Page 8 of A Touch Enchanted

I turned to march away, my apartment only a short walk across the sand from here, when he wrapped his arms around me, pulling my back against his chest. The full force of the contact slammed into me. My magic awakened with a deep, shuddering breath. Like it had been trapped under ice for a millennium and had finally broken free.

My palms glowed with an aqua light, so bright it nearly blinded me. My neck split open, a series of slits forming the gills that would allow me to breathe underwater. The skin between my fingers and toes expanded, webbed together, making it easier for me to slice through the water. The sound of the waves crashing along the shore called to me. My body itched to dive into the ocean and test the limits of what I could do.

“There is not one part of you that I don’t think is beautiful.” His lips skimmed the back of my neck, just outside my gills. His tongue traced the line of them.

A shudder ran through me. I wiggled my ass into his jutting erection. So hard and big and demanding. I wanted it inside me right the fuck now. My nipples peaked to painful points that poked through my thin tank top. He skimmed a finger over one breast, pinching the hard bud. I let out a moan, and he pulled me tighter against him.

“Why?” The word came out as more of a sob. Desire swam through my head, making my thoughts fuzzy and hard to grasp, but I needed to say more. I couldn’t get swept away in this sensation. “Why did you avoid me then, if it’s not because I freaked you out?”

“It scared me.” He pinched and rolled my other nipple. “How bad I want you, what I’d be willing to do to get inside you. It still scares me.”

This wasn’t him. This was the magic talking. It overwhelmed our senses and made us feel and say things we wouldn’t if we weren’t touching. My head felt warm and heavy, but in the back of my mind, I was still present. I needed to break this connection.

I took a step out of his embrace, closing my eyes and squeezing my fists until the wave of desire passed through me. Until I could think clearly again. “You can’t say those things when you’re touching me, Beanie. You know what the magic does. None of that attraction is real.”

His brow pinched with frustration. “The hell it’s—”

An ear-splitting crack cut him off. I glanced over his shoulder in horror as a rope of seaweed, black as night, whipped out of the waves and wound around his ankle. Before either of us could react, it knocked him to the ground and receded into the water, dragging Donovan into the ocean with such speed, I didn’t even have time to reach for his outstretched hand.

The shock that had frozen my feet to the sand had cost me, but the moment his body submerged, I leaped into action. I still had my gills and webbing. Without another moment of hesitation, I dove headfirst after him. I opened my eyes, expecting the cloudy, nighttime waters to impact my vision, but the lingering magic had given me perfect sight. It was fading fast, though. I didn’t have much time.

The seaweed vine hadn’t gotten far. Donovan was putting up a fight, which slowed it some, but he was running out of air and energy. I cut toward him in the water and tore at the seaweed with my nails, but it was too thick. I needed something that would slice through it.

I frantically searched the seafloor. Most of the plant life and rocks had been dredged to make the floor of the cove smooth for swimmers, but I managed to find a broken bottle half-buried in the sand. For once, I thanked the tourists who left their trash in our ocean.

I clutched the jagged glass in my fist, the serrated edge cutting into my palm. A hazy ribbon of red rose through the water. It was only a matter of time before my blood attracted the attention of the ocean’s endless supply of sharp-toothed predators with their insatiable hunger.

I hacked at the seaweed rope that had gone taut with the effort of dragging Donovan further out to sea. Fear thrummed through my veins, blackening the corners of my vision, but I couldn’t afford to panic. Donovan had maybe a minute left before his body forced him to take a breath that would spell his death.

My gills began to close, and I wrapped a hand around his ankle, letting the magic flow into me, giving me strength for that final push. With one last slice, I cut through the seaweed. It broke apart and disintegrated into a blackened mist before evaporating in the dark waters beyond the cliffs. Without waiting to see if it would reform, I gripped Donovan under his arms, using my webbed toes to push through the water with ease.

As soon as we broke the surface, he coughed out the small amount of water he’d taken into his lungs. It could’ve been worse. So much worse.

It took every ounce of effort I had to hold his head above the unrelenting waves. I hadn’t even realized how far out the curse had dragged us until I glanced back at the shore. A twinkling of lights from the iron lampposts winked in the distance. The swim back would be at least half a mile, if not more. And all the while, my hand continued to bleed, putting us both at risk.

“I’m going to swim us back to shore.” I brushed Donovan’s wet hair back from his forehead, doing my best to keep the tremor of fear out of my voice. “Just lean against my chest and don’t try to assist me. I’ll move faster on my own.”

He nodded weakly. His limbs hung loose, completely spent. If it weren’t for the webbing between my toes, I wouldn’t have had the strength to carry him back. I’d just managed a single kick against the currents that tried to tug me in the opposite direction when a blue-gray dorsal fin rose to the surface and headed straight for us.

“Fuck. Not this.” I raised my eyes to the constellations splashed across the night sky and begged my long-dead ancestors for mercy. “Anything but this.”

Donovan went rigid in my arms, and without warning, broke free of my grasp and ducked beneath the waves. Thinking he’d been ripped away by an undertow, I followed him, only to find him jerking his chin at the shark. He opened and closed his mouth, as if he seemingly communicated with it, but I couldn’t understand the silent language.

More surprising, the shark paused, assessing us both with cold, unfeeling eyes. Donovan shook his head. After a few tense seconds, the shark swam away.

We kicked to the surface, and once his head broke through the water, I flung my arms around his neck. “Oh, God. I thought for sure we were dead. How did you get it to leave?”

He shrugged and gave me a sheepish grin. “I asked him to.”

“You …?” I shook my head. “I’m so grateful for your power, you have no idea.”

“Yeah, well, if any others show up, they might not be as accommodating.”

He made a good point. Once again, I encouraged him to lean against me as I swam against the current. The sooner we could get to shore, the better I’d feel. The adrenaline rush wore off and Donovan once again lost the strength to hold himself above the water. It was like lugging a pile of bricks through the mud. As soon as we hit neck-deep water and my feet touched the sandy ocean floor, I let out a cry of relief.

We dragged ourselves the rest of the way out of the water and collapsed on shore. The waves brushed our feet as we breathed in the night air. My gills closed and the aqua light glowing from my palms dimmed before going out altogether. We didn’t speak a word to each other for several minutes. We just breathed in time with each other and gazed at the stars, happy to be alive.

The comfortable silence enveloped me. My apartment was only a few hundred yards away, but I didn’t have the energy or the desire to head back there just yet. All I wanted to do was lie here until my lids grew heavy and sleep carried me away.

---