Page 49 of The Dark, Dead, Deep

The males ignored me.

“Rainn, you should unchain her,” Cormac suggested. “She likes you best. Try to keep her under control. Without the memory charm, she’s rather feral.”

“I’ll show youferal,” I muttered.

When Cormac turned to me, his angular face filled with disdain, I smiled sweetly; his nostrils flared, and his eyes narrowed. It seemed my presence rubbed his scales the wrong way, as his tail flicked as he put space between us.

Our departure was a world away from the joyous welcome we received when we had arrived at the city as we left under cover of darkness. Cormac, Tor, Shay, and Rainn, along with a handful of guards from the beach.

Cormac needn’t have worried that I would try to do somethingferal; whatever energy I had recouped from eating and sleeping had been stolen by the iron shackles. I didn’t know how they could stand it. The lake recoiled at the presence of iron, the substance so distinctly un-fae that it poisoned the water in the dungeon.

We made our way to the wall of reeds as the city slept, the lights from each window dimmed. Each of us in heavy silence.

I wanted nothing more than to scream until my voice was hoarse, but I couldn’t decide if that desire came from my anger at the four males who had captured me, my uncle, or myself.

As the darkness of the reeds parted and the familiar water of the Twilight Lake welcomed us, I couldn’t help but study the others. Scraping my mind for any information that I remembered about each of them.

The selkie were notoriously secretive and stayed in the Skala Isle. My uncle had tried and failed many times to invade their territory. The selkie had once been neutral until my uncle had stolen a dozen juveniles’ coats in an act of war and greed. He had forced the children to fight and kill their kin, and the selkie had been livid to see such a misuse of their magic.

Aside from that, I knew next to nothing about Rainn and how the selkie organized themselves.

If Rainn was important enough to be having secret meetings with the Kelpie Prince, he was likely a prince himself.

I had liked Rainn, though now that the memory charm had been lifted, I wasn’t so sure.

I briefly considered stealing his coat as I watched him swim in front in his seal form, his speckled coat flashing through the gloom.

The thought filled me with such disgust that I pushed it from my mind. I was not my uncle, but more importantly, I would never take another being’s freedom or bodily autonomy away.

I knew all too well what that felt like.

The memory of clammy and strong hands forcing me onto the forgotten throne for my visions would likely never stray far from the forefront of my mind. The shadowy figure in my tent.

Cormac was exceedingly arrogant, even for one of the merfolk. The conflict between the undine and the mer had been the start of the tumult in the lake—and the fighting grew more fierce every day.

Finally, Shay.

I could only guess that he was a nymph, though I had never met one before.

Nymphs were enigmatic creatures that tended to keep to themselves. Few could breathe underwater, but they fished the lake and called it home. Not enough to scare my uncle with their numbers, but enough to turn the tide of any battle they deemed necessary enough to join.

My uncle had bargained that the nymphs would be uninterested in his determination to bring the Sídhe of the lake under his rule. My uncle had been proved wrong when the nymphs responded by sending an assassin to him.

They were unsuccessful, but the message had been clear enough.

So many politics that my head swam with it all.

Something nudged my chin. I looked down to find the wide black eyes of a seal staring up at me—Rainn, wordlessly asking if I was okay.

“Why am I here?” I whispered. “You should let me go. I won’t go back to my uncle. I’ll swim to the Dark Sea and never look back.”

The seal blinked at me.

I sighed. I didn’t even know if Rainn could understand me in his seal form.

Tormalugh hadn’t said a word about it since my memory had returned, but if he genuinely did wish to take me as his mate, I would sooner die.

The moment of fear and complete and utter submission I had felt at my attacker’s hands had changed something in me. I would never allow myself to be powerless again.

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