Page 32 of Cruel Tides (Queen of Tridents #2)

32

Claira

“W hoa, heavy duty.” I pulled two harpoons from the back seat and examined their sharp, forked ends. “These are great. How did your friend find them?”

I eyed the woman—er, mermaid? She wasn’t acting particularly friendly toward Barren, but I couldn’t think of anything else to call her.

She’d pulled up not even five minutes after Barren had called us back up to the hotel. Idling outside the lobby doors like an underpaid courier waiting to deliver a package, she held her lips together as tightly as she gripped the steering wheel of her Mustang convertible.

Maybe she was a courier—though how she’d gotten her manicured hands on a couple of fishing harpoons so fast was anyone’s guess.

“Were you able to locate enough of them?” Barren asked in his thick accent, ignoring me and my question. She nodded, and her dark-stained lips hardened as he reached in to retrieve a leather pouch hanging from her rearview mirror.

I watched her face change with his arm’s approach, pinching like she’d glimpsed something unpleasant. “That’s all I could come up with,” she said evenly, though her shoulders were stiff. “I believe there’s enough there to satisfy Queen Javalynn, wouldn’t you agree?”

Barren let the bag spread out over his palm, weighing its contents. He bounced it lightly, causing something to clack around inside, then tilted his chin like it would have to do.

“Excellent.” The Mustang’s engine revved. “You can take an extra year off my debt for the trouble of getting them to you so fast.”

Barren’s eyebrows creased, but the woman made sure she was gone before he could contradict her.

An extra year off her debt . Did I even want to know what she meant by that?

“Thanks for the harpoons, Barren.” I hugged them close, feeling thankful I’d be going back into the water armed with more than a utility knife.

“Yeah, these’ll be great.” Leander came around to pull them out of my arms, and even though it was the first thing he’d said aloud since our talk back in the hotel room, I only gave up one.

“You don’t need both, Leander.” I pursed my lips, watching him slide the harpoon’s corded strap over his shoulder.

We needed to have a talk. I’d expected to get right into it when I walked back from the shore, but then he noticed Kai following behind me. One look at Kai’s shirt, ripped and soaked with sea water, and Leander’s eyes hadn’t met mine since.

Even now, he wasn’t looking at me, just at the harpoon I held. His fingers twitched like he couldn’t wait to get his hands on it, but I held it tight.

“You’re right,” Leander mumbled, turning away from me to adjust the cord on his shoulder. “One will be more than enough to slay those dark spawn fuckers. But I want both.”

“Slay?” I gulped, inspecting the tip of my weapon in the light. Deadly sharp. It could kill a fish easily enough, but to use it on a cecaelia?

They were part human, just like merfolk, weren’t they? Or were they more cold-blooded undersea creatures than anything else, unable to develop legs and come on land?

“That’s only if they attack us first, ri— hey! ”

Barren pulled the harpoon out of my grasp easily, as if he were plucking a ribbon of seaweed up from loose sand. The pouch he’d grabbed from the Mustang’s mirror hung at his wrist, its leather cord catching around his muscled forearm like a bracelet. He hooked the harpoon under the thick strap he wore across his chest while I gawked.

“You’re coming with us?” I asked, surprised. Barren grunted something that might have been a yeah , and I cut a glance over to Leander. “You want me to take both of you?”

Being carried around by Leander was humiliating enough. I wasn’t sure if I liked the idea of being strung between two mermen. Plus, I figured I’d be able to talk things out with Leander on the way. Make up, maybe. I honestly didn’t know what I wanted, but Leander acting like this, not even looking at me, felt like my heart was being plucked out piece by piece.

Leander shrugged, his arms crossing like the excitement of his new weapon had already worn off and he’d suddenly remembered he was supposed to be cranky. “If Barren’s willing to help, I don’t see a problem.”

I frowned and scuffed the toe of my boot over the pavement. Goodbye, harpoon. Yet again, I’d have to make do with the knife I kept hidden in my boot.

The lobby doors opened, and Kai walked out, his hands smoothing down the buttoned front of a fresh, dry shirt. His eyes lit up like fireworks at the sight of the harpoons. “Dude!”

“Right?” I chuckled, throwing Leander and Barren glances. “I thought I was going to get to carry one, but nope. They’re being stingy.”

Kai swung around me with a smile, his arm casually landing over my shoulders. “They’re just intimidated by you. Man, when you speared that mermaid’s foot! You guys saw her do that, right?”

Warmth beat against my face at the compliment. Me, intimidating? Though I had gotten her good, hadn’t I? Aleena would probably sport the bloody reminder of my rage for weeks to come.

