41. Quiet Death | Wilder
Wilder remained perfectly still.
The magic spooled back into Jordania and the light winked out.
They stared expectantly at Wilder. He searched every crevice of his mind for her. Her voice. Or even just the feeling of her.
But his thoughts were still his own, and nothing lurked in the recesses of his mind.
Maelys rubbed her eyes. The annoyance that had once flickered there had vanished when she opened them again.
“Well?” Otto asked expectantly.
Wilder opened his mouth to break the bad news that it hadn’t worked.
There wasn’t a bridge between their minds.
But before he could speak, the color drained from Otto’s face. His moon-white skin blanched to a ghost-white as his mouth dropped wide open.
Maelys screamed something unintelligible while clamoring to her feet.
She violently threw her arm and finger as she pointed at something behind Wilder.
Ridge was powerless to her plight as she flew out of his arms. His arms were left open and empty.
Wilder turned. His heart stopped beating in his chest.
On the sandbar meters behind them lay a mass of auburn hair and lavender scales.
He didn’t remember moving to standing or moving his limbs to run.
There was nothing that could stand in the way of him reaching her now.
Water splashed, drenching him as he raced through the water. He brought his knees up high to step over the incoming waves.
His eyes didn’t leave her as he tried with all his might to reach her.
Lyra wasn’t moving.
His chest was near exploding as he held his breath, still struggling over wave after wave.
“LYRA!” Her name burst through his lips like an opened dam.
Every feeling from their time apart raged swiftly through the current.
Every second of anguish and fear polluted the water as it poured from his eyes.
She twitched, and a sob wracked his chest.
Lyra sat up slowly and pushed her mass of auburn hair out of her face. Her limbs appeared longer, but that could have been the steely pointed talons on the tips of her fingers.
She looked up at him. Their gazes locked, and not even the end of the world could have unlocked them.
The green of her eyes was glassy before she rubbed them.
He kept pushing, kept struggling to reach her. He was nearly there.
One more wave.
A frown creased her brow like she was afraid she was imagining things.
“I’m coming,” he said, closing in on her.
The water lowered as he climbed onto the sandbar.
And then she was reaching for him. Struggling to stand on legs that weren’t there.
She looked down and flicked her tail before turning a horrified expression in his direction. Her mouth stretched wide open, and the light gleamed on serrated teeth.
In two more bounding strides he was there, collapsing to his knees before her and tugging her body into his arms.
He was home.
The missing parts of him slid into place. A key into a lock. It unlocked him entirely, and he sobbed. Unashamedly, wept, holding her at last.
She clung tightly to his wet clothes. Her sharp talons ripped through his sodden tunic and nicked his skin as she grappled for a closer hold.
But it didn’t matter.
Nothing mattered anymore.
He didn’t feel the pain, didn’t feel anything but overwhelming peace and joy.
Squeezing her tightly, he inhaled her storm-kissed scent and was reborn.
“Wilder,” she cried. “Wilder.”
“Shh,” he whispered. “I’m here. I’m here.”
He hadn’t known a moment of peace from the second she had been ripped from his arms until now. He took a deep breath and pressed a multitude of kisses to the top of her head.
Maelys’ shriek reached their ears right before she slammed into them both. Her body knocked him off his knees and into the sand. His arms never left Lyra as Maelys sandwiched Lyra’s other side.
Both women burst into laughing sobs as Lyra wrapped an arm around Maelys and pulled her in tight.
Ridge stood nearby, a smile stretched wide across his face as he dashed away a few tears.
“You’re home,” Maelys said. Her head was pressed against Lyra’s. “You’re finally home.”
Lyra’s smile fell away. She flicked her tail and tore her eyes off Maelys and focused on Wilder.
“I thought I would have shifted back.”
Another wave swept by, and her tail fluttered in the nearby water. He had never seen her in this form before.
On land she had been stunning, but in the water she was ethereal. Her tail glimmered like tiny stars dipped in water.
