Page 17 of Broken Hearted (Cursed Fae #3)

I awoke to a small nudge. My eyelids snapped open, and I came face to face with Adrien. It was barely light, so the early morning rays just kissed his features. Shadows still clung to parts of his face, but the lighting, or lack thereof, just made his eyes blaze that much more. The intensity in his eyes caused my stomach to flip over as I stared up at him.

“The merfolk are back. We need to leave,” he said flatly, his voice void of the emotions his eyes betrayed. Then he turned his back and walked toward the shore.

I sat up rubbing my eyes, relieved to find that my ear had healed overnight like I hoped it would. When I looked down I spotted a small leaf plate before me. Some coconut meat was cut into cubes with mint leaves accompanied by a whole coconut full of water.

He made that for me? My heart pinched. It was so very sweet, especially after I rejected him last night.

It was just … the mate thing was so different to me and my culture. Here you kissed, found out you were mates, got married and popped out a kid? But a couple of weeks ago Adrien and I didn’t even know each other and he was engaged to someone else.

It was too much, too fast. It terrified me. Mostly because I was starting to feel without a shadow of a doubt that if anyone in this realm was my mate, it was Adrien. But love only led to heartache, and I wasn’t sure I could take any more of that.

I quickly shoved pieces of the coconut and mint into my mouth and chewed, then drank some of the coconut water. It put something in my stomach and the mint also freshened my breath. Afterward I met Adrien at the shore where he was talking to Kira and over two dozen merwarriors. They floated in the water with glowing spears and metal chest plates. We left Adrien’s men sleeping. There was no sense in dragging them into this.

“Each one of these people are willing to die for the cause,” Kira explained.

Adrien shook his head. “I couldn’t ask you to force your people to—”

“I force my people to do nothing. They volunteered. Anything to stop the curse from killing our young and taking their future,” she exclaimed.

It was a beautiful sentiment, but I really hoped no one was going to die today.

Adrien handed me the satchel that held the Shadow Heart, and I reached in and grabbed it. “I need to get this into the belly of the sea,” I told them all and brandished it into the air.

A reverence fell over everyone. Gasps, open mouths and wide eyes.

“Then you shall,” Kira stated. “Come into the water. We shouldn’t delay any further.”

I slipped the crystal back into my satchel and followed Adrien into the waves. I wanted to talk with him first and try to smooth things over from last night but there was no time now. He reached his hand out to steady me as I trod water and I gave him an apologetic look. He just returned it with a sad smile and a nod. Like it was okay. Okay that he’d told me he thought I was his mate, and I’d said nothing.

Dawn would kill me if she knew how much I screwed that up.

As we swam out to meet the merfolk I appreciated the clothes that Kira had given me the day before. They didn’t impede any of my movements or tangle my legs like my nightgown had, and were so light and buoyant I didn’t feel bogged down. But there was still something that was holding me back.

“If we are attacked, it would be easier to help fight if we didn’t have these dampener runes concealing our powers,” I complained to Adrien.

Kira swam up alongside me and gave me a radiant smile as I floated in the cove beside her. “I can help with that.” She lifted her long blue nails above the water and clacked them together, indicating I turn around.

A shock of excitement ran through me.

“Really?” I asked.

She nodded, and then I gave her my back.

I expected her to cut through the dampener rune right away, but she didn’t. I glanced over my shoulder at her and she had a frown on her face.

“I should warn you,” she said. “Seelie magic is somewhat unpredictable around the belly of the sea. When we get close to it, you may not be able to use your powers, even after I cut this rune away.”

“We saw that yesterday,” I said, thinking of how Mathis’s magic just gave out on him. “Hopefully my magic holds up. Either way, I need to be free of this rune.”

Kira nodded, and I faced forward again.

“It only hurts for a moment,” she said, and before I had time to even think about her words I felt a sharp slice between my shoulder blades. I hissed but then the pain was soon gone and I felt the floodgates open on my power.