“No?” Kai shrugged, his back straightening. “Well, where’s my pokey stick? You can carry mine.”

“ Yours? ” Leander said, his voice low in warning. “And what makes you think you’ve got a part in this?”

He stepped forward, and I put myself between them before Barren could pull one of them away.

“Kai is very capable,” I asserted, propping a hand against Leander’s chest like I believed I had the power to hold him back if I wanted. I didn’t, of course, but maybe intimidation was one of my strengths. “I bet he’s just as accomplished a warrior as either of you.”

Leander looked down at me, eyes storming. I held my breath as I waited for him to call my bluff, but he didn’t. In fact, he pulled back, turning away like my touch had repelled him. “Fine. You want him to come, let him come.”

Crap. Had I just agreed to go down there with all three of them holding on to me like a trio of leeches?

It wouldn’t work. The size of their bodies and mine… There simply wasn’t enough of me to go around.

“Wait!” I started backpedaling, but Leander was already making his way down the side of the hotel. Oh no . He was heading for the shore already.

“We’re doing this now ? I—I don’t have my bathing suit!”

“The longer we wait, the more dark spawn are slithering through that portal,” he called back coldly, not caring enough to turn his head.

A hand came back on my shoulder, and I nearly jumped out of my skin.

So much for being intimidating.

“Thanks for sticking up for me,” Kai said sheepishly, his face drooping like he felt a bit guilty. “But what made you think I’m a warrior?”

“Your hands,” I said absently, stealing glimpses of Leander’s stiff shoulders as he stalked away. He was pissed, and I couldn’t blame him after all I’d said and done. But was now really the time to be heading back into the water?

“My hands?” Kai marveled down at his palms, flexing and turning them at the wrist, trying to find whatever it was I’d seen in them.

“Yeah, uh, right here.” I cupped under one of them and brushed my thumb across the callouses lining his palm. “See? They’re rough. Like you’ve spent a lot of time training.”

I just hoped the training was with a spear or something similar and not with a rope for tug-of-war.

Kai’s laugh turned uncomfortable. “I’m sorry to disappoint, but I probably got those from scrubbing.”

Scrubbing? That must have been code for something.

My head tilted in question, and his lips curled, his head shaking. “It’s kind of hard to explain, but I scrub things, well, a lot .” He did the motion, two hands holding an invisible loofah sliding up and down, and I didn’t know what to say.

“You scrub things. Like, to clean them?”

I sent a glance back at Barren for some help, but his phone had distracted him, his thumb tapping like lightning over its screen. He stuffed it in his pocket without a word and started down the path to the shore.

“Exactly!” Kai said brightly as Barren passed.

My shoulders sank. Kai cleaned things. It was a charming skill for a prince, but it wouldn’t be much help if the cecaelia attacked. “You don’t have to come along, really. The way Barren and Lee are acting, I think they’re expecting a fight.”

“That’s why I’m definitely going along,” Kai chuckled, stepping toward the path Barren took and beckoning me to follow. “I might not be a warrior, but I’ve survived my brothers. That has to count for something.”

He ruffled a hand through his short spikes of hair and leaned forward, parting near his hairline to show me a thin white scar where hair didn’t even grow. “And they don’t exactly fight fair.”

I gave his scar an appraising whistle and shook my head while he brushed his hair back into place. “Kinda makes me glad I don’t have any brothers.” From what I’d seen of mermaids, I felt blessed not to have any sisters, either.

“They’re not all bad. Helps to have someone else around to shoulder the blame when you get into mischief,” he said, laughing like he got into his fair share of trouble. His feet kicked through sand as we stepped back onto the beach. “So, they only got pokey sticks for themselves, huh?”

“Afraid so. They didn’t even think about you,” I sighed, pretending to be offended on his behalf. “You’re too intimidating,” I added, trying to keep a straight face.

“Intimidating, yeah?” He stopped walking to pose, chest puffed, arms flexed. The amusement in his smile broke me, and I burst into laughter.

“Okay, okay, the truth is you’re just not cool enough for a harpoon.” I gestured at Barren and Leander’s backs in the distance, all enormous muscles and broody moods. They were the sharks, and we were the minnows. Okay, maybe Kai was a little bit shark. An adorable mini-shark. But I was definitely a minnow. “And neither am I, so welcome to the club.”

Still laughing, Kai nudged me with his elbow, looking wounded by my assessment of his coolness. “Hey, I think you’re cool.”

I nudged him back. “I guess you’re pretty cool, too.”

“You guess? ” He scratched at the back of his neck. “Maybe if I put on those dark glasses Barren uses while he drives. He gave a pair to Laverne, you know.” He huffed. “Like she needs to be any cooler.”

