Page 49

49

Claira

T he power Cyre had returned to me vibrated, alive and restless. It was overwhelming, just like these damned tentacles.

“Ha—” I breathed out, shaking my head. I’d spent years dreaming of being able to swim underwater. And now, with that possibility within reach, my life was somehow more hopeless than ever.

What good was finally getting something I’d longed for if it kept me away from them?

“What am I going to do?” I whispered, slipping back into the cave and letting its shadows swallow me whole. I squeezed my eyes shut, desperate to block out the image of what I’d become, but it was too late.

Now that I was alone, the sensations in my tentacles assaulted me with a vengeance. They extended and retracted, twisting and pulsing, feeling so much, too much.

It was all too much .

I opened my eyes, only to watch the vibrant colors of Kai’s creations vanish. My night vision kicked in, stripping the plants to lifeless grays devoid of all the beauty he’d made for us.

My gaze landed on a broken shard of the necklace next, and a sob caught in my throat. I dragged myself closer to the crushed shell, its pieces littered across the rocks. Picking up the largest fragment, I pressed it to my forehead.

Abyssal. I’d thought he meant for the necklace to protect me from Jagati, but had he suspected something like this might happen?

It wouldn’t have surprised me if he had. He was always looking out for me, always saving me. Even from dangers I hadn’t yet noticed.

How unfair I’d been when we’d first met, thinking he was cold and unfeeling—a real heartless demon. I’d been so completely, utterly wrong.

Warring sensations from my tentacles hit like a wave, and the shell slipped from my fingers as I winced, pressing a palm to my temple in an effort to dull the chaos in my head.

Dammit!

I needed to see him. Abyssal would know how to quiet all this noise, all this pain. He’d know exactly what I should do.

But returning wouldn’t erase this emptiness, would it? This crushing loneliness…

Abyssal’s face surfaced again in my mind, those piercing white eyes, the careful mask he always wore around other cecaelia—everyone except me.

Was this what it had been like for him? Did he always feel this loneliness, too?

Magic rose inside me as I pictured his underwater chamber. It felt impossibly far, and something told me even he’d never dared to travel such a distance in one jump. But for once, I didn’t care about the risks.

I’d already lost everything the moment my spells had broken. What more could be taken from me now?

If I was destined to be a sea witch, hunted and despised, then my magic owed me this much. It owed me a way back to the one person who could understand what was happening to me.

The ocean stretched taut, and my body buckled under the strain. Every muscle jumped, burning as if the effort to trigger the teleportation was tearing them apart from the inside. But I was already torn. This pain couldn’t deter me.

The world bent around me until it finally snapped back, throwing me forward.

SNAP.

I emerged with deep, uncontrolled tremors, the chilling pull of my body fighting to remember how to hold itself together. Shelves filled with tomes spun around me while my vision swam, unfocused. But none of that mattered.

I made it.

“Abyss—” I collapsed forward before I could finish calling his name, and even when I touched down on the floor in a heap, the chamber wouldn’t stop tilting.

“Our princess?” A quiet, concerned rasp of a voice slid through my mind.

“Ara—Aracos,” I gasped out, gulping down the stale Undersea water. Thank goodness. I barely registered the need to throw an arm over my exposed chest before pushing myself upright. Damn, it was a struggle. The dizziness was terrible enough, but my body felt empty, depleted of every ounce of the magic Cyre had just returned to me in one go.

I leveled my head, forcing my eyes to focus on Aracos as he slid out from behind Abyssal’s desk. But as he drew nearer, he hesitated.

His long form went completely still.

My pulse stuttered as his dark eyes fixed on mine, each of my hearts giving a small, frightened beat. “... Aracos?”

There was a sudden ripple, a change in posture, and with a speed I didn’t expect, he shot forward.

The eel’s jaws unhinged with a swift, brutal snap, revealing rows upon rows of razor-sharp teeth—needles so fine they were impossible to count. I hadn’t even braced myself before the sharp sting of the bite hit me, the searing, agonizing reality of teeth digging into the tender skin of my neck.

