I couldn’t fathom what had possessed him to surrender Woe and to forget that Shannah needed to be saved in some cave somewhere.
To give up on me…
To yield any chance of… us.
Judas himself had kissed my cheeks. I knew him as Lev. I collapsed on the floor, shaking beneath the weight of treachery.
I’m sorry, Shannah. My fight is finished.
39
Sacrifices
Lev
Rain poured in through the broken glass.
I couldn’t bear to look at Mara, and I resisted the urge to rush to Woe’s side.
Instead, I clutched Bitteen’s hand like it was my new anchor, holding me in place. Though, I wanted to bend beneath the weight of the cries from Woe and Mara.
The chair Bitteen had thrown had caught Woe by surprise. The shock of my choice still on her face as she had stumbled, her mouth fixed in a silent, “Oh.”
Woe had fallen back, and to the side, her wounded wings tucked around her, primary feathers dripping blood on the floor. From where I stood, I couldn’t tell if she breathed. Her dark hair hid her face. Her shoulders didn’t rise and fall.
On her knees, Mara wept nearby, her strength already spent. The anklet dark against her pale leg, exposed by the rips in her skirt. She fell forward and curled into a ball.
I betrayed them. All my choices led me to this moment.
“You will rule with us,” Bitteen crowed, raising my hand over her head. “From the throne room of the Realm above all realms.”
I chose between a last chance at finding my son and the woman I would have gladly sacrificed myself for so many times before.
Mara expected me to be the man I let her believe I was. Even in the lull before I shattered their faith in me, she had been confident in my decision right up until I reached for Bitteen.
Mara. She was the bait that brought me to my knees, and I had driven her to hers.
Bitteen believed me to be on her side, to be hers now. “Ready?” she yelled over the howl of the hurricane.
I nodded, peering through the deluge.
Bitteen nodded once, released my hand, and threw herself through the broken window and into the typhoon beyond. I wiped water from my face, even as a new plan formed in my mind.
I dashed to Mara, determined to kiss her before I followed Bitteen into the hurricane. When my lips touched hers, her eyes popped open, and she slapped my cheek hard.
I pressed my mouth to her ear. “Mara.”
She gasped, searching my face. “I knew you didn’t betray us.”
“Trust me, my love.”
“I will.” She clutched my hand. “Until the day I die.”
“What did Bitteen do?”
“She has wings. Like Arún did. Like all Fae do. She can’t fly in that weather, but she uses them to partially control her fall to her boat.” Mara pushed me away. “Go. Catch her.”
My pulse thundered in my ears. “Do you know where my son is?”
She turned back toward me, her eyebrows drawn down. Her eyes reflected my pain. “I don’t know, but we’ll find him, Lev. Once we’re free of her, I’ll do everything I can to help you find William.”
I nodded then, but my heart twisted, and I opened my mouth to speak.
Mara wrapped her arms around me. “Don’t worry,” she whispered. “I’ll check on her and then I’ll be out, too.” She pushed my shoulder and released my hand.
“I can’t leave you here,” I said.
Mara shook her head. “If you don’t go, she’ll know something is wrong. She can’t read your mind. Whale shifters are impervious. She’ll come back to check. You’re more important to her now than I am.” She shoved me harder. “Please. Go. Don’t worry about us.”
I crept to the edge of the building. Below the edge of the station, a tugboat rode the waves. Encased in a bubble that dulled the effects of the storm on the craft, it looked like it could have been taken from any East Coast harbor.
Bitteen met my gaze, arched an eyebrow, and gestured to the deck. I hoped she opened the bubble before I landed. As sure as I couldn’t shift, I would drown in the choppy Raishanan waters. I backed up, took two giant strides, and leapt to the deck below. At the last moment, the field winked out.
The landing knocked the breath out of me, and it took a moment for the stars to clear from my vision. Mara still hadn’t appeared at the edge, so I climbed to my feet. I knew that I had to distract the woman at the helm.
