The Sentinel (Legend of the King’s Ring #2)

Chapter 1 Into The Deep

Somewhere off the Southeast Coast of Florida – Present Day

“What secrets do you hold for me today?” Desi Starr dangled her bare feet over the side of her thirty-foot dive boat, eyes fixed on the spot in the water where something had shimmered yesterday—just out of reach, just out of time.

The ocean replied with a low hum—mysterious, ancient.

She inhaled the salty breeze, her pulse steady, mind already submerged.

The craft swayed with each roll of the sea in a sensual dance that always calmed her.

But not today. Not when she was sure something was down there, something she’d been seeking as long as she remembered.

She hadn’t imagined it, a glint beneath the reef, too angular for coral, too perfect to be natural. But with three nervous customers clinging to her fins and sucking down air like soda through a straw, she hadn’t dared go deeper.

Now she was back. And this time, she wasn’t leaving without answers.

The sun bled across the horizon, smearing gold and orange over the calm Atlantic. Swinging her legs back over to the deck, she slid on her dive booties, tucking the edges beneath her wetsuit legs. Then reaching for her weight belt, she lifted it with practiced ease and fastened it around her hips.

“Really think you saw something?” Camila approached, handing the BCD and tank to Desi.

Grunting, she hefted the unit, shouldered it in one fluid motion, then cinched the straps across her chest and waist. She opened the tank valve and turned it back a quarter turn. A brief hiss emerged, and she leaned in, listening for more. No leak. No fuss. Good.

“I do,” she answered her first mate and employee Camila Ramos, ignoring the look of skepticism—or was it criticism—in her deep brown eyes.

Desi brought the regulator to her mouth and took a deep, steady breath.

The air was dry and cool. The gauge needle held steady at full.

Her dive computer clicked into place around her wrist, the display already active.

She thumbed through the settings, checking depth alarms, no-deco time, and tank pressure.

“What do you expect to find?” Camila crossed her arms over her chest as she expertly balanced on the rocking deck.

Her Spanish accent always grew stronger when she was agitated, making her harder to understand.

Which wasn’t always a bad thing. “Treasure hunting? Sunken pirate ships? Really!” Frowning, she rolled her eyes.

“A waste of time and valuable resources, if you ask me.”

Which Desi had not. But she learned from experience that it was best to let Camila release her disapproval in small outbursts rather than suffer an eruption later. Besides, the passionate Puerto Rican always calmed down eventually.

“Leave her be, Camila.” The voice of reason came from Ethan Turner, the captain of her boat and another of her employees.

He stood at the wheel looking like Poseidon with his sun-bronzed skin and bleached-blond hair.

“Ocean’s Echo is advertised for both scuba diving and shipwreck exploration.

And if Desi saw something, she should check it out. ”

Desi smiled his way, and he winked in return.

Growling, Camila stared out to sea.

Grabbing her mask, Desi spat lightly into each lens, then rinsed it in a bucket of seawater. It went over her face in a smooth motion—snug, secure.

The fins came last. Lowering to sit on the transom, she slipped them over her booties, tightened the straps behind her heels, and flexed her toes inside them, her legs already itching to move.

Glancing at the sea behind her, Desi paused for a breath. The boat rocked gently beneath her. Somewhere below—just past the edge of yesterday’s dive—something waited. She ran her final check aloud, a whisper over the wind. “BCD… Weights… Releases… Air… Final okay.”

Everything was set.

With a nod to Camila and Ethan, she slipped the regulator back into her mouth, took one last look at the still, endless sea. And then rolled back off the edge and into the deep.

The water closed over her like a whisper—cool, heavy, and absolute.

All sound from the surface vanished in an instant, replaced by the rhythm of her breath through the regulator.

In… out… in… out… like the beating of a heart, the sound of life in an otherworldly paradise where peace reigned, where all of Desi’s problems washed away into insignificance.

She watched the glittering bubbles race to the light above with each exhale.

Then smiling, she angled her body downward, adjusted her buoyancy, and began to descend.

The reef below bloomed with early light.

Shafts of morning sun pierced the blue, illuminating swaying sea fans and darting parrotfish in bursts of color.

But Desi wasn’t here for the view. She kept her eyes locked on the drop-off just ahead, a crag of coral where the reef gave way to deeper shadows.

Over the edge she went…down, down…twenty feet…thirty.

She hovered, checked her gauges. All good.

Kicking her fins, she plucked her flashlight from its hook and swam deeper.

The hum of the ocean surrounded her, muffled, ancient, alive, a symphony playing her favorite tune.

Yesterday, she’d brought her students down to fifty feet, nearly deep enough for their Open Water Certification.

But she’d seen something, a shimmer in the darkness—and she’d descended another ten feet to investigate before returning to them. Now she was at seventy.

Her heartbeat ticked louder, not from exertion but anticipation. She kicked gently, fins slicing through the water with barely a ripple. Then she saw it, just as she had the day before. A shape in the murk. Angular. Unnatural.

Her chest tightened. Not fear—not even excitement, but oddly…recognition.

She drifted closer. The light shifted, and the shape became clearer. A corner of worked metal—brass maybe—half-swallowed by coral. Barnacles clung to it like long-lost lovers. Swimming closer, she gently brushed sediment from what looked like the curved imprint of a hull.

A ship.

Buried. Forgotten.

Half-swallowed by the seafloor, the silhouette of a wooden ship’s broken hull rose from the sand like the ribs of a long-dead leviathan.

The deck was gone, collapsed inward. The timbers eaten away by time and sea.

Coral claimed the planks in hues of crimson and gold.

A school of fish darted through the muzzle of a cannon half-buried in the silt.

Where once towering masts rose toward the heavens, nothing remained but gaping holes. One still bore the iron ring of a shroud chain, its use long forgotten.

