Chapter 17
MOIRA
Consciousness returns slowly, wrapped in warmth and the steady rhythm of Rafe's breathing. His arm drapes across my waist, his chest pressed against my back. The weight of him is solid. Comforting.
For a moment, I let myself simply exist in this space. The heat of his body. The synchronized rise and fall of our breathing. The calm before everything changes.
Then reality crashes back.
The fight. Catalina. Old Tom suffering somewhere. Elspeth's soul trapped and weaponized.
All of it waiting for us in the cold waters of Stormhaven Sound.
I ease out of Rafe's embrace carefully, trying not to wake him. He needs every moment of rest before what's coming. But the instant my warmth leaves his side, his eyes snap open. Gold flickers as his panther surfaces, checking for threats.
"What time is it?"
"Just past ten." I pull on my clothes, movements quick and efficient. "We need to move."
He's already out of bed, reaching for his own clothing. No complaints. No attempts to convince me to stay here where it's safe. He understands that safety stopped being an option the moment Catalina bound Elspeth's spirit.
The warehouse above is quiet when we emerge from his quarters. Workers gone. Battle preparations complete. Moonlight slants through high windows, catching on stacked crates that smell of salt water and foreign spices.
Declan waits near the main doors, already in tactical gear. Storm-grey eyes assess us both with the careful attention of an alpha preparing for war. Behind him, Grayson's massive frame blocks most of the doorway. The bear shifter's expression is grim but determined.
"The others are already positioning themselves." Command and concern blend in Declan's tone. "Kian and Jax took boats out an hour ago. They're holding positions on the north and south perimeters. Finn is circling overhead in dragon form, watching for any early activity."
"And the ritual site?" I ask.
"Exactly where you marked it." Grayson's rumble is steady. Reassuring. "The water there already feels corrupted. Like something's waiting beneath the surface."
Something is. Catalina. The bound spirits she's raised. Old Tom trapped somewhere in her grip. And whatever dark magic she's been building toward with this death ritual.
Catalina needs sea witch blood to complete her transformation. Gran's grimoire made that clear. And only a sea witch can stop her. Only I can free the spirits she's bound and send her back to the depths where she belongs.
But we're going to end this tonight.
The boat Rafe secured for tonight sits low in the water, tied to one of the warehouse's private docks. Small enough to maneuver quickly. Large enough to hold me and the supplies I'll need for the magic. The hull is painted dark grey, nearly invisible against night water.
Perfect for bait.
Rafe helps me aboard with steady hands. His touch lingers on my waist, protective instinct warring with tactical necessity. He wants to be the one on this boat. Wants to put himself between me and danger. But Catalina won't rise for him. She'll only rise for me.
"The wards you placed should hold." Declan climbs aboard his own boat after checking the equipment we loaded earlier onto mine.
Salt water in ceramic bowls. Gran's grimoire wrapped in waterproof cloth.
Silver daggers blessed at the old stones.
"If anything goes sideways before she surfaces, they'll give you time to get clear. "
"Nothing goes sideways." My words come steadier than I feel. "We stick to the plan. I position myself above the ritual site. She rises at midnight. You and the brotherhood engage the bound spirits while I face Catalina directly."
"And when you've weakened her enough, I finish it." Rafe's gaze holds mine. Promise and fear mixing together. "In the deep water where she can't escape."
The plan is sound. We've gone over it a dozen times. But sound plans still require perfect execution, and perfect execution requires luck we might not have.
Grayson unties the mooring line. "May the tides favor you, sea witch."
My breath catches. A bear shifter offering sea blessings isn't something I expected. I nod acknowledgment as Rafe guides the boat away from the dock.
Stormhaven Sound at night is a different creature than during the day.
The friendly harbor waters that lap against fishing boats and ferry docks give way to something older.
Hungrier. The kind of water that remembers every ship it's swallowed, every sailor who drowned screaming.
Every child who slipped beneath the surface and never came back up.
The darkness below isn't empty. It's waiting.
Patient. And tonight, something down there is rising to meet us.
We motor north in silence, following the coastline toward the deepest point. The moon hangs fat and silver overhead, three days past full. Still bright enough to cast shadows on the water's surface. Still strong enough to pull at my magic, make it rise and surge with lunar tides.
