Page 25 of Waves (Tangled Crowns #6)

Raj

M y hands were shaking, arms trembling, and the inside of my chest wasn’t faring much better.

The love wish was too potent, growing stronger with time and proximity. I had to cut it off. The prospect felt as daunting as sawing away one of my own limbs.

But it had to be done.

I’d nearly reached up to cup her cheek. Nearly leaned down to kiss her. And for no other reason than she’d admitted to the shadows tainting her own soul. Her own beautifully blooming evil.

No woman had ever tempted me like this.

And this wish was to blame. Because I could never…

Never…

An errant penguin escaped from its owner.

A second later, it crashed into me and sent me stumbling backward on the bridge I was pacing across.

A bridge near the outskirts of town that I’d thought was empty, where I’d been striding back and forth without destination or direction for the past hour bouncing between fear and ridiculous fancy.

Rage bubbled up like a potion in a cauldron as I glared at the animal that had bashed my shoulder.

“Sorry!” a small mer child called out, swimming up after his pet, the apology a rush as he scurried by yelling, “Flippers! Stop! You little shite!”

I turned and watched through narrowed eyes for a second as the silver-tailed boy wrestled his squirming penguin through the water, the two tumbling around until the current nudged them sideways and the boy got ahold of his pet’s lead, tugging roughly at the bird’s neck.

The chaos ended, I turned my back, deciding to retreat to the inn that was housing the contestants. The host and hostess were far too bubbly, but clearly I wasn’t going to be able to focus clearly on a counter wish in public.

I stopped short as horror leaked down my spine slimy as a cracked egg. Made my stomach drop to my toes. Glancing over my shoulder at the little boy swimming off in the distance, now little more than a speck, I realized…I hadn’t even wished for his death.

I lifted my hands and stared at them. At the golden fingers. At the black ring adorning one of them.

Who was I becoming?

When had the line between Stavros and Raj become so blurred?

Existential worries burrowed through my skull and my feet thudded steadily across several crisscrossed bridges as my mind fretted.

Worrying was exhausting, so much so that when I arrived at the inn, I hardly noticed the people gathered and chatting outside the front edifice.

Didn’t listen to the mention of the tournament.

Didn’t glance up at a squi-shifter up on a ladder smearing some sort of yellow plaster across the edifice to fill in a crack in the stone.

Distracted, I went straight to my room, avoiding eye contact with everyone gathered in the main hall, getting an early start on the bubble despite the fact that it was mid-afternoon.

At the door, I grabbed the handle and closed my eyes, hoping that my roommate was long gone. If I had to, I’d wish he’d remember he needed to be somewhere else, but I didn’t want to use my ring in front of another person. Too much liability, especially after I’d killed that girl.

Luckily, when I stepped inside, there was nothing more than a stack of two bunks tucked neatly against a wall, a small square table with two chairs occupying the middle of the floor in the small space, and a purple fire glowing in the hearth, casting eerie light over it all.

Gently shutting the door so as not to draw attention, I made my way to the table, where I spotted a blue quill on the table. Had Watkins been writing something? Had he perhaps signed that document to withdraw?

My lips pursed as I mulled over that possibility, not liking the idea that my main scapegoat might have retreated. Snatching up the quill, I rolled it between my fingers as I walked a circle around the table. Thinking. Hatching.

But my thoughts kept drifting tenderly to her, a haze of soft admiration washing her in a halo of light in my imagination. Attraction mixed with reverence kept tying up my thoughts and twisting them into wistful daydreams. Unhelpful, pathetic musings that made my cock stiffen.

Back to Watkins, I tried to redirect my errant mind by focusing on the feather in my hand.

“It doesn’t matter if he’s withdrawn if I don’t figure out this idiotic wish,” I murmured to no one.

Plucking out a strand of the quill’s feathers, I sighed.

“I can’t wish to hate her because I did before.

” My eyes traveled up the walls and to the ceiling before falling back down.

Releasing the tiny bit of feather silk, I watched it drift in the current.

“If I wish for her to hate me, I might be released from the tournament…” I paced, circling again and again, gnashing my teeth when each idea I had fell short.

Wishing for her crown wouldn’t get me her kingdom. Wishing for her kingdom wouldn’t get me the loyalty of her subjects and I might end up right where I had with Cheryn. And I wasn’t certain that depriving her of either of those things right now would make her suffer.

Of course, the mental image of Avia in anguish made me grip the back of one of the chairs, bending over it, my head bowed, as my own chest erupted into a traitorous imaginary grief. A horrid howling, keening sorrow ripped through me over something that hadn’t even happened.

“Shite!” I snapped the quill in half, dropping it.

Immediately, my mind replaced that terrible image with another that was equally nightmarish, Avia cradling a small child.

A half djinn baby. My baby. A radiant smile lit her face, and all of my bones were plucked from my body, the entirety of me going soft and tender.

