CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Myra
A welcome darkness overcame me as sleep took the reins.
It was peaceful there, calm and cool as the sea.
I floated through my mind, drifting with the currents until I dove deep into the midnight water—so deep that the light of the moon could no longer follow.
A voice called to me from the abyss, beckoning me to it like a siren’s call.
Forceful strokes of my tail propelled me closer with urgency, until a faint light below began to grow stronger as I neared.
Following it like a beacon, I swam into my childhood room, the voice growing louder still.
“There you are,” he said from behind me.
“I’ve been looking for you everywhere.” I turned to find Finn’s deep brown eyes only inches from my face, staring at me with an intensity that made my heart race.
“Don’t let them get to you, Myra. They’re threatened by your gifts, by the power you wield.
That’s why they treat you the way they do—why they treat us both like that.
” His warm hand stroked my cheek, and I melted into it.
“No one will ever understand you the way I do, little mermaid.” He leaned in until his lips touched mine, kissing me softly. “It’s you and me against the world.”
Those words wrapped around my mind like an embrace I’d craved since I was little, choking off whatever warning niggled in my adult brain.
I kissed him back with reckless abandon as our bodies intertwined, a tangle of arms and tentacles and tail.
My closest friend. My first love. The only other one in the Deep as misunderstood as I was. The only male I’d ever give myself to.
The faint sound of someone else entering the room distracted him, and he turned to find the queen hovering behind him.
He grasped her chin in his hand and pulled her face to his.
“No one will ever understand you the way I do,” he whispered as he leaned in closer and pressed his lips to hers, and my heart sank into my gut. “It’s you and me against the world…”
I looked on as he kissed her like he’d just kissed me. I was helpless, unable to move or scream or do anything but watch his duplicity play out before me. And when he finally pulled away from her, the two of them stared back at me with bloodlust in their eyes.
The queen’s hand caught my throat and squeezed so hard a vein in her forehead began to bulge with the strain while Finn looked on with wicked delight.
“You shall never return,” she hissed at me as I thrashed against her hold.
My tail was gone, leaving only bare legs flailing in vain to get away.
But with one well-placed kick to her gut, her hold faltered enough for me to launch upward, holding my breath as the world around me began to narrow.
Finn’s hand shot out and caught my ankle, holding me just below the waterline I would never reach in time.
“You will never survive me,” he said with a malicious grin more frigid than the waters trying to drown me.
A garbled scream escaped me, allowing the salty sea to fill my lungs.
I reached out in a last-ditch effort to grab hold of something, but all that met my fingertips was the icy water and the promise of death.
The fight began to leave my body, my limp arms floating above my head as the darkness set in…
Something cut through the water and wrapped around my wrists, grasping me like a vise and hauling me up.
My head broke free of the ocean, and I sucked in desperate breaths between fits of frantic coughing.
I squinted through my blurred vision to find Yael’s angelic face looking back at me as I dangled half out of the water in front of him.
“You came for me,” I said softly as relief washed over me.
He canted his head and looked me over while still holding my arms high above my head.
Leaning in slowly until his lips were at my ear, he whispered, “your need to return will be the death of you, little mermaid.” Pulling away just enough to look at me with an onyx stare I didn’t recognize, he laughed.
Then he plunged my head back under and held me down while I scratched and fought to escape—to try to use the Siren’s Song—but I lacked the strength, and my voice no longer worked under water.
But somehow his echoed through my mind as I felt my life slipping away.
Your need to return will be the death of you…
And as my vision faded, he pushed his face into the water just enough to better watch me die.
“You should have listened to me,” he said as his grip on me tightened.
His voice grew louder, clearer, and decidedly higher-pitched as he surged toward me, his face morphing into the crone’s as he grew closer. “YOU MUST LISTEN TO ME!”
Her words were sharp and deafening, and they ripped me from my nightmare like Yael had pulled me from the sea.
I shot up in bed, clutching my chest as my heart rammed against my ribs so hard I feared it might break through.
And while I fought for my life in a totally different way, I watched a dark silhouette fade into the shadows that reached deep into my room.
“Listen to me, Myra,” the crone whispered one last time before she disappeared for good.