Page 5 of Pregnant With Their Babes

“Don’t thank me yet.” She chuckled, the sound malevolent and perverse. “You’d best swim as fast as you can before death comes for you. Those gills will soon be gone.” She laughed again, appearing much too pleased with herself for offering the ominous decree.

“Nowyou tell me?” A pain immediately hit him in the gut… but subsided just as quickly.

“Go! Race for the surface… now!”

Llyr sped from the cavern and toward the surface, hearing the howls of the Draugar behind him. Another pain hit him square in the chest, and he suddenly struggled to breathe. His gills were on fire. He reached behind his ear… and realized they were almost gone! Pushing on, his tail was separating into two—tearingapart. Without his fin, he slowed considerably… the surface seemingly growing farther and farther away.

He opened his mouth to scream and water flooded his lungs.

Llyr heard the Enchantress’ words whispering in his mind as the pain nearly took over. He’d thought it was the Draugar she spoke of… not this.

He had to be dying…

Drowning…

Moving his arms and… legs… he pushed upward. He needed air… his lungs burned…

Above, he could see the setting of the sun. He reached for it, praying to the gods they’d help him break the surface.

The sky was ablaze, the colors so brilliant.

So close…

Yetsofar away.

His eyelids fluttered closed. The blackness took him…

* * *

Captain Oz von König rested a hip against the ship’s railing, the calm sea soothing. A stiff breeze washed over him, the scent of the salty air filling his lungs. He took a deep inhale of the clean, crisp scent, remembering the first time he’d stood aboard a ship so very, very long ago. Memories he cherished.

Memories… that’s all he’d soon have.

Tensing, he fought off the familiar anguish that had grown stronger and stronger as each day passed. There was so little time left… he needed to memorize the peaceful moments he’d never truly appreciated—not like they deserved to be cherished—until now, when they would soon be torn from his fingers.

He searched the horizon, where the sun set and the artistry of the gods reflected on the peaceful surface of the water. The more he searched, the more Oz struggled to determine exactly where water met heaven. He would not find it.

Nor could he find the peace he desperately required.

Behind him, his sailors drank their ale and rum while others played music to accompany one singing a miserable tale. There was little more they could do to occupy themselves. They awaited arrival in their penultimate port of call—before finally returning home.

Home.

It had been far too long… yet not long enough.

The hopelessness of the tune only added to his own melancholy.I don’t want to leave this behind. I belong on the open seas—not dry land.

“What is it you’re searching for?”

Oz glanced over his shoulder at his best friend and sometimes lover, Commander Dagr von Burgstaller. Love swelled in his heart as he eyed the man… and that heart shattered all over again as he realized his affections could never be truly realized. “A way out?”

“There’s only one way out in the direction you’re looking… and it’s not the kind of end I’d allow you,” Dagr replied before resting his bottom against the railing. Silence fell between them, heavy with all the things they wished to say. Things that would only cause the end so much worse than it was.

“You think we can prolong our trip? Stay in port an extra day or two?”

The expression in Dagr’s eye was longing. A need to say yes. Maybe even a yearning for them to never return home. “He’ll only wait for so long. We must arrive soon. You have your du—”

“Stopreminding me. I know what’s needed of me.”

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