Dominic’s brows furrowed at the foreign word, but he obeyed. A grunt escaped his lips as he vaulted over the rail and landed roughly on her snout. His hands tightly clutched the ridges of her scales, carefully making his way to her back.
Once he was seated, she sped across the sea toward their ship. That haunting call echoed across the vast ocean, a dark shadow trailing beneath her. No, no, no. She had to make it in time. The stupid creature was supposed to stay focused on the few pirates that remained on the enemy ship, not follow her to their own, still floating safely intact.
Her wings beat faster, spearing for their ship. She hovered above the deck, gently dropping Tyson and Tobias.
Dominic leaped from her back. His legs buckled as he hit the ground, as if the weight of the world shoved him down. He collapsed to his knees, pressing a hand to his bleeding abdomen. When he looked up at her, there was a glossy sheen to his eyes that reflected a pain so much deeper than any physical wound.
The water churned in a mass of undulating waves before falling eerily still. Adara’s scaly head swiveled back to Dominic, and she began to lower herself toward him.
The lykren shattered through the calm surface of the water, causing waves that made the ship shudder. Its teeth pierced her hind leg. Sparks of agony rippled through her leg and up her spine. Adara’s roar rattled the sails, but then she snapped her teeth shut, whirling as rage and determination flared through her. None of them were dying today.
Adara whipped her body around and sank her fangs into its long neck. The lykren released its hold on her leg, its blaring wail ringing in her ears. Corrosive blood flooded her mouth, the taste so foul and scathing as it slid down her throat that she almost released her jaws from its neck. But Adara held steady. She shook her head viciously, fangs shredding through the scales and soft tissue of its neck until they reached bone. With one last forceful clench of her jaws, she snapped the beast’s neck with a sickeningcrunchthat reverberated through her mouth.
Its howl of pain was cut off instantly. The lykren’s lifeless body crumpled, and Adara released her hold, teeth sliding free of its rotten flesh. Then it sank into the depths of the Plagued Sea, throwing them all into an uncanny silence broken only by her wingbeats, slowing with fatigue.
Darkness danced at the edges of her vision. Blood spilled into the sea below, the weight of exhaustion slowly dragging her with it. Fire ran through her veins, no longer comforting and warm but burning, burning, burning its way through her, melting her bones, tearing her apart from the inside.
She knew the feeling of burnout, and this was exactly that. It had been so long since she’d used this much power, and her body wasn’t used to it. She needed to turn before she lost control completely, but she didn’t think her fragile human body couldhandle the extent of her injuries. Would she succumb to the lykren blood the second she changed?
But she had no other choice. Her wings gave out, and a silent scream ripped through her. Then her vision faded into oblivion. Alarm shot through her veins like ice freezing her fire as energy skittered over her scales, morphing back to skin and clothes. Wind whipped at her hair as she plummeted into a free fall.
Ice chilled her down to her bones. Frigid water enveloped her in its suffocating embrace as she plunged into the Plagued Sea. Water flooded her mouth as she gasped for breath, all too late.
Chapter 52
“NO!”DominicbellowedasAdara’s limp body crashed into the dark, icy, unforgiving Plagued Sea.
Primal rage stirred within him at the thought of her sinking into the depthless sea, where not even her magic could save her, descending into a void of watery darkness, and drowning with the shadows and monsters. Death taunted him as it took Adara by the throat and dragged her beneath the undulating waves.
At least, if she died in the sea, part of him would always have her. She would rest with his shredded heart. One dark, broken soul alongside the other for all of eternity.
But he was not going to let her die. He’d lost his heart. He would not lose her, too.
The scar on his hand burned with the promise of their blood oath. Burned as if her magic was tethered to him, and it called for him to find her.
He didn’t care to be certain the lykren was dead or that its kin wouldn’t follow to avenge it. He’d dive unwaveringly into the Plagued Sea and mingle with the maws of monsters to get her back.
Dominic’s body went rigid as he made contact with the freezing water. His skin sizzled with the lykren blood clouding the ocean, but the venom did not penetrate his skin, rendered useless by the water. Salt stung his eyes as he peered through the dark sea. In the distance, Adara’s shadowed, lifeless figure sank deeper and deeper. He rushed toward her, arms propelling him through the water as fast as possible, though it seemed as if he wasn’t getting any closer.
Fading into the dark sea, her body began to disappear, sinking far too quickly for him to reach her.
Dominic concentrated on the water shifting around him. Cold and deadly. Head pounding, his power streamed out of him, a force to be reckoned with as he shifted the current of the sea to drag him down toward Adara. His muscles barked in protest at the strain of his magic, but he didn’t care.
Dark tangles of shadows plucked her from before his eyes and yanked her down at an alarming speed toward her watery grave. The dark seaweed, a living, writhing hand, pulled her farther and farther down into the depths of this treacherous ocean. Deep down to where the monsters would devour her body and soul, leaving nothing behind. Down to their own Helfarrow in the world of the living.
Pushing harder, Dominic strained to keep air in his lungs as he descended lower and lower beneath the surface. A valiantyet futile effort to save her. He might die down here with her. Nothing left for their friends to find, the memory of them washed away with the tide . . . just like Silas.
But Dominic was not ready for death. Never would be. This was not the end.
Water surged, a riptide pulling at him. He clung to it with pained force until he plunged deep enough to grasp onto the tendrils of seaweed that had latched onto Adara’s ankle. It pulled them both down, down, down until not even the bright moonbeams above could pierce the dark veil of the murky water.
Blindly, Dominic reached for a knife in his boot. A clean swipe had the plant releasing Adara. It retracted back into the shadows like a wounded serpent.
With no time for hesitation, his fingers wrapped around Adara’s wrist, and he forced the current to shift. They flowed upward, faster and faster, until they broke the surface. A breeze hit him with the force of an icy storm. Water dripped from his hair. Despite the shiver it sent through him, he embraced it, gasping at the cool air flooding his lungs.
Wind ripped at their clothes as Dominic gripped Adara and speared through the night sky, toward their ship floating away on gentle waves. His cheeks burned, and his eyes watered. Adara’s blood dripped through his fingers, taunting him with her life slipping right through his clutches. Her head lolled against his chest, no warmth in her face. No flutter of her lashes, which cast shadows upon her cheeks that seemed as if they’d grow darker and duller until they swallowed her whole.
At the ship, he placed her gently upon the deck. His pulse quickened at the sight of her unusually wan complexion. Her clothes were charred at the tattered ends, exposing her stomach and lower leg where the lykren had bitten her. Hope ignited within him at the sight. Her skin was not sloughing off, peeling away to reveal infected organs like Silas’s. No, her scales musthave protected her, for her skin was mottled red and black with blisters but not broken open.
