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48

Claira

S crape. CHOP. Slice. YANK. Rinse. Toss.

My hands worked at a brutal pace, each movement faster and harder than the last—descaling, slicing, gutting, cleaning, and tossing fish aside like they could somehow take a piece of my misery with them.

They couldn’t, of course. They were just helpless fish, and this was their ending. I was their executioner.

I had no idea how long I’d been at it. It had at least been long enough for the briny stench of fish guts to cling to the air and seep into my skin. Even as I worked, the pile never got smaller, nor did the stack of cleaned fish get any higher. I didn’t care.

Scrape. CHOP. Slice. YANK. Rinse. Toss.

The routine should have been mindless. A fisher’s life boiled down to a steady cycle. Work. Weather. Wait. It was all I should have needed. Yet, here I was with a relentless pressure squeezing my insides. Why did this ache refuse to leave?

Scales flicked off, then CHOP —there went the next fish’s head. I went to make a quick cut up its belly when a noise behind me stopped me short.

That deep, familiar hum made everything come flooding back. I would know that sound anywhere.

“Barren?” I squeaked. I spun around with my knife still in my hand and found him standing on the edge of the dock behind me, his extensive silhouette dark against the warm amber of the early morning sun.

Why… Why was he here? Now that I thought about it, he was supposed to be thousands of miles away, back at his bungalow. Safe from the danger and disappointment being with me would inevitably bring.

“Finally,” he mumbled, his voice tight and breathless as he took an unsteady step forward. Relief eased the tension in his brow, where beads of sweat glistened beneath the dark curls falling over his forehead. “Found you.”

Tears stung the corners of my eyes before I even knew why. “You were… looking for me?” I blinked rapidly, trying to push back the sudden flood.

Just seeing him here brought such an unexpected, overwhelming comfort. If only a sharp stab of fear wasn’t quick on its heels.

“Don’t come closer,” I choked out. My hand trembled around my knife, and I hastily tossed it, flinging it to the table behind me with a dull thunk .

Dammit!

He knew, didn’t he? Not only that I was a sea witch, but that I was a murderer, too. A heartless demon , just like the cecaelia Kai had described.

My arm came up to shield my face, hiding the tears that threatened to spill.

He must have known because his heavy footsteps came to an abrupt halt.

A silence settled between us, broken only by the soft lap of waves and the desperate, muffled cries of the fish that had yet to meet the ruthless end of my knife.

“Are you unharmed?” His voice was lower now, the edge of it rough. Concerned.

“I don’t know.” The confession clung to my throat, the words as frail as they were terrifying. I lowered my arm just enough to see his face.

He stood only a step away, tense and still, his eyes shadowed with worry as he examined me, searching for signs of harm. But the pain I carried was far deeper than anything he could see.

“I’ve been waiting for you to fall asleep,” he finally murmured. There were none of the accusations I’d braced for. Only Barren’s calm, unmovable patience. Oh, how I’d missed talking with him.

“You haven’t been sleeping,” he continued. “Not much, until now.”

My pulse skipped. I was asleep?

“I was hoping to reach you...” His jaw worked slowly, as if he were choosing each word with care. “To connect with you in your dream.”

A dream? I looked around, taking in the water, the dock, the fish. That hollow ache thudded harder against my ribs.

“Is it really you?” I whispered as my gaze drew back to him. Kai had mentioned that Barren could visit dreams, but having him really here with me felt like too much to dare hope for. “Are you my Barren?”

His hand twitched, halfway to lifting, as though he desperately wanted to be—to brush away my tears and comfort me, everything my Barren would do. “Mmh.”

He must have remembered that I’d told him not to come closer because he let his arm fall back to his side, his jaw flexing. “I wanted to make sure you and Kai are safe.” He swallowed hard, his voice thick and hoarse. “Since you didn’t come back to us after you left the Undersea.”

The disappointment settled in as I dropped my arm from my face. “You knew we left the Undersea...”

Of course, this wasn’t really him. My Barren couldn’t have known we’d even reached the Undersea, let alone left it.

