Page 33 of Death’s Kiss (The Order of the Tide Raiders #1)

A deep violet hue now tinges Kleio's once lovely pink lips. Her skin reflects an unmistakably fatal blue-gray tone. Mercifully, her eyes are presently closed.

I think I’m going to vomit.

How could she possibly have gotten down here? Did they place her here as an added challenge?

What the fuck ? What the fuck? What the fuck?

My thoughts are frantic and quickly running away from me. I don’t have time for this. I don’t have time to panic. All that matters now is saving Kleio. There has to be something left to save.

I won't even consider the alternative.

Stripping off my captain's jacket first, I tear off the arrangement of weapons from my person second, so as not to weigh me down. The mini moon has stopped spinning, allowing the other pools to settle as I plunge down into the blackness for the person dearest to my stone-cold heart .

Hitting the water, I let out a sharp bark of pain.

It fills me with an agony I’ve never before experienced.

I never had a reason to dislike the cold, and thanks to my affinity, I've never been more than slightly uncomfortable in frosty terrain, yet the frigid tidepool rapidly becomes unbearable.

I search the black waters quickly for my second, whose body is somehow missing .

“Kleio!” I cry out in terror.

Her body was just here . It was just right here .

I call her name again, but it comes out strangled from the freezing pain beginning to cut into my bones. I have no choice. The water is quickly becoming deadly. I take a large gulp of air and dive fully beneath the surface before beginning to frantically search in a determined sort of frenzy.

A low guttural sound of grief emanates from my chest when resurfacing without her.

I can’t understand it; she can’t have sunk.

It's not possible.

I’ve begun splashing around in a torturously blind fit. The feeling in my hands and feet is lessening to a point of complete numbness, but I can’t stop. I can’t leave her here . My cries are little more than agonized pleas while screaming her name. I think I might even call for Vash.

The peculiar water is filled with so much pain that I almost don’t register the voice yelling back at me. “ Boreas !” Someone shouts again from above, his tone low and jarring.

Recognition of that voice calling my name rips me out of the suffocating nightmare for a single moment. Gazing upwards in shock, I discover Captain Agni scowling down at me from the ledge of the tide pool. His amber eyes flicker with annoyance when meeting mine.

Warmth blooms inside of me at long last. A warmth radiating from my own personal vibrant loathing towards the male above me. I hold onto it tightly—a single match in a maelstrom.

What Agni does next, however, shocks me more than anything thus far .

He holds out his hand.

The black water gripping me with its deadly clutches is growing more unbearable with each passing moment, but I shake my head at him in vigorous refusal. “N—no, Kleio is he—here. I saw her bo–body” I stumble on the last word, my voice breaking against the unnatural chill.

Agni heaves a frustrated sigh. He starts, "Your Kleio isn't here, Boreas—"

"No, she is! She is ! I saw her—she was in here . She must have gone looking for us when we didn’t come back from dinner and found an entrance to the tunnels and—” I cut him off, barely even able to finish the thought without hyperventilating.

The southern captain groans loudly into the echoing cavern, like he’d rather be anywhere else in the world but here.

Yet he’s quick, faster now even than he was on the mat.

In one fluid motion, Agni leans down and grabs for my arms before forcefully wrenching me out of the black-cut waters, completely ignoring my shouts and struggles.

I'm about to swing at him, my body vibrating with outrage, when he captures my chin in his grip. His hand then forces my head towards the pool glimmering beneath the false moonlight.

“ See .” He gestures towards the empty basin. My mouth parts in surprise, and my head begins throbbing painfully while my face turns back to his with an expression of complete confusion.

Agni shakes his head of messy obsidian waves. “All of these are just illusions. The pools are reflections of yourself. Your deepest fears, darkest secrets, other things…” His voice drifts off.

My teeth begin chattering from the black waters lingering chill. I’m no longer vibrating with outrage; I’m shaking from shock and cold. Agni looks down at my trembling form and rolls his eyes. “You really are pathetic,” he scoffs with another shake of his head.

I can’t even open my mouth to argue. I'm shivering so intensely it's starting to hurt. To my surprise, he snaps his ring-adorned fingers, and a wave of soft warmth instantly rolls over and through me. Delicious heat dries my clothes and dripping hair until I'm perfectly warm again.

I manage to grit out a bitter, “Thanks.”

