22. Bay
Bay
“So, where’s your affiliation mark?” I hear his voice close to my ear as my body sways with the currents.
“Under your tongue?! You always have to be the weirdest one, don’t you?” His laughter makes me open my eyes to see Alin sticking out her tongue at the familiar gorgeous man who’s carrying me.
I instantly recall everything that happened in the cave and glance down at my hip. Great, the water healed me faster than usual.
I sigh in relief and lift my eyes to meet the shiny golden ones that make every part of my body tremble without him even trying.
“Are you okay?” He asks in a surprised tone, loosening his grip on me slightly as Alin swims closer.
“I’m okay,” I smile at Pedro, genuinely relieved, and turn to Alin. “It seems like I healed a lot faster this time, doesn’t it?”
“Not exactly, you’ve been unconscious for several hours, and we have much worse news than your dragon lover,” she says, exchanging worried looks with Pedro. Oh no. What is it this time?
“But we did manage to get the heart, right?” I ask, glancing between them, my heart pounding in my chest. Could it be that Pedro didn’t manage to take the heart after everything we went through?
“We got the heart...” Pedro confirms, his gills expanding with a sigh, “along with a very big problem to add to the list.”
“Can we stop speaking in riddles all the time? Just be straight with me! What’s going on here?” I push myself away from Pedro’s grasp, standing my ground. I’m tired of getting bits and pieces of information all the time!
“Jocelyn took your blood in exchange for the heart...” Pedro starts to explain as if I wasn’t there to see it myself.
“My mother suspects she’s planning to make the Doomsday Elixir,” Alin blurts out, noticing my raised eyebrow signaling my impatience.
No. The Doomsday Elixir isn’t real!
“That’s just a damn merfolk horror story!” I catch on my breath, unwilling to believe it, but my heart is about to burst out of my chest.
I turn to Pedro, hoping he’ll confirm that I’m right, but he just nods, his eyes avoiding mine. What in the merhell did I just do?
“It turns out it’s not just a horror story, and my mother is working on a way to stop it,” she swims over to me, gripping my arms as if that gesture could somehow reassure me after she’s just made it clear we’re all going to die because of me.
We’re ALL going to die. No. No. No.
I break free from Alin’s grip and swim quickly to Pedro’s side, grabbing his hand to look at his mark. It’s still there. He’s going to die with all of us.
My head spins as a tsunami of my worst nightmares floods every corner of my mind, and I almost see black at the edges of my vision.
“If anyone can find a solution, it’s my mother. Bay, we need to get back to the surface before Pedro loses his life drowning down here,” Alin tries to reassure me, urging us to move with a gentle push of her tail against my back.
“Drowning? What are you talking about? He has a tail,” I turn to look at her. What else hasn’t she told me? Anger, frustration, and fear all wrap around me, and I’m holding onto every ounce of strength to keep myself from losing it.
“The potion is supposed to last only for one day. If he stays a minute longer, his legs will return in the depths, and we’ll be in a whole different kind of trouble,” she explains, her voice laced with worry.
Probably because she sees the murderous look in my eyes right now.
I’ll never forgive her if he dies because of me!
“You’re insane!” I spit at her in fury, not recognizing when she became so cunning and manipulative. “And you,” I point at Pedro, “you knew this the whole time and didn’t tell me?!”
“I’m sorry, Bay. It was for your own good,” he starts to explain.
“If I hear one more time that someone hid something from me ‘for my own good,’ I’ll swim straight to the dragon guardian and stay with him!” I snap, my rage burning through every cell in my body, scorching my chest.
Pedro grabs my arm now, trying to pull me close, but I push him away forcefully.
“I’m not made of glass, and this whole suicide mission was to help me ,” I continue, my voice hoarse and trembling.
If we weren’t underwater, I’m sure my face would be red and swollen with tears.
“You dared to hide information from me that could have been dangerous if things had gone differently. How am I supposed to trust you with my life like this?”
“Everything we’re doing is to keep you alive!” Pedro snaps back at me, matching my angry tone. “I came into your world, not knowing what I was getting into. I felt completely powerless, but the only thing that kept me going was keeping you alive.”
A sharp sting hits my chest. He’s right—he put his life on the line for me and drank that potion without knowing what would happen to him.
I let out a strong sigh as my gills open, allowing the feeling of the water around me to wrap me up and try to calm the storm inside me.
“I’ll ask you just one thing, Bay,” Alin turns to me, her voice measured. Damn it. That’s the tone that’s going to prove she’s right, and I’m wrong, and it’s the last thing I need right now to vent the steam bubbling inside me.
“If I had told you what Pedro was going to do, would you have let him do it?” she asks, raising an eyebrow, trying to make a point.
I shake my head and swallow hard, knowing what’s coming. “I would never have let him sacrifice himself for me.”
“Exactly my point. We did it to keep you alive, and look—it worked,” she gestures along my body, proving her argument that I’m here, whole and healthy.
Well, almost. Mentally, I think I’m on the verge of insanity.
“He carried you for hours back to the city and all the way here. Otherwise, you would have been left to bleed out with that spear in your body and ended up as dessert for Psycho.”
And there’s her point, the one that always makes me feel guilty for being mad at her because she’s freaking right.
“But why keep hiding things from me? He was already with us,” I press, my voice shaking as I search for something—anything—to keep the argument going, to vent the boiling water swirling in my head.
Pedro reaches out to Alin, stopping her from saying more.
“Because there was no need to give you another reason to worry when you were already about to tear your hair out from stress,” he responds in a calmer tone, giving me that melting look as if he knows exactly what my body needs to agree to anything in this damn world.
He reaches for my arm again, and this time, I don’t pull away.
I let him draw me closer, his warmth radiating through me as he leans in, his lips close to my ear.
“You want to trust something? Trust the fact that I’d put my entire damn life on the line to keep you alive,” he whispers in a low voice that sends shivers through my whole body, and I already forget why I was angry.
My heartbeat quickens, this time from the brush of his lips against my earlobe.
“For God’s sake, why right in front of me?” Alin sighs in frustration. “Come on, we don’t have much time left before the potion wears off, unless your plan is to kill Pedro today,” she shoots at us before swimming ahead quickly, not waiting for us.
He pulls back slightly, chuckling, and I flash him a mischievous smile. “It’s like she read my mind,” I tease, and he raises an eyebrow at me with a smirk.
“You can try, but I’d bet everything that you wouldn’t survive without me,” he replies in a voice so low and rusty that every cell in my brain is now too fried to think logically. He leaves me swimming in my own steamy fantasies as he heads in the direction Alin is swimming.
How right he is. Damn him.