In the wheelhouse, I slammed the door behind me and turned to face the Fae woman. “I don’t understand why you won’t stay in the station,” I said, waving behind me. If I could keep Bitteen talking, maybe she wouldn’t notice Mara and Woe’s thoughts. They had to escape.
“I value my anonymity, Mr. Lev. We’ll soon be overrun with Raishanan repair crews. They’ll blame the storm for the damage.” She rolled her eyes when understanding didn’t dawn on me. “I don’t require access to the train since I’m in possession of enough of the royal family’s magical geodes that I can teleport to Eilean Ren.”
“For what purpose?” I prompted.
“So she can take the throne.”
“Who?”
A slow smile split her face. “That would be telling one too many secrets today, Mr. Lev.”
I crossed my arms. “But if I’m on your side…”
She shook her head. “Not today, whale shifter. I can’t read your thoughts, so I can’t trust you yet.”
I moved closer. “What were you saying about the Fae Realm?”
Her face broke into a hideous snarl. “But it looks like our feathered friend may be too stubborn for her own good.” Her focus moved from me to someplace behind me. She strode from the wheelhouse to the front of the ship. “I’ll have her or she’ll have death.”
When I turned, Woe stood at the edge of the missing panel of glass, her hand had gone white from the intensity of her grip on the metal frame. Her wings were stretched above her, flapping wildly in the gale. For a moment, her wings were the sails of a long-ago whaling ship in another storm that had changed my life. She couldn’t fly in the tumult around us. I prayed she wouldn’t risk it.
“I will do anything to have William back,” I bellowed to her from the deck. I meant every word, and I willed Woe to understand. I had to take the only option that offered hope. I wasn’t against her.
Already in tatters, my rain-soaked shirt flapped in the wind, and my feet were bare. The torrent pounded against the clear bubble that protected us from the storm. For a moment, I considered fighting my way back to Woe’s side.
Sure of herself, Bitteen had turned her back on me. A harpoon gun rested on the deck. I could use it to run her through. It beckoned me like a near-death dream. I shook my head.
Woe’s composure broke, and she folded at the waist, shoulders shaking. “Not you,” she wailed. “Not you, too, Lev.” Her face hardened, and she clawed her way back to her feet.
When she stood again, she bore the hardened face of a widow at a graveside. “May God have mercy on your soul,” she screamed.
For years, I hadn’t had even a trace of their love left in my memories to console me through the darkest hours of the nights when my life came back to me with fractured and jagged edges.
I roared at the storm, and Woe took a step nearer the edge. Mara appeared beside Woe and gestured wildly toward the inside. She placed her arm around Woe and led the woman back inside.
That’s my girl. Get her back inside where it’s safe.
“Throw her into the sea,” Bitteen screeched, but Mara didn’t obey. Bitteen stood at the bow of the boat, her hair slicked back. She formed a sledgehammer and drove her magic into the floor beneath Woe. The building shifted, and Woe’s scream broke through her lips as though it had been pried from the depths of her.
Mara appeared again, waving to Woe, begging her to step back, still impervious to Bitteen’s commands. Woe refused and pushed Mara’s hands away from her, but Mara held on and yanked Woe away from the
edge and back into the building.
She’d been a traitor all along, sent to entice me to Raishana, sent to bring two of the Keepers, but she didn’t want to see Woe die. Not that I would have believed that of her; I’d just seen evidence to the contrary. She’d been controlled by the creature who was pulling the strings.
“My hold on Mara must be weakening,” Bitteen muttered as Mara appeared alone a few moments later. “The anklet should be working. A week ago, she wouldn’t have shown mercy.”
The words caught my attention, and I racked my brain, trying to anticipate what Bitteen’s next move would be. When Mara jumped, Bitteen lowered the field. I caught Mara in my arms and crushed her to me as rain drenched us both.
Mara’s lips brushed my earlobe. “Woe’s fine. The Raishana are on their way up. They’ll help her back home,” she whispered. “I came to save you.”
I set Mara away from me on the deck, my emotions still conflicted. Why did she risk herself for me? She knew me as a traitor.
