Page 70 of The Rusalka and Mr. Right

The word rings in my mind and fills me with panic. I shoot to the surface—only to feel something like an iron jaw snap down around my ankle. The world swings upside down as I’m dragged upwards, out of the water, and held aloft above it by a black, spindly thing of rotting bones and nightmares.

“Hello,????????,” the skeletal jaws don’t move, but I hear the voice inside my head as I try to scream. “I’ve caught my little runaway rabbit at last. I’m sorry I had to take my queen in such an inauspicious form,” the voice is full of mocking charm, and I can’t close my ears to it. The mocking turns to icy rage. “Butsomeonehas been starving me—even killing her sisters as prey. No matter. You’ll keep me full in the meantime.”

“I don’t belong to you!” I spit, struggling against the ragged, withered form that’s still so surprisingly strong. In the dark, I can’t see him properly, but I can tell he must be at least ten feet tall to hold me upside down and not let my hair even skim the water.

“No, you don’t. You sold yourself to some puny piece of prey,????????, but no matter. This is not the Hunter’s Moon. The rules are a little different when the moon is hiding. I am the Lordof Bones. I move in cycles—but I can break them, too. Didn’t you know that?”

Bile flies up from my stomach, which is odd since it feels so heavy, and everything in me is sinking.No, I didn’t know that. If only I’d met with Jakob and the others last night. Maybe I would have found out. Maybe I would have known how to avoid him, what to do.

My phone. I need to reach my phone. Kev!

No. No, Koshchei mustn’t know how precious he is to me.

“I can’t read your thoughts—but I know you can hear me in your head. You stole your soul from me, rusalka. Traitor. I’d make you pay... but you’re the only meal I have left at the moment. Haven’t you felt my approach all day?”

I say nothing. I hate his voice, the laughing tone in it, the patronizing, condescending mockery of the pet name he keeps giving me, “little rabbit.”

For once, I am truly the prey...

Then act like it.

I let out a long, shrill scream that I know some of the night dwellers in Pine Ridge will hear. “Help!”

But when I open my mouth for another long breath to fuel my screeches, something thick and inky sinks into me, stops up my airway, wraps around the inside of me, and feels like it's squeezing my heart.

“Oh, you’re the only one with any meat on her bones. The only one left—for a few days anyway.” Koshchei’s voice is a satisfied moan, and I know what he’s doing. Feeding from me. Stealing my energy. My life force.

Kev’s energy, given in love, is being stolen by this beast.

Hanging upside down, I thrash my head forward, hoping I connect with the monster’s crotch—if he has such a thing.

Well, I hit something painful and solid as granite.

I see stars, and I’m dropped in the water with a loud curse.

Scrambling, swimming blindly—only to feel both ankles caught this time and something hard crunching into my skull before I fully clear the water.

And then... there’s nothing.

Chapter Nineteen

“Good evening, Kevin. Is Marina with you?”

“No! And she’s not answering her phone. It’s almost seven. I’m trying not to be one of those controlling asshole partners that needs to know where his girl is every second, but I’m freaking the fuck out. This is Mr. Minegold, right?”

“Right. We were expecting you around six-thirty.”

“I know! And Marina was going to cook. But she hasn’t been home.”

“I took the liberty of calling Onyx Farms. She left work at three.”

“Shit.”

I’ve been saying that word for the last hour and a half. I called Marina. Texted. She didn’t answer. This afternoon there was a crazy heatwave, so I figured she might have been taking a longer swim. Maybe she needed to wait until it was dark for the air to start to cool. Maybe she stopped to help someone. Maybe she was at the gym applying for a lifeguard position. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

“That’s a word that sprang to mind. I’m afraid something has happened to her. We have many members of the Night Watch out looking for her. Calder is swimming in the river and heading to the lake at White Pines to ask the other water dwellers to help. Do you know if there is anywhere she might have gone?”

“Her houseboat?”

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