Page 36 of Cruel Tides (Queen of Tridents #2)

36

Leander

I hated being a fucking fish.

I’d heard them carrying Claira away, but I couldn’t see whaleshit in this damned darkness, and now I was all alone, just me and my regrets. It was my fault they’d taken her. Why the fuck had I hidden? I should have stayed and fought, shielded her with my body, something, anything other than popping back into a fucking fish!

Nosing the last pearl out of the bag, I prayed my efforts weren’t just another fool’s errand. Most of my magic was cut off in this form, but pearls lit so damn easily. Maybe, just maybe, I could get one going, and then I could find my way out of this fucking torture pit.

I edged closer to the pile of pearls and stretched a fin out, concentrating every particle of magic I could summon on just that one spot.

If just one pearl lit, it might be enough to set off the others. It was a stupid plan, but I was out of options. The cecaelia had said “execution,” and there was no way I’d let anything happen to Claira. Not ever. My beautiful mate .

So I tried to light the damn pearl.

Come on, come on, come on. Fuck! I could feel the warmth collecting in my body and funneling down to my fin, but it wasn’t enough. Dammit . I slapped my fin down on the pearl in my rage, and— Poseidon’s balls —it flickered.

Desperate, I slapped it again and again until the pearl ignited with a whoosh . I watched, stunned, as the glow caught and spread to the ones next to it, then the ones next to those, until a brilliant bright white light lit up every crevice in the dungeon.

Fuck yeah!

I was still dizzy and struggling to filter in breaths, but at least now I could see. I hadn’t even finished celebrating when a dark cloud overtook the hallway, nearly snuffing out the light I’d worked so hard to create. Fuck! Diving for cover, I slipped into a bed of seagrass.

It didn’t surprise me when the darkness molded into the form of a cecaelia. Rows of tentacles shaped into perfect spirals behind him, except for the one lengthy appendage that curled upward, nearly reaching the sharp points of a blackened trident. Striking white eyes passed over me, and I froze as they landed on the lit pile of pearls. Shit .

I’d never heard of a sea wizard, but I’d been taught a great deal about sea witches, and the white eyes and wickedness seemed to check out, so I was willing to bet there was truth in his title. But what he was mattered little to me. He’d used his magic on Claira. Made her whimper and scream. When I got my hands on him, I’d rip his fucking guts out and stuff them back in, feeding them down his throat like a rope.

Acting like the evidence of mer magic mattered little to him, the sea wizard turned away, slinking to the back of the prison wall. He reached a long arm out and pressed his palm over the stones in the exact spot Claira had been bound. The fuck was he doing? Eyes drifting shut, emotion strained his face while he just… held it there.

I had no clue what he was doing, but maybe this was my chance to escape.

“Ah. There you are.” White eyes flashed open, and he pushed off the wall with a spin that sent seven out of eight of his appendages fanning out in a spiral. The last one lowered, parting the grass where I hid with a dangerously sharp point of a trident. “It seems my collection is growing.”

A tentacle swept over me, plucking me out of the seagrass, and as much as I thrashed, I was helpless to stop it.

“A red and now a yellow.” He examined me with those chilling white eyes in the light. “Or should I say… gold? You are royalty, are you not?”

Another tentacle whipped by, flashing the red fish it held captive. Just a glance. I couldn’t tell if the fish was still breathing, but I knew right away who was wrapped in that tentacle. Barren .

Did that mean Kai hadn’t survived?

The tentacle tightened around me. “Time to go,” the sea wizard said, and with a vicious strike of the trident against stone, darkness flooded the dungeon.