He nodded once, the muscles framing his face tensing like he recognized he’d revealed more than he intended.

Dammit. It seemed obvious now, looking at how the morning sun was painting his skin. Deep bronze streaks glided along his bare chest and the chiseled lines of his face. He stood there in nothing but a brace and sweatpants, which seemed like an odd choice to wear into someone’s dream, even if that someone was your mate.

But I could see why my brain had conjured him up like this—delicious skin and powerful muscles that made even the stone statue of his father guarding Malkeevo look fragile. I had to give my imagination credit. It knew how to deliver.

The only parts I couldn’t explain were the exhaustion in his eyes and the inclusion of the trident mark spanning his chest and arm. My mind must have been doing everything it could to torment me. I hated seeing him like this, even more so because I couldn’t shake the feeling that my absence had caused it.

“Is Kai safe?” he asked, and despite only being a part of my dream, his concern felt real. “Are you?”

Nodding, I reached back to trace the familiar rough edge of the table behind me, deliberately keeping my gaze from his trident mark. “We’re safe.”

Then I remembered where Kai was and what we’d done, and my face flushed. I lifted my left arm, staring at the spot where he’d tied it together with his.

We were still tied, weren’t we? It was strange that, while dreaming, I couldn’t feel his presence beside me, but I had to believe he was still there.

“What about you and Lee?” I asked, even though I knew he would tell me exactly what I longed to hear—that they were both safe and well.

Then again, maybe my brain would use the question as a new way to torture me.

“Safe.” His voice was heavy with weariness and maybe a trace of embarrassment, too. “Although,” he muttered, glancing down, “Kai’s seabirds weren’t as helpful as he’d hoped.”

Safe . The tears were building in my eyes again. “That’s great,” I said, quickly swiping them away. If only I knew it was true.

Barren’s weight shifted. “You still don’t believe it’s me.”

“Do you blame me?” The words came out softer than I intended, and I was surprised by how quickly he answered.

“Not at all.”

He took that final step closer, bringing me fully under the comfort of his shadow. “But it is me.” Barren’s low, steady rumble. Goodness , I wanted to believe him. “I’m here now, right in front of you. Even if it feels like a dream.”

I shook my head. “Barren…”

“You can ask me something,” he suggested gently. “To know for certain that it’s me.”

Ask him something? Slowly, I reached up to touch his stubbled cheek. He looked like my Barren, felt like him, even if the coarse hairs beneath my fingertips were longer than usual.

“What could I possibly ask you that my mind wouldn’t know or guess how you’d answer?” I wondered aloud.

“Mmh.” He searched my gaze, the muscle underneath my touch jumping as he considered. “Something for when we meet again, then?”

“Oh?” I bit my lip, wondering what he meant.

He inclined his head until his breath traced heat along my neck. Then he whispered something so carefully chosen that it completely stole my breath. His thick, rich accent wrapped around every syllable, and fire ignited in my cheeks when what he was suggesting sank in.

He pulled away, his gaze steady and serious as he murmured, “How does that sound?”

… Holy crap. This was not my Barren.

“Now I know you’re a dream.” A shaky laugh escaped me as I shook my head. Seriously, who was this fantasy man? “My Barren would never… um.” I swallowed, the warmth of my blush deepening. “Suggest something like that.”

The corners of his mouth twitched like he was fighting back a smile. “Not saying something doesn’t mean I haven’t thought it,” he said just as carefully.

Yep, my brain was clearly tormenting me. But even if this wasn’t the real Barren, I was still glad to have this affectionate dream version here with me.

“I wish you’d really found me in my dreams,” I said with a sigh, pressing into the solid, reassuring warmth of his stomach. The steady rise and fall beneath my cheek was grounding. Soothing. Almost real. “I really could have used that.”

His arm came around my shoulders, every muscle wound tight. “I did. I have.” The low rasp of his voice hummed through me, his teeth grinding as if he were in pain. “I fought to find you, and I—” His voice faltered, but it didn’t keep him from trying again. “I’m with you now.”

