A Useful Hybrid
Chapter Ten
SADIE
Alow sound vibrates from Kyros’s chest—too deep to be a growl and too primal to belong to anything civilized. The water around him stills completely, even the ripples dying. It’s eerie, like a forest suddenly going silent when predators close in.
Kyros is the predator in this room.
His tail snaps so hard, the crack echoes throughout the chamber.
Daros freezes where he holds the stone slab. Even Seraya’s eyes widen.
“No one touches her.” Kyros doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t need to; his tone is frightening enough.
I don’t find his words comforting.
Seraya is the first to recover. “You prove our point,” she starts. “The hybrid has already infected your blood. You feel urged to protect her. To covet her.” She swallows, her throat bobbing, before gesturing to me. “You would fight your own for her.”
Her lips flatten before she makes a quiet clicking noise and turns away, clearly upset. She looks personally betrayed.
Mavek’s face pinches, the orange specks in his eyes catching the light.
Kyros is quick to defend himself. “That’s not it. We need her.”
Daros releases the stone slab and drifts away, but he remains close. I don’t like his proximity. He was only moments away from killing me just a few seconds ago, and I suspect it won’t take much for him to finish what he started.
If anyone lunges first, it will be him.
“Need her for what?” he asks Kyros.
“The black siphon.”
The room changes immediately. Even Seraya stops arguing. Whatever the black siphon is, it's important enough to override their desire to kill me. That’s not reassuring. People don’t stop arguing about murder unless something worse is involved.
What is the black siphon? It sounds ominous, and I want no part of it. I want nothing to do with these people. I want to destroy the entire fucking ocean and everybody inside of it.
These people are monsters.
Kyros faces the council. “You’ve heard the rumors of hybrid abilities…”
Mavek’s orange tail arcs upward, peeking out of the water. He runs a finger thoughtfully over one of the fins.
“You think she can descend far enough into the trench to reach the black siphon?”
Kyros nods. “Yes.”
I blink. Excuse me? I’m not going to descend into any trench. I’m still processing the fact that I’m apparently half-Mer and my father and only friend are dead, and now I’m being volunteered for trench suicide. Not happening.
Daros looks between us. “The Coveborn will never expect it.”
Who are the Coveborn? Another pod? From the sounds of it, somebody these people aren’t friendly with.
Seraya’s voice turns razor thin. “You can’t seriously be suggesting we house a hybrid this close to the red bloom.”
Kyros nods, short and curt. “The Coveborn are siphoning from the Great Current. We’ve lost migration routes. Hunting grounds. Even our nursery flow. If this continues, we’ll lose the entire territory. Our pod can’t survive without the Great Current.”
I stare at him. “Maybe somebody would like to explain what the hell you’re talking about.”
No one seems eager to elaborate. They’re talking around me, like I don’t exist.
After a moment, Mavek takes pity. He shifts his orange tail, letting it float beneath him.
“The Coveborn anchored a siphoning structure into a deep trench wall and diverted the flow of the Great Current toward their territory. The current carries warmth, prey, oxygen, and movement. Without it, we die.”
That feels strangely…human. They’re talking about survival—food and territory. The same things that people fight over on land. For a split second, I feel a sliver of pity for the Tideborn.
Then I remember they murdered Dad and Tipper, and the feeling vanishes. I can’t help but laugh.
“Why would I ever help you?” I ask.
Seraya hisses. “You should be grateful we haven’t already slit your throat.”
I ignore her. “Why me?”
Kyros holds my gaze. “Because only hybrids can survive the pressure whiplash.”
A beat passes. Then another.
“Pressure whiplash,” I repeat flatly.
Kyros nods. “The black siphon is anchored along a fracture line between upper and lower depths. The shifts are violent. Full-blooded Mer faint when they try to pass through them.”
These people can’t be serious. I sink onto the stone slab, needing to feel something solid beneath me. Dad is dead. Tipper is dead. The man who murdered them expects me to venture into some trench to save his people.
If I refuse, they’ll kill me.
“How did the Coveborn get the siphon set up in the first place?” I force myself to ask.
Kyros frowns. “That’s unknown.”
“We’ve tried destroying it, but deepweavers live at those depths,” Daros adds. “When we pass out, the deepweaver feeds.”
Oh, God. Fuck me. This just keeps getting worse and worse. I’m not sure what type of critter a deepweaver is, but it sure doesn’t sound good.
I blow out a breath. “What is a deepweaver?”
“It nests in the trench wall near the siphon,” Mavek says, his orange tail flicking behind him once more. “It’s ancient and blind, and it hunts by heartbeat and current disruption.”
My stomach drops. Blind. Ancient. Waiting in the dark. That is, unfortunately, one of the worst things I’ve ever heard. The ocean is terrifying enough without hearing about monsters lurking in the deep, waiting to eat me.
Seraya hums. “Everyone who has attempted to reach the siphon has lost consciousness, drifted, and gotten torn apart by a deepweaver.”
“And you think I won’t?”
Kyros hesitates. The pause is brief—but I catch it. Great. Reassuring.
Finally, he says, “I think you have a chance.”
His voice is rougher now, almost strained. I glance between him and the others. Mavek is once again picking at his tail, and Daros’s hands are flexing against the stone slab, his scarred tail whipping in agitation behind him.
Kyros doesn’t know where to look. He eyes my throat, then my hands, before finally settling on my legs. When I shift, curling them beneath me, he jerks his head back up.
Seraya notices every second of our interaction, and I can tell she hates me for it.
“A hybrid can’t be here,” she insists. “Even if she might be useful, the cost is too high. We all know what hybrids do…what she’s already doing to you three.”
Mavek’s mouth hardens before he releases his tail.