The color shifted from the pale lavender of flower petals to the vibrant green of life.
Wilder cupped her cheek. “We can figure that part out together.”
She nodded, but bit her lower lip. Wilder’s lips twitched as he caught a closer glimpse of the razor-sharp teeth she bore.
“You have teeth and claws,” he mused, repeating her words from so long ago.
Lyra unclamped her lip and grinned. She stroked a gentle talon down his face, and he shivered as if she raked it down his spine.
Maelys unwound herself from Lyra’s hold as Ridge pulled her up to her feet.
“Let me get Jordania,” Maelys said. “She’ll be able to shift you back.”
Lyra nodded, but didn’t take her attention off Wilder.
He could finally breathe. Each breath filled his lungs and filled him with the relief he had been absent of without her next to him.
Maelys tromped through the water with Ridge at her side, giving Wilder and Lyra a moment alone.
Wilder pulled her closer to his chest, and she shimmied her tail to get closer. He grazed a hand down her tail and marveled. He had never seen a mermaid tail before.
The color was enchanting as it shifted with her movement. Each scale felt thin but strong.
“You’re ethereal,” he whispered.
Lyra trembled, and a smile curled her lips. “It’s sensitive.”
She reached out, lightly grazing the space between his brows. “This is new.”
He chuckled. “Sorrow will do that to a person.”
Wilder leaned forward and pressed his forehead to hers.
She sighed, and he swallowed the air from her lips.
“Can I kiss you?” he whispered.
Lyra’s green eyes flared with delight. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Wilder palmed the back of her head. Her hair was heavy and covered with sand as he wedged his fingers between the thick curls and angled her lips to his.
He didn’t hesitate as he closed his eyes and pressed his lips to hers.
His heart had been lost to the sea before, but now—it was beating strong in his chest.
Lyra sighed as their lips met.
His fervor grew. An insatiable need took over his mind.
Wilder was going to devour her.
His tongue slipped into her mouth and flicked.
Lyra moaned, turning his insides molten.
Desire was a ravaging beast as it clawed out of his chest, breaking his ribs to escape. Need pooled in his lower stomach, and he hardened to the point of pain as his dick strained against the fabric of his pants.
Lyra’s tongue grazed his, and they quickened their pace. Her talons pierced the flesh of his back, but the pain didn’t register.
Her.
All he knew was her.
Her taste, her breath, her smell.
She was all of him. And he was hers.
He pulled back briefly, and her lashes fluttered against her cheek as she opened her eyes.
“I love you,” he said.
She smiled, and the beauty of it took his breath away. He had been a blind man without her, and now he was truly seeing for the first time.
“I know,” she whispered.
He cupped her cheeks as he laughed.
It was a full-bellied laugh. The kind that brought tears to his eyes and vibrated his chest.
Lyra pressed her head to his chest and clung to him.
“I have missed you,” she said. “Missed this.”
Wilder pulled back. “More than chocolate cake and books with paper?”
“More than cake, but maybe equally much as paper.” Lyra’s grin was feral.
Wilder pressed his lips to hers again and again, before kissing her cheeks and pressing a line of them down her neck. He inhaled deeply again and felt utterly content to hold her on that beach forever.
The universe had other plans.
She cleared her throat, shifting in his arms to tilt her head back.
“What is it?” he asked, his brows knitting together.
She wrapped a hand around her throat.
“The air is uncomfortable.”
Wilder cast his gaze behind them to see Jordania making her way through waves to the sandbar.
“Jordania can fix it,” he whispered. But her frown didn’t budge. “What is it?”
She grimaced, tugging at a lock of her hair. “The bargain has begun to extract its toll.”
“No,” he whispered.
He could feel it then.
The grains of time slipped between his fingers, and there was nothing he could do to hold her.
“I had thought the biggest threat to my life would be Atlantis,” she teased. “Not my ties to the land.”
He gripped her hand. “We can find a way—together.”