A gentle pressure settled on the top of my head, and I felt the warmth of his lips, the tenderness. A wave of comfort followed, stirring something deep within me that gave me pause. It was like my soul was humming with recognition.

“Barren,” I breathed, lifting my gaze the moment his lips left me. “You… you’re really here?”

A weary smile softened his face as he reached into the pocket of his sweatpants. “I am,” he murmured, revealing what he’d retrieved—a single pearl cradled in a tiny cage, dangling from a delicate chain.

After he showed me, he carefully tucked the pearl back into his pocket, almost like it was his most precious treasure. Like I was the most precious.

But I wasn’t precious. I was… angry. Confused. A murderer. And he was being so gentle with me, so careful and understanding because he didn’t know the monster I could truly be.

A dam burst inside me. A flood of bittersweet love and regret. More anger. Magic .

“I killed him, Barren.” My fingers clawed at the leather strap of his brace. “The one who touched your arm all those years ago—I met him, and then I murdered him. He was my friend’s brother, and she was so proud of him. She loved him.” The words were acid burning through my throat. “And I killed him with my own hands, the ones touching you now, with this magic inside of me.”

Tears stung my eyes, but I refused to wipe them away. Instead, I focused on the flow of power skating down my arms, collecting and swirling under my palms. “And the worst part? I don’t even regret it. I don’t. I’d do it again.”

“Claira—” Barren’s breath stilled, the hard planes of his body freezing under my palms, like he could suddenly feel the magic electrifying my skin.

“The only thing I regret,” I continued, “is how cold-blooded I must seem to the three of you now.”

I looked up at him then, my eyes draped with tears and my hands dark with magic. And when those warm brown eyes flicked down to me, they were filled with all the understanding and compassion I longed for.

Until his vision focused, and something in him changed.

Or maybe something in both of us had.

“ N-no, ” he ground out, his teeth gnashing together, his jaw clenching with a force that could shatter stone.

All of his compassion was replaced with a flash of panic, every muscle in his face bracing for unbearable pain.

“Barr—?” I gasped, but his hand went for my neck before I could get out his name. I didn’t even have time to scream.

‘Are you a sea witch?’

He’d asked me that once, with the same uncontrolled look in his eyes that he had now. Only this time, he didn’t have to ask.

Barren’s strong fingers closed around my throat, and one quick squeeze was all it took to crush my windpipe.

A sudden, sharp pain wrenched me awake, my body lurching upright. My arm caught on to something beside me while the other flew to my neck, fingers sliding over skin, desperate to feel if my throat was still intact.

Thank goodness.

Water drew into my lungs, a relief that told me I was still whole, but the pain, the panic, all of it lingered.

“ Barren, ” I whispered, my hearts seared by fear even as they raced on. Holy crap. He’d gone for my throat. Was it because I’d used magic? If it hadn’t been a dream, would he have?—

“Wha-what’s wrong?” Kai’s sleepy voice came from beside me, his body stirring. His confusion gave way to a horrified gasp. “... Claira. ”

I snapped to face him, my hand still clutching my throat, just as his tail thrashed and swung back. “What?” I asked weakly, startled once more by how quickly the drowsiness vanished from his face, leaving him staring at my body with wide, frantic eyes.

He scrambled back, but our bound arms stopped him short, and he only managed to drag me along with him.

It didn’t register why at first. My mind was still tangled in my dream, in the ache in my throat. But then Kai’s tail whipped again, a wild attempt to gain distance from me, and I realized what he was gawking at—the lower half of me, grotesque and shifting.

What the absolute fuck was happening to me?

It was horrifying. Dark, sinewy tentacles poked out from where my smooth scales should have been, their tips flexing and curling like living nightmares.

“ No. ” I didn’t want to believe it. There was something terribly wrong. With my tail, with me.

Were my spells breaking? The sick wave of realization slammed into me. They were. They were breaking .

… No. No, no, no!

