Chapter 48
Zanta practically tumbled down the stairs.
No one helped her. But she couldn’t feel the pain now.
Her eyes were trained on Nia’s deathly still body, Robin kneeling beside her, frantically pumping her chest. Grief twisted through Zanta, wriggling between her guts and latching onto her bones.
Nia couldn’t be gone. She’d only just returned to the sea, her true form.
Zanta had let her drown for the sake of her secrets.
Zanta fell to her knees in a puddle beside Nia’s body, pain lancing through her hip. Robin glanced at her but continued working. He left off compressions and tilted Nia’s chin up with gentle, practiced fingers. He pinched her nose and bent down to breathe life back into her still form.
One breath. Two. Nia’s chest rose, and Zanta’s hope rose with it. She held her own breath, as if denying herself would let Nia live. Hot tears slipped down her cheeks.
Please…please…
After the third breath, Robin sat back. Nia’s chest remained still. Robin did not continue compressions.
Zanta tore her gaze away from Nia’s deathly pallor.
“She’s gone.” His voice was gentle. His eyes shone with tears.
“No,” It came out choked as grief coiled around her throat. She reached across Nia’s body to grab his wrist. “Try again. Please…”
He laid a large hand over hers. “She’s been down too long. She was underwater so long…”
No. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. Would she never feel Nia’s warmth beside her again? Bicker with her, or hear her laugh ring out over the waves? Zanta couldn’t bear it. Why should the Demon survive to return to his beloved, but not Nia?
Nia was a creature of the sea, but it had killed her. Here, so close to her true home.
Zanta’s grief caught on that.
“Her pelt!” She whirled, half stood, and collapsed to the deck again as pain flared up her leg. “Someone get her pelt!”
“Where is it?” Zanta hadn’t noticed Logan beside her, silently crying.
“The safe! The Demon’s safe!” Last night Nia had confessed to giving the pelt to the Demon, who’d told her that’s where it would be. Logan dashed off.
He emerged what felt like an eternity later, clutching Nia’s shimmery pelt with his hook arm and dragging Henri with the other hand.
As soon as Henri saw his sister lying there, motionless on the deck, his face crumpled. Robin caught him, and held him as he knelt by her side. His hands trembled violently as he reached out to caress her cheek.
Zanta snatched the pelt from Logan’s grasp and laid it carefully over Nia’s body. This was their last chance. Their only chance. Henri’s grief wouldn’t matter if this worked.
Nothing happened.
A sob wracked Zanta’s body. She rested her head against Nia’s chest. It was like putting her ear to a seashell. All she could hear was the whoosh of waves, and her own grief stricken sobs.
“If you come back to me. I’ll never set foot on land again,” Zanta whispered against the silvery pelt, words broken by hitching breaths. Like Nia, Zanta was born for the sea. Born with salt in her blood. “I’ll sail with you forever.” Her voice broke on the last word.
And she felt it.
It couldn’t be real. This flicker of life. It was only her imagination. Her own pulse. But she felt it.
Zanta sat up, tilted Nia’s face to hers, and breathed.
She breathed away every ounce of life she had in her.
Nia’s lips softly accepted it, and Zanta felt it again, the flutter of a pulse beneath her fingertips.
Zanta raked in a shuddering inhale, and breathed for Nia again.
The kiss of life, a rebirth from the cold and loving embrace of the sea, who never gave you up once she had you.
But they belonged to each other now.
Nia’s body jolted. She turned on her side, and retched up a gout of seawater. Then sucked in a huge, ragged breath.
Fuck. She was alive. Zanta barely let her recover her breath before crushing her in a hug.
She’d meant what she said. She would’ve given anything for Nia to come back to her.
As soon as Nia’s feet had left the plank, Zanta had wished it was her sinking to the bottom of the sea instead.
If only so she wouldn’t have to lose another woman she loved.
“Zanta…” Nia croaked, her throat raw with salt water. Zanta shook her head and buried her face deeper into the side of Nia’s neck. Nia’s arms came around her shakily, and she felt Henri and the others hovering nearby, anxious to make sure Nia was okay. Zanta couldn’t bear to release her yet.
“I love you,” Zanta hiccuped. “I don’t think we said it properly before, but I do.”
Nia finally managed to wrestle a bit out of her embrace. She framed Zanta’s face between cold, clammy hands, green eyes bright and searching. “Zanta, listen to me. Listen. I love you too, more than anything but…what did you promise to get me back?”