Page 16 of Waves (Tangled Crowns #6)

Avia

M y eyes flew open, and I sat up in bed, chest aching and tight, my wings crumpled against my back and coated in sweat despite the chill that pervaded the water. My fists rose and ground into my eye sockets as if the haggard dreams I just had could be rubbed away.

The eerie castle that Keelan and I had stumbled upon floated through my mind and snapped into focus. I’d dreamt that I’d been swimming through it, each flap of my wings as loud as a clap in the empty space. I remembered glancing behind and then pushing myself to go faster. Heart racing.

Someone had been chasing me. No, not someone. A shadow. A twist of smoke.

Terror still slit my veins, and throbbing, pulsing fear leaked from me and spilled across my skin. The hairs on my arms stood up straight, the scales on my upper arms flicked as if shivering, though I wasn’t cold. Though my cheeks burned, and a trickle of sweat ran between my shoulder blades.

Shoving aside my blankets, I rose and started to pace in my dark room. The icy walls of the glacier reflected down jagged beams of light from cracks far above, and when I looked down at my balled-up fists, they were painted gravestone blue. Just like that siren’s face had been.

Just as I had been in my dream.

The final moments of the nightmare replayed viscerally through every muscle in my body. Fleeing up a spiral stair only to be shoved against the stone, chained by smoke that was somehow able to touch me and yet to bar me from touching it no matter how my hands slashed through the blue.

My calves tightened, remembering how the curling dark fog had encapsulated them, squeezing until I screamed. Then more of the dark cloud had swum upward, invading my mouth and nose, choking me as it burrowed inside.

I gasped, raising a hand to my chest and beating on it, trying to remind my body that the anxiety had no basis, that the dream wasn’t real—no matter how intense it still felt.

Calm down. I chided myself, shakingly annoyed at how overwhelmed my nerves were. You’re overreacting. Just like you nearly did yesterday when that stray bit of seaweed wrapped around your ankle. Don’t be that foolish again.

Grabbing a burnt orange dress with an open back for my wings, I tossed it on loosely. Then I hurried to my door and flung it open, expecting to see Ugo and Paavo, about to order them to go for Mateo and Felipe. I needed people. Trusted people. And distraction.

But I stopped short, shocked to see Watkins floating next to two other mer guards, playing cards spread in all of their hands.

Caught and embarrassed, the junior guards blubbered out apologies as they dropped the cards, and the evidence of their lackadaisical ways floated around their face like little white diamonds.

Instead of paying any attention to them, I simply tilted my head in askance at Watkins. His presence was far more shocking than the guards’ laziness at this hour.

Shirtless, his dorsal fin protruding from his back, the shark shifter’s black hair hung loose and shaggy around his eyes, a bright shock of white strands cutting diagonally across his forehead.

The shadows made his torso appear even more sculpted than usual, a fact I did not appreciate at this hour and in my current harried, unkempt state.

It took effort not to reach for my hair and wonder how frazzled it was.

He blinked at me almost in disbelief, as if he hadn’t expected me to emerge from my own room. That made two of us.

“What are you doing here?” I asked him. My eyes wanted to cut down the corridor in both directions as suspicion rolled over me, but I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing me worried about his presence.

My mind, however, raced a mile a minute as my eyes locked onto his dark orbs and took their measure.

Why would he be distracting my guards in the middle of the night?

Why, if not to allow his rebel friends an opportunity?

Surely, there had to be some soul brazen enough—emboldened by last night's tragedy—ready to try.

My back stiffened at the thought of an attack and the adrenaline surge I’d just fought back rose up again.

But this time it was accompanied by a hammering fury.

The song of the ocean started up faintly in the back of my skull and my palms tingled in dark anticipation.

My power couldn’t do much. But a ball of ice to the skull would still hurt like hell.

We agreed to a truce. To a fresh start. And yet…

The shark shifter’s teeth nibbled one corner of his mouth as he handed his cards over to one of the guards, who glanced at them and groaned before cutting the sound off, the fool remembering he was in trouble.

Watkins swam a little closer to me, stopping when I visibly bristled.

“I couldn’t sleep, and I figured it was only an hour or so until breakfast…

I thought I’d see if you wanted to eat with me.

