Page 58 of Cruel Tides

I glanced around the dim water, my vision returning to find all three of them staring at me. “How long… how long was I…?” My world turned on its axis, my up and down switching as the flesh of my arm boiled. The trident in me fuckingburned.

And then I realized what was happening. Its power—mypower—was being sucked from me. My magic was ripping from my flesh, tearing me apart from within.

I felt my eyes roll up, my sight sliding to a bright white. I clamped my teeth together, using all of my strength to hold back a scream.

Claira’s body shook over mine, jostling my shoulders and my chest. “What’s happening to him? Lee? Can you hear me?”

I couldn’t open my mouth to answer. The rush of whatever was happening was too great, and I couldn’t risk letting a scream rip through me.

“It’s the portal. We’re here.” Barren’s voice. I kept my attention on the sound of it while the dizzying vortex of water spun around me.

My arm was going to break off. Snap into fucking pieces. Disintegrate.

My blood turned to hot lava, my insides glowing with a fire that would consume me, burning the magic in me away until it left nothing.

UntilIwas nothing.

Something in me finally did snap, and everything reversed. Weakness became power, and pain became… something more.

An unexplainable burst of magic rushed into my arm, a sensation like nothing I’d experienced before. So much power flowed. Endless magic. More than one body could possibly contain.

It flowed from all around me, above and below, and my head was still reeling, my body alight as I marveled at how still the others were and how they could float so evenly when the ocean was a seething maelstrom of magic around them.

“The portal should be here,” Barren said, “but there’s nothing.”

“It’s gone?” In the middle of the tumultuous spinning, Claira’s sweet voice wrapped around my ears. “But look at Lee’s arm, it’s—something’s happening. The black line, it’sglowing.”

One final rush of magic surged into my arm, and the pain, the dizziness, everything, was gone.

Pure, vigorous power radiated through me like it was my lifeblood. Like whatever had been flowing through me all my life hadn’t been good enough.

I wasn’t sure what had happened—if I’d been gifted with or cursed with something. But I suddenly knew that I could undoubtedly take on anything.

I opened my eyes to a face full of worry, but it wasn’t the face I’d been hoping to see. The brilliant purple hue of Kai’s irises shone straight at me, nearly blinding my vision that had only just returned. Why did Pacific mer’s eyes have to be so damn bright?

“Dude, what happened?” Kai asked, his eyebrows drawing closer together. “You okay, man?”

I might be if you’d turn your fucking eyes away from me,is what I wanted to say, but my tongue hurt from bearing down on it through the pain, and all I managed was a muffled groan.

My body shook with energy. So much so, I didn’t know whether to swim in tight loops like Laverne had or to create a tumultuous whirlpool with the water around us.

Every scale, every hair on my scalp, all of me, was vibrating with a power that I ached to unleash.

Claira pushed in front of Kai, her face caught up in a similar expression of worry. “What’s wrong, Lee?”

Panic bounced over Claira’s features as her eyes scanned over my face, my chest, my arm. Poseidon help me, she was adorable when she was flustered. I wanted to drag her to the seafloor with me right now and kiss her all over. Then I’d slide my hands down the swell of her scaled rear, and?—

Claira shook my arm. “Has the trident done something to you?”

The tremble in her voice brought me to my senses, effectively numbing the intoxicating buzz of magic. Before I could work out my reply, Barren maneuvered, taking a dive that brought us to the seafloor.

“Look around,” he said gruffly, but Claira’s face was so close to mine, her eyes too focused on studying me to let me see around her.

That is, until Kai hissed through his teeth. “I take it the portal wasn’t supposed to look like this?” He paused like he was still taking it all in. “I’m not sure what I thought a portal would look like, but…dude.”

Laverne’s voice filled my head.“Not very pleasing to the eye, is it?”

Following Claira’s lead, I looked out expecting to see the six familiar standing stones that controlled the portal. But there was only open water around us.

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