Chapter 20
Mei
Imove to intercept, but Leaf wraps around me and drags me away. I fight, but I can’t escape his thick coils.
Brio screams.
“Let me go!” I shout.
“No,” the Leviathan growls.
Kit streaks past but with a wet slap, I hear him hit a tree and go still. Is…is Kit dead?
“Leaf, let me go. He’s going to kill him.”
For a moment, Leaf is indecisive. I break free and launch myself towards the evil that has haunted me for most of my life.
He races to catch me, but I reach Brio first, dragging him away from Deux. I can smell the blood, his blood and his scream, it haunts me.
“Alpha, alpha,” I murmur frantically.
I freeze, realising I don’t know where Deux is. I listen hard, holding Brio still.
My Siren screams, and I feel the sharp point of his talons poking him in the side. Mentally begging forgiveness, I drag Brio towards me and free of the talons that have punctured his side.
I toss Brio back behind me and slam into Deux, hitting him hard with a flat palm to his nose. He stumbles back, and I keep going, panting and trying not to scream, my mind divided in a way it’s never been before.
Ronit arrives with a wave of that lightning hitting the water scent and yanks me back. The Sirens slam into the fight, circling Deux. I can hear them fighting, but I know they aren’t landing many blows.
I find Brio on the ground, struggling to breathe.
“Lucky you have a healer on standby, isn’t it?” I whisper and finger the runes I need. I memorise the shape of them and then draw deep, knowing this decision might kill me. No regrets.
This is my mate.
He might hate me. I might be his enemy, but he’s mine.
I trace the runes one after another, sending them into his skin.
Over and over. One by one. Brio relaxes into a deep, healing sleep, and I force his skin to reject the poisons from Deux’s claws and then knit together.
Each intense bit of damage flares to life in my mind.
His fingers are hanging on by scraps of skin.
His intestines and bowels are punctured, he needs to be cleaned out and repaired.
Step by step, I fix his injuries.
I live inside him.
I feel his pain, his fear, his shame.
I see his life, the joy he got from his song, the fear when they tried to tear him from his family. His sentence, those months starving in the dungeons, and then the oceans.
The deep, wild, untamed oceans that offered freedom and respite, a way to sing and make music, but grew to be a cage, for what is music without an audience? All he wanted, what he burned for, was freedom so that the worlds could hear his songs.
I put another rune on his forehead, letting it sink in deep.
My body aches, my muscles are tense and cramping, but I turn suddenly, realising where I am.
I listen hard. The sirens are still fighting. Leaf, Ronit, Canto, Reed, and Lirin go round and round, but they aren’t touching him, he’s evading them easily.
He rushes towards me, feet pounding the ground, and gets past their line. I sit on the ground, looking pathetic and weak. When he gets close, I sketch a rune in the air. It’s all I’ve got, there’s nothing left after this.
The rune hits him in the chest, causing him to huff and sending him flying into the lake. I stand up on shaking legs while my mind goes white. I stand there by sheer willpower and then I tilt sideways.
I hit the ground hard. In the distance, I hear him crawl out of the lake, coming straight for me. His furious slapping of his hands as he comes towards me has me wishing I could have moved Brio.
He huffs, the sound of rage exploding out of him as he gets closer and closer.
“You cunt!” he howls and charges at me.
I’m going to die. There’s nothing I can do. I’m not strong enough, and neither are they.
How am I going to…
I’m not. I’m going to die.
He’s slapped away and into a tree. Kit flares bright in my mind, letting out a hiss as his tentacles grow bigger and larger.
Can all of these sea creatures change their shape?
Kit charges in, followed by Ronit and Lirin. I want to call out and tell them to stop, but there’s not even enough strength in my lungs to make the sound. Stupid, Mei, really stupid. This is how you end up dead.
But Brio would be alive.
Maybe, but right now, you are both helpless, and he might die, too.
That gets me up. I crawl to him, grab his arms, and start dragging him backwards, towards the bushes I can hear shifting in the breeze.
Inch by slow, painful inch, I get him there, and then I move away, making myself a target somewhere else. Brio is safely hidden in the cold shade of something with thick and heavy leaves.
Deux won’t bother about him.
My lungs hurt, and I ache so badly.
My head tilts to the side as I hear him coming towards me. There’s no sound from the others, and for one moment, I wonder if he’s killed them all, but I refuse to let myself believe that.
Leaf roars, and the relief that floods me leaves me shaking.
“Rowanee,” he whispers from just behind me. “It’s almost no fun when you can’t fight back, but maybe…maybe this can be just as fun.”
He reaches for me, his arm lifting making his clothing shift quietly, but is suddenly peeled away with an angry growl.
The Sirens approach, but there’s something else. Massive wings beat hard.
“Will you look at this thing? It's even uglier than your last boyfriend, Isla.”
“Fuck you, Raz!”
Annileo helps me sit up. “Healer, are you okay?”
“Tired.”
“Did you heal the Siren? There’s so much blood?”
I swallow hard, knowing I’m covered in it.
“Yes.”
“Idiot. Foolish, foolish idiot,” he says, but I get the impression he’s amused. “The creature?”
“Deux…wants me. Consume me.”