Speaking of Laverne, I looked around the beach until I came across a big gray lump near the shoreline. Laverne was belly-up in the sand, head back, flippers splayed. “Is she…?”

“Looks like she passed out.” Kai chuckled, squinting to catch her stomach rising and falling. “Must have been all those fish she caught.”

“Should we wake her? Let her know we’re leaving?” I eyed where Leander and Barren had settled under the pier at the edge of the water. It was funny how they’d chosen the same spot Kai and I had used earlier.

“She’ll be fine. Here.” Kai dug into his pocket and pulled out a key card. “So you’ll feel better.” Tiptoeing the long trek over to her, he slid it under one of her flippers and threw me a thumbs-up.

That didn’t make me feel much better. But hey, maybe the hotel was so used to their craziness that the lobby attendants wouldn’t even bat an eye if Laverne burst through the doors alone and headed for the elevator, balancing the key card on her nose.

As soon as Kai jogged back over, I leaned in to whisper, “She’s going to kill you when she wakes up. You know that.”

That got a chuckle, but I was actually being serious. If a sea lion were ever to attempt murder, it would be Laverne.

“She’ll be fine. We could use some space after earlier.”

My heart sank, but I kept my mouth shut, knowing I was the reason they’d fought. Maybe a little space was what we all needed.

Yeah, like I wasn’t about to strip down and have their hands all over me. Ugh . I was already so embarrassed; I didn’t even want to think about how things would go once all four of us got into the water.

“You’re sure you want to come?” I asked as we met up with the others, talking to any of them, really. I was feeling desperate.

When all three of them nodded, I resigned myself to stomping under the pier’s shadow. I began pulling my boots off with a sigh.

“No one looks at her,” Leander demanded, knuckles rubbing under his chin, definitely looking straight at me.

I stuffed my socks into my boots and straightened, sliding my utility knife under my shirt. “You’re looking,” I challenged.

A smile barely touched the corners of his lips when Barren’s giant hand clapped over his face, pulling him back by the head.

I stifled a laugh, watching Leander flail and grumble as I secured the knife to my bra. I took off my shirt next.

Pretty boy landed a punch, and Barren barely grunted. Idiot .

I knew enough to tell that this wasn’t an actual fight. No, the way Barren stood there and took it, it was almost like he was purposely letting Leander blow off some steam.

Kai was cheering, yelling for Barren to throw a punch back, when I shed my panties and sprinted for the water.

Pop .

I held my hands out but somehow still managed to catch a face full of sand. Groaning, I yanked myself up and pulled a globby string of seaweed out of my hair.

“All right, who’s first?”

All three men froze, then scrambled, their fight quickly forgotten. Shirts, pants, shoes— a watch? —went flying, and suddenly, all three men were naked and lined up in front of me.

Well, Kai probably still had on his shirt, and Barren might have kept his leather harness on to make sure his harpoon stayed in place, but honestly, how could I be sure? The angle I had on them, me in the sandy water and them towering above me… Well, they could have been wearing assorted party hats, and I never would have noticed.

“I—I don’t know if I can take all three of you at once,” I blurted, feeling like a deer caught in three sets of headlights. With some high beam action going on to my right—apparently Leander was the most excited to get in the water.

Barren was the one to crack at my comment, and I mimicked his snort, my face hot and on the brink of exploding.

But seriously, how were all three of these guys going to hold on to me all at once?

Kai bounced forward first, and I barely caught hold of him before his toes touched the water. His legs and back popped , and Barren and Leander shared a look.

“Wondering if I can break more than one curse?” I asked aloud, because I wasn’t stupid. I could tell what they were thinking.

“Of course you can,” Leander said gruffly. I held out a hand, but Barren took it before Leander got the chance.

Pop .

The end of a giant red tail slapped across my back as Barren’s massive legs turned. Kai’s long fin whipped up water and sand beside me, his arms moving down my waist to free up one of my arms.

Oh boy, this was already chaos.

I took a breath and held out an arm to Leander. “Let’s go get your father’s trident,” I said, mustering a smile.

His face turned gravely serious, and he nodded sternly at the reminder, his sea cucumber wilting. He took my hand and— pop .

Someone’s tail or fin or arm pushed us into deeper water, and suddenly they had me spread out like a lady lounging on a chaise. Hands slid, gripped, and kneaded, fighting amongst themselves to get a comfortable hold on me. Kai’s hands slipped low, venturing dangerously close to my rear when Leander pushed him out of the way, shouldering between him and Barren.

Kai’s cheeks were pink when he smiled at me from his new place at the end of my tail. I shot Leander a sharp look as I felt his pretty boy hands cup under my butt.

