Page 68 of Waves
But based on the red stain blooming on his thigh, he shouldn’t have been here. Wouldn’t pose much of a threat.
“Hurry, please,” he heaved the words out like a man who’d struggled through the desert carrying a heavy load on his back, a man who had used up all his strength and had nothing left.
I could get through him easily. A plan to bolt started to form in my mind?—
But the cloaked figure yanked the ring from my severed finger and then discarded the hacked off digit, letting it float away.
My black band slid over the glove as I sat up in bed, moving to shove the bastard.
Before my hands touched that cursed cloak, the figure gave my ring a twist. A harsh whisper rolled forward like fog, the magical force of it blinding me. “I wish you’d turn Taft into a butterfly.”
“I can do that mysel—” The nixe’s protest cut off as my uninjured hand rose automatically—against my will. With a snap, the massive man folded in upon himself again and again, almost like a sheet of paper, reforming into a fluttering insect with bright blue wings speckled with black teardrops.
The cloaked figure turned, and the head tilted to watch the butterfly’s wings as they began to sag beneath the weight of the water.
Murderous fury drove me to stand and reach out. I’d rip this sarding fool’s skull from her neck just as I had that little siren woman who’d dared to try to control me.
Rage roared loud inside my ears, but I was held back by a singular thought.
Is it Avia beneath the cloak?
Did the queen know who I was?
Was this supposed to be my punishment?
A sick delight coiled inside my belly as if this punishment was merely a cruel kiss. A bite rather than my end.
Near the door, the butterfly’s wings began to stretch out into long, flat limbs—a parchment-like figure of a man. I didn’t see the twist of the ring, I felt it. That magical tug like a chain around my neck.
Another whisper, “I wish he was a grasshopper.”
With a snap of my fingers, a grasshopper started to sink between us, massive hind legs jumping as if it could swim. A pleading trill came from those legs, as if the nixe were begging.
“I wish he was a beetle.” The next order came just as his legs lengthened.
A black beetle clicked its pincers open and closed, one leg still leaking copious amounts of blood.
“I wish you’d take away his ability to shape shift.” It had to be Avia, showing me the darker, harder side of herself. How our hearts aligned so perfectly, our twisted souls matched.
This time I smiled as I snapped. Stepped closer, ready to embrace Avia as the beetle stopped moving. Stopped fighting. Probably stopped breathing. It sank to the floor with a final twitch.
But as I drew up next to the figure, cold reality scraped across my bones.
This person was too tall to be the queen.
I should have known. I should have known, and yet I got caught up in the thrill. Avia would never have killed the nixe. Not like that, not for helping her. Though she had delicious dark moments, the queen still carried a bit of golden innocence threaded through her, gleaming strands amongst the savage nature she was finally realizing. She would never do this.
The cloaked figure spun quickly, and I saw the face beneath the cloak for the first time and a set, determined expression—one very familiar to me as it was one I’d carried on my own face centuries ago, when I first stopped caring.
“Why?” I asked.
An unhinged smile slowly spread as gloved fingers latched onto the ring. “You don’t get to ask questions, puppet. You don’t pull the strings. Now, I wish you’d dance for me.”
With loathing in my heart, my feet began to move.
Chapter 30
Avia
