Page 50 of Voice of the Ocean

Idiot. Why did he attack that ship? Why did he humiliate its captain? What if he didn’t wake up? What if she never found out why the king wanted this treasure in the middle of the ocean? What if she could never go home? And it was all his fault. She got to decide when he died. And today was not that day. So Celeste slapped him. Hard. Across the face.

Raiden sputtered awake, coughing. His eyes cracked open, and he winced.

“What was that for?” he croaked between wet coughs.

Celeste gave him a particularly rude gesture she’d seen Torben use.

“If you dislike me so much, why are you saving me?”

She threw her hands into the air.I don’t know!

The waves roared in her ears. Above them, she heard shouting.

“Here! They’re here! Thank God. I see them!”

“Throw down the ladder!”

A rope ladder came sailing down through the air, landing with a splash in front of them. Celeste nearly cried with relief. She shoved her bare feet into the bottom rung, and when she turned back for Raiden, she saw he wasn’t moving.No. She grabbed his arm, pulling him into her, and positioned his back to the ladder. He looked terrible. He was still bleeding.

Stop trying to die, you coward.

The crew confirmed the two were secure and heaved the ladder up. The process was agonizingly slow. Each passing second felt like a lifetime. But at last, with one final heave, they were pulled to the banister. Nasir and Bastian wrapped their arms around Raiden’s chest and dragged him up and over the railing. They laid him down on the floor, Nasir setting to work examining him. Bastian returned to help Celeste, but she had already swung her leg up and over the railing. She reached the deck, but with the adrenaline fading, her legs gave out beneath her. Celeste crumbled unceremoniously into a pile on the floor, blood dripping down her arm.

“Celeste!” Kiyami crouched down beside her, pressing a piece of cloth against the wound. Celeste shrugged her off, crawling over to where Raiden lay unconscious. She wanted to shake him for all the trouble he’d put them through. What was he thinking? The bullet wound, she could now see, was on his right upper arm near his shoulder. Nasir placed fabric into it to stop the bleeding. The captain’s head tilted to the side, letting a small amount of water fall from his mouth. More water dripped from his black hair and into his closed eyes.

“Rai, wake up,” Bastian pleaded.

But the prince did not wake.

With a rough hand, Bastian turned Raiden’s head back up and began to hammer on his chest. He leaned down and plugged Raiden’s nose, breathing into his mouth.

“Come on, Rai. Come on...” Bastian muttered over and over again, like a prayer.

Celeste knelt next to them, trying not to get in the way. At some point, Kiyami got ahold of Celeste’s arm, cleaned it, and wrapped it in cloth.

Horrible moments passed. Tears sprang to Celeste’s eyes, and she did not have the energy to try to stop them. Her chance to go home dying in front of her.But it wasn’t that, was it?

“Please, Rai...Please...”

The crew stood in silence around them. Kiyami rested her hand against Celeste’s back. The only sound was the hollowthump, thump, thumpof Bastian’s hands against Raiden’s chest.

Raiden coughed. At last, mercifully.

Water sputtered from his lips, and his long, dark lashes fluttered. He opened his eyes and turned to see Celeste sitting over him, tears mixing with the seawater dripping from her chin.

A weak smirk crossed his lips.

“My hero,” he said.

CHAPTERTWENTY-ONE

Human wounds, as it happened, couldn’t be healed in a day. Or even two. Apparently, all a human healer could do was clean the wound, stitch it closed, and wait until the body did the healing itself. The process could even take cycles, depending on the severity of the injury. Celeste was baffled. No wonder humans didn’t live very long.

“You’re both lucky,” Nasir said as he set about cleaning Raiden’s wound. The bullet had gone clean through his arm, avoiding anything too important. Raiden should be healed enough to function in a couple of months, Nasir informed them, but to regain the full strength of his arm—only time would tell. “Don’t lift anything heavy,” Nasir added. But there was no chance of that. At least not yet. Raiden couldn’t even lift his arm without breaking into a cold sweat.

Celeste’s wound was far less troublesome. Because she thrust her arm up into the shark’s teeth and hadn’t actually been bitten, the punctures were shallow. “You’ll probably be healed up in a couple of weeks. Although you’ll probably have scarring.” The teeth had left a curved line across her inner bicep. A siren healer could remove it later, if she wanted. But she had a feeling she’d like to keep it. It went rather nicely with the black crescent on her other arm. And it could serve as a reminder not to go about rescuing stupid humans.

She couldn’t believe she had done soagain.

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