“I think you’ve outlived your usefulness,” Bitteen announced, the harpoon gun in her hands. She lifted it, taking aim at Mara. Her eyes glowed with a frenzied fervor as Bitteen squeezed the trigger.
The bolt lodged in Mara’s sternum. She staggered back, eyes wide and hands groping at the wound. Red bloomed on her chest, spreading over her and dripping onto the deck.
Mara stumbled again and fell against the deck railing. “I love you.”
Her mouth formed the words, but she gave them no sound. She gasped once, and before I could dive toward her, she tripped on rigging, lost her balance, and plummeted into the sea.
Bitteen ducked past me, the harpoon gun still in her hands, and I followed her to railing. Mara disappeared into the darkness, sinking beneath the waves, trailing blood from the wound in her chest.
Mara was gone. She’d been executed for protecting Woe and coming to save me.
“How’d you like that?” Bitteen waved the harpoon gun. “It seemed a poetic end to a whale’s girlfriend. Fitting for a traitor.” She tried to hand me the weapon, but I refused to take it, and it clattered to the deck.
I backed away. “What sort of monster are you?”
“Your new boss.” She smirked at me, proud of her plot. “And I’ll be your new boss, and you’ll do everything I say unless you want William to die. I know where your son lives.”
But it was too much. The cost was too high. I clenched my hands and gritted my teeth. I knew what I had to do. No matter how much I wanted William, we would never be safe with this evil. I would end Woe’s worry, or I would meet Mara beneath the waves in a watery grave.
“No,” I yelled at the woman that had destroyed so much.
Bitteen would not win. Not this day. She had been a fool to think otherwise.
Lifting my hands to the skies, I summoned the surf and gale. They came rushing inward when I called, battering the bubble until the spell collapsed. My heartbeat raced, and my pulse thundered in my ears, drowning out the storm at hand. I drew the molecules from the air, breathing them in like oxygen. The energy of the wind and waves poured into me. I felt my own cells expand.
Bitteen spun around, terror drawing her lips into a snarl. “What are you doing? You’ll capsize us,” she screamed. A shimmer passed between us as she tried to form a shield.
I pulled harder at the wind as my body swelled in size. I directed the rush of air it over barrels situated on the deck. They shuddered as the gust whipped around them until one launched, flying across the deck and slamming against Bitteen. Her spell winked out, and she dove into the wheelhouse. Behind me, I heard the sound of splintering wood. The storm was already tearing her vessel apart.
My fingertips tingled as they morphed into a fin, and I threw my head back, abandoning myself to the ecstasy of the shift. A roar saturated the air. Whalesong filled my mind. I would smash her boat to bits, and drown her as I’d drowned the whalers when they’d killed my own.
I grew larger as my insides twisted and turned, soaking in sky and water to create something new. The boat tipped to the side, and the harpoon skittered across the deck and dropped into the ocean.
Bitteen screamed and scrambled into the wheelhouse.
“I seek the end,” I bellowed. Anguish splitting my voice until a whale-size groan vibrated all around. And then, I was too long to fit on the short deck.
I rolled to the right until I dropped off the boat into the swell. I relished the way the liquid slid over my skin and fins. How I had wanted to share that with Mara. Moisture left my eyes, salting the Hurricane Sea with whale tears.
I spun around, pressing against the liquid as hard and fast as I could. When I spun again, the ship no longer listed to the side, but I could see Bitteen, attempting to steer the floundering ship away from my rage.
I would sink her.
My vengeance comes in the form of an immortal white whale. Meet my fury.
I delayed until I knew that the ship would not stand up against my attack, allowing the tempest time to work. Hard and fast, I swam. When my skull crashed into the tugboat, I heard the black-hearted Fae on board call out, but her help was gone, and I’d pushed her ship away from the train station. No one would come to her rescue.
I spun, swimming away but circling back to hit it again.
And again.
Each time the wood splintered and pieces flaked away. The wheelhouse collapsed in on her, and she drug herself out of the wreckage onto the deck. She lurched to her feet, blood running down her face, one arm hanging limply at her side.