” His onyx eyes lowered before a rueful expression overtook his face and he ran his hand through his hair, making the shock of white droop to one side.

“Stupid idea. Presumptuous. I’ll just…” He gestured toward the hall. The empty hallway. My eyes took the opportunity to sweep past him and see that no one was lurking.

Dammit, Avia. Pull it together. I realized, belatedly, that Watkins had turned his back and was walking away. Breakfast? He actually wants to have breakfast?

Relief nearly bent me in half as the fury wrapping around my middle vanished in a snap.

The rebel had really just wanted to see me.

My knees softened and the knots in my stomach uncoiled, the remnants of fear from my nightmare morphing into a different kind of nervous energy.

“A lot of your ideas are presumptuous,” I called out after him. “This isn’t one of them.”

He turned back, a small smile lighting his features as he said, “Oh really? Which ones?”

There was a fire in his gaze that lashed out and hit me right in the torso, that look burning through me. For a second I was lost in it.

Motioning for him to wait, I turned toward the guards, who cringed, physically curling inward almost as if they expected me to physically lash out.

“You two are demoted. You get to guard the stables from now on. Go get Paavo and Ugo back here. Tell them if they want to sleep they need to find competent replacements.” That was harsh.

Too harsh? My sleep-deprived brain wasn't quite certain and couldn't quite be bothered to care. My people-pleasing function hadn’t woken up with the rest of me.

With a stiff nod, one of them dashed off—as frantic as a sardine wriggling away from some tuna. I rolled my eyes at the man’s clear cowardice as I glanced over at Watkins. “You haven’t been checked for weapons; I assume?”

The remaining guard rushed forward, but I held up a hand to stop him, which he came perilously close to crashing into. “No. It’s fine. I’ll do it.”

Watkins let a sultry expression roll over his face. “You’ll do it?”

With a jerk of my head, I ordered the shark shifter to start moving toward my room. “Yes, I don’t want him mistaking that stick up your ass for something that might actually hurt me.”

I grinned when my retort wiped the seductive expression right off his face and replaced it with an offended one. “Majesty?—”

I pushed on his back beneath his shark fin, trying not to admire the tightly corded muscles as I herded him into the room before I turned to the guard outside and snarked, “We’ve already tried removing the stick but it’s, unfortunately, a permanent feature.”

The poor guard worked very hard to keep a straight face as I shut my door and turned toward the shark shifter, who was now standing, arms crossed, just in front of my bed.

“I’m not sure if I should address the fact that you still think I’m arrogant or just be grateful you’ve spent so much time thinking about my ass.”

“The latter,” I replied smoothly before I was unable to suppress a grin.

His answering smile was a cross between smug and predatory and I absolutely drank it up.

While Watkins hadn’t been the distraction I’d been seeking, he definitely was taking my mind far from my nightmares and far from the very real accusations from last night.

I moved to my dressing table, not bothering to glance at the mess of my hair I could feel swirling around my face like a golden cloud. Sitting, I gestured for him to take a seat on my still-rumpled mattress since it was the only other option in the small space.

“You want to see what I look like in your bed?” he teased as he perched on the end.

“Mind reader.”

“Got another one for you. You couldn’t sleep?” He gestured at the twisted sheets.

“Bad dreams,” I admitted with a shrug, because there was no point in denying it. “It turns out, inviting men who want to kill you to join your tournament isn’t the best for one’s constitution.”

“Wanted. Past tense. We came to a truce.” He clasped his hands together as he stared over at me, handsome face as mesmerizing as ever.

“Truces often end without warning.”

“Accurate, but this one hasn’t. Unless you want to renege, of course.” His expression grew serious, his lips thinned, and I wasn’t certain, but I thought there might have been a hint of disappointment in his voice when he spoke. A hint of honest vulnerability.

I shook my head but sighed and replied in kind because if he was showing his hand, what good was it to hide mine? “Honestly, fighting with you lets me know exactly where I stand. This tentative friendship is harder. Particularly when I’m constantly worried about being stabbed in the back.”

“What if I told you I prefer to look my enemies in their eyes?”

I snapped my fingers and wryly quipped, “Well then. Problem solved.”

We shared sarcastic grins that turned heated, the current around us sizzling as it always seemed to do whenever we were in close proximity.