Page 13 of Pirate Witch

My beast relinquishes a tiny smidgen of its hold on my mind, like he’s aware that both of us need to be present for whatever is happening.

“Cas?”

The burning, tingling feeling in my tail disappears, but so too does my awareness of it. For an instant, I wonder if I’ve been injured somehow, but I don’t start to sink beneath the waves as I would if my tail were to truly stop functioning. My beast stays quiescent in the corner of my mind, almost like he’s waiting for something.

“Cas?”I try again.“What’s happening?”

“It’s hard to explain,”he responds, thoughtfully.“I think… I think we’ve merged.”

Too many questions zoom around my head, and I lower my head, feeling my way along the side of my body.

Only, I don’t get far before I feel a fork in my coils that wasn’t there before. My barbels twitch as I try to understand what’s happened.

“Two heads, two necks, one tail,”Cas supplies helpfully.“Just like Nona used to tell stories about.”

I want to scoff and tell him that Nona’s stories are exactly that. Stories. Legends made up to amuse little children. The ancient leviathan was certifiably insane and once tried to convince us that an imaginary vegetable-obsessed fae named Otis would plant potatoes in our socks if we didn’t wash them properly.

But the evidence is right there. I can feel it.

“What the—? How is this supposed to—? Why did—?”I can’t seem to get any of my questions out. I’m still in shock.

“I think I can give you control of our tail if I want,”Cas muses, clearly enjoying his experiment.“I’m pretty sure I’m only in charge of that because your beast is letting me right now…”

“Wait, why doesn’t my beast want to fight anymore?”I demand.“What happened? Did you submit?”

“We should shift back,”he says, instead of answering.

“How? If we’re joined together…”

Before I can finish my thought, my tail tingles again, sensation returning in a rush.

I don’t need eyes to know that somehow, Cas has just returned to his human form. My beast presses soothingly against my mind, and for the first time, I start to wonder if this wasn’t what he wanted all along. The creature seems so smug and self-satisfied in a way he’s never been before.

Goddess, I have a headache.

ChapterFive

NILSA

Like the rest of the crew, I’m still trying to process what just happened. Did we really see what I think we did?

Both leviathans seemed exhausted towards the end of the fight. Their strikes became sluggish, and I honestly thought the twins had given up, or one had conceded below the surface, and we’d somehow missed it. In the sky above, the Moon glints brighter for an instant. A wink of light so fast I’d have missed it if I wasn’t already looking for her, praying for answers.

Then their tails began to glow with the golden sparks that indicated a shift. Like the rest of the crew, I was expecting them to reappear in their human forms.

Only that didn’t happen. Somehow they’ve merged; becoming one leviathan. Or rather, one leviathan with two heads. The two of them stare down at us as if they’re one being rather than two. Are they?

How is this even possible?

Their long serpentine bodies are fused a few metres below their heads. Their scales have merged in a hypnotic pattern of teal and turquoise, which starts at the point where their necks meet and continues down to the tips of their graceful fins. The golden glow of the shift takes over the beast once more, and when it recedes, only Nos’s leviathan is left in the water. Cas’s human body lands on the deck with a huge grin on his face, despite being battered and bruised from the fight. He skips towards me to steal a kiss, but I’m too shocked to return it.

“Hydra.” Val spits the word like a curse. “You didn’t thinkto fucking mention thatcould happen?”

He’s barely finished speaking when Nos shifts back, too.

Unlike Cas, he hasn’t had decades of practice at landing on the deck. He undershoots the distance between himself and the boat, and his body hangs in the air for a comical second before dropping into the water with a splash. Before I realise what’s happening, Klaus abandons his hold on my waist and leaps in after him. I hold my breath until both men surface. Nos gasps loudly as soon as his face clears the water, swiping water out of his face as he drags in air.

Val seems to judge that the threat to his ship is over, and the transmutation circles covering the ship disappear. The sudden darkness takes a second for me to adjust to. By the time I can see again, Nos and Klaus have made it up the ladder and onto the deck.