Chapter 11
Chapter
Eleven
Iwake in slow phases.
Frozen agony. A strange heaviness in my limbs. Splashing. Someone pants in my ear, their breath the only spot of warmth.
I drop under, then come to in a haze of pain and darkness. More panting. The sensation of something dragging me by the arm. I try to fight against it, to free myself, but I fade into darkness.
Eventually, I register the moon, bright above me, not quite full. Water sloshes over my face, spills into my open mouth. I should be choking, gagging, but I’m not.
It’s so cold.
Something tugs on my sleeve. Over the sound of roaring water, I can just barely detect a wheeze. A frantic whine in my ear.
I struggle.
For one horrible moment, I have no idea where I am. Splashing, gasping, I wrench my arm free, and then I realize—
—I’m in the ocean.
I’m in the ocean, and something is trying to drag me under.
I loose a scream that sounds more like a moan and throw my hands out in an attempt to tread water, but I have no idea how to swim, no idea how to stay afloat.
My palm collides with something solid. A fresh surge of panic arises. There are all kinds of things that can eat me in the sea, and I shouldn’t be here and—
Wait, is that fur?
I close my fingers around something that is definitely wet and furry.
What the fuck?
There’s another whine.
What is this? A dog? Did a dog jump in the water after me?
Doesn’t matter. I can’t let him drown. I grapple for purchase, but the dog has gone limp, started to sink. I catch a paw and hold on tight, yanking him closer until I can reach beneath his armpits and pull his head above water.
My vision adjusts incrementally until I can detect pointed ears, a long snout.
There’s a cough, and water pours from the dog’s nostrils.
“It’s gonna be OK, buddy,” I pant, even though it absolutely isn’t OK and we’re definitely about to die.
At least he’s hacking the water from his lungs. Even if we were on land, I have no idea how to do CPR on a person, let alone a dog. He’s breathing noisily now, and that’s just going to have to be enough, even if it sounds painful.
My throat burns. My lungs ache. My arms are sore. Around me, my coat billows. I go to kick my legs and—
Something’s horribly, horribly wrong.
I can’t feel my feet. Can’t feel my legs as I kick them out behind me.
I can sense something, but it’s not—not right. I can’t wriggle my toes. Can’t bend my knees. Can’t spread my legs.
Maybe something’s wrapped around me. Seaweed or rope, maybe even a scrap of fabric.
That’s got to be it. I’m just… mummified by a loose sail, or a giant plastic bag. The ocean is full of trash, and I’m trapped like a fish.
I thrash and propel forward.
Everything feels weird, unfamiliar.
Bile rises in my throat.
This isn’t right.
I think of tentacles and let out a horrified moan. Fuck. Oh fuck. What if my legs are just gone? What if I’m some kind of hideous squid monster now?
I look down at the dog, still clenched tight against me, limp and barely breathing. In the moonlight, I can just make out my hands. At first, I’m relieved, but then I realize that these aren’t my hands.
These aren’t even human hands.
At first, I’m not even sure what I’m looking at. The outline is the same, but my skin is too shiny, full of tiny ridges, and oh fuck, those are scales.
I hyperventilate. I raise a hand in front of me, stare in horror at black, curved talons, sharp enough to slice flesh with a single swipe.
I look down at the dog. I can smell the blood before I see it. That’s new and alarming. Hopefully it isn’t my fault.
I look at my talons and have the horrible, sinking feeling that it is.
I bend my arm. Something long and shiny trails after it. I squint.
That’s a fin. Holy shit. Fins and spines sprout from my arms, spilling through the tear in my coat, and they look so fucking natural, somehow.
OK, fuck, I was right. I am some kind of fish creature. Some kind of horrible, mutated—
I reach up and very carefully drag the pads of my fingers across my face. My nose and lips feel normal, but my teeth are needle-thin and sharp. I flinch as one pierces my skin.
I move my hands from my face to my hair and give a groan of relief. It’s still there. OK, at least I’m not a baldheaded fish creature. I was half-afraid of finding fins on my scalp.
When I blink, I’m surprised to realize that I can see pretty well. But when I look up, the moon is almost entirely hidden behind clouds. It’s raining. The wind whips the waves around us into foam.
Whatever the fuck is wrong with me needs to wait, because I’m in danger out here. I don’t know how long I’ll stay in this form. I definitely can’t swim, and if I give up now, this dog dies, too.
And I don’t want that. Not when he’s probably the only reason I didn’t drown. (Unless I have gills, too. I’m afraid to check. Worse, I don’t even know where to look for them.)
With my free arm, I use the momentum of the water to spin in a slow circle.
At first, there’s nothing but darkness. Water surrounds us.
Then I spot the cliff, the waves crashing against it like they’re determined to break it down piece by piece.
Following the line of the cliff, I locate the beach.
It’s low, rocky, and further away than I’d like, but I think I can reach it.
I try to kick my legs like I’ve seen swimmers do on TV. It doesn’t work.
I don’t dare look behind me. There might be tentacles, and I’m not ready to deal with them right now.
Eventually, I manage something like a thrashing motion and start making some progress in the direction of land.
Once I get going, it’s surprisingly easy to stay afloat, although I have to be careful to keep the dog’s head above water, pausing occasionally to make sure he’s still breathing.
The stench of blood is strong, but the water keeps washing it away.
“Stay with me,” I say, and I’m hugely, horribly relieved to discover that my voice sounds much the same as usual, only a little richer, more melodic.
Must be the anxiety, I reason. Very carefully, I stroke the dog’s ear with the palm of my hand. His nose twitches, but he doesn’t rouse.