Agni laughs, but it doesn’t sound real. It’s not his typical scathing chuckle. This one is instead filled with all the heat of a beach bonfire. The sound skitters down my spine and does repulsive things to my insides.

Glancing back up, I find Agni staring down at me with a new sort of intensity.

It’s different from the dark glares I normally catch him throwing my way. The look he’s studying me with begins to toe the line between his usual simmering loathing and something… else .

I can’t quite place it. I’m not even sure I want to.

Agni’s ring-adorned hand reaches out and slides itself through my hair. I flinch at the unexpected movement. The white strands in his palm glow with a beautiful opalescent hue under the pulsing orb light. His eyes, still intently studying my face, shine voraciously.

“ Quoniam nullus of hic est real, ego opinor id nolo materia, ” Agni murmurs to himself.

I’m too stunned to fully grasp what happens in the next second. One moment we’re standing there, and the next his hand is cupping my jaw while his mouth crushes itself to mine.

It’s complete madness. Pure unexplainable mania. I might actually be going insane.

My brain feels like it’s splintering.

His demanding, sultry lips taste like spices from lands I'm desperate to see, while his roving touch feels like playing with living fire. Dangerous. Another heartbeat passes with his mouth devouring mine and I discover, to my own shock and horror, that I’m suddenly ravenous.

I begin returning his hungry kisses with my own startlingly intense and passionate need .

I’ve never wanted somebody to touch me more in my entire life. Never felt like I might actually implode if they don’t kiss me harder, faster. There’s a concerning pounding beginning to beat louder and louder against my eardrums as I continue damning myself with the sin of his touch.

Gods I hate him.

I hate him so much that I think it just might fucking consume me. Sometimes I lie awake in my bunk at night, fueled by the obsession to take him down and watch him meet the end he so deserves. The echo of his mutilated kelpie’s heartbreaking wailing still haunts my dreams.

I hate how he talks to me. I hate the names he calls me. I hate who he is, inside and out.

I’m burning with that hatred. I’m freezing with it.

I break away from Agni with a harsh shove from the very last remaining sliver of my sanity, and he looks down at me in stunned surprise. His lips are temptingly swollen, and his dark hair is indecently ruffled. Something awful grows warm inside of me at the sight of him so disheveled.

“Come on, Boreas ,” Agni all but purrs. “Don’t you want to see what fire and ice can create?” To emphasize his point, a ball of living flame appears in his hand before vanishing just as quickly.

Shaking my head, I think back to his earlier show of power. “How is that possible?” I demand, my voice hoarse. “The wine had kratosbane in it. It cut off our affinities and—” I scan the otherwise vacant cavern. “Where is Corvina?”

Agni’s smirk slips, but only for a moment before he takes a step closer to me; his movements are as predatorial and skillful as a panther. The branch of lightning that forms his scar appears hauntingly glorious under the pulsating light. It’s like facing an extremely beautiful nightmare.

“Merena,” he whispers darkly before taking another step.

“ Merena? ” I bark back in question, now entirely freaked out. “You have never, not once, called me by my name. I have only ever been squid to you.”

Why are there tears in my voice ?

Captain Agni frowns and tilts his head downward to study me. “Don’t you want me to? Don’t you like the sound of your name on my lips?” He then lowers his head beside my ear, and I go still. “ Merena, ” he whispers my name like a prayer. A shiver ripples through my person in response.

Then he says it much, much louder. “MERENA!”

I flinch away from him, but Agni grabs onto my shoulders and begins to shake me, hard .

“MERENA!” he shouts again. “ MERENA! ”

The southern captain sounds so completely petrified that I vomit.

Water, dark and salty, sputters out of me. I’m struggling to breathe now, gasping for air. When he continues shaking me, my hands fly to my neck. I cough again, and more water comes out.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Agni?” I snarl, jolting upward and immediately hurling again.

“Agni? By Nawai— Merena , are you okay?”

I stiffen, my eyes squeezing shut and opening a beat later to find Vash leaning over me, concern and alarm coloring his face. His bronze hair shines from the distant glow of the mini moon, and I clamp my hands on either side of my head with a deep groan.

“No, no, no, no ,” I nearly sob, rocking back until my shoulders hit a wall. There’s a pounding pressure born from madness compressing my skull, and I feel as though it really might crack.

“Are you real?” I choke out, looking at Vash with wild eyes, my voice verging on hysteria.