As I positioned myself for the final death blow, she raised her good arm toward heaven and leapt into the air. The wind buffeted her, and the ever-present rain drenched her, and she had a tenuous hold on her control.
As she hovered over the water, I passed beneath her. When I was sure it would do the most damage, I shot a water spout out of my blowhole.
The blast hit her square in the middle, slicking one wing and sticking the feathers together. A moment later, she couldn’t maintain her altitude, and she dropped into the water.
Seizing my chance, I dove for her, mouth wide open. I breached, caught her between my baleen, and raced for the depths. I’d leave her in the arms of Davey Jones; the creature would drag her soul into his locker—a fitting end to a madwoman.
Once she realized my intent, she kicked and clawed at my lips, but I didn’t give in. I gave her no mercy. When she quit moving, I released her, letting her float away on the currents.
She would still serve a purpose. She would feed the creatures in Raishana’s briny drink. It was good riddance. Once done, I turned toward the grief I had ignored.
My sorrow haunted me at the edge of my triumph.
I pushed it all away, deciding instead to search. I hoped that she’d been able to turn into a mermaid, that she hadn’t drowned beneath the surface. For hours, I searched the depths for the silvery hair of the woman I loved. But it was no use. I couldn’t find her.
With a heavy heart, I turned back toward Raishana. I needed to shift before I would fit into the entry airlocks, a tricky accomplishment at those depths. I hoped the change back would go as easily as the change to.
A song drifted through the water, and I turned toward the lilting sound that tickled my ears. As if hypnotized, I followed the lovely sound to its source. It only took a few hundred yards.
The universe paused and time stood still for two paranormal creatures.
Mara floated in the water before me, her anklet gone. Her legs had become one silvery blue tail, a perfect reflection of her eyes. Her hair floated in a moonlight cloud around her face, and she sang for me. But it wasn’t a whale song or the song of a man-eating siren; it was the haunting ballad of a love nearly lost to a battle beneath the surface of the Hurricane Sea.
It had taken over one hundred and sixty years for me to find love again. It wasn’t perfect. We were both broken, but I could love the Mer part of her as much as I loved the woman. I prayed she could love the whale I was and
the man I wanted to be. Her topless form stirred the primal creature in me, and I answered her song with my own.
I eased closer, stretching a fin toward her. She came nearer, leaving a trail of bubbles behind her. There was no remaining evidence of the harpoon that had impaled her. She pressed a hand behind my eye.
“Her death freed me,” she said, her voice warped by the water. “I died, but I woke as a mermaid with a burst of thoughts and memories. And then there was nothing. The blocks on my mind fell away, and I shattered the cuff that had held me prisoner.”
I leaned to the side to study the place her wound should be, but unable to ask the question that burned in my mind. She must have seen my focus change. “The change righted the wrong, fixed the wound, and made me me again. It’s been so long.” Tears from a joyful mermaid joined mine.
I moved toward Raishana, pulling Mara with me, ready to celebrate our love and our victory over everything that meant to tear us apart. Much had happened. I wanted to be wary, but I was euphoric to see Mara, and I couldn’t wait anymore.
I intended to take our second chance twice as slow.
Do things right.
Give her a chance to learn to love me without Bitteen meddling in her mind.
“If we hurry, maybe we can purchase a sleeper compartment,” she whispered, close to my ear, and I groaned.
Twice as slow…
Images of our time together replayed in my mind. I had already lost the battle.
“I know just how to get back to the station,” Mara said. “Have you ever been inside a Raishanan airlock?” Her smile lit the dark depths of my heart. One side of her mouth turned up in a smile, and she put her hands on her hips.
Twice as slow… I reminded myself.
“I’ve never been with a man on a train,” she said, smoothing her hair over her shoulder.
Slow isn’t going to happen.
I had a sneaking premonition that Mara wouldn’t let it. I moved my head up and down. She probably couldn’t tell it, but I smiled as wide as I could and tipped my head toward the surface.
Leviathan's Rise Page 24
