Page 24 of Trapped By Claws
Air.
I needed air!
Then—just when I felt I couldn't take it anymore—Corvin propelled us upward, and we emerged.
With a gasp and sputter, I started choking in as much air I could manage. Half were full of seawater, making me gag. My throat and nose burned, the water streaking through my eyes. It was dark here. And cold.
Oh, I hated the cold.
Corvin pressed the hair back from my face as I hacked. "Almost there." He looked concerned as he studied me.
There were a thousand things I wanted to say to him. Complaints, pleas, observations. All I could get out was the coughing.
The horrid, horrid coughing as I struggled to get a clear breath.My stomach clenched and cramped.
"Easy there. Just breathe, clever girl." He lifted me out of the water and set me on my feet.
My knees gave way. I lurched forward, throwing up salt and bile.
Pale-blue light flared, revealing a dark-walled cave.
Through tear-streaked eyes, I struggled to take in my surroundings.
First thing was his expression: his creased forehead, arched eyebrows, and pinched mouth.
This wasn't going the way he'd expected.
He crouched beside me, a pale-blue orb in his hand, his claws curled around it. The orb cast eerie, claw-like shadows across the wall. "Let's get you inside. Can you walk?"
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. More coughs shuddered through my body. Glaring at him blearily, I pushed myself up. "I can."
I cast my gaze around the cave, noting that while the cave itself was small, there was a large, heavy door with dull iron bands set into the wall a little behind us.
He moved to help me stand, but I pushed him away with a ragged huff. "I don't need your help." The words rasped from my throat before I succumbed to another shaking cough.
Somehow he was already dry, his hair once more full and soft, while I was fairly certain I looked like a wrung out, half-drowned rat.
His eyebrow lifted more. It seemed he had not expected my refusal. But he crossed to the door. With one claw, he traced asymbol on the metal of the band. It glowed bright yellow, then the door creaked open.
He glanced back at me, his expression now masked and hard. Then he strode through the door, expecting me to follow.
Part of me wanted to tell him that I'd fulfilled my part of the bargain now. I'd come to his home.
But I wasn't in any condition to run. And I had no idea how to escape yet. That swim would kill me if I tried it on my own.
The water was black as ink and still as a mirror. I hugged myself as the seawater dripped from my hair and clothes, forming puddles across the stone. Even breathing hurt.
He waited for me beyond the doorway with a small waterskin. "Here. Drink this."
"What is it?" I asked, my voice cracking.
"A kind of tonic and water. For the throat."
I was a little surprised that he had that, but I accepted it and took a long drink. The bitter flavor flooded my mouth, but the relief was almost immediate. I drank deeply, muscles aching.
As I did, he circled out into the room and started lighting additional pale-blue orbs by tapping his orb to each one. The chamber had been outfitted with the scraps of numerous wrecks. Shelves and shelves of random items as well as scrapped bits of furniture made it seem like a chaotic storeroom that someone was living in. Very little was present in the way of fabrics. All of the wood was water-stained. The books that were present had all been soaked and dried, leading to their bindings being ragged and bulging with crinkled pages that had never returned to their former smoothness.These were spread out on the shelves, despite his saying that he couldn't read.
Glass bottles hung suspended from the ceiling by strings. Blue fungi or gel or something oozy-looking filled the bottoms, and faint light glowed from each one, most pale blue but a few pale lavender. Droplets of salt water wept down some of thesleek, dark walls, pooling in the creases of the cracked stone floor.