I huffed, squirming in their arms like a fish caught in an uncomfortably sexy net. “You know, guys. I’m not really enjoying this.”

I couldn’t blame them for holding on so tight—it was that or risk turning into a betta—but whose idea was it to have me lying sideways?

Barren had ended up at my head, which was probably a good thing, considering he had one less arm to keep hold of me with. I fought against all of them to turn over so I could help Barren out by latching on to his waist when my butt practically slapped Leander in the face.

“ I’m enjoying this.” Leander’s lips quirked into his usual smirk, and my eyes rolled. At least blowing off some steam with Barren had helped his mood.

Barren held his arm out to me, and I eyed the bag hanging at his wrist.

My eyebrows lifted. “You want me to take it?”

He nodded, and I kept one arm safely around him as I slipped the bag free. The contents shifted inside it, sparking a memory I’d locked away long ago. “Pearls?”

Barren’s jaw clenched, but he confirmed with a nod. “Keep them safe,” he said, his eyes averting. Why did looking at me always seem to make him so uncomfortable? “We’ll need them.”

Was this a promotion? I’d gone from lantern holder to bag holder, though I’d rather be a harpoon holder . Mermen just loved giving me little, unimportant jobs.

I doubled the cord around my wrist and wrapped my arm back around him, pinching the top of the bag just to be sure not to lose any.

Why we needed pearls, I had no clue. A trade, maybe? It was hard to imagine a creature stupid enough to trade a magical trident for a few handfuls of pearls. Well, a seagull might, but octopus creatures that could just collect pearls of their own? Not likely.

“Ready?” Leander asked, and they took off before I could answer. Water rushed by in choppy bursts, sending my hair drifting, the bright red tendrils snaking every which way. Three tails worked together behind me, learning and adjusting, endeavoring to find a common rhythm, while I spat out wads of hair. Geez, I was useless.

Then we dove into deeper water, and everything changed.

Barren and Leander’s tails stalled suddenly, causing us to drift.

“What?” Kai asked, glancing at the other two.

“I forgot spike-tails could do that,” Leander grumbled, pretending not to be impressed. His tail swished back into movement. “Guess that means we don’t need to stick around collecting moss.”

“Your eyes are glowing ,” I blurted—much too loudly, but I was just so amazed.

Kai had to know they were glowing, right? How could anyone not know their eyes were shining brighter than if they had giant headlamps strapped to their face.

Kai cracked an easy smile, his eyes glinting at me like cut crystals held up to the sun, refracting light all around us. “Yeah, of course. How else could I see underwater?”

Emotion caught in my throat.

Maybe I wasn’t such a freak after all. Sure, my eyes didn’t glow , but I wasn’t the only one with weird mer eye magic.

Kai’s eyes veered, and amethyst rays followed through the water, spreading light like a mist, illuminating a path in front of us. It was beautiful, everything bathed in the same soft purple I was used to seeing in his eyes. That is… until he blinked.

The darkness was brief, but magic rippled through me even when his lids reopened and light bombarded me again. Wincing, I shook off the weird sensation.

I loved and hated how my scales prickled with the slide of Leander’s touch. With all their touches, really, but I was desperately trying to ignore it. Did Kai even know how sensitive the end of my tail was?

It was impossible not to feel his gentle fingers stroking through my frills as he swam, either to soothe himself or me. I wasn’t sure which. It felt nice, just like him. A little too nice. Nice enough to make my scalp tingle at the complete opposite end of my body.

I wondered, were I any other mermaid, if my tail would move away from his touch on its own or if it’d feel content to let his fingers keep stroking.

The further we dived, the brighter Kai’s eyes seemed to glow, and the more magic rushed behind my eyes every time his lids moved. By his tenth blink, the front of my head was throbbing, and Leander shifted his grip, clearly annoyed.

“Would you stop doing that?” Leander snapped, his hands tightening around my hips.

Kai’s head turned, and we all groaned, guarding our eyes from the onslaught of light. “Stop what?”

“Head forward!” Leander shoved him with a shoulder until his eyes snapped back ahead. “A lantern should be able to keep its eyes open for more than two fucking seconds.”

The light strobed again, and I swallowed back a whimper. Ugh . Between the tingles and the throbbing, my head was going to explode before we ever reached the kingdom.

Out of options, I pressed my face into Barren’s midsection like he was my lifeline. “Sorry,” I mumbled, tightening my arms around his waist to shield my eyes from the light and my cheeks from showing my embarrassment.

