Page 8 of The Princesses of Ruin (The Princesses of Ruin #5)

Chapter eight

Jasper

T he frigid wind blows off the north, trying to divert us from our destination. Seawater carves around my foot, and I sense the sandy floor below. Not many creatures stir this far north. A good meeting point.

“The crystals are secure,” Reina reports as she comes up from the hold. She’s buttoning her skintight leather shorts, rousing my interest. This isn’t the time, and I don’t allow myself to make space for those thoughts.

“And our supplies?”

She sits next to me. “Just enough to get home.”

When her feet touch the water, she hoots and pulls them back. I can’t help but laugh.

“It’s not the most ideal meeting place for a little human.”

She scowls at me, then lights her feet up with blue fire. They sizzle as she puts them back in and the warmth of her washes over my skin.

She smiles. “How much farther north?”

“We’re nearly there,” I say.

Our craft is small purely so my selkie magic can help push it along when—like now—the wind decides it doesn’t want to cooperate. I coax the water behind the ship to push against our hull .

Her hand slips around my waist and she leans her head on me. I wrap my arm over her shoulder and kiss her temple, taking in the scent of her golden hair. Even the sea can’t hide her smell.

“This is nice,” she whispers.

“Peaceful.”

She hums in agreement.

It’s been months of war, and the fire in the Upper Kingdom was a breaking point. We’re all overworked, underfed, and sleepless. I think Scarlett could see how exhausted Reina was and sent us away for more eksteinvas crystals as an excuse to reignite her fire.

After another few moments of blissful quiet, I feel the precipice in the distance.

“It’s time to drop anchor,” I say.

She sighs and nods as she pulls away. I throw our small, enchanted iron weight over the edge and watch it catch on the water with my magic. I turn to the open edge that will let us into the sea. Reina is staring into the dark water, her gaze almost vacant.

I hate not seeing the light in those eyes.

I scoop her up into my arms. Before she can get more than a squeal out, I jump.

We plunge into cold darkness and she screams out the last of her air.

Blue runes light up along her body and she transforms. Slits open along her ribs.

Webbed skin grows between her fingers. Her legs and toes elongate, looking more like fins than feet.

She wriggles out of my grasp and throws me a nasty gesture with a broad grin.

I let my full selkie form emerge. The sensation is akin to pulling off a wet shirt, except all over my body, all at once.

The cold of the sea transforms from a sting to a caress.

But unlike Reina’s smile, the loving embrace of the sea doesn’t calm my nerves.

Black rocks and stealthy predators loom just before a drop-off into the Deep, into Emerald Selkie territory .

“They will come,” Reina says in my native tongue, slipping her delicate hand into mine. Her warmth is hidden under layers of extra skin she’s grown over the past weeks, but her touch is reassuring all the same.

“I know,” I say. “I can hear them.”

“Are close?” she asks. Her vocabulary is still limited, but she’s learning so fast. A swell of pride takes up space where my worry sits, and I ease against her.

“Within minutes,” I say.

She leans into my side, kicking her webbed feet in tandem with my tail. “I’ll anger them?”

I wrap my arm around her waist and pull her closer.

She wears a tight leather vest to match her shorts, which obscure her anatomy, but she’s otherwise bare to the water.

The frilled gills along her ribs flutter with her exhale.

I trail a finger up her waist to her neck and cup her cheek.

Her large eyes shimmer green in the depths, and wisps of her blond hair float serenely out of her tight braid.

“You are different but not upsetting. They will be curious.”

“Curss?” she asks, fumbling the pronunciation of the word.

I stifle my grin and pull her lips to the seam of my mouth. She kisses me quickly, then pulls back and repeats the word with slightly better pronunciation and a furrow in her brow.

I rub my thumb down the wrinkles in her forehead to her nose, then kiss her again chastely. “Curious. To think about you. To want to know more.”

She smiles. “I understand.”

She repeats the word several times, and I watch her lips, caught up in the beauty of her. A shift in the flow of water raises the spines down my back on instinct. Tension fills my being and my gaze snaps toward the abyss .

“They’re here,” I say in Fynish, the syllables slow and difficult to form.

Reina’s head turns to follow my gaze, and her hand tightens on mine. The silhouetted shapes must be ghastly to her in the darkness, but to me, I see kin—and an old foe.

My talons flex as the ga’hanoi steals alongside the three selkie representatives. Its many limbs bloom like a flower before pushing it into a sharp spear that cuts through the water.

“What’s wrong?” Reina asks.

“Stay behind me,” I say, pushing her out of view.

