Chapter 11
Chapter
Eleven
Be aware: gifts are contracts in disguise. No exceptions.
–An Incomplete Guide to Kraken Survival
The foundation beneath my feet vanished. Water, water, all around. In my eyes, my nose, my mouth. Vision? Impaired by the murk. Breathing? Impossible. I tasted dirt and brine.
Waves continued to slam against me. Expecting the mers to attack at any second, I flailed for purchase but found none. Panic rose, stomping through me… but my dragon rose faster, ashing the mental pandemonium.
Cold serenity settled over my thoughts, my body, while my blood turned molten, leaking from my pores and hardening over my skin in a pattern resembling scales.
The added weight sank me, but I pushed back, treading as my line of sight crystallized. And what a spectacle I beheld.
Sebastian had doubled in size, becoming a giant who eclipsed even Jon. Hundreds of thin, shadowy, whip-like tentacles lashed from him, as sharp as swords, slashing mers in half at the same time he worked through the masses, wielding a pair of daggers.
His eyes glowed ice-blue, and he moved with such speed, such grace, he and the water seemed to be one. No mercy, just instinct. But it was his methodical precision that truly amazed. He never missed a target. Never hesitated to deliver a fatal blow, no matter how brutal.
One word echoed inside my head. Berserkerage. A trance in which bloodlust overcame a berserker’s reason, the need to kill as essential as breathing. Anyone foolish enough to enter his vicinity would die screaming. Including me, if I wasn’t his firebrand.
Would those glowing eyes recognize me?
The mers fired beams of light from their spears and tridents, aiming for us.
But Sebastian allowed no one and nothing to bypass him, catching and shredding all who tried while his tentacles intercepted and devoured the light.
One after the other, sometimes dozens at once.
But I knew better than to consider him a true shield. He could turn on me at any moment.
Time to go. Now. My lungs screamed for oxygen until even my dragon felt the lack.
A plan formed. Swim to the surface, killing any mer that tried to stop me along the way. Sebastian would find me when he finished here. Ja, ja. But as I kicked my legs, I remained stuck.
Panic clawed back, sharper now and far more desperate. I looked down, and my stomach dropped. A trident anchored to the sea floor pulsed beneath me, a ribbon of light coiling from it while wrapped around my ankle like a living thing. That ribbon tethered me.
This was no accident. Someone had meant to end me.
I fought for freedom, kicking and slashing at the beam with my claws to no avail. My vision began to dim. Weakness invaded my limbs.
Desperate, my dragon attempted to release my smokewings. The flesh between my shoulder blades blistered but never split. No release, no lift.
My fire needed air to catch, and I had none. The sea had drowned the ember before it could spark. And now, for the first time in my immortal life, my dragon was as helpless as I was.
Nein, nein, nein. Not helpless. This couldn’t be my end. I fought as though my life depended on my success. Because it did.
Suddenly Sebastian was there, chaos bending to his will.
One heartbeat, I was drowning. The next, I was free from the coil with his arms locked around my waist, iron and heat and unyielding force, his berserkerage banked.
He hauled me against him and claimed my mouth with brutal precision, sealing his lips over mine as if he meant to steal something back that belonged to him.
I opened for him, greedy for oxygen. Air surged into my lungs in a violent rush, hot, sharp, and unmistakably his.
My chest burned as breath after breath was dragged into me.
He didn’t let go. Around us, his tentacles lashed and tore, slaughtering mers with ruthless efficiency, even as he held me suspended between life and death, his mouth still locked to mine.
The contrast was terrifying. Devastation and salvation bound together in one being.
Strength slammed back into me. My dragon roared. Agony ripped between my shoulder blades as the skin finally split, and my smokewings burst free. This was no release of tendrils but a violent unfurling of ash and fire.
The water hissed and boiled around us, unable to snuff out my wings as they swept outward, disintegrating everything they touched. The force of them hurled us upward. Up, up, through darkness, pressure, and chaos. But the higher we went, the more the wings faded until they were no more.
Sebastian’s grip never loosened as the sea screamed past us and the surface rushed closer. Finally, we breached the waterline. I inhaled, gobbling air as if it were my last meal. Fading sunlight bathed my face, warm and welcome.
He maintained his tight hold and swam us toward a shore that loomed in the distance. Glittering blue liquid leaked from his wounds. I frowned. Blue blood? That wasn’t a kraken thing. Not even an immortal thing.
“Listen to me,” he grated, his fury laced with concern. The dome-rune blazed, the one that bound him to the realm. “It’s going to take me.”
It? “What?” I cried, kicking harder to keep us moving. The rune?
“Listen!” he bellowed. Light glowed brighter and brighter from the runes in his skin, visible even beneath layers of soaked clothing. “I can’t stop it. Whatever you must do to survive, do it. Do you understand? I’ll find you as soon as I’m able.”
“Nein, I don’t understand.” Panic returned, and this time, there was no stopping it. Still swimming forward, I darted my gaze to him, then did a double-take. He was fading, disappearing. Even his grip on me lightened.
“Survive, Brona,” he commanded, our eyes meeting for a split second. He continued projecting fury, ja, but his concern had deepened into something I’d never seen in him. Panic of his own. “That is your only mission now.”
I reached for him, sinking my claws into his shoulders to anchor him here, with me, but in seconds, he vanished. The water turned cold without him.
“Sebastian,” I shouted. “Sebastian!”
No response. No ripple in the water. I tread in place, craning my neck in every direction. No sign he’d ever been here. If he didn’t come back… nein. I wouldn’t finish that thought. He would. He’d promised.
As the weight of my dress threatened to pull me under, I had no other option but to get to land. Maybe he’d materialized there?
I started forward again. The shore rose from the sea, a narrow strip of pale sand curved inward, hemmed in by jagged black rock that looked more torn than shaped.