Barren and I weren’t comfortable enough with each other for this kind of contact. Not even close. But I’d have to explain it to him some time when my pulse wasn’t thumping angrily in my eyeballs.

Tough leather dug into my cheek, and I found a strange comfort in it. Like I felt a comfort in him I couldn’t explain.

But hey, who wouldn’t feel safe curled around someone like Barren? He was impenetrable, lacking in nothing, a titan carved from stone. His tail beat through the water, and the hard muscles of his back buzzed with a power I wanted to believe in.

I clenched my eyes shut, losing myself in the vibrations, realizing that without even knowing it, I’d forgiven him for how he’d acted when we were alone together in the water.

The suspicion in his eyes when he’d thought I was a sea witch. The power he’d held back so desperately when his hand had wrapped around my throat.

Now, things were different.

He’d chosen to believe me. Instead of stealing me away for his own kingdom, he’d taken me back to shore. He’d kept my secret. Not to mention the food he’d made for me whenever I was hungry—including the best sushi I’d ever tasted. I was still sad about storming out of his hotel room before finishing it. Why hadn’t I taken the plate with me?

With Barren and Lee and Kai here, we’d get the trident back, even if it came down to a fight.

Something brushed against my hair, and I was ready to look up when a hand, enormous and unfamiliar, cradled the back of my head. It was a brief, quick comfort, and it felt a million times more intimate than it should have.

Had he thought I was upset? Scared of what was to come?

As soon as Barren’s hand retreated, I was left stunned by how much I missed the reassurance of his touch.

It was a simple gesture, but its message was clearer than if he’d spoken the words. It’s going to be okay.

It was exactly what I needed, and it broke me apart and healed me in ways I couldn’t define. Was it going to be okay? I didn’t know, but I felt like, with someone as strong as Barren believing it would, how could it not?

No one can cry underwater, so I held my eyes shut and melted into him, working to hook my wrists behind his massive waist, repeating his comfort to me in my head. His body shifted, and my awkward curse-breaking grip around him turned into an embrace. A secret hug the others wouldn’t see for what it was.

But I felt it. Barren felt it. With the way he moved under me, all his rough edges softening, the muscles of his arm occasionally brushing my shoulder, hovering closer than he’d dared before, I just knew he meant to embrace me, too.

“Quit bumping. We’re going that way. Look at the fucking circles!” Leander growled, and Kai gulped out an apology.

“Wait, which circle? There’s, like, a ton of them! Look, circle. Circle. Circle . Who came up with this system?”

“Quit turning your fucking head! Dammit, just look straight and follow what Barren does.”

A chuckle rippled through Barren’s middle, but he snuffed it out before it made it up his throat. My lips fell. Why did he feel he had to do that? To deaden his emotions before they came out?

“You think we should visit the portal first, Barren?” Leander asked, and it surprised me when Barren’s deep voice buzzed in my ear.

“After we get your trident.”

We traveled in silence until Leander tapped a finger on my stomach, trying to get my attention. “We’re getting close. Kai, shut your damn eyes.”

“My eyes? Why?”

One of Leander’s hands left me, and I heard a smack followed by a yelp. “They’re too fucking bright! Let Claira take over so the dark spawn don’t see us.”

“Okay, dude, okay. Let go. I’ll close them!”

I pulled away from Barren and opened my eyes, blinking rapidly until I was sure it was dark. Leander removed his hand from Kai’s eyes and settled it back on me with a satisfied smirk.

I scanned the ground, chasing the lines rippling over my sight. “What am I looking for?” Something clicked , and I saw circles underneath us, dotting the ocean floor. Waymarks similar to the ones we’d followed before.

Far off in the distance, barely a monochrome speck in my vision, loomed the long, mottled stretch of a wall.

I gulped. “You weren’t kidding when you said we’re close.”

We weren’t swimming as fast now. Were they nervous? Unsure of whether I’d lead them the right way?

“Hey, guys,” Kai called loudly, his eyes screwed tightly shut. “I don’t really get what’s happening right now?”

“Claira can see underwater,” Leander answered hotly, his tone suggesting Kai shouldn’t ask stupid questions, but all my attention was on Barren.

Leander said those words, and I swear every tight plane on Barren’s body recoiled.

“Barren?” I whispered, looking up to search his eyes. He had all but turned to stone underneath me. His face, his body, his dark pupils, everything deadened under my gaze.

He knew something.

He knew something about my underwater vision.

And that embrace we’d shared? Gone. Now I held tight to a titan made of cold, jagged boulders.

“Barren?” I whispered again, pleading for an answer to a question I was too afraid to ask, and dammit, he flinched .

