Chapter 23
A low, wet swish whispered through the dark behind him.
Klari twisted mid-stroke, golden eyes snapping downward. Nothing. Only the endless black and a few drifting specks of phosphorescence.
He held still for a heartbeat, gills flaring, listening. The water was silent again. He shook it off and kept pushing forward.
Another swish — closer this time, like something massive sliding through the water just out of sight.
He spun again, scanning the depths below him. Still nothing. No shape, no movement, no glow. Only the vast, empty dark pressing in from all sides.
His markings flickered uneasily across his chest. He bared his teeth, a low growl vibrating in his throat, but he couldn’t afford to stop. Greta’s trail was already thinning.
He turned back toward the direction the current had taken her and drove forward harder.
The third swish came from directly beneath him.
This time it was louder. Like a curtain of water being dragged aside by something enormous. Klari’s head snapped down just as the black depths erupted.
It rose from the black like death given living form.
Veyr’khal. The Deep Phantom.
The colossal squid-beast surged upward with terrifying speed, its translucent mantle longer than three males laid end to end, rippling with eerie blue-white bioluminescent pulses that revealed glimpses of pulsing organs and thick veins inside.
Eight thick tentacles lined with barbed suckers and hooked chitin rings lashed out like living cables. Two longer feeding arms whipped forward, tipped with razor claws.
Its huge silver-ringed eyes locked onto him with cold, intelligent hunger.
The monster had smelled his blood.
Klari’s wounds from the land fight had reopened during his battle with the current. Dark ribbons of blood trailed behind him like an open invitation.
The Veyr’khal attacked without warning.
One massive feeding arm whipped forward faster than anything that size had any right to move.
Klari twisted at the last possible heartbeat, but the barbed tip still caught his already torn side, ripping a fresh, jagged gash that sent a hot cloud of blood exploding into the water.
Pain detonated through his body like lightning striking bone.
He roared and lunged, claws slashing across the creature’s translucent mantle. Black ink burst outward in a thick, blinding cloud.
The beast didn’t even flinch.
A thick tentacle slammed around his waist, suckers clamping down with crushing force. The barbed rings tore into his scales, ripping through flesh and muscle.
Another tentacle whipped across his back, hooks gouging three deep, parallel lines from shoulder blade to hip.
Klari snarled in agony, twisting violently inside the crushing grip. He drove his claws deep into the soft flesh between the tentacles, tearing out chunks of quivering meat that floated away in ragged pieces.
The Veyr’khal shrieked — a high, piercing frequency that vibrated through his bones and made his gills seize. It yanked him closer to the gaping, beak-like maw hidden beneath its mantle, the razor edges already opening.
No. Not yet. She’s waiting ? —
Klari bit down hard on the nearest tentacle, teeth sinking deep, tearing away a mouthful of rubbery flesh.
The creature convulsed. Ink flooded the water again, swirling like a nightmare of red and black.
He used the chaos.
With a savage twist, he slammed the hardened edge of his tail into the side of the Veyr’khal’s mantle like a battering ram. The impact shuddered through both of them.
He struck again, and again, each blow fueled by the raw panic clawing at his chest. His claws found the edge of one huge silver eye and raked across it, splitting the surface open. Milky fluid leaked out in thick streams.
The Veyr’khal released him for one precious second.
Klari didn’t waste it.
He drove forward and buried both sets of claws into the creature’s mantle, ripping downward with every ounce of remaining power in his exhausted body.
Black blood poured out in thick, viscous streams. The monster thrashed wildly, tentacles whipping in every direction. One caught him across the chest, the barbed suckers tearing three deep gashes that instantly welled with fresh blood.
Another wrapped around his thigh, squeezing until he felt scales crack and bone grind.
Pain blurred his vision, but he kept slashing, kept roaring, kept fighting.
Every strike carried Greta’s name.
She chose me. She trusted me. I will not leave her alone out here.
The Veyr’khal finally broke.
It pulled back into the darkness, one eye ruined and leaking, mantle torn open and leaking dark fluid, tentacles curling protectively around its wounds.
With a final, furious pulse of bioluminescence that lit the water like a dying star, the beast vanished into the abyss, leaving only a thick trail of ink and the heavy metallic taste of its blood in the water.
Klari hung motionless in the bloodied darkness, chest heaving, gills burning with every labored breath.
Blood drifted from a dozen fresh wounds — his side, his chest, his back, his thigh. His vision swam at the edges. Every muscle screamed.
And the trail had gone cold.
The violent struggle had scattered every trace of Greta’s scent. The current had shifted again. The water around him was silent and empty.
Despair clawed at the edges of his mind — cold and suffocating — until a sound sliced through the black like a blade through flesh.
A scream.
Greta’s scream — raw, terrified, and fiercely defiant — distorted by distance and water but unmistakable .
Klari’s head snapped toward the sound. Fresh, desperate strength flooded his exhausted muscles like fire in his veins.
He bared his teeth, golden eyes blazing with primal fury, and drove forward through the bloodied water with everything he had left.
“I’m coming,” he snarled into the darkness, tail lashing hard enough to send visible shockwaves through the water.
Nothing in this sea — monster, rival, or the Malquarans themselves — was going to keep him from her.