Sia swiped at her salt-crusted eyes and peered into the darkness. But as she searched the waves and floating debris, he was nowhere to be found.
She sucked in a mouthful of air and dove down, forcing her eyes open and using her preternaturally keen sight to look for shapes in the black water.
The search was grueling, horrific. Trygg hadn’t been the only man on board Santino’s booby-trapped ship. Sia swam past limbs and other grotesque remnants of the crew who’d apparently been unaware they were sailing to their deaths.
But then she saw the large shape of a man she’d know anywhere.
And to her relief, Trygg’s body was intact.
She swam to him, propelled by a grim sense of elation. He was alive. But he was unconscious in the water, his face down, bleeding profusely. By some miracle, he had survived the explosion, but it wouldn’t take long for the sharks to come. There was no time to assess the severity of his wounds. She needed to get him on dry land first.
The lights of Naples and the rest of Italy’s coastline twinkled in the far distance. Sia could make the long swim with Trygg in tow, but the steep, jagged island of Capri was closer.
She swam with Trygg’s unmoving body into the arched shelter of a cave at the base of the rocky island, calling upon her Atlantean strength and speed to take them there swiftly. Laying him gently on the small, sandy incline inside, she tore away his shredded black clothing and took in the extent of his injuries.
She wanted to be thankful that he was alive, but his wounds were far more severe than she’d realized in the water. Everywhere she looked, his skin was torn and riddled with lacerations and contusions. His face too. His rugged, scarred, beautiful face.
“Oh, Trygg,” she whispered, leaning down to rest her cheek against his. “I’m sorry I didn’t reach you sooner. Please wake up.”
He was Breed, and while she didn’t know how long it had been since he’d last fed, no amount of human blood would be able to mend so many injuries. And these were just the ones she could see. Internally, he must be hurting too.
Before long, he would be dying.
Sia could do nothing to stifle the sob that broke loose from her throat. “Trygg, please don’t leave me. I love you. I can’t lose you like this.”
He didn’t respond. His breathing was shallow, too slow.
He needed blood badly.
If he had a Breedmate like Melena or Bella, their blood might be strong enough to nourish his dying cells and organs before death took him. But Trygg needed something even more powerful than that.
Sia had the power to save him.
Her Atlantean blood was immortal. She could revive him, but like a Breedmate, to feed him her blood meant binding him to her forever. But worse than that, she would be doing it without his consent.
Shackling him to her much the same way he had been enslaved by Dragos and then Vicky. Except that with Sia, that shackle would be unbreakable.
It would be forever.
She couldn’t think of anything she’d enjoy more than having him at her side for the rest of her days, but Trygg might disagree. He might despise her for taking the choice away from him, even if death was the only other alternative.
He choked on blood and water, tiny bubbles spilling over his lips. She didn’t have much time to decide. If she waited much longer, not even she could save him.
On a miserable groan, she pulled one of his daggers loose from its sheath on his belt. The blade glinted like quicksilver in the darkness of the grotto.
“Forgive me,” she whispered, then sliced the edge of the razor-sharp steel into her wrist and held the bleeding wound to his mouth.
* * * *
Trygg’s senses came back online as if he’d been jump-started by the sun itself.
Light poured into him, warm and silky and profoundly powerful. Wave upon wave roared through his body, mending every limb and organ, infusing every cell. Bringing him back from the depths of a cold blackness that he was certain should have been his death.
Had been, he realized, as his conscious mind began piecing everything together.
The cargo ship.
The decoy shipment of Red Dragon.
