Chapter 40
Mei
At the edge of the world, I hesitate, not because I’m afraid of going to them, but because I’m afraid of failing them. One hundred-foot walls of water crash into the biggest ocean in existence.
For a moment, I give in to that fear, I acknowledge it, I feel it.
How can I find them? How can I save them?
I shove all those doubts and fears aside and dive through the opening without letting myself think another thought. Nothing matters but them. If I live, it will be empty.
If I die, then I will wait for them on the other side.
I hit the water hard and immediately sketch out a rune that transforms my body again. My legs fuse together, and a long and powerful tail forms. Gills open up on my neck, and I cautiously open my mouth and breathe.
The water is icy and feels empty, barren, but I know it’s not. Creatures will hunt me, following at a distance or zipping out of my way. I have a long way to go on my search. This is one of the hardest parts.
Traversing an ocean that I can’t see.
Every single instinct, every lesson, everything that ever helped me survive is what I call on now.
I dive deeper, heading into the oppressive darkness and the heavy weight of the ocean’s pressure. I can sense almost better in the water than I can on land, feeling the water currents as they press against me, letting me know something is lurking nearby, but nothing comes close.
The ocean seems to be depthless. I continue to swim down until I think I’ve travelled far enough, only then do I angle myself slightly.
The deeper it gets, the more menacing it becomes.
Eventually, I touch the rock floor of the ocean, but I’m so far down that it feels harder to swim. I’m scared.
This is what alone feels like. I could be lost down here for months or years, and it would just be me and my unraveling mind.
I travel until time means nothing, until I start to feel something in the ocean, something that shouldn’t be there.
I swim faster, chasing that thing that shouldn’t exist.
It gets more intense, louder, the currents try to push me away, but I fight against them.
With careful and meticulous slowness, I traverse an underwater mountain.
As I reach the other side, I hear Leviathan.
He roars and lashes out. His form exploding in my mind, teal green and alive, leaving trails of sparkles as he rises to attack.
What is he attacking?
“Attack!” Deux snarls.
My Sirens attack. I can just make out their outlines.
“No,” I whisper, horrified.
“Kill him.”
Rage fills me, and I thrust hard, swimming like an arrow, darting through the ocean, intercepting Lirin as he slashes down with a massive staff made of magic and water. He reels back in surprise.
“No!” I shout at him. “No, what are you doing?”
Lirin makes a devastated sound. “Mei, go. Run.”
I feel the rest of the shiver stutter and stall as they realise I’m here. My magic is still fighting Lirin, holding his weapon at bay, preventing the blow that will attack our alpha.
Leviathan shifts, a massive, endless knot of dragon as he turns towards me.
“Kill him!” Deux yells.
Lirin cries out. “Run!”
I refuse to move. I simply shift closer, twining my tail around his, dragging us so close we’d be touching if our weapons weren’t between us.
Ronit grabs me and drags me back while Brio takes the blow that was supposed to fall on my dragon.
“Brio!” I fight to get free, but I can’t get free of Ronit. “No!” I snarl and fight my alpha, but he’s suddenly swimming upwards, ignoring the others. “Ronit, no! Go back. Please. Go back.”
He ignores me.
I wrap my tail around him, ignoring the spines that stab into my tail, fighting to still his movements, while I slide my hands up his chest until I cup his face.
“Look at me,” I whisper.
Ronit snarls.
“Ronit, please. Just look at me for a moment.”
I feel him soften, and his movements still.
“I’m not leaving you like this. Let me help. We can do this together.”
“You can’t. You need to leave,” he rasps out, and his voice is…ruined.
“Ronit,” I whisper, reaching up and touching his throat, where I find massive scars. “What did he do to you?”
For a moment, his head leans forward, pressing against mine. An intimate moment, a pain and a grief that goes as deep as our souls and then further still.
No. He’s given up, they all have.
Not happening. I’m not losing them.
I pull away first, using all my skills to break free. I stream as fast as I can back towards the bottom, a fire burning inside me.