The three selkies—Emerald, Crimson, and Onyx, respectively—approach with spines raised and fins flared, while the ga’hanoi stays back several waves. I focus on the chill of the water to calm my nerves and pray the scent of my fear doesn’t reach them.

“You’ve brought an outsider,” the Emerald representative says.

“My mate,” I say.

Onyx makes a sharp squeal of surprise and Reina flinches.

“The Opal Prince is mated to an abomination,” Crimson says, inciting anger to bleed through my fear. “Why have the gods punished us?”

“She is not what you say. She is Ki’ah Ohn, changed willingly through magic to adapt to the water.”

“We haven’t time for this. Why have you called us?” Emerald says.

“We’ve come to speak of the return of a dark goddess, Ashai.” The word burns like hot coals in my mouth. “Those able to stand against her must, or we will lose all of Gaien.”

“The land, perhaps, but not the sea,” Onyx says.

“She will boil the sea and eat every creature in it,” I say.

Crimson waves a dismissive hand. “Fables of Ki’ah Ohn to lure us to the surface. They covet our bodies for their dark magic. ”

“I am sorry for the past,” Reina says.

Each representative rears back in surprise, their spines flexing.

“You’ve taught it to speak?” Crimson asks with disgust.

The ga’hanoi flitters closer. The writhing tentacles that encase its upper body peel apart, revealing its large black eyes pinned on my mate. I spin us subtly to hide her from its dark gaze.

“ She could speak long before I taught her our words,” I say hotly.

“We will not hurt you. I will punish them,” Reina says.

“Ruby Isle will not be party to the destruction of our kind.” Crimson drifts away, using the current to pull him back to the depths.

“Ki’ah Ohn can be trusted again. The new rulers respect life. I would not be here if they didn’t,” I say.

“New rulers,” Onyx says dubiously. “If the goddess is still queen, they do not rule, do they?”

“They will rule. They need our help,” I say.

Emerald shakes his head. “And what do they promise? Not to hunt us? We risk destruction for a peace that should be ours by right.”

“We want to appease,” Reina says, her limited vocabulary striking again.

“Negotiate,” I say for her.

Crimson laughs from beside the ga’hanoi. “It cannot even speak. How can it negotiate?”

I snarl. “Call my mate it again and my fangs will find you.”

“Jasper,” Reina whispers in Fynish. “They are right to be worried.”

I pull my lips back over my teeth, hiding them from her. “It is not their worry that upsets me, but their disrespect. ”

She cups my cheek. “Thank you for trying to protect me, but your anger will not serve us.” Her words are slow, the water drawing out each sound.

“We’ve lingered here too long,” Emerald says. “What evidence can you give my king that our ocean is under threat?”

“The word of the Opal Prince is not enough?” I ask.

“Opal clan was crushed by Ki’ah Ohn. Why do you trust them?” Onyx asks.

“Not all Men are made equal,” Reina says.

“Yes, some are made with a warm slit to bury your cock in,” Crimson says.

My body explodes into my octopus form and I’m upon Crimson in a single, furious surge of my limbs. I hold his arms akimbo and bear down on his throat with all my might. I yearn to snap open his guts with my beak and let the sea devour him, but it would be too quick a death.

“Stop!” Blue light flares behind me and the water heats to uncomfortable temperatures. The sharp burn against my rubbery skin snaps me back into my mind. I release the Crimson representative and return to my selkie form.

He holds his neck, glaring at me with a snarl.

My spines flex as I feel the disturbance of the ga’hanoi move through the water.

I twist around to see the wicked creature floating before Reina.

Its thick limbs peel back and reveal its gelatinous upper body.

It’s shaped like a selkie’s half form: broad shoulders and a head where it’s perched its large eyes.

I beat my tail and return to Reina, putting myself between them despite the immense heat that sears my skin. Its head elongates, one eye on each side as it stretches to look around me .

“Sunlight,” it says, voice warbling from its gut where its mouth lies.

“Stay back,” I warn.

“We’ve attracted attention,” Emerald says as he pulls away. “I will tell my king what I have seen.”

The ga’hanoi’s upper body ripples as its thick limbs conceal it once more.

The water shifts, pushing the monster back toward the other selkies.

It blooms like a sinister flower of sharp petals, then surges into the darkness.

Crimson gives me one last snarl, and Onyx bows her head before they all disappear back to the depths.

Reina wraps her arms around me, pressing her hands to my chest and her cheek to my back. I pull down my spines as she squeezes herself against me.

“That went well.”