Aracos’s teeth didn’t just pierce. They anchored, pulling at my skin with a sickening grip as an inaudible shriek traveled up my throat.

… Why?

Pain. The sharpest kind. It flooded every inch of my body from where it started at my throat until I was numb, slipping into a haze, teetering on the edge of oblivion?—

Until a dark, powerful shape eclipsed everything.

Abyssal loomed into view, shadows curling around his face like knives. Feral eyes fixed on my neck with a cold, unstoppable rage. In one forceful move, he clamped his hands on either side of the eel’s jaws and wrenched them from my throat with terrifying ease.

A harsh snarl tore from him as he flung his familiar aside, discarding Aracos as if he were nothing.

No. My eyes screamed what my voice couldn’t. Not Aracos. Not your familiar!

Another wave of dizziness hit. I could feel it, taste it—the blood from my neck pouring too quickly now that Aracos’s teeth were dislodged. I crumbled forward, everything slipping away.

Then, a hand was on my arm, another around my waist, pulling me from the edge.

“ Claira .”

I’m about to die… aren’t I?

He called my name again, and I was just so grateful he was here. My eyelids refused to open, and as my pulse slowed, for the first time, I understood that I didn’t need them to. Time in the Undersea with my sea wizard had reshaped the darkness into something that no longer terrified me. It had become bearable, even familiar.

As long as Abyssal was here in the shadows with me, I was ready to give in and sink into their depths.

“No,” he breathed out, the shake in his arms giving away his fear. “I cannot lose you now. Not again.”

Again? The question lingered as one last riddle that would remain unsolved.

Even if I had the strength to ask, I was sure my throat had been torn into ribbons. Shredded. Useless.

“Forgive me,” he uttered, and I’d never known his voice to sound so fractured, so lost.

Oh . Abyssal did know loneliness. The same ache I’d felt watching Kai go—it was what he was feeling now, wasn’t it?

A pang of regret twisted inside me, mingling with a quiet fear, the realization that I was leaving someone precious behind. And if I left him now, he’d be completely alone.

Abyssal…

A strange, soothing sensation bloomed at the base of my neck, and in that brief moment, it startled me out of my fear. The coldness receded, but it wasn’t warmth. It was something deeper, darker.

Healing magic .

The taste of blood slipped over my tongue—metallic and rich with an undercurrent of power that shook my pulse. His blood.

A rush of energy, a surge of strength. I shuddered as his magic coursed into me, pushing away the darkness of death and replacing it with his darkness.

My eyes fluttered open just as he drew his wrist away from my lips. He gathered me into his arms, holding me the way I’d secretly hoped he would during every visit to my chamber, every shared secret, and every time he’d taught me something new.

I shuddered as he whispered a promise against my hair. “Next time, I’ll ask for your permission.”

If I could have found my voice, I would have told him he didn’t need my permission to heal me if it meant saving my life.

The taste of his blood lingered on the back of my tongue, thick and heady, coating my throat. Soothing it.

“I never would have chosen Aracos if I’d known his kind held Poseidon’s favor,” he hissed, almost to himself. I recognized the bitterness in his tone, the regret. “ Ah… My dear captive.” A tender touch brushed my cheek. “You’ve lost so much.”

Deep down, I knew he must have been referring to my blood or maybe even my magic. But it felt like so much more. It felt like I’d lost everything, and he was now holding on to the only ruined fragments that remained.

The shaking started up again, and as more clarity seeped in, I found I couldn’t make it stop.

If Abyssal hadn’t appeared when he did… Oh god.

Violent tremors wracked through me, intensifying with the horrifying realization of how close I’d come to death. How easily I’d been ready to accept it.

I pinched my eyes shut, overwhelmed by the need to hold on to life, to him. It didn’t matter that I didn’t have my ocean silks. My arms, my tentacles, every part of me wrapped around him.