A throat cleared behind them, and Wilder looked over his shoulder at Jordania.
Her face was pinched in a way that could only spell out bad news. Wilder’s stomach sank to the sand.
“Jordania,” Lyra said, her voice raspy. “Do I have you to thank for this unexpected visit?”
The tightness with which she spoke hinted at her increasing pain. He would do anything to take it from her. To ease any more suffering he had inadvertently caused.
The witch nodded and outstretched her hand to Lyra. “Unfortunately, that is the end of my good deeds. I cannot change your form, Little Fish.”
Lyra gasped, not at what Jordania had said, but at the sapphire shell she held in her hand.
But the heart Wilder had only just welcomed back turned to ash in his throat as Jordania’s words reached his ears.
“What do you mean you can’t change her form? There’s a potion.”
Jordania flinched at the severity of his voice.
Lyra squeezed him gently, her necklace now clasped around her neck where it belonged.
“It’s not her fault,” she whispered.
“I didn’t say it was,” he snapped. “But surely there is something we can do. I only just got her back, and now you’re saying I can’t truly have her? The sea still claims her.”
“It’s not the sea,” Jordania said. “It’s the bargain.”
Lyra inhaled sharply, and Wilder gazed down at her.
“That fucking bargain,” she seethed.
“Exactly,” Jordania added. “Until the ocean side of the pact is complete, she can not walk upon land. As soon as she was turned back into a mermaid, the grains of time began to fall. There is nothing we can do.”
Lyra nodded begrudgingly as she accepted her fate.
Wilder, on the other hand, could not.
He shook his head back and forth, his grip on her tightening.
“There has to be a way. Can we-can we just unbind the bargain she made?”
Wilder would do anything to put an end to this. He didn’t give a damn if the gods would intervene because of the imbalance of magic.
Let someone else take up the challenge. They had suffered enough.
Too long had he been a slave to his duty. He was over it.
Wilder would save her, and they would live out the end of their days in the cottage he had built. Free from duty and honor, just content to be together.
Lyra shook her head, and the wet strands brushed across his chest. “No, I made a bargain. The gods will intervene, you know this.”
“I don’t care,” he grumbled. “Let someone else save the world. You’ve sacrificed enough, Lyra.”
“Wilder Vale,” she spat. “That is not honorable.”
“I don’t give a fuck about honor or duty.”
Lyra cupped his cheeks.
He closed his eyes so he would not have to see the disappointment on her face any longer.
“Look at me,” she whispered.
Wilder shook his head.
Lyra pressed her forehead against his.
“I want to live in this world with you,” she whispered. “And if I don’t fix it, there won’t be a world where we can be together.”
Tears slipped over the rim of his eyes. They left a trail in the salt and sand that clung to his cheeks.
“I can’t do this,” he whispered. “Not again.”
They heard the splashing of footsteps as Jordania left them and headed for the shore.
“Wilder, look at me,” Lyra begged.
The pleading in her voice was enough for him to obey her command, and he peeled his eyes open.
There wasn’t sadness in her eyes. Only steely resolve.
“We can do this together. I know the words to say. I know what to do, and then I’ll come right back to you—to all of you.”
His chest hollowed, and he laughed weakly, like a dying man. “I only just got you back, and you’re already talking about leaving me.”
She shook her head, her eyes sliding shut. “Not leaving you. I’m leaving for you. I will break the pact the sea holds on the bargain. Then I will return on two legs,” she gestured to her tail curled around her, “to break the pact the land has.”
Each thump of his heart brought him closer to a quiet death.
“Please don’t do this. I will break under this weight. I cannot bear it.”
Lyra pressed a hand to his chest. “Do you love me?”
His brow creased, and he felt the tug of his skin that had dried beneath the saltwater. “You know I do.”
“Then have faith in our love. Let it give you strength while my arms cannot.”
There would be no arguing with her. He knew this deep in his bones, but he could not stop the words from falling from his lips.
“Please stay with me.”