Chapter 42
ISLA
Stars shone in Isla’s vision as the back of her head slammed into the sand, a momentary blackness blanketing her thoughts until the icy ocean water bit into her shoulders, weighing down her clothes.
“Isla!”
Ameera.
Isla’s ears hollowed around the sound of tearing cloth, then an imposing wolf appeared as she blinked. Blinked. A wave crested. Crashed. Her breath sharpened as her head went under, the saltwater burning her throat and nose, choking her.
You need to move.
Ameera’s lumerosi burned bright as she dove into the sea, trying to sever what felt like a tentacle’s grip around her calf. It tightened its hold, squeezing so much that Isla thought her limb would be ripped off entirely.
Move!
She felt a tug at the core from that darker part of her while the voice in her head bellowed.
Distant, so distant, but there. As if, somehow, Kai had crossed the breadth of land and water and drove his power into every void between them.
Move!
It was her own voice this time. A chant. A war song.
Isla twisted, gritting through the pain in her leg as she dug her fingers into the sand.
Move!
A steady roll of thunder shook the skies as she hauled herself up the shore, arms straining as she pulled and kicked out at whatever held her.
Ameera’s wolf yipped, and Isla cried out at the release of pressure, her face slamming forward into the sand.
Move!
Isla clambered to her feet, wrenching her dagger free from where it had been strapped to her leg.
Ameera.
Her wolf’s front leg leaked crimson, and Isla met her halfway as she limped over. She strained to hold her wolf up, to walk.
Ameera shifted back, grunting and clutching her shredded arm. “Shit, the salt stings.”
Isla’s eyes dragged over the injury as the flesh slowly mended, then at Ameera’s clothes in tatters across the beach. She shrugged off her jacket. “Here. Keep the wound covered.” She helped her slip it on. “Run or kill it?”
They were both warriors. If whatever this was posed a threat to others, they needed to take care of it.
Ameera never had the chance to answer.
The creature that slinked from the water was unlike any Isla had ever seen.
Two sharp points emerged first—murky green ears that speared the air like lances.
Pitch-dark eyes absorbed the night above a slitted nose and thin mouth, pulled back to reveal razor-sharp teeth that still had a chunk of Ameera’s flesh embedded in them.
Humanoid, the creature trudged onto the sand, its long, slick body the same muddy green as the tentacles stretching from its back and trailing over the sand like the train of a gown.
“I should’ve brought my sword,” Isla muttered, the cold slithering along her body.
“I’m not healing fast enough,” Ameera panted. “It could be venom. We need the high ground. There’s a forest over there for some cover, and we’ll get it away from the water.”
Isla felt the bond tug inside her as the thunder rolled again. “Okay.”
Her body tensed when the creature’s eyes fell on her. “Isss it you whom I ssseek, mortal?”
She held in her gasp.
Was this a siren? She’d always imagined them prettier and with… tails. Not these lengths of leg with taloned, webbed feet.
“The sssea and ssshadows sssay it’s so.”
Every instinct in Isla fired to run. If this was a siren, they didn’t stand a chance if it got them into the water. She and Ameera stepped back, knowing that if they turned now, the tendrils at its back would be long enough to reach them.
“Who are you looking for exactly?” Isla asked, readying her blade in her grip. She had one shot at this—only one to distract it.
And then she’d need another weapon.
The creature tilted its head. “The bridge, the cursssed one, the anssswer, the key.” The way it said the words had almost been melodic. “Which are you, golden one?”
Isla sent up a prayer and hurled the dagger. “None.”
She and Ameera didn’t linger to see if she hit her mark.
The creature shrieked, and Isla’s legs bleated in protest as they pushed her against the sands, moving faster and faster. They needed to get to the forest, to higher ground. She needed a weapon, her dagger back. Or…
Shit, shit, shit.
She had one more weapon in her arsenal. One she hadn’t attempted to use. One she knew there was no coming back from. But they’d die if it got to them, dragged down into the watery depths.
Isla dug deep, hurling herself towards her wolf. She embraced the cold, the power that waited, and darkness met her. She punched through it, pulled from it, falling to her hands and knees as her foundations trembled.
“Isla!”
One of the tendrils snapped at her leg, tried to wrap around it, but recoiled.
And then the world shifted, for she had not.
Isla might have screamed—she wasn’t sure—but the pressure inside her exploded as darkness and cold bled from her.
With her arms nearly buckling, she turned and faced upright, choking when she met the glowing eyes—violet eyes—of the creature she’d glimpsed in the woods back in Deimos. A wolf crafted of shadows, of the deepest darkness between stars.
Her wolf.
Given a new form, new life.
Because somehow, when she’d healed her, when she’d brought her back from near-death, Raana must’ve given her magic.
That had been the unending cold, the dark veil blocking her from shifting completely. Her wolf had become… this.
She had no time to dwell on it. The impossibility, the catastrophe if this was forever.
“Go,” Isla commanded through gritted teeth, willing her wolf forward, dredging up every scrap of energy she had to let it take charge.
Ameera appeared behind her, bringing herself to her feet. And then they watched the creature of the sea square itself, its claws out, ready to tear through bone and flesh—only that wasn’t what it faced.
Her wolf moved faster than Isla could blink.
Moved as she would have if she’d been shifted, only it had no weak spots. At least, none that the creature could connect with.
Where it swiped with taloned hands, the wolf became as elusive as air, its body only smoke.
But when the wolf struck, it became hard as stone, sharp as a blade, powered by the ferocity of a luna.
Her ebony canines sank deep into the creature’s neck, and it barely had time to shriek before its head was ripped from its body.
Pearlescent blood sprayed as its corpse dropped to the ground, its serpentine head caught in the jaws of her wolf, the creature’s black eyes wide and vacant.
Isla met her wolf’s gaze, willing it to drop the head as the world swayed. She obeyed, and they watched it thud and roll across the sand.
Nausea overtook her, but not from the gore.
“Come back,” she rasped, as her wolf became nothing but mist that blew over her. Isla’s breath caught as she felt the creature settle right where it always had, ready to be called on again.
Ameera struggled to hold her upright as Isla’s legs gave way. “What the hell was that?”
Then everything went dark.