I held on to that small light inside me, to the silent promise of water that there was more to life than this—that I had survived. And had something to fight for.
The Rusalkas spread out before me, their bodies shifting through the water like blades. But I wasn’t defenseless any longer.
My every thought went into my power, into the awareness of the atoms surrounding me, and I pushed.
There was just one downside. One I had anticipated… But was still daunting to face.
Flowing water was infinitely harder to control than the calm contents of a lake.
I gritted my teeth as I immersed myself in the lively fluid, willing its structure to become denser, to slow the Rusalkas’ advance. I succeeded.
But only just.
With every new ripple that came from the stream behind me, the barrier cracked and loosened. I patched up the damage, again and again, but still my former sisters used the small breaks to spread out. Then close in.
I recognized their movements immediately.
They were the same maneuvers they turned to whenever they fancied playing with their victims for a while before drowning them at last. Only there was one staggering difference my sisters failed to take into account.
Those men were already guided by the talons of death.
I was not.
I swooped down low, wrapping gentle, translucent vines around the Rusalkas I wished to keep out of harm’s way while ramming powerful jets of hardened water right into chests of the others. They staggered and tumbled through the depths, scrambling away only to come back at me again.
But even as relentless as they were, they couldn’t match my need and determination. I flung my magic in every direction as we fought, willing it to seek out that one person I had to find before Santino could descend upon the morass and take the guilty.
Sharp nails raked an inch away from my tail, and I quickly blasted the Rusalka back into the murky embrace, not failing to note the murderous hatred contorting her features before the currents swallowed her whole. It was an expression mirrored on more faces than I could count, and yet, on those eighteen I kept contained, understanding slowly dawned.
My gaze locked with Emira’s, and the Rusalka gave me a barely perceptible nod the three sisters standing in front with their backs turned to her missed. Blowing out a breath, I sent a silent prayer to the gods, then dispelled the bonds.
Crimson tainted the water the instant Emira surged, clawing and tearing at the unsuspecting Rusalkas in front of her. Nausea rolled through me at the sight far too similar to what I’d seen the day the world changed, but I shoved it down. I couldn’t afford to have anything distract me from filtering through the multitude of information the currents kept bringing.
Two more of my former sisters tried—and failed—to attack before I finally sensed her. I looked at Emira who quickly pointed at Yana and Josephina before she threw herself into battle once more. Trusting her judgment, I let the two Rusalkas go, the opulent presence of blood the only indication that I had done the right thing. But even as a brief spell of relief swept through me, I was already cutting across the morass like an arrow, aiming for the darkest alcoves cut into the side of the riverbed. My temples throbbed from the exertion, from trying to control every single atom of the water around me while reading through its vibrations for any new threats at the same time.
But I pushed on nonetheless, not stopping until I reached the shielded, almost pitch-black alcove we’d once named The Dungeon. I used my magic as a battering ram to obliterate any traps the Rusalkas might have set up, and my heart sank as I saw Angela chained to the wall, scars crisscrossing every inch of her shapely body.
“Gods…” I whispered even as jets of water broke through the manacles and I caught Angela in my arms.
The currents murmured angrily all around us, furious that a spell had kept them from reaching her before. Now, I felt them tend to her, caress her with their ethereal fingers until her eyes fluttered open in surprise. A soft cry left my lips.
In that moment, I didn’t care about any differences we might have had in the past. I simply hugged her, both of us now wrapped in the embrace of the currents, and listened to her erratic heartbeat grow strong again.
Only after I knew the water would aid her on its own did I let go and swam back far enough to give her more space.
Angela winced as she stretched out her tail, the brutality of the damage inflicted to her scales now visible down to the last horrifying detail. What should have been a beautiful, shimmering blue surface was marred with angry streaks and cuts, some scabbed, some still bleeding. Fury washed over me at the thought of how much force the Rusalkas had to apply to destroy something as resilient as mermaid scales. My hatred must have shown on my face, because Angela reached out and grabbed my hand.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Tears prickled at the back of my eyes, but my response never left my lips. A harsh stirring spun me around. Bullets pierced the water in an onslaught of leaden rain, cutting through the darkness and blood. My heart sank.
Kauer’s men were here.
Refusing to let my muscles lock up in fear, I half dragged Angela from the alcove and into the wide waters of the morass. I could barely see past the thick crimson veil, but I drove forward nonetheless, Angela pushing herself forward by my side.
“Emira, Josephina, and Yana are on our side,” I said to her when we’d almost reached the main mass of bodies. I then released the rest of the Rusalkas I was keeping safely at bay. “They’ll know who else to grab. Take them up the river, Angela, and don’t turn back. Go!”
She looked up at me, hesitation lining her wide brown eyes. I cursed softly, then sent a jet of water to propel her away. It wasn’t strong, and with her own powers she could have easily countered it.
But she didn’t.
I watched her tail work past the injuries as she swam to where Yana was locked in combat with a Rusalka so badly beaten up I couldn’t make out her features. But it wasn’t the fight that caught my attention.
