Page 10 of Of Rime and Ruin (Sirens of Adria #2)

Chapter eight

Nahla

One moment, I’m skipping waves with glosswhales. The next, I’m someone’s snack.

I sense it coming, the beast. Its large body forces through the water with shocking strength and speed. Fish flee it, their little minds sparking with terror.

What kind of beast this is, I have no clue. But I can’t fuck around and find out.

The glosswhales shriek, abandoning our game. They kick their tails and speed away in a fury of bubbles. My body catches in their wake, spinning from the force of the escape. The dark water swirls, and with it my sense of right-side-up.

I’m caught in open water. The sea floor is the same monotonous shade of blue as the dim light from the surface. I steady my fins, searching for somewhere to hide. Glacial walls surround the basin. If I could make it there in time, I could find a crevice—

I kick my tail. There’s no time to think. Just do.

My muscles ache with a chill. My gills flutter at record speed, laboring to filter oxygen from the cold water. Too slow. I kick harder until my tail screams from exertion. And it’s still not enough.

The beast barrels toward me, all my senses alert to its presence. How large is this thing? I risk a glance to my left, scanning the water. Nothing. To the right, nothing.

But I can feel it, all around me. Like the Rime is an extension of its essence.

A god among the fish.

The glacial wall comes into view. I adjust my course.

In my periphery, I spot it then. The large, blue body, strung in a tight line of muscle. Long, white hair slicks back from its face— his face. The broad angle of that jaw, the fierce brow, is undeniably male.

Ruthless and handsome all at once. A god, after all. Shit.

I kick harder, tearing my gaze away. My arms cramp as I strike, faster, faster, parting the water around my body. I spy a crack in the glacial wall and send all my good vibes in its direction, praying to all the gods—minus him—that my body will fit.

He stalks closer, closer. Faster than I thought possible.

I slam into the wall. Shit. Pain explodes in my shoulder. I curse and dive, aiming for the crevice.

I slip tail-first between the ice, wedging my entire body into the narrow space.

Jagged ice scrapes my skin, and I hiss in pain as a few scales rip away.

The walls crush, freezing cold. The fresh iron scent of my blood floats around me.

Through the crack in the opening, I’m forced to watch the beast as he makes his approach.

He’s unlike any merfolk I’ve seen before, propelling through the water with movement more akin to a shark than a whale. His hips swing side to side instead of up and down, two hind legs tucked against his tail as the long rope of muscle whips through the water.

He pivots. His body angles for my hiding space, nostrils flaring.

Stupid, stupid. Of course he’d try to follow.

As he turns, I glimpse the spikes that sprout from his spine, following the line of his long, thrashing tail.

Two curling horns pierce through the skin of his temples, framing a pair of dark eyes.

His gaze locks on me. Cold. Cruel. His lip curls, revealing rows of sharp teeth.

I’m fucked.

I press farther into the crevice. A rock digs into my back. My tail coils uncomfortably tight. My shoulders squeeze. The water is still in here, too still for my gills to filter properly.

Either the beast eats me or I suffocate.

What the fuck was I thinking, surviving on my own? I should have stayed on Ramona. Married that fucking land-bound prince.

The beast collides with the glacier and the ice trembles.

Another slam. His shoulder batters the ice. Then his claws grasp the entrance, curling into the rock. Dark blue. Sharp. They dig, and the ice crumbles in his grip.

Here dissolves Nahlani, Stupidest Princess of the Brine.

His face snaps into sight. Black eyes pierce me with a glare—void of emotion. He reaches inside, claws extended.

“Hey!” I shout. “I’m a friend!”

The beast cocks his head, but nothing more. I should have paid better attention in my diplomacy lessons.

“I’m Princess Nahlani of the Brine, and I mean you no harm. Please don’t eat me.”

His claws lengthen, slipping further out of the tips of his fingers. He opens his mouth as if to speak. Hope flares in my chest for a moment before the growl hits. Loud, reverberating through my bones. Shit. The ice around me trembles. Then, gods above, he licks his lips.

Diplomacy is dead. No matter how merfolk he may look—a predator can’t be reasoned out of his meal.

Then make it your bitch. Keen’s words bloom in my memory.

I lock eyes with the beast. His mouth parts in a snarl. With a steadying suck of my gills, I ready my spell.

I start with a low, soothing song, reaching for his conscience. If he’s animalistic, my magic might work on him. I lift out of myself, glancing back to see my body cowering in the glacial crack. The beast’s claws reach for me, scratching through the ice.

A dark barrier shrouds his mind like a hardened shell. Walls stretch high and thick. I press against the barrier, meeting cold resistance.

I hiss, retreating as ice crawls through the mental connection. My brain freezes and pain splinters through my head. My song drops dead in the water, and I land within myself.

I blink, refocusing. The beast’s eyes darken to impossibly black. His claws inch closer, screeching on the ice a scale’s breadth from my tail.

I shake my head, fighting the brain freeze with sheer force of my will. I sing again, stronger this time. My Voice ripples out. Angry. Loud.

I meet the barrier again, but instead of charging head-on, I spread out my magic, searching for weak points. I slip through the smallest crack, my conscience thin as thread.

The beast snarls. He blinks and shakes his head. Inside, his thoughts are a mess of black swirls, writhing like rattlefish.

Complex. Most fish are singular-minded with one dominant emotion at a time. With a psyche much closer to Ramona’s vast menagerie of thought, this creature has three emotions, at least. Chaos. Anger. Fear. And they’ve taken the offensive.

