Page 29 of Waves (Tangled Crowns #6)

Raj

A ll day I was wracked by emotions, unbearably obnoxious feelings wriggling around in my belly like worms.

Worry about what the hell this challenge might be.

Worry that I’d left some shred of Valdez lying around that the fishes hadn’t devoured.

Worry that I’d get caught.

And then…even worse, worry about what Avia might think of me if I was.

Fool.

Idiot.

Madman.

I still hadn’t come up with a counter for the love wish, despite pondering the options most of the night. I’d wavered over what to do—so much so that I’d even swum to the spot where I’d met with the local rebel to tell him not to conduct today’s spear attack.

He hadn’t been there, and I’d been glad, immediately turning around and spending the next hour cursing myself for my pathetic tendencies. If I had canceled, it would have meant that I was giving up on any thoughts of revenge.

While the idea of anyone else hurting Avia made the corners of my vision turn hazy red, I wasn’t quite able to give up the thought of hurting her myself.

Instantly, the idea of wrapping my fingers around her delicate neck and squeezing popped into my head. The dark delight that came over me just imagining the way her eyes would widen, and she would gasp before going limp sent tingles all the way down to my toes—and made my dick hard as granite.

Yes, even though this wish made me love her, a deeper part of me still wanted to hear her gasp in pain, preferably as I was sliding my thick cock inside her.

My teeth ground together at the fact that instead of swimming over and grabbing her and doing the things I just envisioned, I was stuck here competing instead.

Now, part of me wished I’d found that rebel yesterday and told him to attack the villagers and rile them up before the event actually started…

because I was currently facing the ass crack of a giant stone man with a boulder as tall as my thighs waiting in front of me.

The rise of his back was steep and sharp, something I might have been able to climb using my hands and feet…

but pushing a boulder? Unless I could balance the thing on my head, I had no idea how this was supposed to be a competition at all.

How was I supposed to roll the damned rock upward without getting squashed? How was I supposed to start at all?

Each of us had been evenly spaced around the base of the island man, who sat cross-legged, which was an unfair advantage for those lucky bastards who were placed in front.

Watkins and Felipe had an easy go of it rolling up their rocks up his legs, which sat like low ramps on the dirt.

Meanwhile, I was trying to decide how to traverse up a spine.

Who had decided this was fair?

My lips curled because if I’d come up with this competition myself, the deviousness of it would have made me smile. As it was, I wanted to gut Avia’s bitch of an adviser, whom I was pretty certain had designed each of our events. She was playing favorites.

I was away from the crowd. From Avia’s eyes. From everyone but the judges, who were three shark shifters circling overhead and watching us like vultures.

With one hand braced on the stone, my other reached over and traced across the ring there.

Subtle.

A wish would need to be subtle to work here. That meant that I couldn’t simply wish for this stupid rock to be as light as air. Or for this giant to suddenly develop some crippling disease that made him hunch forward in horrific pain. That would have been my preference.

Glancing to my left, I saw the nixe struggling to even push his stone at all.

His hands braced against it, and his breath huffed out in flurries of tiny bubbles just as useless and weak as he seemed to be.

His one leg looked oddly twisted. Curiosity hooked my lower belly.

I wondered what sort of trouble he’d gotten himself into that had injured him so.

Then I wondered if he’d bring that trouble to Avia’s doorstep.

Dammit.

No.

But the need to protect her was violent and fierce and it rose inside of me like a shadow that settled on my shoulders and cloaked me in darkness. It was overpowering, just as my rage at Valdez had been.

I took a single step toward the blue man before stopping myself.

To attack now was foolish. There was an audience. And no direct threat, no harm, no violation of Avia’s safety. Perhaps the idiot had simply been drunk and mouthy and gotten what he deserved.

I didn’t really think so. Didn’t really want to think so.

Without proof or at least privacy, gutting him would be a mistake.

“Hey! Are you competing or not?” A sharp voice lashed out at me, and I glanced up to see a judge glaring.

“Just getting my bearings,” I replied with a false grin before tilting my head down, reaching for my ring and muttering, “I wish that tomorrow, your left testicle would explode.” I didn’t twist though, because that sort of wish was one I’d have made a peasant waste for me.

Petty. Undeserving of my royal magic. But muttering it made the fact that I had to press against a stupid rock far more bearable.

To my shock, the boulder moved when I put my shoulder into it. Not much, not easily. But it did move. It might have had something to do with the weight of things in water. I didn’t care. Didn’t analyze further, simply threw my back into the loathsome task so that the man above would shut his mouth.

My legs strained as I pushed harder, tensing my muscles and digging my boots deep into the sand as I built up momentum and a rough plan formed in my head. Faster. I need to roll this rock faster.

