Page 97 of Whispers of the Deep

“Well, well, well,” he growled in her ear. “I had a feeling if I started hitting you in front of a window, someone would show up. That sure looks like the same undine who saved you.”

She opened her eyes, trying her best to focus on the outside of the windows and... fuck. There he was.

Arges floated in front of the window, all of his lights on full display. His fins were so bright they were almost blinding, and she could see the rage on his features. All his gills were flared out, his black eyes narrowed, and his sharp teeth showing like a shark on the other side of the glass.

The man behind her gave her a shake, ripping out hair in the process. “It sure seems like he wants me to give you back, Mira. Is that what you want? Did you lose yourself to a monster like that?”

“Lose?” she repeated. “I lost absolutely nothing to him.”

“You clearly spent some time with him. I’ve never seen an undine look quite so angry at one of us. Certainly not because we were hurting one of our own.” He dangled her closer to the window, watching as Arges moved closer as well. “You see, we don’t need you to tell us anything, Mira. I can guess what happened. Would you like to know what I think happened?”

“Not particularly,” she ground out through her teeth.

“He took you because he was interested. You were interested, too. Maybe there’s a bit of a slut in that engineering mind of yours. Maybe you fancied yourself to be a pioneer in a new genre of mating. I don’t care what you say about it. Justify it to yourself all you want.” He leaned down, that hot breath in her ear again. “You fucked him. And now he wants you back.”

She bucked in the chair, trying to get away from the monster behind her, and closer to the glass. She wanted Arges to swim away. There was only one direction this was going, and it wasn’t one that either of them were going to like.

The man gave her another shake. “Here’s the thing, Mira. I don’t need you. All I wanted was to see if I could get him here. We’ve been dropping your blood into the ocean for days and that didn’t summon him, but all of a sudden here he is the moment you’re in front of a window. The closer he and his people are, the better. We’re going to light them all on fire and get rid of the problem once and for all. How’s that sound?”

Terrible. It sounded terrible.

But there was nothing she could do, all tied up like this with a man holding her by the hair. She’d always known the hatred between their people ran deep. She had seen it for herself. The years of abuse and greed that had torn this entire ocean apart.

This went beyond that, though. This was an old hatred that made her wonder whether or not this man knew Arges. It certainly seemed like he recognized the blue glowing undine in front of them. And Arges definitely recognized him.

She saw the shaking rage, the undulated gills that were plastered so close to his side now she wondered if he could even breathe. He came closer to the window, pointing at the man behind her ominously.

“Oh, I’m not afraid of you,” the man said to Arges. He had no way of knowing the undine before them could understand him. “I’m going to cut her up into little pieces and feed her to the sharks. Just you wait, undine. I’m not done punishing you yet.”

He was going to what?

She gasped as he shoved her away from the window. She landed hard on her shoulder again, nearly popping it out of its socket as the man followed her. He was laughing. A gleeful, joyful sound that turned her stomach.

Leaning down, he grabbed onto her shirt and dragged her with the chair into the back room. The room with no windows. The room where they had done their worst to her and apparently he was going to do even more.

“I’ve seen that undine around here for ages,” the man said. “Beta sends all their recordings to us, you see. All the cities do. You’ll be happy to know you somehow caught yourself one of the biggest fish in the sea. Or at least, one of the most dangerous. He’s been scoping out our cities for years and doing considerable damage for quite a while.”

She didn’t know that. But Arges was intelligent. It didn’t surprise her in the slightest that he had been successful in every attack he’d made. But what did surprise her was that this man knew him.

Even as the stranger in front of her sat her upright, steadying her chair once again on its wobbly legs, she eyed him. He wasn’t familiar to her. The uniform was clearly Alpha based, too clean and too pressed, but she had never heard of such brutality from Alpha.

Swallowing hard, she croaked out, “You aren’t from Alpha, are you?”

Again, he chuckled, that gritty sound already grating on her nerves. “No, Mira. Alpha employs all of us, but that doesn’t mean we’re from there.”

“There’s only three cities left,” she muttered. “Delta is long gone. Gamma only recently built back up. I suppose you could be from Gamma, but...”

He tsked, the sound sharp and cruel in the otherwise soundless room. “No one knows where I’m from, Mira. No one could ever guess that there is another city. Deeper in the very depths of the ocean. One buried in rock and rubble so the undines would never find us. Are you done asking your questions yet?”

“No.” She glared. “I have a hundred questions for you, but I have a feeling you won’t let me ask any of them.”

“Smart girl.” He brushed her hair back from her ear, and then leaned down to whisper, “Tau is the city you’re looking for. If you somehow survive this, I want them to know who is the real power under the sea.”

And then he plunged a knife into her belly.

It took a few moments for her to realize what had happened. Her stomach muscles cramped, clenching around the cold metal. It was hard to imagine he’d even done it. She knew he had threatened Arges with that, but she hadn’t thought...

Then the fire came. The burning ache that spread throughout her entire form as her body realized that there was a horrible wound on her belly. He ripped the knife out, not even trying to be considerate as he drew it down her arms. Slice by slice. Marking her with cuts that dug into her muscle and made her scream.

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