Rafe cuts the engine when we reach the marked position.
The sudden silence feels oppressive. Weighted.
Even the normal night sounds have gone quiet.
No seabirds calling. No waves slapping against rock.
Just the gentle lap of water against the hull and the distant rumble of Declan's boat taking position a hundred yards to the east.
"I can still taste death here." Rafe barely whispers. "From when I threw those bodies in. The magic she used to bind them infected the water itself."
I lean over the side, dipping my fingers into the Sound. He's right. The water feels twisted against my skin. Oil-slick and cold in ways that have nothing to do with temperature. Catalina's taint runs deep here. Corruption that will take years to cleanse, if it ever can be cleansed at all.
"She's been preparing this site for a while." I pull my hand back, resist the urge to wipe it on my jeans. "Every death strengthened her claim on this space. Made it easier for her to rise. To call the bound spirits to her."
"Can you counter it?"
"I can try." I reach for the ceramic bowls, position them carefully around the boat's small deck. "Clean salt water to push against corrupted water. Protection wards to keep her magic from overwhelming me before the fight even begins."
The incantations come easier now than they did yesterday. Practice and desperation have unlocked something in me that's been dormant for too long. Gran's training rising to the surface. The sea witch bloodline remembering its purpose.
Blue light begins to glow around the boat as the wards take hold. Bright enough to create a barrier between clean magic and corrupted, but not so bright it can be seen from shore. A thin line of defense against what's coming.
Rafe watches me work, panther-gold filling his gaze. His shadows curl around the boat's edges, adding his own protection to mine. Darkness and water twining together like they did in his bed. Like they're meant to.
"Five minutes to midnight." Declan's enhanced senses pick up sounds normal humans would miss, his words reaching us across the water via our comms. "Everyone in position. Jax confirms north perimeter secure. Kian has south. Finn is overhead and so far has seen no unusual activity yet."
Yet. Because Catalina will come. We're floating on her ritual site with a sea witch as bait. Everything she needs to complete her transformation is right here, waiting.
The temperature plummets without warning.
One moment the air is cool but manageable. The next, my breath forms clouds and ice crystals start forming on the boat's railings.
"She's rising." I grip the bowl nearest me, magic surging through my bloodstream in response to the threat. "Get ready."
The water transforms.
The oil-slick quality intensifies until the Sound's surface looks black as tar, thick and viscous like congealed blood.
Reflects no moonlight. Shows no stars. Just empty darkness that seems to absorb light and swallow it whole, pulling it down into depths that shouldn't exist this close to shore.
The water moves wrong now. Ripples flow against the wind.
Small waves crest and break in patterns that make my eyes hurt to follow.
Then the stench hits.
Death. Not the clean death of fish left too long in the sun, but the putrid rot of bodies weeks in the water.
Bloated flesh splitting open. Internal organs gone to liquid.
Mixed with salt water turned septic, festering with things that should never grow in the ocean.
The smell crawls into my nose, my throat, coating my tongue with the taste of decay.
My eyes water. My stomach heaves. I lean over the boat's edge and retch, bringing up bile that burns my throat.
The water below my face ripples. Something pale moves in the darkness beneath the surface. Watching. Waiting.
Rafe makes a sound low in his throat. Recognition rather than a growl. "That's the stench from the disposal sites. The bodies I dumped in the Sound over the years. She must have been using them all along. Taking what I put down and turning them into this."
Then she rises.
Catalina breaks the surface slowly. Deliberately. Like she has all the time in the world and wants us to see every moment of her emergence. Wants us to understand exactly what she's become.
She's barely human anymore.
Corpse-pale skin stretches over delicate bones. Her hair floats around her head in white tendrils, moving independent of the wind. Each strand looks like salt bleached it from the inside out.
But her eyes are the worst. They glow with necromantic blue light. The color of deep water where sunlight never reaches. Where pressure crushes anything living. Where death is the only constant.
She's beautiful and terrible, everything human about her twisted into something that shouldn't exist.
"Moira Flynn." The words carry across the water, amplified by magic. "The little sea witch who couldn't save her sister."