Mad.

I was going mad. Thinking wasn’t helping. I had to do something else, had to get away from these wretched emotions that were wrapping me up and dragging me down. Intoxicating my logic.

Smashing through the door and stomping down the hall, the familiar need to hurt and maim rose up. Pulsed. Throbbed.

Finally, an emotion I could deal with. Something reasonable. I left the inn and hurried out into the bright cold sunshine, determined to find some wretched person and wring his neck. Someone who wouldn’t be missed.

I crossed three bridges, need building, air tight inside my lungs, anger brewing and heating my cheeks. Quickly, almost on the verge of running, so much so that my breath became quick sharp pants.

Finally, near the outskirts of town, I saw some dilapidated buildings carved into the mountain.

Crumbling edifices that seemed old and unkempt, uncared for.

The roof of the first building had caved in and a glance through the window showed that no one was desperate enough to use it for refuge.

The second building had a ragged red curtain streaming in the current, but no inhabitants.

Someone had, however, left a stone axe inside.

Instinct drew me to it. A handy thing. As soon as I held the solid weight in my hands, it was like a spur to a horse.

Violence reared up on its hind legs, stamping. Demanding.

Stifling a growl, I rounded a corner, nearly ready to hack a hole through the stone itself to vent my spleen.

But a familiar voice stopped me. A smug voice. One of the other competitors was here.

Curiosity temporarily overcame my fury, and I froze in place, careful not to make a sound as I listened to a conversation drift through the window.

“Yeah, it was easy to lift. She didn’t notice a damned thing.” The dolphin shifter, that fool with pink hair, spoke in a casual tone.

She? What woman was he dealing with? Was he out whoring? My fingers tightened on the shaft of the axe, not because I minded prostitution but because I was trying to decide if that was an executable offense or if I should move on to another target. One I wouldn’t have to explain.

“You’re not that good,” a nasal voice spoke dismissively. “You got lucky.”

“Luck alone doesn’t get you an elven chain, my friend.” Valdez retorted, a bit miffed. “And I’m gonna get a pretty penny for it down in Sedara. Enough to disappear. Told you this game was worth it.”

My spine stiffened as though someone had put a torch to it. Elven chain is rare. Powerfully protective.

It wasn’t the sort of thing some random whore in town would have.

No. It was the sort of thing royalty wore. The sort of thing a queen wore.

My body was no longer my own. Faster than a bolt of lightning, I shot through the door into that room.

I hardly had time to register the shocked fear in Valdez’s wide eyes before my axe came down in a satisfying thump that split his skull diagonally, the blade chomping through his forehead on one side and ending on the opposite cheek.

The bloody gash only widened when I jerked the weapon back up, brain matter floating toward the ceiling like chum for fish, blood dancing through the room in pink rivulets.

My mouth widened into a sordid grin, and then through my curved lips, I tasted the coppery flavor of Valdez’s life force.

Delicious death.

Valdez’s companion gave a squeaky yelp before my axe sliced through his vocal cords, neatly lopping the head off his body.

It was only after his head completed a slow roll through the current that I bothered to glance at his body.

He’d been a siren dressed in leather with a badge on his breast to indicate he was a pirate.

Pirates. Stealing from Avia. Raiding the queen like she was some ship. Bastards.

Violent, merciless pleasure overtook me.

A ferocious thrill.

Fierce and feverish bedazzlement at the sight of so much gore.

My axe crashed down on Valdez again, his lifeless body flopping under the force of my blow. Still my fury wasn’t sated—it roared in my ears. Again. And again. My pulse thundered, cock hard enough to burst as I yelled, “You stole from her!”

Slashing through his vertebrae, I sliced him into meat, shaking with the turbulent force of my anger. At his thievery. At his betrayal. At the way he’d seen her as a means to his end.

I hacked at him until pieces floated out the doorway, chunks of him, unrecognizable bits.

Until he became less than nothing.

Only when my arms were burning, utterly spent, when I couldn’t draw a full breath and my shoulders felt as if they’d been liquefied by acid, did I stop. Sinking to the floor amid the carnage, in a wavering haze of pink, I realized I hadn’t thought to grab the elven chain.

Rooting through the remains still in the room, I couldn’t find it…it must have floated out with some hand or bit of chest pocket or something. It was lost.

But I was even more so when I realized that I’d just killed for Avia.

Never, in all my existence, in the scores of murders I’d accumulated, the executions I’d overseen, the torture I’d wrought, had I killed for someone else.

I blinked, dropped the axe, and searched through my conscience for an inkling of regret. But I couldn’t find one.

Instead, there was a primal, proud satisfaction unfurling within me. A vicious, righteous knowledge that made my cock stiffen with blood lust knowing that I’d do it all over again. Knowing that…given her enemies…I’d probably get the chance to do it soon.