Page 21 of Waves (Tangled Crowns #6)

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“ T ake it off!” Lizza’s gruff command echoed off the icy cliff at my back.

Stavros looked at me curiously but I avoided eye contact, letting my golden locks fall like a curtain between us as I quickly unhooked the elven chain that protected me from magical attacks. I slid it into a small sand dollar pouch on my hip, feeling exposed.

The witch didn’t hesitate. The moment I was vulnerable, she grabbed a potion from inside the cloak she wore and lobbed it at me with an accuracy I didn’t expect.

The uncorked bottle leaked wide streaks of black ink as it spiraled toward me and that shadowy magic spread through the water, swirling and twisting, melding and molding, until it solidified into a kraken twice my size.

The magical creation had glowing orange eyes, two sharp horns protruding from its head, and an unfriendly looking tooth-lined beak.

Lizza jerked her hands and, like a puppet on strings, the kraken roiled through the sea toward me with tentacles as big as my thighs.

My first instinct was to duck, but Stavros called out behind me, “Strike first!”

“Really? I was planning on running,” I jested as I lifted my hands.

“Not a very good strategy for killing your enemy,” he retorted mildly, though I thought there might be just a hint of flirtation in his tone.

Or perhaps I just hoped so, because I needed him to want to stay.

Though I’d grabbed at him impulsively this morning, and perhaps I shouldn’t have because I needed to tame my powers now more than ever, I also had this intuitive feeling when it came to Stavros.

Like somehow I needed him. His magic. His leaking emotions. His presence.

“Oh, and you’re an expert assassin?” I teased, tone light even as I inhaled and sought out the faint song of the sea. Notes shimmered in the distance like wind chimes.

“Maybe.”

Yes, that was definitely flirtation in his tone. My eyes cut sideways to him before I lifted my brows. “Well, then, killer. Come help me.”

He strode forward with confidence I didn’t expect. A swagger, something so out of character that I almost laughed. In his all-black outfit, with his hands in his pockets, he practically looked like a storybook villain. What a ridiculous notion.

But about halfway to me, he bit his lip and looked away, arrogance melting into insecurity. Was he getting cold feet? Feeling self-conscious?

I slid sideways toward him as the kraken lashed out, a massive tentacle swinging at my head.

“Shite!” Stavros cursed and grabbed me on impulse, yanking me into his chest as the current hissed past, the magical creature barely missing.

Meanwhile, my hands clung to his shirt, the rapid thudding of his heart thumped against my palms— unnaturally quick.

He must have been terrified. Guilt swarmed over me like plankton.

The creature’s beak opened, and an unnatural roar came out of its mouth. Gazing past it, I saw Lizza’s own mouth was open, her face twisted in manic glee as she swept her other arm in a wide arc, fingers wiggling.

Dammit all.

Two tentacles hurtled toward us from opposite directions, each as massive as a battering ram.

“Make a wall of ice!” Stavros commanded in a low tone as he pushed me around so that my back was to his front. Not abandoning me completely but attempting to help me focus. His slow, deep breath indicated that he was attempting to get a handle on his own racing pulse.

That meant I needed to do the same. Trying to draw on his calm, I shoved at my own nervous energy, pushing it aside—but it was hard to do, especially considering how the siren’s hands gripped my waist.

Turning back toward the monster, determined not to lose face in front of my suitor, I closed my eyes, blew out a breath, and reached for the song of the ocean, the trilling notes of the sea.

Faintly, I heard them, but they were like minstrels playing beyond a hill, and though I imagined running at the sound, it darted away. Cheekily. Annoyingly.

A blinding thump to my temple sent me reeling, pain crackling across my skull. Star bursts flickered in front of me before I slammed my eyes shut. I heard Stavros grunt and felt his arms slacken around me, going limp.

Shite.

Lifting my head, I only had time to blink and register that another arm was about to hit.

BAM.

The force sent us sprawling backward and I gasped thinly, the water punched from my lungs. My puffy skirt had rolled up around my thighs, exposing my underthings.

“You’re a great warrior,” Stavros remarked from his back where he lay sprawled beneath me, shoved backward by the wallop that had smashed my organs into my spine.