It was the female lingering just a short distance beyond.
She shot for the surface even as bullets rained down from above. I followed her up, keeping a shield around me even when the fading light of day fell upon my skin.
Katarina’s eyes shone as she glanced at me, then, with her lips half parted, she trailed her gaze up the bank and towards the massive silver form that landed with enough force to shake the ground, trampling the hitmen as if they were nothing but leaves, scattered across the grass. She smiled, and the blood in my veins froze.
Santino might be immortal, but he wasn’t immune. And the enchanting, melodic voice that spilled from Katarina’s lips not a second later existed for one purpose, and one purpose only.
To kill.
24
My mind refused to accept what it was seeing.
I lingered in the water, surrounded by floating pieces of dismembered bodies, my magic as still as my heart. My lungs lost their need for air, every atom of my being attuned to the horror of Katarina’s spell taking hold of Santino. And when I noted that familiar stiffness that overcame a person as the unbearable need to enter the nearest body of water settled in the very core of who he was, the light nestled deep inside me died.
The silver dragon looked at me for a final time before those onyx eyes lost their sharp focus. They glazed over, the cloudy layer imperceptible to anyone but those belonging to the water. As I did.
As Santino did now.
A scream wrenched itself from my chest, echoed by Katarina as the currents guided by my—and my magic’s—wrath ripped her body apart. But it didn’t matter.
Her passage into the underworld couldn’t undo the spell. Not when it had already entwined with Santino’s essence and took up a short, punishing life of its own.
Bright, lethal talons sank into the soft bed of grass covering the bank as the dragon took a step forward. Then another. His massive body moved with grace, only it wasn’t the one
I had come to know—and love—as his. No, it was merely the smooth guidance of death, wielding him like a master puppeteer with a chilling play in mind.
A malevolent stirring in the water behind me signaled that not all of my enemies were destroyed, and yet I couldn’t take my eyes off the silver dragon, couldn’t stop counting down the seconds before his talons would reach the edge of the morass and the water would steal him away from me forever.
Pain exploded down the length of my tail, the Rusalka—or were there more of them?—clawing at my scales and fluke. The agony ripped me from my state of utter stillness, my surroundings snapping back into place with such force I involuntarily released my magic, not caring what it did or where it went.
Strangled groans erupted from behind me, some reverberating through the water and some taking to the air until everything went perfectly quiet, save for that dreaded rustle indicating Santino’s approach. It was only then that I realized I had frozen the entire morass. Only then came to note that there was nothing but a thin layer of water still surrounding me, granting me just enough room to shift position, but hardly anything more.
And Santino…
He looked at the ice with bewilderment, his body jerking to an abrupt stop. Yet any relief I might have felt at his reaction extinguished the instant he turned his silver head to the left.
Towards the river.
A sob escaped my lips, tremors running through my flesh until my entire body shivered in a violent spasm. There was nothing I could do to keep the tears from falling as I watched him prowl along the riverbank, the spell set within him working as a compass.
I knew I could freeze the river if I tried, but it would only postpone the inevitable.
Eventually, I would be too late—or he would reach a lake far too large for me to influence. Worse, his path would take him to the ocean, where not even the strength of all the mermaids in existence could make anything more than a pitiful dent against the magnificence of the endless blue.
Everything, everything that was my home became Santino’s tomb. A fate I was helpless to save him from.
Hoarse sobs built up in my chest, my tears falling on the ice I now clutched onto with both hands, my fingers chipping its smooth surface and creating spiderweb cracks to spread across its cool glint. And as I listened to trees fall in Santino’s wake, I knew it wouldn’t be long now until he entered the bubbling stream.
I thought of Angela there, of the Rusalkas I’d saved—at the cost of Santino’s life. If I had let him storm the morass alone, if I had just agreed to his plan of burning them all from a distance, evaporating the water and charring the Rusalkas’ flesh, this would never had happened. My life wouldn’t have come at the cost of his.
I shook my head. No, even if I could do it all over again, my actions would have remained the same.
I didn’t want Santino to relive the horror of being Mesechyn. Didn’t want to tear open the wounds he had mended for centuries, to force him to take innocent lives. I bit my lip hard enough to draw blood.
I hated it, but it was the truth.
At least this way, Santino wouldn’t cross into the underworld as a nightmare, but the man he had worked so hard to be.
My vision blurred from the tears, and I exhaled, allowing my voice to rise into the air and weave a melody of love. Of light. Of dreams fulfilled.
Santino wouldn’t go to his death listening to my horror or keening. He would walk in the company of beauty, of the universes of emotions he had stirred inside me—and had kept me from suffocating them with my fear one kiss at a time. He would go in the company of my every memory, every glimpse I had stolen when he wasn’t watching, of every sensation the warm touch of his skin birthed in my very soul.
But most of all, he would stride into death proudly, knowing the past had no purchase on him any longer. Knowing that I saw him for the brilliant, loving man he was… Knowing that what he refused to acknowledge was the truth.
He hadn’t wasted his second chance. He inspired me with it.