Something was breaking in me. Twisting and tugging, threatening to destroy me from the inside out. I was so distracted by whatever it was about me that made Barren react in such a way that I didn’t see the tentacle until it had wrapped around the end of Leander’s tail.

Leander’s body jerked, held back, and it ripped my world into two. I cried out, every hand on me locking into place for dear life, and miraculously, all of them held. We fell into a nosedive, Kai and Barren apparently deciding the only way to break Leander free was down.

Leander worked the harpoon from his shoulder as the black slash of a tentacle curled up around him, joined quickly by two others. One went for Barren, but he already had his harpoon in hand.

But they couldn’t see! How could they fight? I opened my mouth to yell for Kai to open his eyes when Barren roared, “The bag!”

The bag? The bag!

Kai jerked as a tentacle went to wrap around him, a shriek sounding when he turned down to sink his wide jaws into it.

“The pearls, Claira!” Barren boomed, and I knew he regretted giving me the damn bag.

Hands shaking, I loosened the drawstring with the help of my teeth, digging inside and pulling out a small cluster of pearls. “H-how many?”

“Guys?” Kai garbled, his mouth sounding full. “Should I open my eyes?”

“Not yet!” Barren grunted, and his harpoon extended, slashing a broad line underneath us that barely even edged one of them. I turned down to Leander only to find a face staring back at me.

“My, my,” a silvery voice drew out, and I froze under the delighted look in the creature’s gaze. Thin lips widened past the point of madness, and the corners of the cecaelia’s eyes crinkled, setting off the pitch black in their centers. “What have I found?”

Kai’s teeth were still ground in a tentacle, his head jerking like a dog ripping meat off a bone, though the cecaelia didn’t seem to notice. And Leander—Where was Leander? I felt his fingers digging into me, but I couldn’t turn far enough to see him.

The long stretch of a man’s torso drifted underneath us, narrowing to a sharp point that exploded into reams of black. He looked straight at me, cackling, his long tentacles carrying him in a dizzying dance, pulling him this way and that, drifting to and fro. “And they brought toys with them. How fun.”

My eyes fell on Leander and— oh no —the narrow end of a tentacle had wrapped around his neck. The tip of the appendage gave a little wave, taunting me, beckoning me to just try to pry it off, but not even Leander had the strength to unwind it.

One hand was determined to stay latched on to me while the other labored at his throat, his harpoon dangling uselessly at his elbow. Could he even breathe?

Panicked, I shoved the handful of pearls at him, praying he would know what to do with them. Leander didn’t hesitate. His fist clasped mine, and warmth flooded our joined hands, the feverish energy swelling, pressure building, until the entire ocean burst into brilliant white.

Light .

I couldn’t be sure if the shriek in my ears had come from me or the cecaelia as white light scorched its mark over my eyes, searing me, destroying my vision in that one brilliant flash. The pearls dropped through my fingers as I threw Leander’s hand off, moving to guard my eyes much too late.

“Leander?” I cried, fighting the urge to claw the blind spots from my vision. The throbbing headache from earlier was nothing compared to this pain, this burning . Would I ever be able to see again? “Barren? Kai?”

There was no answer except the sound of flesh ripping and snapping as butchery broke out around me. I dug into Barren, feeling his muscles strain and pull, combatting an enemy I couldn’t even see. Frantic, I counted the hands still holding on to me. One, two… One, two… Three. One…

I picked out Leander’s growl, and my whole body seized up, paralyzed by the thought that the sickening rip I’d just heard might have come from a part of him. Of any of them .

Then the surrounding water suddenly grew thick, and my stomach heaved as the carnage worked into my nostrils, into my mouth, glazing the inside of my throat.

My eyes strained, but there were only blurry fragments. Leander’s chin, Kai’s tail. Limbs thrashing, beating back shadows that slid through the water too fast to track.

Then a shriek came, and it was so savage, so resonant, it could have only come from the maw of a demon.

A final rip sounded, and I felt Leander jerk beside me, yanking the sharp end of his harpoon free from what I could only hope was a part of the enemy. “Claira,” he grunted, far too breathless. “Are you hurt?”

“ Me? ” Emotion cracked my voice. “ You . Are you hurt?”

Leander chuckled—the infuriating idiot actually chuckled —and it was like my heart had started beating again.

He was okay.

Barren’s chest heaved under me, the bulk of him still tense, his muscles teeming with strength. “Barren? Kai?”

My vision started to clear on my next blink, and Kai’s toothy smile was waiting, though the glow in his eyes made mine burn even more.

“That was gross,” he said, shimmying his shoulders. He rolled his tongue like he was trying to work a chunk of something nasty out of the back of his throat.

