Page 37 of Ruthless Scoundrel
“Fuck.”
I come up to my knees. There’s nothing around us for me to target as practice, so I train my eyes on the land mass ahead of us.
“Okay, I’m going to shoot the island,” I say, holding my left wrist with my right hand. I focus on the same feeling I had when I blasted the cave ceiling apart, then channel my magic into my palm. All at once, a torrent of blue flame erupts in a wide cone. It projects a few feet, then dies out.
“Squid ink,” Jasper mutters as he covers his mouth.
I try again, concentrating on the feeling of building the pressure, of withholding it until the last second, then allowing my magic to flow to my hand. The blast from my palm pushes me down to my back. My arm goes wide and the beam of fire blasts into the air, but cuts off quickly.
“We can work with that,” Jasper says as he helps me up to my knees. “I’m going to shift into my octopus form and hold the beast steady for you, okay?”
I nod.
Nerves jitter in my stomach and out to my fingers. If I fail, we both get eaten alive.
He squeezes my shoulders. “You can do this. I know you can.”
“Uh-huh,” I mumble as my vision narrows on a massive dorsal fin sticking out of the sea not far off.
Jasper looks where my gaze is pointed and curses. He grabs my chin and puts his face in front of mine so all I can see are his eyes. “You can do this. You are not helpless. Say it.”
I swallow hard and bob my head. “I’m not helpless.”
“Deep breath,” he says and I comply, sucking down a long, deep breath of air.
He smiles. “Good girl.”
The moment he releases my chin, my confidence wavers.
He gives me a broad grin. “You know, now would be a perfect opportunity to watch me die a horrible, painful death.”
Without giving me a chance to reply, he dives off the side of the raft into the water. I gasp and crawl to the edge. His body morphs and contorts, seeming to turn inside out under waves of opal power. The water swells beneath the raft, pushing it back as Jasper becomes the massive octopus.
The dorsal fin turns and makes a wide circle around the raft. My palms are sweaty as I take aim at the water where the creature is. Jasper swims under the raft but stays close enough to it that I can still see him.
My outstretched hand trembles so hard my fingers blur in my vision.
“Deep breath,” I remind myself.
I work to calm my racing heart as the monster gets closer. Jasper paces back and forth in the water, waiting for it. I don’t let myself get distracted by his movements, keeping my aim trained on my target.
Suddenly, the dorsal fin dips under the water and disappears. Jasper darts forward and leaves my line of sight, too. My ribs feel like they might crack from how hard my heart is beating.
I breathe deep and slow, chanting to myself, “I’m not helpless. I can do this.”
The water explodes thirty feet away and a massive gray face full of teeth with big black eyes bursts to the surface. Jasper’swhite tentacles are wrapped around its chest, pushing it out of the water.
I try to get that feeling back in my palm, but a wide stream of fire comes out instead that does absolutely nothing to the monster. Jasper and the monster fall back under and the water splashes from their thrashing.
“Fuck!”
Jasper wrestles the creature below the surface as it draws closer to the raft. I might get one more chance…
The pressure builds in my palm and I hold it in, gritting my teeth and tightening my shoulders. My hand shakes from the strain of power, but I keep holding it, keep building it. The raft rocks from their disturbance on the sea and I clench my thighs to keep myself upright.
Jasper’s white body comes into view again and my heart stutters when I see blood. He pushes on the monster and its head comes up out of the sea with one of Jasper’s tentacles dangling from its mouth.
I don’t wait, releasing my power before the raft can change positions from the rocking sea. The beam blasts out and my arm flies back, dragging me off the raft and into the sea. The water closes around my head and dampens sound as I tumble end over end, leaving me with a single, chilling thought.
