Chapter 6 #3
My question was ignored, and instead of replying, Audrey stood to shove me behind her as she stepped toward Liam.
“What do we do?” Her question was followed by another deafening roar, and far out in the water, a large creature emerged, tilting its head back as it released another haunting bellow.
I almost fainted from the sight of it.
It was as if a dragon was crawling out of the ocean. One clawed hand broke the surface of the water, flexing its massive claws. Pale scales glistened against the night sky, and the creature turned its huge reptilian snout toward us, parting its mouth and hissing.
It took every muscle in my body not to soil myself in devastating fear.
“We need to keep it away from civilians,” Liam muttered before he disappeared into thin air.
He was standing there, then he wasn’t. Perhaps he did the not-teleporting thing Audrey mentioned earlier.
“Hide!” Audrey shouted at me, pointing inside the cabin of my mini yacht, before she took off in a sprint, jumping off the boat into the ocean.
I was standing there on my deck, paralyzed with fear, unable to believe what I was seeing.
A masculine shout danced across the water, and the sword Liam held glinted against the moon’s glow when I realized he was jumping onto the long spine of the monster.
A flash of red hair followed him out of the water.
“No!” I shouted to myself. I had no idea what was happening, but I was not about to let some fuck ass guy lead Audrey to her death.
Perhaps I was hallucinating, and I wasn’t actually seeing a sea-dragon-like thing emerging from the Pacific Ocean.
I was convinced, however, that what was really happening was still dangerous.
Audrey was risking her life to get involved.
I would not let that happen.
Not after she saved me from those two men who tried to kidnap me only a week ago.
I sprinted to unanchor my boat, revving the engine as I slammed myself down in the captain’s chair. I scanned the water out of the windshield to find my friend. But the monster was gone; the normal, gentle waves of the ocean crashed against the harbor barrier behind me.
Oh no.
The sound of a sudden splash made me turn to follow the noise, because breaking through the surface was the scaly, yellow-eyed head of the beast that I had seen before.
It was just a lot closer now. My boat almost tipped over from the size and speed of the creature breaking through the surface.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I gasped, as I steered the boat away, deciding to stay out of its line of sight. However, on the snout of the dragon-or-lizard-or-whatever-the-hell, was Audrey.
“Aud!” Liam shouted, as he emerged from the ocean, clinging to the monster’s long, serpent-like neck. He emphasized his shout by stabbing his sword into the neck of the beast, eliciting a sharp cry, showing narrow and razor-sharp teeth that looked to be the length of my legs.
“Audrey!” I shouted over the piercing noise that came from the monster’s mouth—that Audrey seemed to be trying to tie shut.
Once the beast was restrained with more seaweed that Audrey was conducting with her hands, she shouted back to Liam.
“We don’t need to kill it!” Audrey cried as the beast swung its head, successfully knocking her off and into the ocean a few yards from my boat. The beast dove back under the waves, and I grabbed my comm while flipping on the external speakers.
“Audrey!” I shouted, catching her attention as her head resurfaced from the ocean, gasping for air. “Get on!”
She swung her head toward me, her eyes widening in horror as she started swimming toward the boat.
Swimming really fucking fast.
“Van! Get out of here!” Audrey gasped while spitting ocean water out of her mouth at the same time. Obviously, I ignored her as I ditched my captain’s seat to run to the edge of the boat and pull her up.
Right when Audrey clasped my hands, the beast broke through the surface of the water again, and a loud, wet thunk crashed onto the outer deck.
Audrey scrambled onto my boat, screaming at whatever landed behind us.
I followed her gaze to see the unmoving body of Liam, who had a large gash in his core that was bleeding rapidly.
“Shit—fuck—” I muttered as Audrey ran toward Liam, her hands glowing hot again. She knelt and slapped her palms onto his unmoving body, and within seconds, the blood started to stop.
“What do we do?” I asked, running over to grab the first-aid kit I kept under one of the exterior seats. I always kept several on board, always wanting to be prepared.
Even though no one on planet Earth could have prepared me for something like this.
“…Aud,” Liam groaned, before clasping her wrists with his hands. “You have to stop it. Before it gets to shore.”
“I can’t,” Audrey shook her head. “It won’t stop—”
A sharp bellow erupted from the beast, and while it was facing the docks of our town moments before, it quickly turned its sharp head toward my vessel, before tipping its head back and crying out a pained screech again.
“His sword is in its nose,” I gasped. Liam’s large blade was pierced through the top of the dragon-like snout, keeping it from closing its mouth completely, because the blade had already pierced its tongue.
“Stop it, Aud,” Liam groaned, inhaling a deep breath. His bleeding was completely stopped now, and when Aud lifted his shirt to check the wound, all that was left was a light pink scar. “Go.”
“I—” a large, scaly tail broke the surface of the water, and heavy dread sank in my stomach at the sight of it closing in on us.
“Do it!” Liam shouted.
“Shit!” Audrey cried in feral anger before standing up and screaming at the beast. It snarled back at her, hissing its foul breath down at us as it rose higher and higher. I was frozen, completely useless, as I stayed in a kneeling position at Liam’s side, watching Audrey flex her hands.
More seaweed and oceanic foliage erupted out of the Pacific, aggressively wrapping itself around the beast. With a flick of her wrist, more and more sprouted from the sea, successfully detaining and holding the monster back as it cried and bellowed.
“You need to stop!” Audrey screeched at the monster, who obviously didn’t listen at all. It became more hostile and aggressive the more her seaweed wrapped around it. It thrashed and thrashed, dislodging the sword in its snout, sending it clattering on the deck.
Audrey picked it up, anger pinching her fingers as she pointed Liam’s massive blade toward the beast. It screeched and groaned as a clutch of her fist brought the beast’s head down toward her level.
“Enough!” Audrey even stomped her foot with her command, which made the creature more upset. Even though seaweed was securely tightened around its jaw, with a threatening growl, it snapped its mouth open, tearing the seaweed off its face as it lunged toward Audrey.
Right as I reached my hand out—with no idea how I would actually help in this situation—Audrey cried and leaped in the air, aiming the sword right between the beast’s eyes.
As soon as Liam’s sword was buried to the hilt, the head of the monster immediately fell onto the deck of my boat, mere feet away from me and Liam, who was recovering well enough to grab the collar of my shirt so I wouldn’t slide off the boat and into the ocean.
The beast had no life left in its eyes, and when Audrey removed Liam’s sword with a grunt and jumped back on the deck, the massive head the size of a car, unceremoniously slid off my boat, back into the dark depths of the ocean.
The boat rocked back and forth dramatically, and the only reason I was able to stay on board was due to Liam’s hold on me until it stabilized.
The only sound was the Pacific waves crashing against the boat, the heavy breaths the three of us were desperately inhaling, and the ringing in my ears. I couldn’t tell how long we all sat on the deck, reveling in the silence after that disaster. Maybe it was five minutes. Maybe it was an hour.
Liam seemed to be fine now, thanks to Audrey’s healing touch, and Audrey was soaking wet, but not injured or shivering. I also had no injuries I could identify in the moment, so I shook my head and got to my feet before marching toward the cabin.
“What are you doing?” Audrey asked me.
“I’m getting another fucking drink.”