Now that my spells were broken, it was brutally clear I wasn’t safe. Maybe I never would be again. And yet, here with Abyssal, there was a fleeting sense of security. A fragile thread I was now clinging to with everything I had.

I buried my face in his neck, taking in the cold, dark scent of him, unable to bring myself to let go.

I would never let go.

“Can you speak?” His voice was sharp with an emotion I couldn’t quite place, but his arms were a different story. They held firm around me, protective and borderline possessive, as if daring anyone to try to touch me again. It was everything I needed to keep me feeling safe.

My throat could barely function, let alone speak. I tried to shake my head, to force some semblance of control back into my body, but the tremors were too much. Instead, I licked my lips, searching for another taste of his blood, his power.

“You don’t have to say anything.” The smoke in his voice wrapped around me, driving me even closer to him.

I pressed harder against his chest, my tentacles climbing and winding around him like vines. Even they seemed to know he was the only thing keeping the rest of me from falling apart.

“I’ve got you,” he promised, those three quiet words soothing my panic.

A shiver ran through me as his tentacles found each of mine, one by one, easing them down, giving them something to hold on to that would steady their restless tension.

His hands were gentle as they slid along my back. “Just hold on, princess.”

With everything I had, I held on.

Snap.

I had no idea where he was taking us, but even as the sharp pain of a pressure shift spiked through my head, I knew it didn’t matter. Abyssal had me, and all I wanted was to melt into the shadows with him, wherever those shadows led.

With two more snaps, the air hit like a shock, jolting my eyes wide.

Land?

Light seared my night vision, but with his power running through me, the sting was quick to fade. Slowly, colors returned, and the familiar walls of his office came into focus.

“Please tell me I may heal you,” Abyssal rasped, biting at the air like it tasted too dry for his throat. A tentacle was already waiting at my shoulder to oblige.

He looked like something out of a dream—dark, salt-soaked hair clinging to his forehead, more droplets slipping like beads of glass down the sides of his face. And when he looked at me, really looked at me, his chest caught on a breath. “ Ah… ”

He froze, and as the seconds ticked by, I could see in his wide eyes that he’d completely forgotten about healing my headache.

Why was he staring at me like that?

It wasn’t terror or revulsion. Far from it. He looked utterly mesmerized, as if he finally realized my transformation and was lost in this new me.

Water welled in my eyes.

That snapped him out of his daze. “Princess?” His arms went awkward around me like he was a man equipped for many things, though not for handling my tears.

I couldn’t stop them, though. Now that I was on land, the sobs came freely, every tear I couldn’t shed while underwater finally spilling over.

The noise in my head from my tentacles, the overwhelming rush of emotions, of relief, of fear, of near death, of everything. It had piled up until it crushed me, and with the only one who genuinely understood all of it in front of me, I couldn’t hold it back any longer. All I could do was lean into him, seeking refuge against the soothing chill of his neck.

He let me, and there was a long pause before a tentacle brushed against my hair again. It lingered there, almost like it was testing, uncertain, before it slid underneath to cradle the back of my neck.

I gave a small nod, more to satisfy him than me, and the pain from my headache eased as his healing magic seeped in, leaving only the pain in my hearts.

He didn’t speak at first, but his arms, steady and careful, pulled me tighter to him. “Forgive me,” he finally murmured. “I should have asked before giving you my power.”

Blood . He was talking about his blood. He’d fed it to me, much like I’d given mine to Aracos, but as bizarre as the concept was to wrap my head around, Abyssal hadn’t done anything wrong. He must have known that, and yet he felt the need to keep apologizing.

I squeezed my arms around him as water from his hair dripped onto my face, mingling with my tears.

I’d never imagined tentacles could be comforting, but his were, and every time one of mine twitched or jerked, his would calm it. His touch soothed every tremor until my pulse had returned to a slow, steady beat.

