“No, this is too much fun,” Deux says with a mad giggle. “They are my puppets.”
“Not anymore,” I say under my breath.
I hang there in the water, assessing all my options. I can’t move towards him without him dying.
Deux will make him do it, and I can’t get close enough.
Brio opens his mouth and splutters a heartbreakingly destroyed song. It’s raspy, and he can’t hit the notes. There’s no power in it.
But I hear the message.
Let me die.
No. Not a chance in hell.
I sketch out three runes and wait. A moment later, the cave starts to shake and then collapses. When Brio turns towards it, Kit snags him in his tentacles and brings him to me.
For a moment, I worry Brio is already dead, but he’s not. I grip his hair, twining myself around him, holding on so he doesn’t fall apart.
I press my mouth to his, kissing him deeply. When I bite his lip, he gasps. As soon as I let go, he waits, the tenuous bonds throb, anxious for the final connection. He bites my tongue, and the connection is made.
Power ricochets between us as we share our connection, abilities twisting and morphing as the omega-alpha bond grows and frees us. As we become what we were designed to be. I can feel the creatures in the ocean, the currents, the waves. I can control it all now with ease.
A sinuous and hulking shadow of a dragon presses against my skin.
I am them, and they are me.
Before Brio moves away from me, I drag him closer. I clasp his throat and draw runes with my tongue that he swallows. Over and over, I ignore everything else.
He pulls back, gasping.
When he opens his mouth, his song comes out as clear as it ever was.
Lirin laughs manically and glides, twirling with Leviathan in a dragon shape that is new but somehow right on him.
Canto pulls bone from the ocean and sketches a rune, creating a sword that fits him precisely. He thrusts it through the water and lets out a happy grunt.
Reed is watching me, and when he approaches, he wraps me in his arms and just holds me.
“I didn’t think I would ever see you again,” he whispers.
“I’m sorry it took so long,” I murmur.
He just holds me until I feel a presence that demands my attention. Reed eases back, and I turn.
Ronit has a trident in his hands that glows in my mind, and he doesn’t look remotely human. His skin is mottled blue and green, his eyes are huge and black, he’s got serrated teeth, a tail and webbed fingers. I see it in snatches and pulses of colour in my mind before it fades like a heat echo. When he moves, it flares to life again and fades away. I am mesmerized by it.
“You came back,” he snarls.
I swallow hard and put my hand in his. “Yes, of course, I did. I had to. I can’t live without you.
Ronit snarls but reaches for me, bringing our foreheads together. “You idiot.”
I snarl back at him. “You left me.”
His hand slides up my back, bringing me closer. “No, we were trying to free you.”
“I don’t want to be free if it means being apart from you,” I snap. “We’re a pack, a shiver. You’re my alphas. We belong together.”