Using my free arm and whatever has replaced my legs, I propel us to shore. Occasionally, I alternate my grip on the dog.
Underwater, something brushes against me. I let out a screech like a dying banshee. The sound echoes over the waves, cuts through the air like a knife. If I were any less afraid, I’d be embarrassed.
Whatever it is, it doesn’t touch me again, but I swim with renewed vigor.
“Get to shore, get to shore, get to shore,” I babble, using my new, webbed hand to gain momentum.
Is something hunting me? Are a lot of things hunting me? I can’t quite see into the depths. Not in this pure blackness. And as my spine tingles in terror, another part of me yearns to dive under, to see what lurks beneath the waves.
I push the urge down and focus on swimming.
Eventually, I scrape my stomach on a rock. Pain zings up and down my torso, but I’m overwhelmed by a sense of relief. We must be nearing the shore.
Pulling the dog closer to me, I use my free hand to navigate, hoping to find any rocks before we crash into them.
And then, at long last, my hand strikes sand—soft, grainy, wondrous sand.
The problem comes when I try to get my feet under me. My legs aren’t working, won’t align the way I want them to. Loud splashing accompanies my struggle.
“I’m not looking,” I grit out. My new, sharp teeth feel strange against my tongue. “You can’t make me.”
If I look, I’ll never recover from the shock, I’m sure of it.
Twenty feet later, I manage to lay the dog flat on the beach. Then, when the tide sloshes over us, I shove him out in front of me.
Wind rips past us. I shudder, gave the dog another shove. Now that I can see him laid out in front of me, I realize there’s something funky about his coat. Something strange about his build.
Holy fucking shit, this is a wolf, not a dog. Even drenched, I recognize the shape of the head, the face, the ears, the body, the massive paws.
A wolf tried to save me.
A wolf, or…
My hand flies to my mouth in a spray of salt water and sand. I poke myself in the lip with a talon and it hurts.
A shifter. Someone saw me fall, tried to rescue me.
Someone banned from Halea saw me fall and risked everything to get to me.
That has to be it. There was no one else at the ruin. Nobody to fall with me. Besides, if there had been a wolf hanging out nearby, I would’ve noticed, right?
Right?
It doesn’t matter. I keep flopping and shoving at the wolf. I’ll get him to safety and then worry about whatever the hell is wrong with me.
Thank fuck nobody is around to witness this.
When I’ve finally outrun the tide, I give the wolf one final push, and collapse onto my stomach, panting hard.
Everything aches. My hands, my torso, my legs, my throat, my sinuses, hell, even my skin.
I groan, drag myself to the wolf, holding my ear over its mouth so I can listen to his frantic breathing.
Does he need CPR? Does he—
At once, I can’t breathe. There’s a strange stillness to my body, even my organs, as if every muscle has locked, every joint frozen. I try to move. Nothing happens.
And then comes a bolt of agony, like lightning down my spine. I make a sound like the breath has been punched out of me, and maybe it has been, for all I know.
Something crunches. I scream. My legs are on fire, my arms feel like they’ve been dipped in acid, and my spine is fucking twisting. My throat constricts. I choke, cough, convulse. A terrible sound ripples in the wind, then vanishes.
Spots fill my vision until they’re all I can see.
Darkness takes over. Then, all at once, the pain abates.
I cough again, let out a sob as I test my fingers, my toes. Thank fuck, I can finally feel my feet again, though they’re frozen, nearly numb. The tide reaches me, rushes over my legs, and I feel that. I bend my knees, crack my ankles, and let out a long moan of relief.
OK. Things are working again. That’s good. That is… one less thing I have to worry about.
On my hands and knees, I finally raise my gaze to the wolf.
The wolf is gone. In its place is a naked man, lying motionless on his side.
“Fuck,” I choke.
Shifter. Right.
The tide crashes over me again, and I stumble to my feet. With some confusion, I notice that I can feel the sand squishing between my toes. I look down. In the darkness, I can only just make out the silhouette of my bare legs and feet.
Instinctively, I reach for my belt loops, and discover that I don’t have any, because I’m not wearing anything on my lower half.
My shoes, socks, underwear, pants—they’re all gone.
In sheer panic, I grasp at my shirt. At first, I only find my coat.
I run frantic hands over my torso, and find the remains of my shirt, cut off above the nipples.
The fabric is fucking shredded. Just absolutely destroyed. The sleeves are intact from the elbows up. Everything else is sliced to ribbons.
I try not to think about that. Instead, I pull my coat tight around me. It’s just long enough to cover my ass, which is going to have to be good enough for now.
I turn to the naked man.
He’s not moving. My heart crawls into my throat, thrums pitifully.
“Shit,” I say. My voice is scratchy, no longer melodic. Probably from all the sea water I’ve swallowed. “Hey,” I say, kneeling beside him, shaking his bare shoulder. “Hey, wake up.”
Nothing happens.
I spread my palm over his ribcage, let out a sigh of relief when his chest rises and falls. Good. He’s still alive.
In the darkness, I can’t tell if he’s injured. The wolf was bleeding. Is the man?
Water races over my ankles, and splashes over the man’s stomach.
Shit. We need to move. I grab him by the shoulders, drag him over the sand. But my arms and legs feel like Jello, and he’s heavy. “Come on, come on,” I mutter, giving a heave.
Finally, finally he stirs, fingers twitching uselessly at his sides.
The moon chooses this moment to emerge from behind the clouds. Now I can just make out the planes of his face, the shape of his nose and jaw.
I jolt at the familiarity.
It’s Duncan Stirling.