Breathing hard, I smashed the stone right into the base of the giant’s spine. Sound deeper than a whale’s bellow rolled through the water before a wave shoved me backward as the island man moved his massive arm, sweeping it behind him to protect the base of his spine and bat my stone away.

Smugly, I went toward the boulder after it settled, not even angered by the extra rolling I’d need to do. The island man had reacted exactly as I’d expected. His arm was still there behind him, protecting his ass…and providing me with an easy ramp.

That taste of triumph fueled my muscles as I shoved and pushed and braced my body against this gray rock, the skin on my shoulder slowly grated away as I rolled and rolled and rolled.

Behind me, I Taft also noisily made use of the ramp. With his injuries, his progress was stunted, and he provided no real threat. That left me focused on my own ascent. I had no idea whether the idiots on the other side of the island were doing well. No idea if they?—

Pity moved, the arm I was on shifted, and the entire world slid sideways beneath my feet. Water swirled and gravity confused itself. Up and down became mixed and twisted and my lungs froze—I couldn’t breathe.

Suddenly, I didn’t control the boulder. It controlled me. Rolling backward, threatening to smash my feet—I had to dive into the current and swim sideways to avoid being crushed.

Gasps and sounds flared up from the crowd as I stroked my arms furiously, kicked hard against the unruly waves displaced by his motion.

Then, breathless, I spun around, floating in the middle of the ocean only to see the bastard island man settle himself into a more comfortable position, so that a thin streak of sunlight landed on his shoulders.

Nostrils flaring and heat rising on my cheeks, I glared at him as his hands lowered, protecting his spine, but this time, his arm was at a steeper angle than before.

It felt clear to me that his movement was a deliberate slight against me.

Just when I’d gotten close to his elbow joint, he’d sent me tumbling.

I could wish he cracked apart. That his innards simply oozed out through those cracks, and he died slowly…feeling every second of agony possible.

My eyes closed as I imagined it. His aching bellows. The high-pitched screams of the children and women watching. The curling steaming water hissed up in a rush for the surface.

It was almost as beautiful to imagine as the face Avia might make when she came undone beneath me.

But I had to choose. Him or her?

I’d killed thousands.

Maimed millions.

Never loved.

Tenderness was new to me.

I’d thought that the spark with Julian had been something special, but it dulled in comparison to the moments I’d spent training with the sea queen. Even though I knew our connection was the result of misfiring magic, there had been something special there. A darkness in her that resonated with me.

The whisper of her tainted soul called out to mine.

And the brilliance of killing on her behalf rather than my own…there was no comparison.

The choice was made already.

It was just my nature to rail against it.

To question it.

But my fate was already tied to hers.

If I hadn’t believed it, I wouldn’t have dithered over unknotting this wish.

I took a few deep breaths to calm my racing heart and debated if I should wish for him to stay still until this event was over. But…the judges would expect him to move again.

Accounting for other people’s expectations was incredibly irritating. It was the sort of inconvenience I’d never had in Cheryn.

My fingers drifted to my ring, but then I heard soft feminine voices drifting overhead. Glancing up, I saw Avia’s wings fluttering as she and Sahar circled around the island man, observing each of us and conferring in low voices.

She was watching me.

“I wish I was twice as strong,” I muttered under my breath, twisting the ring before I crouched in front of my boulder and shoved hard against it a second time, muscles bunched and straining.

Her eyes were on me and lit me up, her pride and admiration sank beneath my skin and left it abuzz. Between the wish and her attention, I felt as if I could take on an entire pack of wolves, killer whales, giants.

Cramming my body against the stone, wedging in my shoulder and inching forward bit by bit, I rolled my boulder steadily back up the island man’s arm.

Dipping into a deep squat, arms haloing that rock overhead, I heaved it onto the bastard’s triceps with a huff of pain.

Heat, sweat, and steady breath defined every moment.

My entire body became an aching burn. I had to swap out my shoulders because the skin on one side became so raw from the constant scratch of stone on skin. And yet I pressed on.

Stubbornness drove me.

As did Avia calling down, “Well done, Stavros!” before she fluttered off.

The next time I Pity moved, I began to sprint, shoving harder. Quicker. Faster.

At the very last second, as he rose, I crested his shoulder. Lungs heaving, hunched forward with my hands on my thighs as I tried to restore oxygen to my lungs, I heard my competitors’ exclamations as they were sent tumbling.

At least, I thought that was what I was hearing.

Until the dismayed shouts turned into screams.

Until I looked up and saw a whirlpool ripping through the crowd, grabbing people and gulping them down like hors d'oeuvres, flailing hands and heads visible in the monstrosity’s spiraling walls, sucking up the competitors on the front side of the island man and trapping them in its wilding whipping vortex as it moved across the field… heading right for my Avia.