“The best,” I agreed in a dark tone as I rolled onto my knees. Though I wanted nothing more than to sink into the ice shelf and let the cold soak into my aching body, I forced myself back up.

“What’s wrong with your magic?” he asked as he stood up behind me.

“Rather ungentlemanly to use me as your shield,” I snarked as I re-assumed battle position.

“I figured that you wanted someone to protect as you practiced. An innocent. I’m playing the part of the damsel in distress.” His delivery was so dry and deadpan that it was perfect, and if my torso wasn’t aching, I would have laughed.

“You do make a beautiful damsel,” I agreed. But then, noting the beast was still writhing, I tried to put Stavros from my mind and center myself?—

SMASH.

We crashed to the ground, Stavros shoving me down just before a tentacle bludgeoned our skulls and turned our brain matter to sludge.

Pain spread across my skin like harsh morning light, no inch spared from the bright, searing sensations.

My eyelids squinted shut and my muscles screamed for me to stop.

But if I did, then Stavros and I would lose more friends.

If I did stop, I proved the rebels right—proved I couldn’t protect Okeanos.

It was harder to force myself upward this time, and I accepted Stavros’s hand when he offered it.

“Thanks,” I murmured, his liquid blue eyes soaking me in the curiosity of his stare.

“Is your magic…hard?” His tone was genuine, and it tempted me into admitting more than I should.

But in a queen’s world, trust is more valuable than jewels.

“It is,” I acknowledged, giving him only the briefest of truths. “I wish it wasn’t.”

His fingers tightened on mine, clearly pitying me.

“I didn’t know magic could be hard,” he admitted.

“Me either. When I thought I was human, I was brimming with jealousy over anyone who had it. But…when it…” I swallowed my words, terrified that I’d almost mentioned the price of magic. Pulse thumping hard, I gazed into his eyes and pretended to get lost for a moment.

But then I was lost.

Suddenly, these soft tendrils of admiration were wrapping through me like silk strands, tying me up so tightly that I couldn’t speak. Tenderness floated between us, blooming and unfurling.

Was Stavros deliberately pushing the emotion toward me?

There was a certain focus, a steely-eyed determination in his gaze.

I reached up and caressed his jawline.

My eyes drifted back to our horned opponent, whom Lizza had doing barrel rolls as she waited for me to recover.

Breathing carefully to avoid the harsh catch in my ribcage, I sought out an explanation as I withdrew my fingers.

“Summoning the sea is like attempting to whistle at a wild stallion. It’s a beautiful, stubborn thing. ”

He was quiet for a moment. Reflective. But then, he gave a tiny smirk as he said, “Fitting power for you then.”

“I dunno. I wouldn’t mind Valdez’s power of seduction,” I replied as I turned back to the monster and lifted my arms, reassuming my ready position and trying to ignore the bruises blossoming all across my back.

“So, the rebellion would end?” Stavros asked as he slid deftly behind me again.

“That. And so that you wouldn’t be so shy.” I tossed him a smirking glance over my shoulder before the kraken rushed bodily at us, horns lowered.

The tenderness was slashed apart by a dark feeling. An aggressive one edged with violence. Perhaps Stavros was pushing another emotion at me, knowing I needed encouragement.

I reached back and found his hand, weaving our fingers together, drinking in his enflamed emotions. As soon as our hands entwined, his masculine desire to fight seemed to manifest into my own turbulent need to destroy.

Unlike the emptiness or rabid cruelty I’d experienced when I’d used my magic before, this new surge of savagery was keen. Somehow sharper. Almost as if it was a carefully honed weapon.

As if I was one.

That sense of razored ferocity didn’t bludgeon or bowl me over like it was overtaking me. Instead, it felt like something I might wield.

As I raised my hands this time, instead of imagining I was conducting the ocean, I lifted my arms as if I was hefting a sword. Stavros’s hand was dragged up with mine and held in place, both our pulses thrumming like waterfalls.

This will work.

Giddy notes sliced through the water right in front of me, the ocean’s tune playfully bloodthirsty. Harpsichord notes vibrated through my head while a bass thundered beneath my ribs. A lyre plucked up my spine as a haunting mermaid-like keen trilled across my arms, fluttering my scales.