The momentary pain was worth it. I’d go through worse pain than that to get my magic back. When the dampener rune was on, it was like I’d been missing a part of my physical body. I could still function, but I hadn’t felt whole.

I thanked her and then she ducked underwater, saying she needed to talk to some of her warriors before we left. Glancing over, I watched a merman slice at Adrien’s chest too. Once the green rune dissipated, he sucked in a big breath of air, closing his eyes to savor the moment. I could tell he was feeling the same thing I was. Relief. Joy. The rightness of having our magic returned.

He opened his eyes, and our gazes connected for a second and something indefinable but still powerful passed between us. I had the urge to swim closer to him, to reach out and touch him. I wanted to feel the warmth and smoothness of his skin beneath my fingers, but then a merman swam in between us, shattering the moment.

“Hello,” the merman said and I blinked up at him. It took longer than it should for me to recognize him as the one who’d saved me the day before.

“It’s you,” I said, smiling back at him. “I never properly thanked you for saving my life.”

The merman returned my smile, his eye crinkling in the corners. I didn’t know if merfolk aged like seelie did, but if so, I’d say he was only a small handful of years older than me.

“My name is Marlin,” he told me. “And it was truly my pleasure.” He dipped his head and then peered back at me. “I’m glad to see that you are well.” His tone was nothing but friendly, but I caught a glimpse of Adrien over Marlin’s shoulder. The Ethereum lord was frowning at us as his gaze bounced between me and the merman. Unveiled envy shone in his eyes.

I almost laughed. Adrien had nothing to be jealous about. As much as I kept telling myself I didn’t want him, he was truly the only man who filled my thoughts, but I still got a small thrill thinking he might be jealous.

“Well, if you hadn’t breathed air into my mouth, I would have died,” I told the merman seriously.

Marlin didn’t get a chance to answer before Adrien’s angry voice filled the air.

“What?” he swam over, shoving Marlin away from me. “You kissed her?” He ground the words out through clenched teeth, his body practically vibrating with barely controlled rage.

“Of course not,” Marlin said, shaking his head as he glanced at Adrien’s furious face and then he put another foot of space between them. “She was about to drown so I breathed air into her and then used my magic to allow her temporarily to breathe and communicate underwater.”

His words didn’t seem to assuage Adrien, who just glared at Marlin. Taking my hand, Adrien pulled me closer to him and a swarm of butterflies took flight in my belly.

Stars help me, but I was in trouble because part of me enjoyed seeing him riled up like this.

“I assure you, it was only to save her life,” Marlin explained, but then grimaced. “But I do need to use my magic on her again.”

A noise rumbled in Adrien’s chest that sounded a lot like a warning growl.

“I don’t need to use my mouth to do that since we’re not under the water,” Marlin quickly added. “She was drowning before and I had to give her air quickly. I just have to put my hands beside her face, that’s all. I promise.”

Adrien’s body stayed tense, and behind Marlin shadows started to gather.

Adrien’s power .

The accumulating shadows meant it was time to put an end to this. I didn’t think Adrien would truly attack Marlin, but I also wasn’t sure.

“Adrien,” I said gently, putting a hand on his shoulder. His muscles were tight and bunched under my touch. “Marlin saved my life yesterday. I’d prefer it if you didn’t obliterate him with your magic. If we want to get to the belly of the sea, he needs to help me breathe underwater.”

Adrien looked over at me, his eyes swirling with what looked to me like conflicting emotions. Several seconds ticked by before he finally pressed his lips together into a straight line and nodded. The action looked like it took effort for him.

Grudgingly, Adrien moved to the side and let Marlin get close enough to put his hands on either side of my face.

It only took a couple seconds for Marlin’s magic to work on me, and then I convinced Adrien to let him do the same for him. After that, we dove under the waves and were able to breathe and speak like before.

When Kira returned, she told me to take hold of her and I hooked a hand onto her fin. She took off, swimming at twice the speed that I would have been able to, dragging me down and through the ocean.

Adrien held onto Marlin’s fin and together we swam out of the cove and into the darkest water I’d ever been in. It was slightly terrifying. Not even the early morning light shone under here. Only the glow from the merfolk’s spears lit our way.

