Page 41

41

Claira

I ’d never been more grateful for Cyre than when I saw him clamp his mouth down on Jagati’s ass.

“Cyre HELP,” he projected, and I wholeheartedly agreed. He was the best help. The absolute definition of a hero. But that relief turned to horror when Jagati lifted the twin spear he’d kept hidden in the water, aiming it at my familiar.

A frantic warning exploded from my throat. “Cyre!”

The world seemed to slow as I felt the rush of air against my skin, Jagati’s tentacles whipping by me. The sound of metal tearing through flesh echoed in my ears, and, in that moment, everything else faded.

Cyre’s cry pierced my mind as the tip of the spear embedded into his side. His pain stabbed through me as if it were mine, seeping into me like blood oozing from a wound.

The dark limb holding the weapon twisted, and the spear, now drenched in crimson, pulled out with a sickening squelch.

Jagati’s breathing was a beast of its own. Those eyes—cold, murderous. He was ready to take a life. My familiar’s life.

“Cyre, go!” I called out to him even though I knew he wouldn’t abandon me. He’d stay, fighting to his last heartbeat, even if it cost him his life. “He won’t hurt me, but he’ll kill you, so please, I—I’m begging you, Cyre ? —”

Kai’s hand went slack in mine, and I sucked in a ragged breath. A cold weight sank into my stomach, and when I turned and saw what was beside me—the trident buried in his chest—it painted the last piece of my world a merciless shade of red.

The burn in my throat as I screamed Kai’s name was nothing compared to the wound he bore. Tears welled in my eyes, nearly blinding me as I watched a grim smile settle on Kai’s kind face, his lips twitching with the effort to hold it.

How… How had this happened? I didn’t know where Barren was or if Leander was safe in the water. And now Kai?

Everyone I love, everything I care about…

It felt as if the deck beneath me had given away, plunging me back into that same dark vortex of despair I’d drowned in when I’d first fallen into the Undersea.

I didn’t know what Jagati and Cyre were doing. Whether they were still fighting or if one or both of them had already fallen. All I knew was that my body refused to move, and my lungs refused to breathe.

Kai’s hand slid up the trident, and I saw it in his eyes—saw what he was going to do before he even started. But I couldn’t stop him. His fingers curled, and with a heavy thunk, he thrust it the rest of the way in.

The trident’s polished surface shivered, warping with the fluidity of magic. In a burst of energy, it fused into his chest, leaving behind nothing but three gaping wounds in its wake.

Blood poured from them in violent spurts, and as soon as I saw it, I did the only thing I knew to do to stop it. I let go of his hand.

With a pop , my gentle, smiling mate was gone. A royal blue betta fell to the deck in his place, resting motionless in a puddle of blood, and my soul, the hearts, everything else inside of me, all of it crumbled.

How…

First Leander, then Barren, and now Kai. I hadn’t even meant to be here with them. I hadn’t gone to Malkeevo expecting to be rescued.

“They had a plan,” I found myself whimpering through my tears. How had it gone so horribly wrong? How had we been so happy one moment, only for it to be torn away, shattered by one…

… By one cecaelia. Jagati .

Turning to that monster had fury rising in my chest, the heat of my rage drying my tears and clogging my throat.

I wanted to hurt him. To release every ounce of magic I had in my entire being, weak bones be damned , and end him right here, right now.

I could imagine what it would look like. The satisfaction of watching his writhing body sink into the ocean.

Alongside those dark thoughts, a rogue thread of fear surfaced, warning me of what I could turn into if I let the darkness inside me take control.

I shoved it back down.

Jagati’s pain had turned his expression hard, his slick form glistening with his own blood, my familiar’s, maybe even my mates’. He didn’t know it now, but he was going to pay for every drop he’d spilled.

Magic crackled at my fingertips, and this time, I didn’t hold back as I had when he’d first surfaced. Oh no , I called for more of it. Enough magic to burn through every toughened scar and strained muscle until he was as empty and hollow as the void he’d just carved into me.