His rage is something I can feel, though I don’t understand how.
“Well, let’s take care of him, then,” he whispers. “Wraith, Raz. Kill it.”
“With pleasure, Daddy.”
I hear a savage fight, but it goes on too long, and then all of a sudden, it stops.
“DAMN IT!” Ronit roars.
“Brio!” Lirin shouts.
I hear leaves breaking near me and someone crouches close to me. “I am sorry, Healer, he got away.”
“He is slippery. Thank you for trying,” I whisper to the winged demon.
I’m yanked into someone’s arms, and Reed’s hibiscus scent hits me hard, making me moan.
“Mei,” he says gently. “Come on. Let’s go.”
The tension is so thick even I can’t miss it. The two parties separate, but I get the feeling we haven’t seen the last of them yet.
Reed strokes my blood-crusted hair back and stares at me. “They say you aren’t hurt.”
“It’s not my blood,” I say in deep exhaustion.
“Brio?”
“Yes.”
“Is he?”
“Alive.”
Reed’s relief translates through his body. He carries me towards the others.
“Let’s go.”
“Go where? We can’t go back to the cave.”
I want to ask why not. I liked the cave. The cave was home.
“The house is ruined. Where else is there to go?” Lirin says low under his breath as if they are trying not to disturb us.
“We apologise to Diablos,” Ronit says like he’s announcing a death sentence.
Reed curses, but then we’re somewhere it’s much windier, and we’re further from the city, in a place that is much more elevated.
Diablos snorts, I’d know that sound anywhere.
“How did you get here so fast?”
“You’ve been out of it for hours, Mei,” Diablos murmurs.
“We’re sorry,” Ronit says stiffly. “We don’t know how we did that to your house, and it seemed better at the time not to admit it.”
Diablos’ scent gets sharper. “Have you noticed any other differences in your abilities?”
“Portals,” Reed says. ‘Brio opened a portal.”
“Interesting. Hartley, my love, I’m going to play with the fish people.”
“Have fun, bring back cheese on your way home,” Hartley says through the phone.
I’m laughing on the inside, I swear it.
“I actually have another place for you.”
I start to fall, and then Reed lands heavily, holding me tighter, and I realise with disorientation that we are somewhere else. All this jumping is messing with my head.
“It’s not as fancy as the other one, but this is-”
“It’s perfect,” Ronit says stiffly.
“I need you to tell me what happened to them, Ronit. It’s important.”
Ronit sighs. “Deux. Again. He almost killed Brio, and the Healer did what the Healer does and almost killed herself saving him.”
“You guys talk, I’m going to get her somewhere she can rest,” Reed says arrogantly and walks me into the house.
It smells of human chemicals and nothing else, which is a relief, and then I’m being placed on a soft couch that I sink into. Reed kneels on the floor beside me and leans over me so he’s almost got his lips pressed against my cheek.
“Thank you.”
The words are so quiet I almost think I imagine them. But then he repeats them, and this time, his voice trembles with emotion that he’s obviously hidden away.
“All part of the job description,” I say back. My throat is dry and aching now, but before I can say anything, Reed moves back, and Lirin is there with a glass of water.
I drink deeply, but tiredness is creeping up on me. I can’t stop my head from floating, but the cool scents of the Sirens is a comfort that my mind accepts, and no amount of telling it they are my enemy will allow me to stay awake.
In the middle of the night, I wake and realise they are all around me. I’ve got my head in someone’s lap, there is another laying on the floor.
Leaf is curled up around my legs, his tense aura spiking as he scans for danger. Ronit is pacing in the kitchen, and Brio has his head close to me and is lying in the opposite direction as me.
I try to sit up, but Canto’s heavy hand on my neck holds me down.
“You are not recovered yet. Sleep more. The hours until dawn are many.
“No, I-”
“Sleep, Mei, for saving Brio, you will heal with no threat. You will be safe here.”
It’s not the words or the tone that calms me, it’s the way his thumb gently circles the skin on my neck, where no one else can see.
I relax back into his lap and exhale.
His fingers stroke and tease until I’m relaxed and pliant. My dreams are full of music and a small boy with hair as pale as snow, singing with so much joy, I didn’t even know it was possible to have.
In my dreams, he jumps around me, grabbing my hands and asking me to play with him.
He smiles at me and sings a song just for me.
A song that makes my heart hurt and soar at the same time.
When the dream changes, it’s a Siren in black waves, opening his mouth, singing that same song, but this time, he wants me to drown.
He doesn’t want me to play, and when his hand grips mine, he drags me down into the icy depths where I can’t hear, or smell, or feel anything but the monstrous pressure.
He sings me to my death.
And I, the foolish Nightmare that I am, gratefully go because he’s singing that beautiful song to me. He’s looking at me. There is no other, just me, and when the shiver swim around us, helping to drag me down, I am so happy.
Happy to die.
With them.
For them.
I wake up suddenly and drag myself free of their bodies, horrified at the dream. I didn’t survive this long to let them kill me.
There is something wrong with me.
I disappear silently into the back of the house. I need a moment or seven because something has changed.
And I don’t think it’s going to help me at all.
It’s only when I’m running through the forest that I realise I have no intention of going back.