I gaped at my tail, paralyzed, my body trapped in the horror of seeing a part of itself warped into an abomination. It was worse than the dream I’d just escaped. The tentacles that had emerged were moving, reaching toward Kai—and then, like a shard of ice, the truth struck again.

I was controlling them.

Some dark, previously untouched part of my mind was guiding them, telling these twisted horrors what to do. Who to reach for.

Kai’s shrill voice sliced through my daze, though I hadn’t processed what he’d said. I turned to him, needing his help, his comfort, a glimpse of the reassuring smile he’d always offered every time he’d looked at me in the past.

There was nothing in his eyes but panic.

Dread pooled heavily in my stomach as his gaze darted between the two halves of what was left of my tail, scales, and tentacles, everything coming together in his face. My night vision, the cecaelia’s interest in me, the crown I’d worn.

“Kai,” I whispered, my throat wound tighter than my ocean silks had been around our arms. Now, they hung loose from the struggle, barely holding us together at all.

He didn’t respond. Maybe he couldn’t. Though he’d stopped pulling away, his panic was deafening, a silent scream that felt like it was squeezing the life out of me.

Damn , it hurt. The look in his eyes, the way he’d initially tried to wrench himself away from me, as though I were something to be escaped from.

“ Please. ” It felt like the water around us had turned to ice, pressing in, suffocating me. I wrapped my fingers around his the way I knew he liked to hold mine, desperate to feel something from him, but as my hand moved, my tentacles followed, twisting and reaching for him as well.

Kai flinched back, his fingers going rigid around mine, and it broke me. Funny how a single movement was all it took for my fragile hearts to splinter.

Shaking my head, I pulled away from him just as he’d pulled away from me. “I see,” I said, though the words came out flat and brittle.

This was it. The moment I’d dreaded—the cruel confirmation of my worst nightmare. I was a monster. And even Kai, who swore he loved me more than anything, could see it.

I tried to slip free from the ocean silks, but his hand caught mine, holding me there. “Why?” he asked, so strained and vulnerable. But I knew what he was really asking. Why didn’t you tell me?

His gaze finally lifted from my tail, but when those gemstone eyes met mine, a shiver raked through him.

His mouth went slack, his eyes clouding as if he were falling into a trance. “Your… eyes?” he muttered as his focus on them honed.

A note of panic rang through me. My eyes? That glassy stare—it was the same look Barren had worn just before he?—

Kai slammed forward, his body crashing into me before I could even think of trying to get away.

“Kai!” I shrieked, throwing an arm up as a shield as a flash of sharp teeth glinted, angling perfectly to strike at my vulnerable neck.

His mouth snapped shut around my arm, those sharp teeth piercing through skin and flesh with a sickening crunch. Blood seeped out in a crimson cloud in front of my eyes, pain shooting through every nerve up my arm, and he pushed forward, sinking his teeth in deeper.

The pain was nothing. Nothing compared to the devastation of seeing Kai like this.

He thrashed his jaws, a wild, snapping beast consumed by the primal urge to hunt. But even in his frenzied state, I could see the horror and struggle carving its way across his face. He was fighting it, resisting whatever force was driving him to attack me.

Instinct won.

I yanked my bound arm free from him and the ocean silks, only for a fierce grip to clamp back around my wrist.

Pain ripped through me as he spat out my arm. He lunged again, and I barely ducked in time, his teeth grazing past my neck and sinking into a mouthful of my hair instead. “Kai!” I was begging now, even though I knew my pleas wouldn’t be enough to stop whatever was telling him to attack.

He was too freaking fast. His body knocked into me from the left, slamming me against the cave wall. Pain shot from my arm to my back, leaving me gasping as I stared up at him, petrified.

He’s going to kill me.

As if answering that thought, Kai grabbed both my arms, pinning them to the rock, leaving only my tentacles free to dangle over the beautiful plants he’d created for us.

“No, Kai, please… ” Those dark limbs writhed beneath me, aimlessly twisting and curling up the rocks. My magic flickered weakly to my hands, barely enough to make a difference if I were to unleash it, but I held it back. I couldn’t.

Not my gentle Kai.