As I was about to release it, a pelican plopped down beside me, smacking my arm with the side of its pouched bill. My magic sizzled as I stole a glance down at the bird, but whatever it wanted from me, I knew now wasn’t the time.

When I looked back up, Jagati had done the one thing that would make me hesitate. He’d snatched up Kai’s fish body with the end of a tentacle.

Caging it in a tight ball, he drew it to his heaving chest.

“Drop him.” Magic sparked in my hands with the words. He thought he could use my mate as a shield? My power rose from my arms like smoke, and I didn’t care if Jagati could see it or if he realized what I was. A sea witch.

Jagati’s eyes shifted into formidable slits. “That shark… it has followed us since we left the Undersea,” he panted, blood staining his teeth as he bared them at me. “I allowed it because you seemed so taken by it. Did you instruct that beast to attack me, princess?”

He knew Cyre had been following us?

Beneath the monster I was becoming, a sudden fear for my familiar pulsed, reminding me of the blow he’d taken to his side.

“Cyre?” I called out to his mind, frantically searching the water’s surface. “Are—are you all right?”

His mind brushed against mine. Oh, god. He was close, circling the water, and I could feel his worry, his pain. Instead of offering his usual comfort, for once, it felt like he was seeking reassurance from me.

If only I knew how to heal him. But I was as powerless to help him as I was to take down Jagati now that he had Kai.

Jagati… Oh , how I wanted to shatter him. To burst through him like I did my invisibility spells. But I couldn’t risk it. Not while he was holding Kai.

“You will let go of him,” I ground out, my voice growing rougher with each word. “You said you are loyal to the crown, well, I am wearing a fucking crown, Jagati. So that is an order. ”

Jagati’s gaze burned into mine, his face pale from the effort of masking his pain, and for a fleeting moment, I dared to believe he might actually obey me.

But then he laughed, a nervous and overwrought sound, and it fueled the smoke from my magic to swell thicker beneath my palms.

“You have such a spirit in you,” he rasped through heavy breaths. “I see how you have tamed that beast, those mermen, as unremarkable as all of them may be.” A crimson flush crept beneath the blood smearing his face. “And here you are, eager to tame me next.”

“You disgust me,” I hissed, the darkness threatening to rip through me. Tame him? I wanted to destroy him. I would destroy him. As soon as I had a clear shot, as soon as Kai was safe, I’d do it.

“You do not look disgusted.” His tentacles brushed closer, almost teasingly. “No, I see something entirely different in your eyes—finally, I have impressed you.”

What the hell?

He was insane. Completely delusional. I needed to get Kai and me, all of us, as far away from him as I could.

Another pelican swooped at the water, and Jagati drove it away with a quick swipe. “This cursed land and its pests,” he sneered. “Now, Princess Just Claira . It is time we get this trident to the Undersea.”

Before I could react, a tentacle caught my waist.

“No!” I cried as it yanked, dragging me back into the ocean. The sting of water hit my skin like a slap as I fought against Jagati’s grip, but my strength was no match for his.

Wait… Leander. He was in the water, too.

My eyes shot open, scanning for shimmers of gold. If I found him, if I was quick enough?—

I yelped as Jagati pulled me up against him, drawing us deeper into the blood-stained water. “Will you have that beast attack me again?” His voice was deadly calm.

A rough hand slid beneath my neck as he turned us, forcing me to face where Cyre swam nearby, a thin stream of crimson trailing from his side.

“Cyre, don’t,” I begged, my pulse pounding around where Jagati’s hand guided my throat. “Stay away, please. Just wait for me.”

I could sense Cyre’s hesitation in the way his tail fin flicked, as if he was torn between his instincts. Then he vanished, slipping under an invisibility spell so seamlessly I almost didn’t recognize the magic.

That’s right. Magic.

Jagati’s chuckle rumbled in my ear as he released my chin. “A wise decision— p-princess? ”

I didn’t wait. My hands shot out, grabbing at every tentacle within reach, twisting and pulling, desperate to find the one holding Kai. All I needed was to touch him—just a single touch—and I’d teleport us away, far away from Jagati, far from this nightmare.