I had no idea how long we stayed like that, how long he held me while cold droplets pooled around us. It was long enough, though, for the tightness in my throat to loosen, for my eyes to dry, and for the sharp sting of nearly accepting death to fade into something distant. Numbness.

“I’m curious,” he murmured, drawing my attention away from the slow, thoughtful rhythm his thumb tapped against my back. I’d spent the last few minutes using it as a distraction, wondering what it would sound like if he hummed the melody aloud. “Did you wear the necklace I gave you?”

I thought I was past the crying, but a sob proved me wrong. “Yes.” The word scraped as it left my newly restored throat.

“I see.” His voice dropped with a sigh of relief. “It’s fortunate I finished it when I did, although I’d hoped you’d never need it.”

Fortunate? For me, maybe. But not for Kai.

“The magic inside it,” I choked out as the attack replayed in my memory. “It won’t kill him, will it?” Knowing the scope of Abyssal’s power didn’t leave much room for hope. Another tremor shook me, more potent than the last.

“So, that’s what happened.” His hand cupped my face, his fingers gentle as he lifted my chin, guiding my gaze to meet his. “No need to worry. Your lover is safe. The magic was only meant to put your attacker to sleep.”

“Kai’s asleep…” Moisture pooled in my vision. I was so relieved. “Thank you, Abyssal. Just—thank you.”

“Hm. You’re most welcome.” His gaze drifted to my collarbone, lingering there long enough to turn my relief into a soft, unsteady flutter. Those piercing white eyes traced along my neck and shoulders, his voice dipping into a dangerous murmur as he said, “Is he the one who so boldly left all those marks on your lovely skin?”

My spine straightened as Abyssal’s power flared inside me, a sharp chill winding through my core. “I enjoyed it,” I said, lifting my chin out of his grasp.

He pressed his lips together, unmoved. But after a moment, he exhaled sharply. “Ah. I suppose that changes things.”

Had he healed the marks, too? I glanced at the spot where Kai had bit my arm and found the skin completely healed. Even though it should have been a relief, a hollow ache thumped against my ribs.

Those marks—those love bites Kai had given me—were a part of him. Losing them felt like losing him, too.

But I’d already lost him, hadn’t I?

“This is the worst,” I whispered, lowering my gaze. “It’s unbearable.”

My fingers brushed the backs of Abyssal’s hands as I took them into mine. “Do you think I’m heartless?” I asked weakly, turning both of his palms over to make sure he’d taken the time to heal the wound on his wrist as well. “Like a… a demon?”

The question dragged the memory of Kai’s horrified face along with it. The expression he’d worn tore through me all over again, leaving my throat tight and aching.

When I looked up, Abyssal had one brow raised.

“Oh, terribly heartless.” A smirk formed on his lips, slow and deliberate. “So heartless, in fact, you’ve been pouring your feelings out for the last twenty… no, thirty minutes.”

I sniffed at the air, my eyes still stinging from all the streams of tears that had fallen. “Sorry you had to see that.”

“Don’t be.” He leaned in closer, his breath a cool whisper against my neck. “I found it to be quite endearing, actually.”

“Endearing?” The word escaped me in a choked laugh.

There was something strangely comforting about his gentle teasing, his effortless charm, even after everything that had happened to bring us here.

Abyssal’s blood hummed through my veins, stirring something bold as I whispered, “So that’s what you’re into? Emotional women?”

His soft exhale stroked my collarbone. “Only when that woman is you.” His voice dipped lower, smoother. “Otherwise, I find emotions utterly exhausting. Especially my own. Although, as of late...”

That smoky voice trailed, and suddenly, I was acutely aware of every inch of contact between us, the way my exposed breasts were pushed up against his bare chest.

I swallowed, my blood heating as his careful gaze honed in on my lips.

Maybe I wasn’t an expert, but I was fairly certain he was going to kiss me. And honestly? I wanted it. A kiss from Abyssal felt like exactly what I needed. Just a kindness, a distraction. To know with certainty that someone I cared for could look at me, see the truth of me, and still desire me in return.

