My beast is a restless shadow slashing at my insides. Desperate to rip through my skin and make it right.
She fell just like Rai fell, and I can’t stop seeing it.
Relivingit.
The ocean balloons with an eruption of angry bubbles, and I heave a guttural breath. That invisible pulsethumpsagainst me with violent blows as I toss the stick and fall to my knees upon the black serrated rocks.
Water gushes aside like parting curtains, revealing a huge, blocky head half the size of a ship, dressed in silver scales. Big green serpentine eyes blink open from beneath a shelf of mossy-colored shards, narrowing on me.
Plumes of steam shoot from flared nostrils, and the beast makes this deep, groaning sound akin to a creaking ship. The water oscillates, his long, slithering mass churning beneath the waves, dishing flashes of fins and frills.
“Give her to me!” The plea scrapes my throat raw. “Please!”
I’ve never begged. Not once. But I’ll stay on my knees until I feel that flame sputter out.
Then …
I’ll rip the world to shreds.
Another haunting rumble agitates the water while my arms hang loosely at my sides. Pathetic and useless.
So fucking useless.
My animal hacks at a rib,swiping.
My bones ache, begging to crunch, jaw popping out of place as my skin threatens to split.
Those green eyes harden with lethal promise, and he plows a few feet closer to the rocks, maw cranking, exposing rows of serrated teeth. Curled in the center of his plump tongue, wearing strips of frayed cloth and binds of seaweed …
Her.
My heart plummets.
Her skin is pocked with raw, weepy craters and bulging pink boils, some with pale heads that look like they’re about to burst. Her bladed shoulder is hunched around her frailness, hip bones jutting, sharpened peaks. Like the disease has feasted on her from the inside out.
Made a meal out of her.
“Bite down and I’ll glass your fucking insides,” I growl, leaping over a shred of pearly sabers and into the pink, sinuous cavern that reeks of fish guts, landing on his fleshy tongue. “I’m here, Milaje,” I whisper against Orlaith’s temple as I swoop her into my arms. Her body is limp and cold.
Toocold.
I jump out of the drake’s maw and into the howling wind, sprinting over sharp rocks that slice into my feet whilehecontinues to rage against my ribs—hacking.
Slashing.
I power around the bay, the roaring waves stretching up the shore, as though reaching for me. I blast up the steep, irregular stairs cut into the black cliff face, not looking back until I’m halfway up—the swiftest glance.
He’s still there, green eyes pinned to me while his huge, serpentine body roils beneath the surface.
I don’t pretend to not know why.
Iknowwhy.
He’s considering all the ways he wants to chew me up and spit me out because he thinks her life is about to end.
In a way, he’s right.
Cresting the top of the stairs, I see a slack-faced Mersi holding the door open, her eyes wide, all the color sapped from her cheeks. Rain plasters her ruddy hair to her face, her apron snapping in the wind.
