Page 81 of Waves
I cut off my violent fantasy just as my fingers began to lift because Keelan met my eyes with his own worried gaze and Mr. Whelk made a plaintive moaning sound.
That single moment, that one look from my silly soldier, told me he had no idea what was happening. Told me that everything that had happened between the two of us was real. His expression was utterly baffled and scared, and just likethat—I couldn't do it. There was no way I’d attack her if it meant hurting him.
So, I simply watched her twist the ring, letting the rage inside me grow molten and burn the inside of my throat.
Though I hadn’t known him for very long, Keelan’s soul was a torch in the darkness. He was light and dancing when all else was bleak and black.
I couldn’t live with myself if I destroyed him, and if I killed his own mother, it would.
One part of my chest throbbed with despair and defeat, told me to bow my head and accept my fate. But the newer, inhuman part of me—the part that burned with magic and viciousness—still screamed to end her. The two sides of myself yanked at me and it felt like I was being torn in two.
Sahar twisted her ring as a thunderclap shook the air and made the waves tremble. She screeched, words more like a banshee’s scream than a siren’s song “I wish you’d kill?—”
Keelan’s head whipped around in shock to face his mother just as my hand sawed upward toward my shoulder and a thin wall of water erupted, shoving the two of them apart, a swell of it surging into her mouth and cutting off her words before she finished that wish. She gurgled and spit, but I didn’t let up, shoving miniature swell after swell at her faster than she could breathe.
Above me, a massive flap of the dragon’s wings forced air pressure to bend my spine as the beast rose. The hole in my left wing throbbed as the air behind me heated and activated the frayed nerves, which tingled in anticipation.
Shite. He was going to fulfill her wish anyway.
Seconds—I had mere seconds before I burnt.
My palm trembled and the water behind Sahar lifted and solidified into a spear of ice. But before I made it surge forward, a hand burst through the ocean, grabbed it, and shoved it into Sahar’s gut.
Chapter 36
Avia
Felipe rose from the sea like an ancient warrior, the waves pushing him upward, foaming beneath his navy tail. His rage outdid the storm’s as he rammed the spear harder.
Sahar slid further onto the blade, her hands clutching at it in a desperate bid to stop what was already done. The tip punched through her back, and she was run through.
When his eyes met mine, the ferocity and protectiveness there might as well have been a feral growl.
Mateo broke through the surface just then, gasping before he realized what was going on. He startled, backpedaling a little, eyes wide and lips pressed together as he took in the scene as my adviser twitched, blood blooming across her dress. His gaze darted back and forth between my guard and my adviser, as if he was trying to figure out the situation without words.
“Oh gods!” Keelan’s curse made my head whip in his direction so fast that my neck cracked, alert for more threats, the thrum of adrenaline vibrating beneath my skin.
But I didn’t think Keelan had seen his mother get stabbed, not with the wild way the ocean was behaving, not when he was treading water fifteen feet away. Not with the way his face paled as he stared up at the monster above me, who spread his wingswide and cast a shadow over us all, one darker even than the roiling clouds.
Panic pelted through my veins, mangled my lungs, and shone in my eyes. Fear pulsed, twice as intense as the dull, sorrowful acceptance of death that came from my human side. No, this out-sized panic was laced with longing so huge that it had to be supernatural.
The air shifted and suddenly the dragon dove, wings tucked, right past me—so close that he grazed my arm.
In shock, I watched his massive jaw open near Felipe and my mouth opened to shriek. My mer guard didn’t even flinch.
The dragon’s sharp, dagger-sized teeth crunched through bone and yanked. Half of Sahar’s hand dangled from his mouth.
Her scream bit my ears but was nothing compared to the shock of realizing that Raj had just taken back his ring.
She was a traitor.
But he was the sultan of Cheryn.
The endless king.
A much more dangerous enemy.
My throat dried out as the black beast rose and hovered in front of me, slowly opening its mouth and then extending its tongue, the mangled bit of Sahar’s flesh on the tip of it like an offering.