“Ah!” Stavros gasped behind me, and I wondered if he felt it too.

The surging current. The vastness of my conscience as it melded with the ocean.

The symphony of the sea. With its huge rolling waves and deep lumbering steps through the depths.

The wide stretch of shadows and the miniscule scratch of the icebergs. The churning, rolling, consuming need.

The water wasn’t sweet and peaceful. It was a slumbering beast, waiting to attack.

With an exhale that punched right through me, I slashed our joined palms.

A barrage of pale blue ice spikes went cutting through the current, jetting right toward the kraken. Stabbing. Piercing.

The monster tumbled backward, a shriek emanating from its beak. At least a dozen sharp icicles protruded from its flailing limbs as it flopped through a sunbeam, making my weapons gleam.

Savage glee made me dance up on my tiptoes for a second. My fingers curled against Stavros’s, and I whispered his name in excitement.

His free hand came to my waist and tightened, and then his warm breath ghosted over my ear. “Again. Destroy him.”

The wild fury racing across my skin became edged with the tiniest tint of red lust. It edged my vision. Pinkened my cheeks. Quickened my breath.

Our joined hands raised and slashed again.

Ice balls formed instantly and dove toward the kraken.

Before I processed the stomach-drop of disappointment, Stavros made our fingers flex.

Spikes erupted just as the spheres reached the monster.

They became tiny, glittering, frozen suns and their rays sliced through the skin of the beast.

My next inhale was full of malevolence. A dark sense of pride. And when Stavros’s hand on my waist squeezed me in praise, when his whisper, “Good,” tickled my ear, my nipples hardened.

The monster swooped towards us headfirst and the ocean practically bellowed in my ears, begging to be unleashed.

This time it took no more than a wave of my hand and the water in front of us shot upward like a wall, bubbles turning it nearly opaque.

The kraken was caught in the rising plume, and we craned our necks back to watch it catapult upward above the waves, tossed by the geyser all the way into the sky.

Holy shite.

I ended up unlinking our hands and turning to Stavros because of an overwhelming need to see his face. His blue eyes were practically dancing.

“Are you having fun?”

“Absolutely.” His gaze slowly dropped from the flailing beast to meet mine, and my chest grew airy. Light.

Biting my lower lip, I worried that he was caught up in this momentary fake victory, that he’d hate the true implications of my power once he thought them through. Hesitantly, I asked, “You don’t find the destruction, the violence…wrong?”

“Do you?” His head tilted; curiosity peaked.

“I…wish I did.” The admission came out small and quiet.

Stepping closer, his leg between mine, pants gliding along my thighs, Stavros leaned down, his expression intense as he murmured, “Why? It’s gorgeous.”

Delirious, delicious desire flickered.

Another step in, and our chests pressed together, my pulse flaming, a wildfire spreading across my cheeks, down the back of my neck, to my lower belly.

“Too gorgeous,” I whispered.

“No such thing,” he returned as his hand grabbed hold of my hip, fingers fanned wide. Possessive.

“It’s addictive.”

“Yes.” His truth curled around me like dark smoke, and I inhaled it.

Drunk on admissions, on the merciless but heated gleam in his eyes, on his complete and utter acceptance of the most shameful part of myself, I leaned closer, my lips nearing the thrumming pulse in his neck.

His strong jaw. My gaze traced the blond hair falling across his forehead and darted between those whirlpool eyes.

Here, in this moment, amongst ice and cold truths, I was seeing a new side of Stavros. A side he kept hidden, just like I did. His rapid heartbeat seemed to resonate through my own hollow chest, his beats my own for just a second.

“Are you going to fight me or hump him?” Lizza yelled irritably, utterly disemboweling the moment. “Because I’m not sticking around for the latter.”

The kraken splashed down into the sea thirty feet away, sending ripples thundering through the water with all the power of a stormy wind, blowing me slightly off-balance.

When I glanced back up, the expression on Stavros’s face had changed. It was closed. Stiff. “I should go,” he murmured. And the quiet siren fled from my sight quick as a flash, leaving only the lingering warmth from his skin and a million unanswered questions behind.