Page 100 of Female Fantasy
“Hismother?”
I imagine Tey shaking his head. “He was just trying to rile you up. There was no way he was going to let you go on that road trip alone. I thought you knew.”
My hands start to shake. Suddenly, it all makes sense.
“You wouldn’t happen to have his mom’s address, would you?”
This time, I hear the smile in my brother’s voice.
“Got a pen?”
My eyelids flutter.
I gasp, choking, then throw up mouthful after mouthful of salt water. Finally I am empty and the darkness recedes.
Have I crossed over? Is this the afterlife? The sand feels granular and hard beneath my body. But my limbs are no longer heavy. A weight has been lifted from my shoulders, my waist, my ankles. I feel light, as if I could fly into the heavens or swim beneath the waves.
My eyes snap open, and I take my first real breath in ages.
My air bubble.
Someone has returned my air bubble to me.
I can breathe again. The water filling my lungs is gone. I am no longer drowning.
But how? Who revived me when I had all but embraced death as my eternal companion?
“Little minnow.”
Awareness settles over me. Consciousness floods my mind, and sounds flare in my ears. I turn around and once again have trouble finding my breath.
For there he is.
Prince Ryke of Atlantia has come for me.
And his expression is one of molten fury, enough to bring an army to its knees.
I watch in awe as his thick obsidian tail whips around, a wrecking ball of his own making, parting the ocean and knocking Nix’s goons out cold. His body emanates raw power—my power. And he channels that life force into raw, unadulterated strength. Just as he taught me to do when I was just a human willing to put her life on the line for a race of creatures she had only just learned existed.
He fights with purpose, clean lines and intentional blows. His heightened strength gives him extreme agility. I stare in awe as he moves through the water faster than even sirens can see. All five senses flare simultaneously, weapons in their own right. Ryke can now smell blood in the water. He can hear his opponents’ smallest movements and knows where their blows will land even before they have made up their own minds. His fists deal in injury and death.
And vengeance is a thick serum on his tongue.
I know not how he found me.
Perhaps he followed the final tether I left in this world: my love for him.
Love.
I love this brave, kind, powerful mer. And if he does not feel the same way, it makes no difference. My words were almost stolen from me, but now I will have the opportunity to tell him the truth.
And that is enough for me.
My heart swells. I feel explosive, and warmth settles over me, fills me, moves through me, completes me. The sensation rushes through my head, making me delirious, dizzy in the most delicious way. I am faint once more. But this time, no darkness approaches to claim me. All I see in front of me is light. The light of the love inside my chest. The light that outlines Ryke’s body as he fights for his land, his people.
And for me.
If my deep-seated fear was enough to call upon the power of the trident, this is the opposite. I allow the potency of my love to flow through me. To warm the water and sweeten its texture. My fingers pluck an object from beneath my skirt.
