Could be. Maybe I’d made a mistake making that deal. Well, it was too fucking late to cry about it now.
The thing sniffed me again, and my hair whipped past my face so quickly, it stung. “I’m so sorry for my stink, but what in the hells did you do to my… my Lachlan?” All of a sudden, my fist came free. All the energy I’d put into pulling it loose went into it swinging out and up and… straight into the snout of the ice thing.
Crack!
Oops.I’d swear that lightning flashed inside the thing’s eyes. My hair dried instantly and stood on end, while electric shocks peppered my entire body, inside and out. My fist went frighteningly numb, like my feet had in the fire at Mirrenar.
“You.” A huge gust of cold wind swept over me. “Dare.”
I’d lived by a lot of codes. Might as well die by one. “You dared first. You killed my mate.” I sniffled, hoping this thing thought I was crying, not just annoyed by the snot running down my face. The cold became even more intense, but weirdly, the pelt around my neck grew warm, almost hot, unfreezing my upper body even more. “My mate. You killed my mate!”
I knew I was lying, though I preferred to call what I was doing acting. Performing in a drama for an audience of one. This thing didn’t know, though.
“Mate. The minnow?”
I blinked, but it lifted Lachlan’s body to me. He was dead, frozen solid and a pale shade of blue.
“Lachlan,” I moaned, truly mourning now. This would kill Stellina. And Kellin and even Goran…
A tear rolled down my face, followed by another. Something narrow and forked slid on my cheek, freezing the tears, thenremoving them. A… tongue? Suddenly, Lachlan’s body was pressed against mine.
“Take the minnow. I have no use for it.”
I knew my greatest weakness was my temper. It took hold of me now, as I yelled, “No use? What, you killed him for nothing? What kind of a monster are you?” I let every ounce of my rage and disgust color my tone. “I won’t even call you an animal. Animals kill to survive. You killed him for what? Because you could?”
Its double-lidded eyes blinked slowly, reminding me of the way my boss had blinked at me when I’d done something incredibly stupid and he was trying to comprehend my thinking. “Insolent, tiny enemy. Has your kind forgotten their place entirely?” The words were easier to understand as it spoke.
“Our place? Unless you’re the Goddess, come down from the moon above, then I don’t give two shits in a cold can what you think your place is. I have no respect for anything that kills an Omega,” I sneered, my mind spinning. I honestly had no idea how I was going to get out of this. I had no weapons, except one too small to do a creature like this any real harm.
The eyes opened wider, with cold, blue lightning striking inside them somehow. “I can kill anything I like, little enemy. I can kill you.”
“I can make you sorry you did,” I spat out, as it opened its jaw. I reached back with one hand, grabbed one of my hair pins, and flung it straight at one of the enormous eyes.
It sank into the orb, and then I was falling.
Falling, with two selkie pelts around my neck, my arms full of a dead Omega, and the knowledge that at least I’d died the way I lived. Full of bravado, and fighting against forces far too powerful for one woman to handle.
Before the sea closed over my head, somewhere far away, I heard Alexios screaming my name.
Then everything changed.
LACHLAN
Iwas dead. At least, I’d felt death take me and known I was on my way to the Goddess. I’d seen her hand reaching out, then heard… laughter.
The Goddess’s laughter. Her voice.Not yet, bright one.
Then pain woke me. So much pain, I had no idea if I wanted to be alive again. I was in the sea, though, and my pelt was so close. I leaned into it and felt the magic of the change, tantalizingly close. Safety and healing was only a moment away.
I began to slide into the strength of my selkie blood and bones, and the cold and pain fell away, like water sluicing off my fur.
Except something was wrong with my pelt. Something was holding me, stopping it from closing around me. Instinctively, I snarled and bit at the thing, hoping to dislodge whatever it was.
“You little shit! See how you like that,” I heard, and then… something bit me back, teeth closing on my still-human shoulder. Lightning filled my blood, my bones, seared me with glory inside, and connected me. But with what?
“Oh, no… What have I done?”
I still couldn’t see, but I could feel. Feel her inside me, her emotions filling me like a torrent.