Leviathan screams, and I see him fall, all teal that splutters and almost goes out.
Brio slams into Canto, and they struggle, breaking rock, smashing the seabed, two Goliaths refusing to give in, fighting a losing battle. The outlines of them leave teal stars in the ocean around them.
I grab Leaf’s face and stroke my hand along his serpentine head.
“Change shape,” I choke out. My head is buzzing, and my fingers tremble. Was I too late?
His eyes open in my mind, exhausted, full of pain.
“Change!” I command. I sketch a rune on his muzzle, and he screams as he’s forced into the shape of a man.
I turn, ripping open the world again.
“KIT!”
The cat comes running, easily passing through the water cascading into the human world. I slam it shut the instant he’s in here.
Kit’s shape grows and then explodes, and a giant tentacled creature takes Leviathan’s spot. Buying us time that I need to save him.
I hold my unconscious Leviathan and swim backward with him.
“Attack!” Deux screams.
I snarl, my rage speeding up the ocean currents.
How do I combat him when I can’t find him?
If I can’t beat him, I’m taking his toys.
I look down at Leaf.
“I am sorry it’s going to have to be like this. But you are mine, and I’m not quitting,” I murmur, then I sink my teeth into his shoulder.
His eyes snap open, and he flips us over, looming over me as his teeth sink into my stomach. The bite is deep and will leave a massive scar, but the bond is strong, stronger than before.
Leviathan wakes up and really sees me. His hands cup my face as he crushes our mouths together.
The Sirens falter.
I see Deux’s control over my Sirens flicker. Interesting.
“Do you want to catch me some Sirens?” I ask Leaf. “I want my shiver back.”
Leaf snarls and throws a hand out, jumping into a speeding current of water when it comes past. He’s gone in a second.
I twist and aim for Reed, he’s struggling not far from where I am.
His growls and grunts show what extreme effort he’s putting into trying to break free.
He’s fighting and actually managing to succeed.
He hasn’t moved in the whole time I’ve been here.
I circle him and dart in, attacking before he can even sense me in the water behind him. I get his shoulder from the back.
Sinking sharp teeth into him.
His scream is both despair and relief.
He turns and sinks his teeth into my upper arm. Two bonds like two doors open in my mind, and the tie, the rot that Deux put in my shiver, weakens.
He glows brighter in my mind, but further, I can feel him inside me, I can feel his horror that I’m here and his relief. Such intense and crippling emotions. But for Reed, they are his strength.
Lirin is watching, in my mind, his eyes are glowing an eerie red that I assume is Deux's control. Leaf slams Lirin into the seabed, hitting him from behind with the force of a truck. Reed is there in a second, holding him still while I bite deep into his palm.
Lirin’s relief is a gentle wave on the shore. He goes motionless in my arms and bites when I put my wrist in his mouth.
“Mei,” he whispers. “Oh, beautiful Strega. What are you doing here?”
I stroke his hair, then turn and watch as Canto and Ronit battle it out above me.
“I won’t let you hurt each other,” I say and dart up towards them. I bite deeply into Canto’s hip. He cries out and collapses in my arms, his teeth biting into the fleshy part of my upper chest.
“You came. I knew you would,” he whispers.
I let him go, turning to Ronit, who has snuck up on me. He leans in, biting over my scent gland in my neck before I even have a chance.
I cry out, and as soon as he releases me, I bite over his.
There’s only one dark spot. One stain left.
“You can’t have him!” Deux shouts.
“You aren’t keeping my song,” I say back, not bothering to yell.
Brio floats in front of a cave with a dagger held in shaking hands, pressed against his throat.
The Sirens line up behind me, not saying a word.
“Let him go!”
“No, this is too much fun,” Deux says with a mad giggle. “They are my puppets.”
“Not anymore,” I say under my breath.
I hang there in the water, assessing all my options. I can’t move towards him without him dying.
Deux will make him do it, and I can’t get close enough.
