CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN #2
I watched the two of them intently, certain that something about this deal was going to go south eventually; and I had no intention of being around when it did.
Behind my back, my hands worked furiously to free themselves from their viney shackles, to no avail.
Then I heard the rocks at my back clacking against one another faintly, and I dared a look over my shoulder to find Luna, Poppet, and Teddy peeking over a chunk of driftwood.
My head snapped back to the posturing males so as not to draw their attention as the trio snuck up behind me and began chewing on my bindings.
“Tell me something, Yael: how long did it take to seduce Myra?” Finn asked as he walked closer to shore on his tentacles. “She’s a clever little thing and not easily manipulated. Was it harder than you thought it would be to gain her trust? To make her believe your act?”
“It took as long as I expected it to,” he said with all the arrogance I’d always seen from him, “which was a fraction of the time it took you, I imagine, based on your question.”
The bindings shackled around my wrists snapped open, and I fought the urge to rub them. My arm still throbbed from my fall, and I didn’t trust myself to move it just yet—not until I absolutely had to. I’d only get one shot at escaping, and I needed to make it count.
“Gentlemen,” Loreleia said, stepping between them with inhuman grace, “I think we’re getting a touch off track.”
“You should have left me there,” Jemma mumbled to no one in particular.
“You’re coming home.”
“No,” she said with a shake of her lolling head, “you can’t let him have her—”
“Unfortunately, that’s the bargain,” Loreleia said, losing some of her composure. “Now, let’s get on with this. I want the gabbro stone you promised me for my part in this.” She held out her delicate hand to Finn expectantly. “If you please.”
The otters fidgeted nervously behind my back, sensing the growing tension, and I tried to shoo them away silently before they were discovered.
Finn would kill them, if for no other reason than to hurt me, and I couldn’t have that.
The trio nuzzled my hands, then skittered away until their splashes told me they’d made it back to the ocean.
While I breathed a sigh of relief at their escape, Finn extended a tentacle and held up a shiny black rock for Loreleia to behold.
I recognized the gabbro instantly; the most powerful stone for magical imbuing in existence.
The fae bitch’s eyes sparkled with power-lust at the sight.
“For your part in this,” Finn said as he turned the stone over in the fading moonlight.
“I could not have found Myra if it wasn’t for you—either of you, really.
You’re a credit to your trade. It’s a shame we won’t be able to do this again. ”
Before his words could settle on my brain, he flung the stone with bullet-like speed at Loreleia, striking her in the chest. She staggered back a step, clutching the point of impact.
Even from where I sat, I could see the deep red seeping from the wound.
But it wasn’t the blood that made my own run cold; it was the inky-black webbing spreading beneath her pale skin.
“What is this?” she wheezed as she collapsed to her knees.
“A gift from my kind to yours,” Finn replied, positioning Jemma in front of him as a shield. “Interesting that it’s a source of life to me, but to you—when mixed with your blood—it’s a vicious poison.”
Loreleia’s face blackened with every passing second as she gasped for air, and Yael’s shadows erupted around him like a wall of vengeance ready to be unleashed. Only his sister stood between Finn and death, and I knew if I was going to have a chance to escape, this was it.
I shot to my feet and bolted over the rocks toward the street, praying I could escape them both this time.
“No!” Finn shouted, and I looked back to see a tentacle streaking toward me.
With nothing to hide behind, I ducked down and tried to avoid capture.
Instead of a limb of death about to spear my chest, I saw it severed clean off by Yael’s shadow magic.
Black oozed from the wound, and Finn roared with anger and pain.
I took that moment to resume my escape. “She will be mine, with or without this trade,” he said, the warning clear in his tone.
Then Jemma’s scream rang out, followed by Yael’s, stopping me cold.
Looking over my shoulder again, I saw Jemma’s shirt covered in blood, her body hanging like a rag doll from Finn’s tentacle. “You want your sister?” he shouted, baiting Yael. “Here you go.”
He launched her limp body far over Yael’s head toward where I stood on the shore.
She crashed to the ground only feet away from me, her wide emerald eyes beseeching.
Yael erupted in shadowy rage and charged Finn, and the two of them turned into a storm of shadows and limbs and seaspray.
My eyes darted back and forth between freedom and the body of Yael’s sister—until I saw her chest rise and fall.
“Shit…”
She was somehow still alive, and no matter what her brother had done, there was no way I could leave her like that. I ran over to her and scooped her up in my arms. She weighed so little, but I hadn’t fully recovered from Loreleia’s spell, and I wobbled on my feet as I lurched toward the street.
With one misplaced step, we crashed to the ground.
“Myra,” she rasped, the gushing wound on her throat making it hard for her to talk.
I pressed my hand to the gash and tried to shush her. “I’ll find help,” I told her, knowing there was no way I could get her to The Riff Raff before she died.
Her emaciated hand reached up, wrapped around my upper arm, and squeezed me harder than I would have expected. Uncomfortable pressure built beneath her grip as she pulled me down to whisper in my ear. “Help my brother,” she said faintly, “and tell him I’m sorry… for everything.”
Her firm grasp weakened slowly until her arm fell limp at her side and her eyes rolled closed. The faint pulse I’d felt beneath my hands faded too.