One of the islands Sebastian mentioned when he shared our entwined histories?
Beyond it stood a dense cluster of trees, their trunks twisted and leaning, roots exposed as if clawing at the earth.
Their leaves were thick and waxy, too dark a green, and they whispered against one another despite the lack of wind.
As soon as my feet brushed the ocean floor, I straightened. Panting, stumbling, I tripped my way to the sand, where I collapsed. What remained of my adrenaline fizzled, making my limbs feel heavy and useless.
“Sebastian,” I cried with all my being, hoping he heard me, desperate I would see him somewhere. Anywhere. Wanting him, needing him to be all right.
I’d always thought I should end up with a soft, gentle man. A poet, perhaps. But here, now, without Sebastian at my side, I realized I craved someone downright menacing to our enemies.
Him. I craved him and no other. I admitted it. But where was he? What had taken him?
Noises reached my ears. Snapping branches, birds taking flight. Apprehension crawled up my spine, sharp and immediate. The kind that usually preceded bloodshed. Someone approached. But were they friend or foe?
Sebastian’s command filled my head. Survive!
I lumbered to my feet and shed my gown as swiftly as possible, leaving me clad in azure lace undergarments. Not ideal, but better than doing battle in a hundred pounds of sodden silk, tulle, and hand-sewn crystals.
I knew what my sisters would do next if in my predicament.
Shake off the fatigue, berserker-out and fry anyone they deemed a threat.
Exactly what I should do. What I longed to do.
Despite the molten heat in my veins, I remained me.
The Pirouette Princess, trained to endure.
To balance. To survive precisely as Sebastian demanded.
Thinking to hide, I ran for the—nope. I skidded to a halt.
Merkind. A horde of them emerged from the bushes, wearing armor fashioned from the ocean itself.
Breastplates of layered shell and coral hugged their torsos, slick with moisture and etched with runes.
Nets of tightly woven silvered kelp wrapped their shoulders and waists.
Bone charms and teeth dangled from leather cords at their throats, clicking softly as they advanced.
What remained of their tails sloughed off as they moved, revealing legs.
Each creature carried a spear or trident, with other weapons strapped over its body. Daggers, whips, and even handguns.
I wheeled around, intending to what? Dive back into the water?
Too late. Another long line of mers rose from the sea shoulder to shoulder, their tails undergoing the same sloughing as they closed in on me.
Surrounded.
My heart thumped, but my dragon rallied as much as possible, my blood cells becoming embers. I assumed a battle position, just as I’d been taught. But the dragon didn’t overtake me because it wasn’t at full strength. Unused to being off-leash, it already verged on being pushed to the max.
“Now, now. There’s no need for combat. Bruised meat isn’t as tasty.”
The merry voice hit my ears like blades. Every muscle locked.
A massive man stepped from the shadows, moving with lazy confidence, as though he expected the land itself to part for him.
He was enormous. Taller than even the shifters, his build thick with brutal strength rather than sculpted muscle.
His skin bore a faint, unnatural sheen, reminding me of stone polished by centuries of water.
Deep scars crisscrossed his torso in deliberate patterns.
His hair hung loose, dark and wavy while his ash and melted gold eyes fixed on me with unmistakable appraisal. As if I were a long-anticipated meal.
Power rolled off him in heavy waves, pressing against my skin, my bones, my dragon. The air itself seemed to recoil.
This was no king. This was a predator, and I’d just become his prey.
“You are the primordial,” I stated, certain. I pretended my voice hadn’t trembled.
He smiled, revealing red blood on his teeth. Red. It wasn’t Sebastian’s. But whose was it? “I am indeed the monster you speak of.”
Run. But I couldn’t. The mers had hemmed me in, forming a circle around me and the first kraken berserker.
My stomach turned inside out.
His gaze roved over me. “I hear Sebastian is quite taken with you, the little lizard ballerina. That he is reacting to you in ways he hasn’t with any other woman.”
I didn’t let myself get snared by his implication. Not here, not now. “What I am is your worst nightmare.” I fought to draw fire into my throat. Come on, come on.
Buy time. I ran through my mental list of Adelaide’s advice… oh, forget it. Today, I would trust in myself, and myself believed I should throw him off the scent. “And for your information, Sebastian’s grandmother assured me I can’t win his heart, and he’ll never keep me.”
As I heard my own words, heat filled my throat, my jaw, my mouth. Weakened but there. Hot enough to burn, but not hot enough to ash. Should be the perfect temperature in just another minute or two…
To my surprise, Jokull’s features softened at the mention of Lady Harpa. “Now there’s a woman worthy of being queen of the kraken.”
Well, well. He admired Sebastian’s grandmother. If he considered her his own firebrand, even better. He might pull his punches.
Hotter and hotter. “Mind if I inquire about your plan today? Every villain has one.”
He smiled and stepped closer. I stepped back, aware of the warriors behind me. Almost hot enough.
“I do have one,” he began.
Now! I unleashed my fire. His flesh melted in an instant. His bones charred. Then everything reformed in seconds. Muscle, skin, hair. He continued on as if nothing had happened.
“I’d hoped to speak with Sebastian personally. However, I’m here only to send him a message.” With no more warning, a shadowy tentacle sprang from his body, snaking around my wrist and yanking my arm in his direction.
He brought my captured wrist to his mouth. Before I could process what was happening, he bit off my pinky.
Searing agony. Stars winking before my eyes. Laughter erupting all around. The smiling primordial crunched on the bone.
A scream burst from me, and somewhere far away, in the depths of my mind I’d never dared venture, I thought of Sebastian’s missing finger, and understood the primordial’s message perfectly.
I didn’t think, just unleashed another stream of fire upon the mers.
As their pained cries rang out, I ran. Just ran.