I closed my eyes as the song fluttered and danced, as my mermaid nature ran free, filling the water, the air, the trees, the ground—and him.
I didn’t stop as I felt the light pulse of his power, reverting him back to human form. Didn’t stop even when I knew that it was the last step before he would enter the cool embrace of the river.
I only sang for him, ignoring my crumbling heart and the agony shredding my chest.
For him. It was all for him.
When the thrall of the water dissipated, my voice broke and the melody became a haunting lament that seemed to still the very nature around me. With those final words of peaceful travel and a promise to meet him in the underworld, I succumbed to silence.
Trembling, I pressed my forehead against the cool surface of the ice, and, finally, let my pain run free.
I didn’t know how long I cried, how long I shivered, holding on to those few tethers still keeping me together. But when a hand fell on my shoulder, the ice had already started to melt. Gods, it seemed sinister that I should smell the rich scent of pine so very much like Santino’s, sinister that the touch felt as if it were his.
I stilled.
“Piccola.” Santino’s voice wrapped around me, nothing but a rough whisper, yet filled with so much love I nearly slipped below the surface.
And when the overpowering rush of relief flooded my mind, I did.
Darkness overtook my vision, and the last thing I remembered were Santino’s hands, pulling me up and wrapping around me in a fierce promise to never let go.
25
Fairy lights illuminated the airy white tent, breaking the gentle darkness of Moon Bay with almost a kind of melodic, ethereal grace. The fabric whispered in the light breeze and waves sloshed languidly to my left, murmuring their greetings and sending forth a loving invitation to enter their depths.
Soon.
I glanced at the Rusalkas lingering in the sea. While some still carried the echoes of fear, their eyes weren’t filled with hatred, but kindness. And before them, flickering her cobalt blue tail in and out of the water as if it was the most natural thing to do, was Angela. She had led our sisters to safety, lifted the spell on Kauer’s men that compelled them to kill, and used her own call to fight them until silence descended upon the morass.
She gave me a small smile, eyes brimming with mischief and life unlike anything I had ever seen on her before. I tilted my head to the side and grinned.
A second chance.
Angela got her second chance and wasn’t wasting even a second of it.
Warmth swept through my chest. All my fears, all the nightmares the murky waters had stirred when I entered their depths—it was worth it. Worth it just to see that light touching Angela’s features, to hear her lively presence etched into whispers of the waves. And the Rusalkas…
They would need to find their own way in life, free from the oppression and threats of our former leaders. Not the easiest of tasks, but they knew they could always turn to the two mermaids in their midst to help. Although—I glanced at Caz, standing by Eva’s side—the best form of therapy just might come from the person they least expected.
Since Kauer himself had eluded the massacre, Caz was in full search mode. And so were my sisters. There was no body of water safe from their awareness. The instant even the smallest ripple of Kauer’s presence fluttered to them, the PI would find himself facing the pull of water or the heat of the flame.
Either solution sounded perfectly fine.
Caz matched my grin, and Eva—with Giorgio curling around her legs—mouthed, “Good luck.”
I chuckled lightly. I’d probably used up all of my luck, several times over, but thankfully, I didn’t have to rely on its fickle nature any longer.
No more running or wishing things were different. I was building a life I wanted—and doing it with the man who held my heart.
Santino was outrageously dashing in an all-black suit that accentuated the spill of his silver hair
, and his brilliant argent eyes were shining as wildly as the gemstones sprinkled down the length of my flowing white dress. He was born of the moon and night, and every inch of his presence exuded his breathtaking magnificence.
I felt myself blush, my lips parting into a wide smile that refused to be contained.
My everything.
Deep inside me, magic stirred in response, the fierceness of its affection for the man it had saved matching mine.
Words filtered through to my ears as the officiant started the ceremony. She spoke of commitment, love, and responsibility, but beyond the basic grasp of her speech, nothing truly anchored in my mind. Because it was the echo of my own promises, creating a silent melody between us.
Promises I whispered to Santino in the intimacy of the cabin, then his apartment, then the sea, where we had spent our nights—our freedom—beneath the starlit sky.
But even my vows had been a mere decoration, a pretty ribbon wrapped around the true core of the bond we shared. The one our actions had echoed, time and time again, as we shrugged off the heavy coats of our past, keeping them in our memories, but refusing to let them drag us down.
Santino’s gaze never left mine as the officiant’s voice scattered on the breeze. Only a corner of his lips twitched in a way that sent heat to pool between my thighs as his “I do” sounded through the night, entwined with the sea’s loving murmurs.
I was still staring at him, losing myself in his magnetic presence and the demand in his eyes when the officiant turned to me, asking if I accepted this man as my husband, as my mate for an eternity to come.
I trailed a finger down the side of his face.
“I do.”
And I did.
The End
Want more paranormal romance set in the same world as Paradise of Shadows and Devotion? Perhaps even a steamy story featuring Caz? Then the Nightwraith series just might be for you!
https://gajajkos.wixsite.com/nightwraith
Sirens and Scales Page 87
