Wade fought the wind and her writhing body to gain altitude, taking glancing blows from her barbed tail that he forced back with his own, never giving her a chance for what he assumed was a poisoned barb to penetrate his body. He spat more dragon fire at her, aiming for her head. She curled her body down toward the sea to escape the scorching heat, nearly making him lose his position in the air.
He lurched forward, wings beating furiously to keep them stabilized in the air. The churning power of the waterspout was growing, the two sides of the vortex nearly meeting in the middle of the sky. The wind was gale-force level now, screaming past his ears and buffeting him and Caoránach both.
She twisted in his claws suddenly, and Wade lost hold of her with one of his back talons. Caoránach’s sinewy body writhed as her head quickly turned, mouth with its many rows of teeth like a shark opening wide. What he thought were whiskers around her nose turned out to be tentacles, which, also gross, and they stuck to his scales when her teeth sank into the meat of his shoulder with vicious intent.
Wade roared in pain, wings stuttering as agony radiated from the bite. Caoránach had broken through his scales and her teeth were shredding the muscle beneath as she jerked her head from side to side, trying to tear out a bite of him. Worse, a spreading numbness was flowing down that arm, weakening his grip.
Oh, not good.
Wade didn’t panic, merely snarled in rage and a little bit of pain while snaking his long neck around to bite down on the closest body part he could get. He sank his own fangs into Caoránach’s scaly, slimy body and let loose a punch of dragon fire that blotted out the world. It steamed the rain around hisface, and Wade closed his eyes against the heat that would never harm him.
It sure did harm Caoránach though.
She wrenched her mouth free of his shoulder and bellowed furiously.::You cannot stop me, fledgling!::
If Wade was human, he would’ve rolled his eyes. Gods. Such arrogant assholes.
Wade pulled his teeth out of flesh that tasted like rotten fish, and with a roar, Wade heaved Caoránach into the spinning body of the waterspout. She got tangled up in its force, the sea and sky finally meeting in the middle, solidifying the massive, dangerous column of water and wind powered and controlled by Lady Caith. It spun so tightly that it almost made him dizzy.
Then Wade realized hewasdizzy and that his left wing wasn’t working as well as his right. Which probably meant poison, and that was just the worst. Really. He hated dealing with poison. The best way to clear his system of it was to shift mass, but he’d need to get back to the island for that. Only problem was they’d drifted quite a ways from it during their struggle. Even now, with the waterspout quickly heading out to sea at the behest of Lady Caith’s magic, the wind was so strong it was capable of blowing him off course in the rapidly deteriorating condition he was in.
Which left only one option—diving into the sea.
The one place he really didn’t want to go.
Wade folded his wings, tucked his legs close to his body, and dived toward the sea below. He pulled up before he hit the surface, stomach buffeted by waves. He snapped his wings out, spreading them as wide as they could go to help catch him before he went under. He was already shifting mass, dizzy and a little nauseous, but forcing through the change. Shoving most of himselfelsewhereand packing his mind and bits of him into thefamiliar human body was a little disorienting in the middle of a storm.
With no wings to hold him aloft and only useless arms, Wade fell into the cold water, getting a face full of seawater from a particularly high wave. He inhaled liquid before going under, lungs seizing with the need to get air in them. Even though he ran hot, the water was cold against his skin, the distant numbness at his fingertips from fading poison threatening to creep back through his body with the first hint of hypothermia.
He kicked his legs, trying to orient himself in the churning water, and managed to get closer to the surface. Lungs burning, Wade swam upward, breaking the surface with a ragged gasp. He coughed out water and heaved himself over a wave, trying to drag air into his lungs. He twisted in the water, the waves all around him pulled into different currents from the magic in the water. The last thing Wade wanted to do was get sucked into a whirlpool.
Something cold and slimy wrapped around one ankle, and he got dragged beneath the water anyway.
He managed only a half breath of air, clenching his teeth together as he sank beneath the waves. Vision changing, he got eyes on the fuath below him, staring into an ugly face limned with violet bioluminescence. The soft glow cast the water spirit in eerie shadows, but it was still bright enough for Wade to see the clawed, webbed hands reaching for where he was tangled in its tentacle.
He dived for the fuath rather than trying to kick free of its grip, his own talons flashing in the dim glow. Wade managed to sink his talons into the fuath’s closest arm and keep it at bay. The fuath screeched, the sound vibrating through the water between them. Wade tried to twist out of reach of the fuath’s other clawed hand, but the sea wasn’t the air, and he wasn’t quick enough.
Sharp talons dug into his rib cage, scraping against bone, and Wade couldn’t help the way his mouth opened on a surprised grunt as he tried to twist away. Bubbles escaped his lips, obscuring the water between them as he twisted in the fuath’s grip. The edges of his vision wavered with dark spots as the pressure in his lungs got worse—not from the talons trying to break through bone but from his need to breathe.
Something dark streaked up from the bottom of the sea, slamming into them both. The claws in his skin were wrenched free, the tentacle around his ankle ripping loose. Wade floundered there for a second as the fuath was dragged down into the depths by a selkie, not sure which way was up and losing air.
Then another selkie reached him, the color of his pelt one Wade recognized from when Riordan had swum in the harbor before and lazed about in a bathtub. A cold nose bumped his chest, and Wade wrapped his arms around the large, sleek body, trying to stay out of the way of Riordan’s flippers.
They sped toward the churning surface, breaking through the waves. Wade coughed out water and turned his face against Riordan’s body, heaving for air. He coughed some more, fire tickling the back of his throat, and he forced it back. Gagging, he spat seawater out of his mouth and clung tighter. A flipper brushed against his side, and Wade finally lifted his head, squinting through the rain and the waves while Riordan kept them steady with ease.
The waterspout was far out at sea now, and he didn’t think Caoránach had escaped it yet. If she had, he rather thought Riordan would already be moving. As it was, he bobbed there in the sea until Wade had caught his breath.
“Okay,” Wade rasped. “I’m good.”
Riordan barked a reply to that before he twisted in the water. Wade floundered a moment before he managed to tighten hisarms around Riordan’s body. He held on as Riordan swam back to shore, his strength keeping both their heads above the water. Wade was grateful for that because it meant he just had to cling to the other man and get hauled through the water without doing much else.
“You’re my very own lifeboat.”
Riordan barked in quick succession. It almost sounded as if he was laughing at Wade. Angling his head, Wade focused on not breathing in the water that splashed them as they cut through the waves. Other selkies broke the surface around them on their journey back to the Great Brewster Island, acting as their very own escort.
At some point, Wade’s feet dragged against a rocky, sandy bottom, and he dug his heels in, sliding down Riordan’s seal body and nearly losing his grip. A few more feet through buffeting waves, and they reached the shallows. He let Riordan go and the selkie dived beneath the water, rising up seconds later in the shape of a man Wade was ridiculously happy to see.
“Thanks for the save,” Wade croaked out.
