Page 19 of The Withering Dawn (Wicked Tides)

Everything was a blur when we slammed into the water. Waves rolled me about until I didn’t know which way was up.

When I finally righted myself and managed to get my head above water, I saw Aleksi struggling away from the sharp rocks, clearly unable to use one arm.

“Swim!” I shouted.

He struggled into calmer water, barely keeping his head up after he clipped one of the sharp rocks in our descent.

I found myself preoccupied with his wellbeing and for an instant, I forgot Antonio had fallen with us.

Then he burst from the water between us, flailing wildly.

He grabbed hold of Aleksi, shoving him under the water as if trying to use him as a float.

I kicked toward them, wrapping my fingers in Antonio’s thin hair and tugging his head back, forcing him under the water.

He struggled desperately and Aleksi surfaced, pushing away from him.

“Fucking kill him!” he gasped furiously. “Kill him for us, Nazario! End the fucking bastard!”

Antonio twisted, managing to get a breath, and I swung my fist into his nose, feeling it collapse under my knuckles. Blood sprayed out of his nostrils and into my face. I hit him again, possessed by rage like it was a plague, devouring all other thoughts.

“Don’t move. Stay right there and don’t scream.”

I roared, hitting him again.

“You’re my boy. My beautiful boy.”

I punched him again and that time, a sharp pain radiated through my hand when I realized I knocked his teeth out.

“You can scream today,” he laughed, finishing his cup of wine. “I’m feeling playful.”

The way Antonio’s face had become a red mess of torn flesh and broken teeth didn’t give me the pleasure I was seeking. Because he wasn’t dead.

But the ocean mocked me. A wave crashed into my back and ripped my vengeance from my grasp. Antonio slid out of my grip and a veil of saltwater fell over my head. When I could see again, Antonio was struggling to gain distance from me. I swam toward him, frustrated with the weight of my coat, and caught his ankle, but the bastard turned again, that same madness spreading like sickness in his eyes.

I saw the knife quick enough to dodge it, but I still felt the burn as it sliced against the side of my head. I snarled, grabbing his wrist and in an attempt to wrestle the thin blade out of his hand.

Everything was harder in the water. My clothes tangled around my legs. My boots were heavy. Frustrated, I slammed my head against the bridge of Antonio’s already broken nose. He was gasping to breathe, every shout a gargle as water flooded his mouth.

I just wanted him dead. I didn’t care how. I just wanted him dead. He threatened my sanity. My men. And his final threat would be toward Aeris.

I wanted. Him. Dead.

As if the ocean had heard me again, a figure breached the surface behind Antonio and in the violent upheaval, I could see glimpses of red. Like a serpent, it coiled around Antonio’s body and dragged him screaming beneath the surface. I pushed away from him, treading water and staring at what was now an empty space in front of me. Silence replaced what was a noisy struggle seconds ago. I skimmed the murky water around me, but I saw nothing. Antonio was gone and the creature with him.

But it wasn’t a creature.

I knew exactly what it was.

Part of me was shouting commands at my body to swim to shore and get out of the ocean. It was a deadly place. I didn’t have to have Aeris’s sixth sense to know it. I could feel it in the way the water chilled my bones. But the shock in me made me stay, waiting to see something breach the surface. Antonio. Aeris. Anyone.

Just as I was about to start swimming, something popped out of the sea beside me, red bubbles pooling around it. As it rolled toward me, I could see panic frozen on Antonio’s face. His eyes were rolled up in his head. His cheek bore a deep, angry scratch that sliced through his top lip, parting it like the curtains on a stage to reveal his broken teeth. His neck was shredded, gnarled flesh like fabric haphazardly torn to shreds.

I wanted to savor that look on his severed head, but instead I pushed him away and started toward the beach, losing interest quickly when I realized it was Aeris that I’d seen suck him under the waves.

Antonio had a knife and I knew what she was, but that weapon was all I could think of.

I rode a wave toward the shore and when I could finally stand, I walked onto the beach and found Cathal holding his shirt to Aleksi’s arm. They both looked up at me, hope overshadowing any pain on their faces.

