“Though the eyes are pretty,” she muses.
I’m almost tempted to thank her for her odd statement. Her large, multicoloured eyes continue to sweep over me, making me feel small. My strength is no longer finding me in this moment, pain radiating from my hand. My lungs wheeze, my skin and muscles bruised and battered.
“Too small,” she huffs. Her hands sweep under my legs, pulling me out of the freezing pool.
“Who are you?” I squeak, my head and heart pounding. I don’t dare make myself known to her. The rage is long buried—same as the tethers that are tightly knit into my heart.Maybe if I’m quiet enough, she’ll leave me alone.
She stops at my words, my whisper enough to gain her attention. “You can understand me?” The sound of water rushing around us is allI hear for a moment, her full, pink lips quirking upwards. “Mmmm,” she ponders, looking at me closely. She doesn’t say another word.
I can barely see past the pink and blue features of the wondrous creature hauling me out of the water, my body being dragged along the sandy shoreline. A damp and dark atmosphere surrounds us.
My sore head is howling in agony at being pulled, my eyes closing in on themselves, unconsciousness claiming me.
“Dove.” The sound of my voice echoes around me, waking me from my painful sleep.
“Godsdammit,” I groan loudly. I bring my throbbing hand to my chest, my shivering body lying on a hard surface.
My hair is smoothed back from my head. I force my crusty eyes open. Bright blue irises find mine in a luminescent, scaled face. “Moyrie?”
“Yes. Can you sit?” she asks, opening her arms as if to catch me when I fall sideways. The gesture is endearing.
I push my battered body up, my legs and arms crying out, shooting pain travelling through my sternum and up my throat. “Goddess,” I exhale, my mouth so dry I can barely swallow.
Even though the Silver Sands princess is a few inches shorter than me, she still manages to bolster me up to sitting. Unprepared for whatI find, I swivel my head around erratically, making myself nauseous in the process.
“Where are we?” I croak out. Moyrie stays next to me, a hand wrapped around my back, keeping me upright. My body sinks into hers on silent shivers, trying to find heat in our damp surroundings.
“I believe we have stumbled into the mers’ lair.”
I rub at my tired eyes, trying to focus on what I see in front of me, finding thick iron bars. My heart skips a few beats, worried about what this might mean.Moyrie said she thinks we are in the mers’ lair. Potentially trapped, too.
Unable to look around our bodies to see if we are fully encased, I ask Moyrie what I’m thinking. “Are we in a cage?”
“Well…” She contemplates before continuing. “From what I have been able to glean, yes, we are in some type of cage. There’s a door, but it is locked and has metal bars on all sides.”
Right, that answers that. Caged.
Gods, when will we catch a break?
Bright violet eyes chase my vision in whispers of pine. I gasp on a choking cough. “Where’s Rivern and…Gideon?”
Moyrie sits up straighter, bringing my body between her legs so I’m resting my head on her chest, my cough subsiding. The heat coming off her skin reminds me of my two protectors. I want to snuggle into her and forget that I’m in pain, the bond connections dulled once again.
“I do not know.”
Her answer is a stab in the heart.Rivern. Gideon. Gone?
Rivern said he wouldn’t leave me. I know he fell in after me.What happened in those movements after the beautiful blue creature took me?
My heart drops. The slightest ache fissures along the bond.Why can’t I feel them?It’s like there’s a wall barring my connection with the bond.
“Did you see her?”
Moyrie looks down at me. “Who?”
I cough. “The blue woman with the pink hair.”
Her thin lips open, a forked tongue darting out, hissing. “Mers.”
