noise loaded with venom. He snaps that whipcord tail against my ribs, striking so fast I go dizzy. The scales dappling his temples glitter, as visibly sharp as a blade’s edge.

His free hand snatches my arm, as if he’s about to shake me. But he stops, jerking to a halt. I gauge his blurry profile, which is easier to discern than his eyes, accessible without impairing my sight. He’s staring at the leaf bracelet blossoming around my forearm.

Actually, no. He isn’t staring. Not directly.

His attention skates in the bracelet’s general vicinity, the effort wayward, unfocused. The Fae traces his digits along the leaves and coiling stem, mapping out their shapes. His eyes slit as though in recognition, which doesn’t make sense.