“Where is the cunt?” Cathal asked.

“Dead,” I said, dropping to my knees to catch my breath.

“You’re sure?”

“Don’t think he can survive without his head.”

They both drew back at that.

“You tore off his head?” Aleksi asked.

“Not me.”

All three of us slowly turned to the sea, watching the waves roll onto the sand like the ocean was laughing at us. Aeris was out there. Antonio was dead. I didn’t know which one to focus on more.

“Aeris did it?” Cathal said.

“Aye. I think she did,” I said, lurching to my feet.

“So, where is she?”

“I don’t know.”

Soon, we all saw a shape approaching the water, but it was not the feminine form I was looking for. It was Nikolas in a boat rowing toward us. I walked over to help him pull the boat onto the beach and then grabbed his shoulders, turning him to face me.

“What happened to looking after her?”

He shrugged, his brows shooting up as if to defend himself. He began to gesture with his hands, desperately communicating that he couldn’t stop her from leaving, and I cursed, pacing the edge of the water. I was starting to feel the stress of her absence. Antonio was dead. What other reason did she have to stay under the water?

Unless she was hurt. Or worse.

I swept my hands through my wet hair, throwing it away from my face.

“Cap’n, he’s gone,” Aleksi called after me. “That’s what matter’s, yeah?”

“That’s not all that matters,” I said to myself.

Aeris

Everything was a blur. I homed in on Nazario in the water like a shark to blood and when I saw the man with him, every muscle in my body tensed with hate. Nazario’s hate. The merciless hands of madness seemed to grip me and wouldn’t let go until I knew he was safe. So, when I saw the man—his demon—I lunged. I cut through the water toward him and coiled my long tail around his legs, sucking him under.

And I kept going. I dragged him deeper and deeper, heading further into the cold darkness as he writhed. And when I could hardly see the surface, I released him, letting his disorientation take over. He rolled and spun in the open sea, slashing wildly with the thin knife in his hand until he realized he was drowning.

The knife dropped from his grip and he began clawing at his throat as if doing that would prevent him from suffocating. I watched him, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness just to see the terror reshape his aged features. He saw me in the murk, disbelief painted on his frantic features as I hovered before him. Then he started to kick toward the surface, but he wouldn’t make it in time. I’d taken him too deep.

It was him. The one who’d hurt Nazario the most. Antonio. My head tilted to the side and a dark, insistent, unfamiliar creature took over my mind and body, urging me to get rid of him. To free Nazario of his heaviest chains. My fangs ripped through my gums, making my mouth ache. I beat my tail in the water and lunged, coiling around him again with choking force, my teeth ripping into the side of his neck. The scent of blood and fermented alcohol filled the water around me, but I kept biting, tearing through flesh and tendons. Through bone. He screamed, his voice muffled in the deep murk.

Grasping his chin with my hands, I twisted. And twisted. And twisted until I heard an eerie pop followed by instant silence.

I let go… and his head began to float upward toward the water’s surface while his body remained wrapped in the length of my tail. Slowly, I released that, too, letting it drift away, twitching and spewing copious amounts of blood into the already dark ocean.

I’d killed again. I had killed so quickly and so easily and it horrified me. Yri were not predators and yet I’d proven that I was capable of the worst violence.

I felt sick. I felt outside myself. I looked up at the faint light gleaming from the top of the water and I saw Nazario swimming toward the beach, but I knew my lack of control had stolen something from him. I had taken his vengeance. His closure. The thing he wanted the most.

I couldn’t face him. Not with the shame I was suddenly feeling. So, I swam deeper, finding a cluster of sharp stones with a crook just big enough to fit my coiled body. I nuzzled inside, hugging myself when I realized just how frigid the uninviting water was. In the darkness, I felt like a hundred gazes were watching me, waiting for me to emerge again and suck me into an abyss. It was unsafe there. Uneasy. Cold. That shore was surrounded by fiends and they were all hungry. Hateful. Waiting.

This was not the ocean my mother talked about.

But I could not bring myself to move. Not yet.