But which one was it? My frustration flared when— there!

I spotted a tightly coiled tentacle he was trying to keep hidden. As soon as I reached down, closing a tight fist around it, a low, guttural grunt escaped him.

A powerful grip caught my wrist. “ Princess, ” he groaned, the sound more primal than anything else.

I wasn’t about to let go. “I won’t fight you anymore. I’ll go back to the Undersea.” The words spilled out, brittle and exhausted. “But please… let me hold him.”

Jagati’s chest tightened against my back as he spoke, his voice low and measured. “You would like to… hold him?” he asked slowly as if considering the idea carefully. “Right now?”

I nodded vigorously, my breath hitching. “I just want to see him, to make sure he’s okay.”

Jagati hesitated before slowly releasing my wrist. “I understand your concern, my lady, but that part of me is… uninjured.” He grunted again. “Though your beast certainly tried.”

That part of him? “No, Kai, he—he’s definitely injured.” The moment the words left my mouth, I knew I’d made a mistake.

With a sudden, violent sweep of his tentacles, Jagati spun me around. “ The fish ?” His teeth bared, his eyes wild with rage. “That is what you meant?” I’d never seen such anger, not even from his sister.

“Kai’s more than a fish,” I shot back. “He’s someone I love and one of my actual mates. If you’re set on dragging him back to the Undersea with us, then you will let me hold him.”

Jagati stared at me, his expression caught between possessiveness and fury. “ He is your mate?”

“One of them.”

That scarred lip curled as he looked down at the water below. “Then I will take great pleasure in crushing the trident out of him after I present him to our queen.”

“Do that, and I’ll?—”

“Never allow me to touch you?” the knight interrupted with a sneer.

That wasn’t what I was going to say. Do that, and I’ll make sure you regret it.

“You made the same promise earlier ,” he grumbled, dragging us deeper. “Yet you proceeded to take hold of my mating arm .”

“ Mating arm? ” I squeaked, my confusion mounting. “I—I don’t know what that is.” And honestly, I had no desire to find out.

He scoffed. “No one is that ignorant.”

“Trust me, I—” I clamped my mouth shut, not wanting to give him a reason to explain it.

Dammit . I couldn’t believe he was planning to take Kai to my grandmother. He would be okay, wouldn’t he? I’d almost lost him to an injury once, and now it was happening again.

I lowered my voice, desperate. “You really won’t let me hold him?” I was so tired of begging, of feeling helpless. If I couldn’t save Kai, I didn’t know what I would do. “Just to make sure his wounds have closed.”

He didn’t answer.

That’s right. To him, merfolk were the enemy. We were in a war, and here I was, caught between sides.

My thoughts raced as we descended, and the closer we got to Malkeevo, the more desperation clawed at my insides. Kai, Barren, Leander…

The lights from Kai’s mega pearls were still burning. From a distance, the kingdom looked so beautiful. The gates did their job well, casting an allure that could easily beckon any passing mer. Yet as we approached, the devastation wrought by the cecaelia became painfully clear.

“Rini,” Jagati’s harsh voice startled me when we got to the gates. I barely had time to pick Hari out in the agitated crowd of warriors before he swung me in front of her.

“Take her,” he ordered, his voice flat as he passed me off to his sister.

Hari looked far from pleased to be given an order from him.

What? No! I tried to cling to him, to Kai, but Jagati easily brushed me aside.

“For blunder’s sake,” Hari exclaimed, her brow furrowing as she darted glances between us, concern and suspicion mingling in her eyes. “You’re bleeding—aye, brother!” she called after him, but he was already moving away, heading toward the portal that would take him back to the Undersea.

Kai!

Hari turned to me, gripping my shoulders firmly. “My lady? What the hell happened?”

“He’s taken something very important from me,” I choked out, fear flooding my voice. “He wants to give it to my grandmother, but I can’t let him. Please, Hari. You have to help me get it back.”