The tendrils rear their heads as I spiral into their midst. They lash at me with sharp tongues, protecting the center of his mind. I strengthen my spell, pouring more and more of myself into it until my energy uncoils from my gut and drains.

My Voice pierces his psyche, and the black mist parts to reveal the glowing center. The orb is black, with thin beams of white light streaking through the cracks. I speed toward it. Focus my energy. Surround him with my essence.

Friend.

I project the word with all I’ve got. His thoughts batter my conscience, cold as ice.

Friend, I repeat.

I concentrate on my happiest, warmest memory: climbing a palmwood as a guppy. Before the politics. Before I realized my future was a meaningless sham.

The bark scrapes my hands, rough and hot.

Its sap sticks to my skin and my hair. Broad leaves brush my arms. My feet press into the trunk, propelling me higher.

Higher. The high-tide sun beats from a clear sky.

Sweat drips on the side of my face. I reach for the sweetnut suspended within its branches, my mouth watering for its milk.

When I look down, Winona stands with her hands stretched, ready for the catch.

His claw snares my fin, and he yanks. My body slips out of the crevice, scraping along the ice. Pain traces my spine.

Fuck. I shouldn’t have gone with a food memory. For all I know, I’ve made him hungrier.

But he doesn’t eat me. Yet.

He tucks me into his side, claws gripping my hips, arm across my back.

My breasts press into his toned, scaled stomach.

His thigh brushes my tail, which tucks between his legs.

Against his body, I feel small. He’s at least twice my size.

I wriggle, trying to break his grip, and a growl rumbles through his body.

My stomach dips as the beast shifts. His muscles flex. He kicks with his legs, tail snapping, and propels us through the water. Against me, his hips move rhythmically side to side.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d think this was sexual.

I squirm and press my hand into his skin to strengthen our mental connection—his abs, I realize, as my fingers graze a pocket of raised muscle. Just beneath the broad pectoral. His nipple puckers from the cold, a dark button in a plane of blue scales.

FRIEND!

A reminder, for me and for the beast.

Within his mind, his center of self glows brightly, the orb expanding in a dome of light. The shadows soften and change color, from black to blue to white.

Curiosity floods his thoughts. He replays my sweetnut memory, focusing on the sunshine. The warmth.

That’s right, Beasty. See? We’re friends. I can show you the sun someday, if you like. Have you ever seen the sun before?

I pat his chest with my hand. Pat, pat, pat. Like a guppy.

This pisses him off. The curiosity zaps away, replaced once more with those shadow-tendrils. I flinch as they pelt me with ice, and I sever my spell to conserve what’s left of my energy.

I withdraw into the shell of my mind, gills fluttering fast.

It’s no use. His mind is too complicated for my skill. Ramona’s mind is more so, but she’s always been willing.

I’ve never met a creature I could not subdue. But this beast cannot be tamed.

His body shifts as he alters his course. I peer around his arm, watching the wake of water sprawl behind us as he speeds through the Rime.

Soon, we enter a submerged cave system, and my stomach flips. Is he going to eat me here? Take me home to feed his starving guppies?

The roof of the cave blocks the surface light, and the water darkens beneath its eerie blue shadow. He swims between ice walls, deeper into it. I can’t see much beyond the expanse of his skin.

Diplomacy has failed. Magic, failed. That leaves only Plan C: engage combat.

I bite his nipple. Hard.

The beast roars. He grabs at me, tugging my body away, but I latch on. His claws dig into my flesh, and the scent of my blood trickles into the water. I clamp the bud like a tartberry between my teeth.

He dives suddenly, wrenching his body into a sickening spiral toward the floor.

His hands leave me, and I’m left clinging to him with my teeth alone.

I reach for his shoulders and loop my arms around his thick corded neck.

But I can’t reach all the way around, and my hands slip on his smooth scales.

He twists again, and the torque sends me flying away from him.

I spiral backward, slamming into the ice. Stars splatter my vision.

Fuck Plan C. Time to go.

I push off the wall and kick my tail, speeding out the way we came.

The cave is a tunnel, with openings along the sides that lead into more tunnels.

One way in, one way out. A pocket of light streams through the opening.

I stretch for it, my body lengthening. The thin membrane of my tailfin clusters with ice, heavier than I’m used to.

I labor through the water, knowing already it won’t be enough.

The beast passes above me, then drops into my trajectory. His teeth flash in the low light, bright white razors. He grins—or grimaces, hard to tell—and raises his claws.

I stop short of slamming into him. I smile, doing my damndest to appear friendly as my heart batters my ribs. As if to say: See? I’m fucking adorable. Don’t you want to be friends?

His eyes trace me from head to tail, and a rumble emanates from his chest.

Can he not use words? For a sea god, he sure does a lot of growling.

Then he grabs me again, yanking my body like a wet strand of reedgrass. He dives into one of the side caves. The walls narrow around us. At the end of the tunnel, a dead end.

He tosses me, and I slam into the wall, tumbling down the ice to skid across the floor.

Metal creaks. I look up in time to see him dragging a grate across the opening. Thick iron bars to lock me in.

“Hey!” I shout, dashing toward him. The bars stop me, stinging ice against my skin. I slam my palm against the metal with a clang. “Chumwad!”

He stares at me, tail thrashing, but says nothing. Only snarls.

“You can’t do this to me! I’m a—”

The beast snorts, releasing a flood of bubbles, and with a push of his mighty legs, he slips out of the tunnel.

“Princess,” I mutter. The bubbles float to the ceiling and pop, one by one.

Princess or not, I’m in deep fucking shit.