“How much further?” I asked, still amazed that I could talk underwater.

“Up ahead. See that glowing cave?” Kira spoke back to me and the sound reached my ears perfectly.

I peered ahead and gasped when I saw the blue glow less than fifty feet ahead of us.

The belly of the sea. It was a cave.

“Attack formation,” Kira suddenly snapped to her warriors and they aligned in a diamond shape all around Adrien and me. We were completely protected by them on all sides.

As we neared the cave I saw something slither in the dark waters.

“Three o’clock,” Kira shouted, and then the glowing spear one of her mermen held was tossed in the direction that I’d seen movement.

A shrill rent the waters and I clasped my hands over my ears, but then it was cut off by a garbled wail as the glowing spear sank into the gut of a siren. With one flick of his wrists, the merwarrior called back his glowing staff, and it pulled itself from the dead siren and drew back to his palm.

Kira turned to face me. “You have maybe ten minutes. Then every siren in the area will be upon us.”

My eyes bugged at the short timeline, but Adrien wasted not even a second.

“Thank you,” he said and grabbed my hand, swimming with me toward the blue glowing underwater cave.

As we neared, I had to squint. There was a glowing wall that shimmered as we approached. I grew an ice spear in my left hand, prepared to stab whatever might be on the other side as we swam through. But the second we crossed the barrier … we fell.

A shriek flew from both Adrien and me as we tumbled downward and I landed on top of him. It took me a second to realize we were in some magical underwater cave that was filled with air. I peered behind me at the blue glowing wall of water in amazement. Then I looked down at the teal eyes boring into mine.

I was straddling his mid-section, and both of my palms were flat against his chest. I should have moved off him by now, but I hadn’t. I was frozen, and the feel of his body beneath mine felt so right.

Adrien’s eyes went half-lidded. “As much as I would love to lay under you all day long, we have nine minutes.”

Embarrassment flushed my cheeks and I swallowed hard, letting out a nervous peal of laughter as I slid off him. “Right.” We had a task to do.

There was a tunnel up ahead with crystals embedded into the walls that glowed and cast an azure hue over everything.

“Get behind me,” Adrien commanded, and I did as he said. It was a narrow tunnel and we’d have to walk single file.

I kept my ice spear out and ready to stab anyone who came through as I followed Adrien. As the tunnel widened, Adrien stopped and I almost ran into him.

“Oh, no,” he muttered.

Panic sliced through me. “What is it?”

I pushed my way beside him, hugging the wall, and my mouth opened in shock when I caught sight of what was before us. Oh, no , was right. How could we make it through a maze that size in time?

“Eight minutes. We should split up, but I can’t bear the thought of you getting lost in there,” he declared.

He grabbed my hand tightly, and I peered out at the labyrinth before us. We were standing atop a set of stairs that led down to a cave with high stone-walled passages that twisted and turned and went on and on into the distance. It reminded me of the one I used to run around in as a child, but bigger, and mine was made of ice. And in the very center of the labyrinth in front of us was a blue, glowing crystal of some sort that was hard to fully see from here.

The belly of the sea.

“Can we memorize the path?” I asked trying to spot the openings to the center. Left, left, right. No, dead end. Left, left, left, then right—

“No. We need to just go. Maybe you can use your magic to create an ice stair and we can climb up and see where we are at every few turns.

I grinned. He was a genius. “I can do better than that.”

I moved past him and held up my hands, intending to make an ice shelf that I could push over to the center and then drop us down, but the second I stepped on the top stair, the shard I’d been using as a weapon fell from my palm, melted, the water forming a puddle at my feet.

Adrien frowned, stepping beside me. We both pulled for our magic, but nothing happened.

Adrien shook his head. “We can’t use magic here.”

“But we have to use magic to unlock the crystal.”

Adrien glanced at the center of the labyrinth. “Let’s hope once we get there we can. Come on. Seven minutes.” He grabbed my hand, and we ran down the steps and into the unknown.