Abyssal drew in a slow, shuddered breath. “If I may venture a thought, princess,” he murmured, the smoke in his voice curling over each word, “you look?—”

Pop.

My lower half reshaped, and I found myself straddling his waist, my bare legs tangled in his tentacles.

“ Oh ,” I blew out, biting into my cheek as the air shifted again.

Pop.

My eyes shot wide. Abyssal’s legs were under me, and my ass was sitting comfortably atop his bare thighs.

His dark, magicless gaze stared back at me, looking equally surprised but not by the transformation of our lower halves. No, he was more interested in my face.

A faint wash of color rose over his ever-pale face. “—Absolutely bewitching.”

Was that… a blush?

Heat crawled up my neck. It couldn’t be. The sea wizard never blushed—did he?

He was so focused on my eyes, but instead of a glassy stare, he was looking at them like they had him entirely fascinated, as if he was seeing something in them he couldn’t quite believe.

I looked away, more self-conscious about the hint of actual color on his face than the fact that I was completely naked and straddling his waist. It should have been shameful how I could already feel the heat from my center transferring to his cool skin.

“Forgive me for staring,” Abyssal said hoarsely. His thumb nudged my cheek, a gentle suggestion to turn back to him. “But… might you look at me once more?”

“Why?” I hesitated, my gaze flickering away. “Are my eyes still white?”

“No. Not white.”

There was an unfamiliar note in his voice that had my gaze reluctantly lifting.

His expression was so serious, at least until my eyes locked back with his. Beneath me, something hard pulsed against the underside of my inner thigh, and I swallowed back a gasp.

“Let me be the first to tell you,” he said with a steady gaze, bringing no attention to his body’s physical reaction, “your natural eyes are extraordinary.”

“You’re joking.” I bit my lower lip, raising a skeptical eyebrow. While he was right to think he was the first to call them that, I was pretty sure there was only one extraordinary thing here, and I was nearly sitting on it. “There’s nothing extraordinary about my eyes.”

They were just… dull. Gray.

A girl in school had once compared them to seagull poop, which, ironically, was more white than gray, but I’d understood what she was trying to convey.

Abyssal hummed, clearly unconvinced, but he didn’t push the point further. Just as the pressure from the bulge underneath me was starting to grow uncomfortable, his gaze finally released me, settling across the office. “I suppose I should remedy our current lack of attire.”

“Right! Clothes. Clothes are good,” I echoed, trying to sound completely normal and telling myself that the hint of disappointment in my voice was purely because our transformations had stolen the moment for that kiss.

Abyssal’s hand slid under my ass, and I yelped as he lifted me from his lap. “But first—” His strength shifted, and he pushed off of the floor with surprising ease.

“Seriously?” I gasped, catching my balance on his shoulders as he stood. He’d hoisted me up so suddenly that my boobs had nearly smacked him in the face. “I have legs now, you know.”

“Oh, I’m well aware,” he replied, his dark chuckle only making me more flustered. “Perhaps this is what I’m into—carrying around emotional women.”

My jaw dropped. His smoky laugh deepened as I thumped a weak fist against his shoulder blade. “I should’ve guessed you’re into this sort of thing,” I muttered, squirming in his hold. “All those times you appeared out of nowhere to grab me. Too bad I’m not emotional.”

Well, not right now, at least. I had him to thank for that.

He didn’t let me down, not until he’d carried me all the way across the room.

A rush of cold wood met my upper thighs as he sat me down on top of his desk.

“Okay…” I blew out. My gaze flicked between the pale arms bracketing my hips and the inviting chest that connected them.

This was… interesting, and the complete opposite of getting us something to wear. If he’d been a human, the signals here would’ve been pretty hard to ignore.

Taking me to his desk was not some other hidden kink of his, surely?

Then he knelt, and my stomach swooped—until his attention went to his lowest desk drawer instead of between my legs.

