He hungers for my life to end.
He is a true monster.
Looking into his eyes is looking into the face of evil, and I am afraid.
Chapter 20
Mei
Imove to intercept, but Leaf wraps around me and drags me away. I fight, but I can’t escape his thick coils.
Brio screams.
“Let me go!” I shout.
“No,” the Leviathan growls.
Kit streaks past but with a wet slap, I hear him hit a tree and go still. Is…is Kit dead?
“Leaf, let me go. He’s going to kill him.”
For a moment, Leaf is indecisive. I break free and launch myself towards the evil that has haunted me for most of my life.
He races to catch me, but I reach Brio first, dragging him away from Deux. I can smell the blood, his blood and his scream, it haunts me.
“Alpha, alpha,” I murmur frantically.
I freeze, realising I don’t know where Deux is. I listen hard, holding Brio still.
My Siren screams, and I feel the sharp point of his talons poking him in the side. Mentally begging forgiveness, I drag Brio towards me and free of the talons that have punctured his side.
I toss Brio back behind me and slam into Deux, hitting him hard with a flat palm to his nose. He stumbles back, and I keep going, panting and trying not to scream, my mind divided in a way it’s never been before.
Ronit arrives with a wave of that lightning hitting the water scent and yanks me back. The Sirens slam into the fight, circling Deux. I can hear them fighting, but I know they aren’t landing many blows.
I find Brio on the ground, struggling to breathe.
“Lucky you have a healer on standby, isn’t it?” I whisper and finger the runes I need. I memorise the shape of them and then draw deep, knowing this decision might kill me. No regrets.
This is my mate.
He might hate me. I might be his enemy, but he’s mine.
I trace the runes one after another, sending them into his skin. Over and over. One by one. Brio relaxes into a deep, healing sleep, and I force his skin to reject the poisons from Deux’s claws and then knit together. Each intense bit of damage flares to life in my mind. His fingers are hanging on by scraps of skin. His intestines and bowels are punctured, he needs to be cleaned out and repaired.
Step by step, I fix his injuries.
I live inside him.
I feel his pain, his fear, his shame.
I see his life, the joy he got from his song, the fear when they tried to tear him from his family. His sentence, those months starving in the dungeons, and then the oceans.
The deep, wild, untamed oceans that offered freedom and respite, a way to sing and make music, but grew to be a cage, for what is music without an audience? All he wanted, what he burned for, was freedom so that the worlds could hear his songs.
I put another rune on his forehead, letting it sink in deep.
My body aches, my muscles are tense and cramping, but I turn suddenly, realising where I am.
