Chapter 18 #2
“Actually, it does.” I turn a smarmy look on him.
“I worked in retail. And hospitality, and cleaning, and wherever I could get a job, but I was never good at holding one down. Like, I would work well for a few months, then something would happen with someone at work, or I just got tired, or bored, and then… I would quit. So if someone was to be with me forever,” I scoff, “well, then they would want to know that I’m never bringing in money for more than a few months at a time, and not to rely on me for anything, really. ”
Makes it hard to get by.
Flaky, broke, and a bit of a deadbeat.
Guess I’m more like my dad than I care to admit.
I don’t see Samick judging me for it, though. He just considers me.
It makes it easier to be around him sometimes, easier than it’s ever felt to be around another human, because I don’t feel as judged.
“How do you feed yourself?” The dark warrior is curious. He’s sitting up now, forearms draped over his hiked knees. “Do humans live in community and share resources?”
His English still impresses the shit out of me. But really, it’s most surprising that he learned it so well—but knows nothing about us as a people.
I shake my head. “Not really. My friend looked after me when my mum died, and ever since. And I made money other ways.”
“What other ways?” Samick’s face is thinning, a faint echo of annoyance building through him—like his mind has already filled in the blanks, and he’s creating his own imagined answers.
“I sold drugs.” That’s the truth. “Weed, mostly. It’s something you smoke to relax. And I sold some stronger stuff. Party drugs.”
Samick’s cold stare sears into my cheek.
There’s an echo of disbelief in him, like he has suspicions that I’m not telling the whole truth.
I look at the dark warrior. “What does Connie do?”
His dark eyes flash.
But then his face shutters, and he just stares at me with a twisted look.
He tucks his chin to his shoulder and looks over at her, curled up with her back to the flames.
He doesn’t answer, because he doesn’t know.
Bet the guy hasn’t even spoken to her.
Bitterness spreads through me.
It’s not that I give two shits about Connie. It’s these alien fucks—making all these decisions for us.
Like him.
The cold one I turn my narrowed gaze to.
The one who considers me with that frost in his eyes, not quite green, not quite white, but somewhere in-between.
That bitterness softens in me.
And I hate him even more because of it.
The dark warrior stands.
Towering over the campfire, he turns his cheek to us—and a heavy sigh deflates his solid chest. He’s the sort of muscle that’s too jacked, too bulky, too wide, like he’s on steroids for a bodybuilding competition.
It’s only now, looking up at him, that I realise how fucking big he is.
My insides run cold.
I got too chatty.
I got way too mouthy.
But the dark warrior turns a frown over to the humans, then his bootsteps follow.
He makes his way to Connie.
Maybe he took my words to heart.
My mouth tugs at the thought.
Poor Connie.
She’s a few bootsteps away from being woken up by a massive, jacked fae warrior asking her what she did for work.
I turn a faint amused smile on Samick.
He arches his brow at me in response—and I think he can sense it… or hear it.
The humour stirring in me.
He doesn’t question it.
“What do you do?” I ask.
He tucks away his sketchbook. “I am a blacksmith—for the black metal.”
The black metal…
I glance down at the weapons strapped to his thigh, holstered to his hips—and so many of them have that chalky black metal for blades.
He can make those.
It…
It suits him, actually.
Poring over a craft, whether it’s a sketchbook, a weapon, or a cookpot—he is a creative.
I wonder if he made the flecked glass dagger he’s always touching.
Samick asks, “If you cannot care for yourself, why did you not marry?”
My mouth turns down at the corners.
His question hits me, harder than I’m comfortable with.
I shift on the spot, feeling the weight of it.
Because how the hell do I answer that? It’s a long story—but before I can even begin to sort out my answers, Samick stiffens.
Hand buried in the satchel, a stillness runs over him. A tension. It’s like he freezes over right in front of me.
I’ve been with him long enough now to know that it means nothing good.
I flick my gaze to Arwyn.
He’s just as motionless.
Book in hand, a frown creases into his brow, and he stays absolutely still.
“What—”
Samick’s hand shoots out for my face. His fingers pinch my lips shut, silencing me… but in the weirdest fucking way.
My wide eyes flick between him and Arwyn, while Samick keeps my lips pinched shut, but neither of them look at me.
Both slide their arctic stares in the direction we came from, the direction of the bay.
Trees and mossy boulders and distance block my view of the shore. Even with the campfires illuminating the forest, we’re too deep in to see the bay.
Still, the cold warriors stare in that direction.
And they aren’t the only ones.