What the heck is wrong with me? My knees knocked together as I pressed my hands to my cheeks, hiding my face.

This was a crisis. I’d literally lost everything, and yet my thoughts kept taking inappropriate turns. Freaking naked sea wizard!

The drawer creaked as he rummaged through it. When he found what he was looking for and straightened back up, my eyes went right between his legs.

… Oh. Oh, wow. He was so pale. Everywhere except?—

“A side effect of consuming my blood, I’m afraid.” His voice knocked me out of my daze, and I realized then how openly I was staring. “Sharing magic has a tendency to intensify certain… attachments.”

“Are you serious?” I gaped, swiping the puddle of drool forming at the corner of my mouth. “What do you mean, attachments?” My eyes involuntarily drifted down his body again.

A clearing of his throat had me quickly forcing them back up, embarrassment flooding my face anew.

“I think you know exactly what I mean.” His gaze never wavered, and the heat pooling inside me only grew.

“That explains so much,” I muttered, giving up trying to hide how flustered I’d become. No wonder I couldn’t think straight. “Wait. Does that mean Aracos?—?”

“Rest assured,” he said with a faint smirk. “My familiar may have tasted your blood, but that delightful little side effect was mine alone to bear.”

That didn’t exactly ease my mind. I tried to recall—had Abyssal ever drooled over me? Then again, we’d been underwater, and I’d fallen asleep on his bed after giving Aracos my blood, hadn’t I?

“But why? ” I pressed. It didn’t make sense. “Why would sharing blood do something like that?”

“I wonder,” he drawled, his gaze smoldering. “I imagine, long ago, witches and wizards once shared their power before indulging in carnal acts of passion under the moonlight,” he mused. “A sacred way of bonding, perhaps?”

The picture his words had painted left saliva pooling in my mouth. Passion under the moonlight. Even though I was familiar with the layout of his office, I found my gaze searching for a clock, a window. “What time is it?”

“ Oh, gods .” In an abrupt move, he turned away. He tilted his head toward the ceiling, a hand threading through his hair.

The back of his shoulders shook, and it took a moment to realize he was trying not to laugh.

Yikes. Seriously, Claira? Checking to see if the moon was out… Was I seriously drunk on his blood right now?

“Fortunately,” he went on, turning back after regaining his composure, “the effects will fade with time. Until then, I’m afraid I must ask that you bear it.”

“Bear it,” I repeated. Sure. Easy for him to say while standing stark naked in front of me.

My traitorous gaze dipped south, but instead of what I was expecting, it landed on what he’d pulled from his desk drawer.

A piece of mirror? I blinked, noticing the dark corrosion around its sharp edges, the kind of tarnish that only came with age.

“Should I ask why you’re keeping a broken mirror inside your desk?” I wondered aloud as he handed it to me. The way it jutted up to a lengthy point kind of reminded me of a megalodon’s tooth—definitely not the other thing my mind kept wanting to return to.

He hummed. “Wouldn’t you say it’s in our nature to hold on to the things that have caused us the greatest pain?”

“Huh?” I glanced up, surprised, and caught the quiet sorrow tucked in the curve of his mouth. He didn’t elaborate.

“How cryptic,” I muttered, turning my attention back to the mirror’s sharpest edge. “This thing caused you the greatest pain?” I frowned. “Did it cut you?”

Either the thrall or the mix of our blood didn’t like that thought. Maybe both.

“You could say that,” he replied, ever the mystery.

I shot him a pointed look, but he only shrugged it off. “Light would help, I suppose,” he murmured, his hand still resting next to my hip. His fingers tapped lightly as though he were unsure whether to pull away or not.

I didn’t want him to, but when he finally did, resisting the urge to watch his body move as he left was more difficult than clawing my way out of an undersea cave.

More lights flickered on, and I shivered at the sudden brightness. “Take a look,” his voice called from behind me.

I didn’t need the encouragement. As soon as the light hit, my attention caught on the color of the reflection in the mirror.

Emerald .