All I could do was brace myself, my body trembling, the rough texture of the rocks scraping against my tentacles, the other half of my tail as useless to me now as it had ever been.

His tongue washed over his teeth, and he pulled back. This was it.

“This isn’t your fault,” I choked out, desperately hoping that he could hear me, that he’d believe it. “I know it’s not. I?—”

He attacked, jaws wide, and a burst of magic intervened, striking him in the chest with enough force to throw him back. His body fell away, swallowed by a cloud of blood and dark magic. But even as we broke contact, the magic kept going, dark swirls that sought him out through the haze.

“No!” I watched in horror, my back sliding down the rocks, but the assault continued.

“Stop,” I rasped, helplessly opening and closing my hands like that might be enough to end it. “Stop it!” This wasn’t me. I’d never hurt Kai. Not with my magic, never on purpose!

Then, I caught sight of a tentacle rising beside me and gasped. How?

Its tip was curled around the shell necklace Abyssal had given me, and a dark flood of magic was pouring from its center. With a shriek, I grabbed it and flung. But even as the shell landed on the blanket of sea flora, the magic continued to surge from inside it.

“No, no, no!” Panicked, I pushed off the wall, gritting through the pain as I fought to reach the necklace. As soon as I had it, I slammed it against the nearest rock until the shell shattered, leaving its magic to fizzle down to a single stream of rapidly dissipating smoke.

“Kai , ” I cried out, feverishly scanning the water. Please be okay. Please, please, please.

A cold dread seeped in when I saw him—Kai’s fish form, upside down, his limp body swirling in a slow circle from the force of the magic that had struck him.

Guilt tightened my throat as I crawled closer. “I’m so, so sorry.” I should have been quicker. I should have known the protection spell was what was hurting him. These damned tentacles. “ Kai… ”

Even though the necklace was broken and I knew he would attack me again, I reached for him as soon as I was close enough.

I needed to see him and to know he was still okay.

My fingers brushed against his delicate frills, and… nothing. Nothing happened. Only a crushing stillness ensued, the slow haze of blood from my arm staining the water.

“K-Kai?” The cave spun as my panic mounted.

I leaned in, focusing on those tiny, royal blue gills, the light from the glowing stars around us already starting to fade.

He wasn’t—he couldn’t be?—

His gills fluttered with a fragile ripple, and I nearly crumpled with relief. Then, a fresh wave of horror came over me as I touched him again.

“Wh-what?” I couldn’t—I couldn’t break his curse.

My gaze dropped to my tail, and a sob tore from me, so raw it felt like it ripped apart what little of me remained.

Eight writhing tentacles replaced my tail. Eight dark, fleshy nightmares. “No…” I didn’t want to accept it. Didn’t want to believe that my spells had broken. But denial couldn’t change this.

I touched Kai again, cupping both hands around him. Nothing happened.

Nothing.

I couldn’t change Kai back into a merman. That was the one thing I could do for my mates, the one thing . And now it was gone, just like my tail was.

Kai’s words echoed in my mind, leaving me gasping and shaking with my head in panic. Heartless demon. Dark spawn.

I felt the phantom clench of Barren’s hand on my throat alongside the agonizing sting of where Kai’s teeth had sunk into me.

It was too cruel. If this was Poseidon’s doing—binding the three of them to someone his laws forced them to kill—then he was the heartless one. A vile, fucking bastard of a god.

I dared to look down at my tentacles again and choked on a sob. It seemed so wrong, so overwhelming, yet a twisted part of me knew this was who I’d always been. And now the three of them would know it, too.

I had to get Kai back to land, but how could I ever return to them like this? If Barren or Leander saw me like this, saw my tentacles, my eyes?—

“Cyre,” I cried out with my mind, my hands locking around Kai before I lost him. My tentacles tangled in rocks, tearing through plants as I frantically searched the cave floor for my ocean silks. “Cyre, where are you?”

My familiar brushed back against my consciousness, his presence faint. He was way too far away. I couldn’t do this by myself.