In the seconds that have passed, most of the fae have completely stilled—and all of them are either looking around the camp or staring out at the trees.
The general is first to move.
Slowly, she rises from a crouch by hot flames. Her sharp chin lifts in the air—and she has a stare so severe that the bay should sink in on itself just to escape the ferocity of it.
I almost smack Samick’s hand away from my mouth.
But then I freeze, too.
Everyone does.
The captives, too.
Because we hear it.
It’s…
It’s impossible to even know what I’m hearing.
It’s an echo of a beast’s roar.
It’s the deafening splash of a violent waterfall.
It’s the shout of trees as they’re battered to pieces—
Holy.
Fucking.
Shit.
It’s the bay.
It’s the water.
It’s coming for us.
The second the fright spears through me, Samick has grabbed me by the scruff of my jacket and hauled me closer.
I smack into him, spilling over his lap, just as a shout splits the camp—
The general’s command blasts through the meadow.
Samick jumps to his feet, and I’m hoisted with him.
I have just a moment to grab at my backpack—but my fingernails graze over it before I’m lifted off the ground. My hand scrapes his satchel, and I take the chance and fist my grip on the strap.
Samick hauls me away—and, dangling over his forearm, I watch the heels of his boots kick up as he races for the centre of camp.
They all run.
Every warrior—even the humans.
I hear shrieks, stumbles, cracks, falls, cries…
Then I only hear the tidal wave coming, crashing into the trees, splitting them, blasting them into fucking splinters…
And it’s a roar all around me.
The firelight reaches up the heights of the trees, and I fucking see it, I see it, oh my god—
A grunt shoves out of me.
Samick slams us into a wall of stone and brick.
But then, I drop to my feet and the smell of leather is all around me.
It’s not brick or stone, it’s fae.
I’m surrounded, packed in shoulder to shoulder, back to chest, in a unit of them.
Against that.
The wave that climbs higher than the treetops.
The wave that arches overhead and roars that deafening sound.
I force the satchel strap over my head—and the second I do, Samick’s hand comes pressing down on me, forcing my head down.
This boulder of fae, strong and sturdy, ducks together. In sync, they all crouch down.
And it strikes.
I don’t even hear my own scream.
I do scream.
My throat is strangled.
It vibrates in my neck, wracks my whole body.
Doubled over, Samick curves over me like a fucking shield, brick bodies all around me, and still, I can’t stop screaming—
Until the breath is knocked out of me like a violent blow to the back, and I hit the forest floor, hard.
Bodies collide.
Limbs strike me like falling marble statues.
Water crashes down on me.
Fae bodies take the brunt of it, but those are whacked and knocked into me like brick walls.
Water floods the forest floor, forces its way into my mouth, into my lungs.
I’m flailing.
Flailing for what, I don’t know.
I don’t feel him anymore.
Samick was my shield, but now on my back, all I feel are waves blasting over me.
I’m being washed away.
I writhe in it, water as deep as a pool.
Shouts ricochet through the meadow—
No, not the meadow.
The forest.
I’m surrounded by trees now, torn away from the boulder, the camp, the others.
I battle the waters in a desperate swim—but I’m being swept away, and I’m knocking into trees and rocks and shrubs.
I hear muffled shouts. Cries that come from all around me, all different directions.
“Tesni!”
Samick is calling out for me.
I try to shout back but water sploshes into my mouth, and I’m choking. I’m forced back under, spinning like I’m in a fucking washing machine. I roll and roll and roll—until my face breaks the surface, and I’m sputtering and gasping for air before I’m sucked back under.
I break the surface again—and the world is tumbling darkness. No campfires, no torches, it’s all pitch black.
“Tesni!” His shout bellows through the forest. It’s wrangled, desperate almost.
I try to call out again, but my throat is strangled raw, like it’s been fucked with sandpaper.
I’m gagging in the water, smacking into trees and rocks, and I think I throw up, or that’s water spilling out of me.
Waves must still be breaking in the forest.
The strikes are deafening. Trees are cracking and splitting, the earth trembles under the siege—and the force of wave after wave pushes me further away.
‘Tesni…’
I hardly hear him anymore.
It might just be my mind playing tricks on me.
I’m so far away now, far from the commotion, the cries, the cracking trees…
All I hear now is the water washing me away.
I don’t let it.
The next tree or rock I hit could be the one to crack into my head and end it all.
Too close to the bridge, too close to the end of it all, I can’t let a fucking wave take me out.
Not now.
Not after everything.
I flail through the water, as if I have some sort of control—
But I don’t.