I took a deep breath until the drag of saltwater relieved the tightness in my chest. We were okay, but we could have died . The cecaelia didn’t even have a weapon. Hell, he didn’t need a weapon. But we were okay for now.

Another horrible thought knocked the oxygen back out of me—this was just one of them. Surely there would be more.

Pearls littered the sea floor around us, their glow faint like the very end of a spent wick. I’d never seen a mer try to light a pearl before, and maybe this was why. Their magic was already about to burn out.

I followed the long line of a limp tendril down below us and shuddered when it met with what was left of the cecaelia’s torso. Black eyes stared, angled up toward the surface, those creepy lips of his never to curl again. I should have felt relieved, but I felt sickened. Immobilized by fear.

This wasn’t me—wasn’t Claira . I wasn’t a weakling. I wasn’t scared—not normally. Not on land. But here in the ocean…

“I was so scared.” My arms trembled, fixed around Barren. “The bright light, the pearls—I couldn’t see anything! How did you guys fight him?”

My question was met with an uneasy silence.

“Did he touch you?” Barren asked suddenly, an urgency in his voice that I hadn’t heard before.

“He got a tentacle around Leander’s neck,” I said, my arms shaking even harder. I eyed Leander to see if he was truly okay.

“No,” Barren cut back, his voice drawing me over, his dark eyes taking me in. “I want to know if he touched you. ”

“I—” I blinked back at him, stunned. Had the cecaelia touched me? Did it matter if he had? “I don’t think so,” I said carefully, and it might have been the purple glow or the damage to my vision, but the harsh square of Barren’s shoulders seemed to soften with relief.

“Oh, Kai, shut your eyes!” I gasped, remembering too late how close we were to the palace. Where there was one, there was bound to be more. There had to be.

But Kai was motionless down to the spiked tip of his tail, his eyes fixed on the corpse of the cecaelia underneath us.

“Kai?”

Even the hand buried in my frills had stopped moving. All his attention was on the cecaelia, his eyes searching over it wildly. Had he noticed something strange about the corpse? Kai’s smile dropped slowly, and when he looked up at me, there was a seriousness in him that terrified me.

The next second happened too fast yet so painfully, terribly slow.

Kai’s lips parted, and my name tore from his throat so forcefully I’d never be able to shake it. Movement pooled around us as Kai dived forward, covering my body with his own. All around us, tentacles reared up from dark cracks underneath the fallen cecaelia, and the ocean exploded into black ribbons, jeers, and cruel laughter.

The place I’d thought was nothing more than sand and rocks must have actually been a rift, and bodies poured endlessly from its depths, some of them clothed in ocean silks, others dragging long twists of sharpened metal. Kai’s arms curled around me, but his eyes never left mine. Barren and Leander’s tails rippled with movement, fighting to pull us away, but how could they out-swim the growing shadows? The deadly mash of metal and twisted chaos about to swallow us whole?

Water beat against my face as we retreated, but I looked back, watching in horror as the tiny, insignificant cracks birthed even more dark spawn. How many could there possibly be?

But Barren and Leander did the impossible. Although their numbers were increasing, the cloud of black was getting smaller, and I let myself think for a moment that everything might be okay. They were heading for us, but we… we were faster .

“We’re losing them,” I called, but it was getting harder to see every moment. I blinked. Why was the purple light dimming? “… Kai?”

His arms were still around me, fixed, his crystal-clear eyes looking into me. Or were they looking through me?

My blood turned to ice.

“Claira,” Kai mouthed, no sound coming out, but a small boyish smile lined his lips.

No. No, no . He couldn’t… They’d gotten us out of there so fast, there was no way…

Leander looked down at us and cursed. “ Fuck .”

“Kai?” I whispered back, my lungs nearly too tight to move, but I knew I had to get his name out. To let him hear me say it.

Kai’s lips twitched, trying to hold up his smile.

“You—you’re okay,” I choked out, needing him to believe the words. Needing to believe them myself. I glimpsed the dark streak trailing in the water behind us, and terror gripped me. Even in the fading light of his eyes, I knew its true color. Red . “We’ll… We’ll get out of here together. Get you back to your girl. Back… Back to Laverne—”

“Claira, listen to me.”

It was Leander’s voice, but my head was shaking, my eyes staring at the glint of metal peeking over Kai’s shoulder. The larger fin on his back had caught the nasty tangle of metal, and now the entire fin fell sideways, vibrating with the movement of the water like it might break loose in the current at any moment.

His grip was faltering, his strength leaving as his fingers uncurled. Leander was still talking, but I couldn’t hear anything but the rush of water, feel anything but this excruciating pain.

Kai, I tried, but my voice was too weak.