More panic rose, but even worse was the chaos in my mind. My tentacles were quickly overwhelming me, tugging me in every direction at once, and I hated every new sensation—their sensitivity, the way their suction cups moved in ways that felt wrong. And yet, a dark, twisted part of me couldn’t stop trying to tame them.

No . I didn’t want to tame them! I didn’t want them at all.

Now that Kai was a betta fish, the light in the cave had dimmed to only a few scattered patches of glowing plankton. But it was enough to help me find my ocean silks, and as I pulled myself toward them, I fought to ignore everything else.

“Cyre HELP.” His voice slid through me, closer now, and it was the reassurance I needed to redirect my focus away from my lower half.

“Thanks, buddy.” My lips fell into a grim line as I finally slowed, just long enough to carefully wrap Kai in the center of the silks. He was still knocked out, but he’d wake up and recover as soon as he got back to land—he had to. “Come find me as fast as you can.”

Once Kai was secure, I knotted the ends of the silk and slipped the bundle over my shoulder. Okay, Claira. Don’t think, just move. I powered forward, relying solely on my arms to get us to the cave’s mouth, even as the uncoordinated will of eight tentacles screamed in my mind, fighting to pull me back.

By the time I reached the seagrass I’d originally fallen through, my muscles were burning, and blood was still seeping steadily from the bite marks along my arm. “Freaking dammit,” I gritted out as I parted the grass. My tentacles were catching on everything. How was I supposed to pull all of them through?

Chest heaving, I blinked against the darkness of the open ocean.

Snap.

A shark appeared out of nowhere, sending me ducking back into the cave. As soon as it passed, I poked my head out, gasping, “You can teleport? ”

Cyre circled back, coming close enough for me to use him to pull myself out of the cave. “Cyre LEARN.”

I was too thankful and exhausted to do anything other than hug him, and as soon as my last tentacle popped free, a rush of magic vibrated over his scarred skin. Without even trying, my hands absorbed it, drawing it in until his magic had filled me completely.

“YOURS.”

Was he really giving it back? Damn, it was a lot of magic. How long had it taken him to hoard so much of it? Either way, I was grateful. “Thanks, buddy.”

While my body felt refreshed, my mind was anything but. My fingers trembled as I slid the bundle of ocean silks from my shoulder. “Take him. Please. Get him to land. To Barren.” I had to smack at least half of my tentacles out of the way to secure the bundle’s knotted end between Cyre’s teeth. “Do you think you can teleport while carrying him?”

Instead of answering with words, I felt my familiar’s unease.

“That’s okay.” I patted the side of his face.

Letting Kai go felt like tearing out a piece of myself. Selfishly, I wanted to return with him, to stay by his side when he woke up and somehow make things right.

But a quiet dread returned, whispering that I no longer belonged beside him or with any of them. Not anymore.

Kai hadn’t been himself, but still, he’d tried to kill me. And even if he hadn’t, the look on his face when he saw my tentacles… I feared it would haunt me forever.

Heartless demon. The vision of myself I’d seen in my grandmother’s mirror flashed to my mind. I was that monster now, wasn’t I?

Barren had said he knew what I was, but even if he accepted me like this, it wouldn’t change the fact that one look in my eyes would make his instincts turn on me, too. And Leander? He despised cecaelia. Maybe not as intensely as Kai, but the thought of my golden prince seeing me like this was unbearable.

Now that my spells had broken, would they keep trying to kill me?

Absently, my hand lifted to my throat. “Keep him safe, Cyre. If you can get Barren to listen to your mind, tell him I’m sorry. Tell all three of them ? —”

I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t ask my familiar to tell my mates to forget about me.

“Go. Please let me know when Kai’s safe.”

Despair crashed over me the moment Cyre turned to leave. My hands shook as I clutched the rocks beneath me.

Kai… Leander… Barren…

Each tail stroke taking Kai further away scattered more pieces of my soul across the ocean floor. My gaze dropped to the creeping limbs at my sides, and disgust rolled through me, cold and dark.

Why did it have to be like this?