“Fuck,” I hiss, breaking into a run back towards the shore, needing to get this thing out of the water. The pier shakes under my feet, the ancient wood protesting my sudden movement. Behind me, I hear the wet slap of thething hitting the planks, and the creak and groan as they disintegrate under its touch.
I need distance. I need to think. I need a plan that doesn’t involve getting erased from existence by a sentient water monster.
I hit solid ground at the end of the pier just as another tendril lashes out. I throw myself into a roll. The watery mass passes inches over my head. The air feels stripped, empty, like all the oxygen has been sucked out. I gasp, trying to breathe in air that isn’t there.
The mass looms over me, a watery wave that is about to swallow me whole, and I can’t stop it.
A dark shadow appears between me, and it and I’ve never been more relieved to see that brooding, handsome face.
“Stay down,” Dreven commands.
“Wasn’t planning on getting up,” I retort.
“Not you,” he hisses, staring at the mass like he expects it to obey him.
To my utter shock, it does.
The mass recoils, pulling back with that same wet, sighing sound. Dreven’s jaw is tight, his silver eyes fixed on the creature with an intensity that makes the air crackle.
My gaze flicks from it to Dreven and back again as the mass crashes in a wave back to the shore and disappears from sight under the sea’s surface.
“Uhm,” I mutter, getting to my feet. I clear my throat. “So that was?—”
“A Tidewraith,” Dreven interrupts, his gaze still fixed on the water where the thing vanished. “An ancient predator from the deep. It shouldn’t be awake.”
“Well, it is now.” I sheathe my blade, though my handsare shaking. The adrenaline crash is hitting hard, and I’m suddenly aware of how cold I am, how utterly soaked through. “And it was about to erase me from existence, so thanks. I think.”
He finally looks at me, and there’s something in those silver eyes that makes my breath catch. Not quite anger, but close. “You shouldn’t have come alone.”
“I didn’t know I’d be facing a sentient puddle of doom,” I snap back, defensive, but something ugly lurks in my gut. Taye sent me here. Alone. Did she know what it was? Did she know I wouldn’t survive it?
The fact that I’m questioning her makes me feel ill. I push the thought away. It’s absurd. “How did you make it leave?”
Dreven’s expression darkens. “I didn’t. I merely reminded it that there are things in this world more dangerous than itself.”
“So, it will try again?”
“Undoubtedly,” he says, and there’s an edge to his voice that makes me look up sharply. “You’re inexperienced with creatures like this. Your generation has never had to face them.”
“Or gods,” I point out.
Dreven moves closer, and suddenly his coat is around my shoulders. It’s warm, impossibly so, and smells of sandalwood and shadows. I should shrug it off, tell him I don’t need his help, but I’m too fucking cold and too fucking rattled to care about pride right now.
“The Tidewraith is a symptom, not the disease,” he says quietly. “The veil between worlds was damaged when that fissure opened. Even sealed, the echo of it has disturbed things that should remain sleeping.”
“Like you?” I challenge.
He smiles, that cold, sharp, sinister smile that shouldn’t be hot but practically scorches my eyebrows off.
“Not quite,” he murmurs. “We were locked away for a reason, but we were never sleeping. We were waiting.”
“Waiting for what? A madman to tear open reality?”
“Waiting for the seal to weaken enough that it could be broken.” His gaze drifts back to the water. “Aethel was the catalyst. She found a way to whisper through the cracks, to plant seeds in fractured minds. The madman was her tool, nothing more.”
I pull his coat tighter around myself, my mind racing. “So, she orchestrated her own release. And yours.”
“And her own death, it would seem.” There’s something almost like admiration in his voice. “She always was ambitious. I doubt she anticipated a slayer would be waiting on the other side with a blade built to end her.”