More cannons lay half-buried in the sand, their muzzles open in one final scream of death.

She swam closer. The hollow backbone of the keel stretched under layers of sand and sea growth.

A tangle of rusted chain and ballast stones littered the area around it.

Here and there, gleaming green patina coating the copper sheathing flashed like sea glass when her flashlight hit just right.

Her pulse thundered. Her breath caught, not just at the sight, but at the pull. A presence, primeval and watchful. As if the wreck had been waiting for her, calling to her. Luring her into a memory that haunted her by night.

She exhaled slowly, bubbles spiraling up past her mask, and swam closer.

She needed to find something that would identify the ship, an artifact, a name engraved in brass, a coin that would at least reveal the year it sank.

Or treasure! Even though anything of value she found went to the federal government, such a find would go a long way to enhance the reputation of Ocean’s Echo and bring in more business.

And more business meant more money. And more money meant her sister could get the life-saving treatments she needed.

Halting, she hovered over the litter covering the bottom of the ship and brushed aside the sand and silt, shifting her light over the area. Something red glimmered to her right. She swam closer. Nothing. Or…? She brushed something small and round at the edge of the wreck.

A Ring.

The current whispered around her, sudden and cold.

She shivered and glanced about. Nothing but shadows and fish. The object nestled in the debris looked almost ordinary, dull metal, crusted with age. But it didn’t belong. Not in this reef. Not in this century.

Her fingers closed over it.

A pulse shot through her hand. Not pain. Not warmth. Something older. Deeper. Like the vibration of a tuning fork pressed to bone.

Desi jerked back. The sensation lingered, thrumming up her arm, tightening behind her eyes. Her vision rippled. The reef darkened. Not from depth, from something else. The colors around her dulled to gray, the brilliant coral fading like chalk in rain.

Blinking, she shook her head. It couldn’t be nitrogen narcosis. She wasn’t that deep. Her gauges were fine. Air was fine.

The Ring was still in her hand.

Then she felt it, pressure. All around her.

As if she’d been pushed down to the depths.

Was she to be crushed alive? Her insides crumbled, then stiffened, then crumbled again like the folding back and forth of an incoming tide.

The water no longer felt like water, no longer slick, wet, and warm. It pressed hard against her like glass…

…like time itself had thickened.

Blood pulsing, she glanced at her dive computer. Something was wrong. The numbers flickered then froze, then flickered again. She tapped it, but the glitch remained. The date started to spin… 2026…1998…1843…1718.

She tried to scream, but the regulator was still in her mouth. Her body began to float, downward, not upward. The Ring burned in her palm, searing up her arm. She tried to toss it.

But then everything stopped.

Her fins landed on something firm yet shifting.

The world beyond her mask took shape. Not the shape of a sunken ship or a colorful reef or tropical fish darting here and there.

No bubbles emerged from her regulator, no spears of sunlight darted through murky waters.

Nothing but blurry angular shapes formed around her, illuminated by sunlight so bright she squinted.

“Bloody Saints!” She heard a voice shout in a British accent. The voice’s body moved toward her. Beyond him, others moved.

“Mother of Moses, what in heaven?”

Desi staggered, still dripping, her flippers thudding on the planks. Her breath echoed loud in her ears—until she realized… she was breathing. Air. Real air.

Fumbling, she yanked off her mask, pulled the regulator from her mouth, and inhaled the freshest air she’d ever breathed—salty with a hint of wood and tar.

She blinked against the sudden brightness of the Caribbean sun. Around her, sails snapped in the wind, ropes creaked and groaned, and waves rushed against the hull. A towering mast loomed above, its rigging swaying like spider silk. She turned in place, stunned—awash in the impossible.

This wasn’t a wreck.

This was a ship alive.

A half-dozen rough-looking men leapt her way from every direction, their eyes wide and jaws open. One of them cursed and reached for his cutlass.

Shock spun her thoughts into chaos. Nothing made sense.

Was this some sort of pirate reenactment? Wake up, Desi. Wake up!

The men continued cursing.

A shadow crossed her vision. She turned—and froze.

A man pushed his way through the startled crowd. Broad-shouldered, coat flaring in the wind, he moved with the effortless grace of command, boots echoing on the planks. Sunlight caught the bronze hilt of the sword at his hip as he halted a few feet away.

His crew muttered behind him, forming a wary circle, but he raised a hand and they stilled.

His eyes met hers.

The world shifted again—but inward this time, as though a long-dormant chord inside her had been struck. Recognition flared between them. Not of the face, but of the soul. She saw something in his eyes, something that sped past time and space.

She felt it.

So did he.

A glint of surprise flickered across his features, yet it wasn’t the shock of a man seeing the impossible. It was wonder. Certainty. Like a long-lost melody heard once more.

“You found me,” he said, voice low and rough with awe.

Desi’s lips parted, but no sound came.

The Ring burned. She opened her palm. It glimmered in the sunlight, no longer covered with grime. The ship leapt over a wave.

Then—

Her fingers loosened.

The Ring slipped from her grasp.

It hit the deck with a soft clink.

Desi broke through the surface with a gasp. The saltwater was warm, but she was shaking. Her breath hitched in her chest as she spun to look around. Her dive boat rocked among the blue waves in the distance, but the ancient ship was gone.

She ripped off her mask and yanked her regulator out. Her heart hammered. Her hands trembled.

“What, what was that?”

She opened her gloved hand again. The Ring was gone.

Spinning in the water, she looked down, searching. Nothing but the endless deep.

Even so, her pulse still carried the sound of sails snapping in the wind. And her heart still burned with the memory of his eyes.

Eyes she had dreamed of.

Eyes she had known for only a breath.

And already missed.