Brio opens his mouth and splutters a heartbreakingly destroyed song. It’s raspy, and he can’t hit the notes. There’s no power in it.
But I hear the message.
Let me die.
No. Not a chance in hell.
I sketch out three runes and wait. A moment later, the cave starts to shake and then collapses. When Brio turns towards it, Kit snags him in his tentacles and brings him to me.
For a moment, I worry Brio is already dead, but he’s not. I grip his hair, twining myself around him, holding on so he doesn’t fall apart.
I press my mouth to his, kissing him deeply. When I bite his lip, he gasps. As soon as I let go, he waits, the tenuous bonds throb, anxious for the final connection. He bites my tongue, and the connection is made.
Power ricochets between us as we share our connection, abilities twisting and morphing as the omega-alpha bond grows and frees us. As we become what we were designed to be. I can feel the creatures in the ocean, the currents, the waves. I can control it all now with ease.
A sinuous and hulking shadow of a dragon presses against my skin.
I am them, and they are me.
Before Brio moves away from me, I drag him closer. I clasp his throat and draw runes with my tongue that he swallows. Over and over, I ignore everything else.
He pulls back, gasping.
When he opens his mouth, his song comes out as clear as it ever was.
Lirin laughs manically and glides, twirling with Leviathan in a dragon shape that is new but somehow right on him.
Canto pulls bone from the ocean and sketches a rune, creating a sword that fits him precisely. He thrusts it through the water and lets out a happy grunt.
Reed is watching me, and when he approaches, he wraps me in his arms and just holds me.
“I didn’t think I would ever see you again,” he whispers.
“I’m sorry it took so long,” I murmur.
He just holds me until I feel a presence that demands my attention. Reed eases back, and I turn.
Ronit has a trident in his hands that glows in my mind, and he doesn’t look remotely human.
His skin is mottled blue and green, his eyes are huge and black, he’s got serrated teeth, a tail and webbed fingers.
I see it in snatches and pulses of colour in my mind before it fades like a heat echo.
When he moves, it flares to life again and fades away. I am mesmerized by it.
“You came back,” he snarls.
I swallow hard and put my hand in his. “Yes, of course, I did. I had to. I can’t live without you.
Ronit snarls but reaches for me, bringing our foreheads together. “You idiot.”
I snarl back at him. “You left me.”
His hand slides up my back, bringing me closer. “No, we were trying to free you.”
“I don’t want to be free if it means being apart from you,” I snap. “We’re a pack, a shiver. You’re my alphas. We belong together.”
I’m pulled from him, only to find myself facing Lirin.
“You were hurting,” Lirin says. “I can feel it in you. Lingering like an old wound.”
“I’m fine.”
“You needed us.”
“I did, I do, but I survived, and now we are together.”
Lirin scowls and pulls me so my head is under his chin.
“He would have found us while we were vulnerable and picked us off one by one. I took his chances away. I thought I could do it.”
Some of my Sirens have their voices back, but some of them don’t. I don’t understand why. Reed, Ronit, and Canto still have scarring, and their voices are rougher, almost broken.
“Let me fix-”
“No,” Canto says, pulling back. “I never wanted to sing. I don’t want that kind of power. To lose control and drown people.”
“He’s right, it’s not who we are,” Reed says.
“But you’re Sirens.”
“And we’ll still be Sirens, even if we can’t sing,” Ronit says easily.
Lirin lets out a tinkling laugh, it’s mesmerising, but so is the rasp of Reeds. They still have power in their voices.
“You have given us more,” Brio says. “We can be more now. We don’t have to be what they made us.”
I hesitate. “We can leave, too. But I’m going after Deux.”
They go still, turning to look at me with various expressions ranging from shock to anger. It’s so interesting to see how beautiful they are. I don’t know if my weird glowing sight will last, but it’s enough for now.
“I have to kill him. I’m the only one.”
Leaf rises up, huge and full of deadly grace. “No, we are the only ones.”
I feel a weight slide off my shoulders as I embrace my dragon.
“Okay, let’s try this together.”