Seraya continues. “You should have slit her throat and left her to sink with her reef-rotten father.”
Reef-rotten? Fuck her. I lunge without a second thought.
Kyros catches my arm almost immediately, his fingers wrapping around my wrist like a shackle. Crimson light flares beneath his skin, spreading up his arm like veins. It begins where our skin meets and ends near his shoulder.
It’s over in a split second.
Daros mutters a curse, scarred cerulean curling beneath him.
Kyros stares at where his hand is wrapped around my wrist, his throat bobbing. Something akin to panic flashes across his face, but it’s gone in the blink of an eye. He pushes me back onto the platform, then sinks low until only his eyes peer above the water surface. Is he hiding?
Why does he keep lighting up like that? I’m not imagining it. Daros saw it. Mavek saw it. Seraya definitely saw it. Even worse, they reacted to it. Whatever happened when Kyros touched me wasn’t normal. Even by Mer standards.
Mavek drags a hand through his hair. “Who is your mother?”
I force my face blank. “I don’t know.”
Mavek frowns, brushing his thumb over his bottom lip. His eyes drop to my legs before darting back up. “Perhaps she hid you intentionally.”
“Or abandoned her,” Seraya chimes in. “Either way, it changes nothing. She’s too dangerous to keep alive.”
Kyros rises from the water, seemingly spurred into movement by Seraya’s insistence on killing me. Water pours down his chest as he faces the council, once more putting his body between them and me.
“She’s our best chance at reaching the siphon,” he says. “If the Coveborn continue to divert the Great Current, we will die. She can pass the fracture line. She can destroy the core.”
“And if she can’t?” Seraya asks.
Daros answers. “Then she dies there instead of here.”
Nobody looks particularly put off by his statement. Not even Kyros, whom everybody is convinced is feeling some sort of magical connection to me. They’re all on the same page. Either I die here, or I die there.
They might as well try to get some use out of me in the meantime.
Mavek glides around the room. “If we kill her now, we lose the best possible advantage we’ve had in months.”
“And if we keep her,” Seraya argues, “we invite instability into the pod during the red bloom. There’ll be chaos when it hits fully in two weeks. The males will scent her. Other pods will scent her, too, if they haven’t already.”
“We have no other choice,” Kyros pushes. “I’ll take her to the black siphon before the red bloom hits.”
Daros barks out a humorless laugh. “And in the meantime? What do you suggest we do until then, Kyros?”
Kyros swallows. “I am Oshea.” His face gives nothing away. “As the leader of Tideborn, it is my duty to keep her, and our males, in line. I will handle it.”
I stare at him, my mouth slightly agape.
Kyros is the leader of these people? Of this council?
I should’ve guessed by the way everyone keeps looking at him and the way they stop talking when he speaks.
I especially should’ve realized he had some sort of authority when he smacked Daros with his tail.
That’s good, I think. Unlike Seraya, Kyros doesn’t seem particularly keen to kill me. Maybe he has the authority to keep me alive.
Seraya’s mouth tightens. “You were chosen because your instinct is stronger than all of Tideborn. You’re to lead us through threat, not tie yourself to it.”
Daros glances between Seraya and Kyros, his cerulean-blue tail twitching in agitation.
Mavek is the one to speak, cutting through the tension. “If she remains alive,” he starts, “she can’t move freely throughout the pod. She does not leave confinement without an escort, and she does not speak to others.”
I chew on the inside of my cheek. They really know how to make a girl feel welcome.
“And if she escapes?” Seraya asks.
Good question. I’m sure going to try.
Kyros lifts his chin. “If she escapes, I will hunt her myself.”
Splendid. Glad we have that established.
Seraya studies Kyros for a long moment, searching for something in his expression. Weakness, maybe? Hesitation? I can’t be sure.
After a long minute, she nods.
Mavek speaks. “The council agrees to spare her. For now.”
Spare. Not save. Not free. But spare—like I’m some animal they’ve decided to postpone slaughtering. These people still intend to murder me. They just intend to do so after I’ve destroyed their black siphon.
I’ve never felt so hopeless. The emotion is crushing.
Seraya drifts backward. “Don’t make us regret this, Kyros.”
She, Mavek, and Daros leave, slipping underneath the water and vanishing from sight. The silence that follows their departure is worse than their shouting.
I stand, dripping and shaking and furious. My lungs still ache, and grief sits heavy in my chest. I don’t know what to do about it.
Kyros lingers beside the stone slab. He’s staring at the water where the council vanished, his shoulders rigid and hands braced on the stone.
I break the silence. “I hate you.”
Kyros finally turns toward me. He looks strained. His tail drifts behind him, but it’s twitching in a restless way.
“You’re a problem,” he says.
“I’m not the problem here.”
His gaze lowers to my legs before snapping back up. “You shouldn’t have touched me.”
He’s technically the one who touched me, but arguing that fact is a moot point. I haven’t forgotten the way his body lit up when we made contact. Why did it do that? My skin has never lit up, and I’m apparently half-Mer.
Kyros pushes himself up the slab, his elbows braced against the stone. He’s close enough now that I can see every drop of water clinging to his skin, and the glowing algae throws dark shadows across his face, making him look even less human than before.
“What happens now?” I ask.
“I’ve tied your name to mine. You’re my responsibility.” He pushes off the slab, his expression souring. “Which means if you try to escape, I’ll be the one who hunts you.”
I swallow. “And after I destroy the black siphon…?”
Assuming I don’t get eaten by a deepweaver.
Kyros takes too long to answer. “I’ll return you to land. Unharmed.”
That’s not going to happen. Mer have kept their existence hidden for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. The council would rather see me dead than let me go, and we both know it.
There’s no returning. Not alive.