CHAPTER FOUR
Myra
“Are you following me?” I asked, doing nothing to hide my irritation.
He looked back at the horizon behind him from whence he’d spawned, then back to me. “It’s hard to follow but still arrive first, love.”
I paused to take a deep breath, hating that he’d made a good point. “Then tell me why you’re here. I know it’s not a coincidence.”
“I’m here because you’re here, and our business isn’t finished yet.”
My anger brewed at the superior tone in his voice. “How the fuck did you know this was where I’d be?”
“Because you’re not nearly as clever as you think you are. Honestly, you insult my intelligence with that question.”
“Answer me, you sneaky little shit. How did you know?”
“It was simple, really. You were obsessed with money the entire time I worked at The Riff Raff. You skulked around in search of black-market items that could only be used for the strongest magic. You were counting your money when you fled the bar tonight—which I’ve never seen you do before—as though the sum was particularly important for some reason.
But what gave you away most, love, was your dismissal of my proposition, because I know for a fact that you once would have fucked me blind in the middle of a crowded room if you thought it would have gotten your tail back, and tonight you turned down my offer without hesitation.
Your plan was clear as day at that point.
It was simply a matter of when you would enact it.
” He bent forward just enough to level his gaze on mine.
“The where seemed relatively self-explanatory.”
“The why isn’t, though, since I already gave you your answer, but if you’d like me to rephrase it, allow me to take this moment to make myself abundantly clear.
” I clasped my hands behind my back to mimic his posture and leaned in closer.
“I will never make a deal with you, Yael. I’d sooner make a pact with the devil himself. ”
His smile gleamed in the moonlight. “And you might before the night is over.” That sharp gaze of his drifted down to my fist clenched around the vial, and all I could think about was punching him square in his perfectly chiseled jaw with it. “What do you have there?”
“None of your business—”
“Is that your ticket out of here?” he asked with mock curiosity. “I thought we covered this already, little mermaid. There is no magic in existence that can get you back to the Deep.”
“Maybe I don’t need to get to the Deep. Maybe I just need to get in the water.”
“My warning still applies. There is no magic that can break that curse.”
“Really?” I said, backing away enough to circle around him. “Then tell me something: how exactly are you going to accomplish that feat if I help you? That is what you promised me, isn’t it? That you’d send me home? Or is this some kind of fae trick—”
“I don’t need magic to make your return happen. I have something better.”
“A fae king to do your bidding?”
His jaw flexed as he bit back his initial response—or his rising anger. “Something like that.”
“Evasive yet again,” I said as I backed toward the Pacific, careful not to come into contact with it yet. “Shocking.”
“I wouldn't trust that potion,” he called out as I continued to put space between us. “You’re playing a dangerous game.”
“As I would be if I agreed to any deal with you, so…” I shrugged for effect, then uncorked the vial of clear liquid. “I guess we’ll know soon enough. Bottoms up!”
The tasteless potion slid down my throat in one swallow, and I stood there for a moment, watching Yael watch me. I knew the magic would only take seconds to work, but I waited a little longer just in case because I had no interest in facing the consequences I knew would come if it hadn’t.
His hawk-like gaze followed me as I backed closer still to the water. “Last chance to walk away,” he said in a monotone, as though he didn’t really care about the outcome.
As though he weren’t trying to maneuver me into staying to serve his own, undoubtedly dark purpose.
I stared him dead in those deep green eyes, then turned to face the waves lapping the shore at my feet. With a steadying breath, I stepped right into the incoming tide.
The icy water caressed my ankles, and for the briefest moment, I felt a sense of peace I hadn’t experienced since I’d washed up on that very shore two years earlier.
The chill of the ocean wound higher and higher up my legs as I stood there, grounded in the sensation the salt water provided.
But as it climbed, that familiar feeling began to bleed into another altogether; one of cold panic as that water began to engulf me, filling my lungs as an eerie voice echoed in my mind.
You can never return…
Though I stood in mere inches of the sea, it swelled in my chest as though I were immersed in its depths, gasping for air where there was none to breathe. I clutched my throat and collapsed to my knees, drowning on the shore. My punishment for attempting to return.
“Uh oh,” Yael said as he approached behind me, “looks like the devil might have been right about that potion…” I struggled and writhed against the crushing sensation in my chest, trying to escape the tide with all that I had, but it held me firmly in its grasp this time and would not let me go.
Then Yael stepped in next to me, looked down his nose at my strained face, and smiled.
“I’ll bet my deal is looking a lot more appealing at the moment, isn’t it?
” He reached his hand toward me, and I grabbed onto it and tried to leverage myself closer.
“Because I’m not quite the monster you seem to think I am, I’m willing to honor the terms of my earlier proposition: you help me locate the person I’m searching for, and once you’ve succeeded in finding her, I’ll secure your return to the Deep—after I get you out of the mess you’re currently in, of course. You’re not much good to me dead.”
My vision blurred and darkness rimmed my sight as death closed in around me.
If I wanted to live, I didn’t have many options—or much time.
An hour earlier, I’d been willing to accept my fate if it were to be death upon my return, but in that moment, faced with that level of finality, my bravery quickly waned.
I opened my mouth to answer, but instead of a reply, water spilled from my lungs past my lips.
“The clock is ticking, little mermaid,” he said as I coughed and sputtered, a hint of urgency in his tone. “What will it be?” His silhouette was little more than a black shadow in the center of my tunnel vision as I nodded and hacked out a word that sounded like “yes.”
The second I did, his hand wrapped around mine, and I felt a surge of magic shoot through my failing body. He scooped me up and carried me away from the cursed sea trying to take my life. The second I broke contact with it, the water in my lungs disappeared.
Yael set me down on the rocks as I coughed and wheezed and gasped for air that couldn’t come fast enough. It was a miracle and a blessing that I didn’t lose consciousness right there. But thanks to that consciousness, the reality of what I’d agreed to began to set in.
The fae bastard crouched down in front of me, haughty expression still firmly in place, and smiled. “Glad to see you finally came to your senses. I knew you inevitably would, but I have to give you credit. You really held out much longer than I’d expected.”
“Death… seemed like a… solid option,” I managed to spit out between ragged breaths.
“It still could be,” he said, eyeing the ocean only feet away.
“Shall I put you back?” He reached for me, and I scrambled backward, desperate to get away.
“That’s what I thought.” Rising slowly, he towered above me as I lay there, awkwardly propped up on my elbows, looking up at him.
“I’ll be by tomorrow to go over the particulars with you.
You should go home and get some rest,” he said as he turned to leave. “You’re going to need it.”
“Why me?” I shouted after him, my raspy voice snapping at him like a whip. He halted long enough to look back over his shoulder, and the wicked gleam in his eyes was a warning all its own.
“Because my sister disappeared weeks ago, and there is delicate information I need to obtain from select individuals. Only a few beings in existence possess the magic necessary to compel it from them without suspicion.”
Realization slammed into me like a rogue wave.
The Siren’s Song… the one aspect of my magic that had withstood the stripping of my tail and my exile from the Deep. And the one thing I had worked diligently to keep secret from those who knew me.
The way he smiled with delight told me that my reaction had given me away. “I know you have it, Myra, and you are going to use it to help me find her. It’s as simple as that.”
“Except there is nothing simple about using the Siren’s Song, Yael,” I argued as I struggled to stand.
“That sounds like your problem, not mine,” he replied without a hint of compassion in his voice. “I’ll see you tomorrow, little mermaid.”
He turned to leave once again, and all I could do was stand in shock and horror as I watched him disappear into the shadows of the Devil’s Playground like Satan himself.
And I’d just made a deal with him.