“Listen!” Leander jerked my chin toward him, his lips enunciating each word so he was sure I would hear him. “You have to let go of him.”

Let go of him? I needed to bring him back with us, to get him help, to get him to Laverne.

Leander shook me. “Fuck, Claira, trust me! You have to let go, and you have to do it NOW!”

Trust him? How could I trust him? He hated Kai. He—

Leander’s icy eyes stared into me as the last of Kai’s light faded, and the sincerity there, the sadness in them… I knew. I knew I needed to trust him.

“On three,” he said, both his and Barren’s tails coming to a stop. He wrapped one hand around me and the other around the weapon sunk in Kai’s back. “One, two.” He yanked the metal free from Kai’s spine with a crack . “Three!”

Part of my light left along with him as I let Kai go.

Pop .

A delicate betta fish appeared in the water, and my eyes glimpsed royal blue as it emerged from what was left of his shirt before the darkness crept in and my night vision took over.

My heart yearned to reach for him. To cup him in my hands, to keep him safe. But I thought of his mangled back and knew that my touch, the transformation, could bring him nothing but pain.

Barren’s hand caught my wrist, and he opened the pouch, digging a pearl out with a finger.

“What are you doing?”

“Close your eyes,” Barren said, a dark command in his deep voice. As soon as my eyes shut, white light beat against my eyelids.

“I can’t leave him,” he said, and then his lips were on mine. The contact was brief yet nothing like the reassuring pat he’d offered earlier. I felt all the strength of his muscular jaw in his lips, the urgency, the desperation . Like he knew that if he didn’t kiss me with all he had in him now, one of us might not live long enough to get the chance for it again. Then his lips, his body, his strength, all of it was gone. Barren ripped himself away from me, leaving me stunned.

“Keep her safe.”

I still felt the vibrations of his voice in the water as his body changed.

Pop .

“Wait!” I reached for him, then for Kai, but Leander’s arms wrapped around me, pulling me away with a rush of his tail. “ No! ”

“We have to move,” Leander said, but he was wrong. We couldn’t leave them! How could we possibly leave them?

“They’ll die, Lee!” I cried out, beating against him, but he held me tight. “Please!”

“They won’t,” he assured me, the vibration of his tail through the water desperate, unstable. “You had to let go to close his wound, Claira. They’ll make it to the top. We all made it to the top the first time.” He kept saying words, but how could I believe him? We were so far out that it wasn’t possible. Not everyone had made it. Kai’s sister hadn’t. But Leander wouldn’t listen. He just kept swimming, taking us further away.

I kept my eyes on the spot where we’d left them long after the pearl’s glow had faded. When my heart couldn’t possibly take any more, I finally turned away, and my flesh crawled at the sight in front of us.

Cecaelia .

There were dozens of them. Creeping behind rocks and drifting along the portal monoliths ahead. But how could Leander have known where he was going? He’d been swimming blindly in the dark while I’d been too consumed with grief to do the one useful thing I could manage underwater.

“You’re sure they’ll make it back to the surface?” I said slowly, carefully. Some had already noticed us, their appendages twirling through the current. Distant, but not for long.

“You know Barren will do his best to get them both back.” He sounded strangely uncomfortable saying Barren’s name. Like he hadn’t expected the kiss any more than I had.

The dark clouds drew nearer, and I took a salty breath, long and deep. “Lee? I think I’m hurt.”

His tail stopped just as fast as I knew it would. “Hurt? Where? Fuck, are you okay?”

“My tail. Could you look at it?” I pulled a pearl from my bag and slowly passed it to his palm. I watched his eyes, full of concern for me and unfocused in the dark. His hand curled around it gladly. “Go on and light it. My eyes are closed.”

I shielded my eyes as the pearl flashed to life. Leander wasted no time leaning forward to inspect my tail, but his body went rigid, and I knew the instant he noticed the danger closing in around us.

Leander’s lips parted to curse, and I did the only thing I could do. The only thing I knew might possibly save him. I let go.

“I love you, Lee. I’m sorry.”

Pop .

The body of a golden betta circled in the water, a bright pearl of light drifting down beside it, still shining.

And I… I was already sinking.

Silently, I prayed with everything I had to Poseidon that the pearl’s flash had blinded the cecaelia enough for Leander, that little golden betta, to go unnoticed. That somehow, all three of them would make it back to the surface. That they’d all be safe.

Even though I wouldn’t see any of them again, I could die here and now as long as I knew they’d made it. Leander. Barren. Kai.

Three separate pieces of my heart.

Tentacled bodies drifted closer, and useless as I was, there was no possible way I could escape them.