Yael’s sister was dead.
I looked up to see a shadow harpoon impale Finn through the gut and drive him back out over the ocean, where he plummeted into the water, not to rise again.
Yael looked back to see me cradling his sister in my arms and rushed toward me.
He slowed only when he saw that she was already gone.
Black eyes met mine, and for a moment, we just stared at one another in silence.
“She said she was sorry,” I told him, sorrow compelling me to relay the message despite all he’d done.
Despite his betrayal.
His brows furrowed with confusion as he walked toward where the corpse lay in my lap, and I realized that maybe this was not where I wanted to be.
Fear bloomed in my chest as those empty eyes grew nearer, and I put Jemma down as quickly and gently as I could to try to get away.
I scurried backward across the rocks, trying to put some distance between us, until a volcano of water erupted by the shore.
The two of us looked over to find Finn storming toward us, a wall of shadow all his own trailing behind him.
Yael locked eyes with me for a fraction of a second before he uttered the same word he’d said to me on that same shore. “Run.”
I hauled myself up again to do just that when something emerged from the darkness surrounding Finn—three somethings, to be exact, trapped in his tentacles.
“No!” I screamed as I stared at Luna, Teddy, and Poppet writhing in pain as he squeezed them. “Don’t hurt them!”
“Call him off,” Finn snarled at me as Yael conjured another gruesome weapon from his shadows. He peeled it back, ready to strike the one who’d stolen his sister, until I jumped in his path, hands outstretched to grab his arm.
“Stop!” I shouted, pushing my Siren’s Song into the word just in time.
His body went eerily still as those blackened eyes went wide. “Myra—”
“Be quiet!” My fingertips dug deeper into his skin.
“I know he killed your sister, and even though I shouldn’t care, I’m sorry for that, but those three are like family to me, and I won’t let you harm them to get to Finn.
” Fire burned in the depths of his stare as he stood motionless, glaring at me with a rage I would never want to experience.
I turned away from him to find Finn grinning with victory. “Let them go.”
“Why don’t you come closer and make me?” he taunted, knowing full well I couldn’t because the Siren’s Song had never worked on him. Luna squealed as he pulled her closer, practically strangling her in the process, and I lurched toward him, panic filling what was still left of my heart.
“Please, Finn… just let them go.” With my stomach in my throat and cold resignation coursing through my veins, I walked slowly toward him—and my impending demise. “I’ll do whatever you want. Just promise me you won’t hurt them.”
“You know I could make you come with me even if I do,” he replied as his wall of shadows slowly reached out for me.
“I’ll release Yael before you get the chance and see how you fare,” I replied, swallowing back the hurt the fae bastard had caused. “He might not give a shit about me, but his sister meant the world to him. Make no mistake about it; he will skin you alive if I rescind my command.”
“Then it seems as though we’re at an impasse.”
I shook my head. “Not if you release them.”
His shrewd glare narrowed with suspicion, working through all the potential ways I could double-cross him. “Step away from the fae, and I will.”
The chess match had officially begun. “Let two of my friends go, and I will.”
He considered my demand for a moment while he stroked Luna’s head, then cast her aside, followed by Poppet.
The two splashed down yards away, but I could hear their cries for Teddy.
“It’ll be okay,” I told them. “I’ll get her.
” Grudgingly, the duo disappeared beneath the water and into the night while I edged away from Yael.
“Now let her go,” I yelled as I extended my arms. “I can’t reach him any more. ”
A guttural noise ripped from Yael as he struggled against my command. Apparently, his desire to eviscerate Finn was as strong as mine.
Once I was far enough away, Finn tossed Teddy aside and stared at me, waiting for my next move. When I did nothing, he laughed. “You truly are a fool, Myra Morningtide…”
The shadows surrounding Yael swelled but went nowhere as Finn’s tentacle shot out to take me.
As it wrapped around my waist, I watched Yael’s face contort with a silent scream.
I’d stolen his shot at vengeance, and that fire would not soon be snuffed out.
I hoped he wouldn’t turn it on Ravi or the others.
As I floated through the air toward my certain destiny, a small part of me reveled in the knowledge that at least I’d feel the water on my face one last time before I died; that I’d be submerged in the salty sea where I belonged.
Where my soul could be free. And as I dangled before Finn, he frowned at my lack of fight.
“Do you have anything you’d like to say before you disappear forever?”
I looked back at Yael, surrounded by the darkness consuming him as he strained against my command with every ounce of his being. The vessels in his neck and face bulged from the strain of trying to break the spell, but it was in vain. There would be nothing he could do until I was long gone.
With sadness in my eyes and heart, I said, “I guess you kept up your end of the bargain after all.”
His shadows pulsed in response as his foot inched forward, determination pinching his brows together.
“Looks like your hold on him is wavering, little mermaid… which means it’s time to go.
” Water climbed up around me, caging me into a bubble of air with Finn’s appendage still firmly wrapped around me.
Through the blurry barrier, I could see Yael’s body shifting and his shadow wall growing closer as a war cry rent the air.
The sound of my name on his tongue echoed through my mind as Finn drew me below and the sea swallowed me whole.