“What my new friend meant to say,” Zoe says with a sideways glance at me that says she only gets one shot at this so I better not ruin it, “is that she is sorry to have offended you. She reacted out of fear, not disrespect. We are hoping that with a proper apology, you will find it in your heart to forgive her.”
Right. That murderous looking Mermaid is going to forgive me. That’ll happen the same time I grow a fish tail.
“I may be persuaded. With a proper apology.” She glares in my direction. Uh oh, I hope this doesn’t mean I’m going to grow a fish tail now.
Kallen’s mouth is in a thin line. I suspect he may have an idea what a proper apology to a Mermaid Queen is. “I apologize from the bottom of my heart. I didn’t come here to insult you. I only wanted to find Zoe and convince her to come back to the Fairy realm with me.”
Undine looks at me in disdain. “I do not want your words.”
Okay. “Then how do you want me to apologize.” I don’t want to know. Please don’t tell me. She tells me.
“You will provide entertainment for me and my people.”
“What kind of entertainment.” It better not involve being naked. I’m not stripping so a bunch of Merpeople can gawk at my legs. Or other bits. And neither is Kallen.
A wicked smile grows on Undine’s face. “To deserve forgiveness, first you must prove that you are worthy. A competition of strength and endurance should do nicely. If my side wins, I will collect my prize. If your side wins, you will be able to leave unharmed.”
Prize? What do we have that she would want? Following her eyes, I think I’ve figured it out. “You think your prize would be Kallen?”
Undine’s lips curve into a sultry smile as she swims towards Kallen. She places a hand on his chest and slides it along his body as she swims in a circle around him. I can’t help but notice that she manages to press her bare breasts against him no less than five times. If I pull any more magic, their entire realm is going to explode.
“You need to take your hands off from my husband,” I growl. I also give Kallen a dirty look for letting her do this to him. He ignores me.
“What challenge do you propose?” he asks her.
Swimming back to where she was, but still caressing him with her eyes, she says, “You, against one of my strongest warriors. A triathlon. A race, a wrestling match and a show of magic.”
No way. A race? How could we possibly outswim Merpeople? I can’t even outswim my little brother. I start to say no way, but Kallen speaks first. “I accept.”
Undine’s smile has gone from sultry to triumphant. “Then preparations will be made.” She turns to the Mermen closest to her and begins to speak in hushed tones.
Grabbing Kallen’s arm, I pull him away from the little crowd. “What do you think you’re doing?” I hiss.
“I am trying to prevent war,” he says, folding his arms tightly across his chest.
“By having some hot Mermaid rub her breasts all over you?” I know the second those words come out of my mouth that I made a mistake.
His eyes narrow to slits and his jaw barely moves as he grinds out, “I am not the one who blew up her castle. If anyone is responsible for her rubbing her breasts all over me, it is you.”
I want to hit him. I want to scream at him. I want to blow up the rest of Undine’s house. But I don’t. He’s right. With my jealousy firmly held in check, I wrap my arms around him and lay my forehead against his chest. It takes a second, but then his arms circle around me. “I’m sorry,” I say quietly.
He kisses the top of my head. “The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can go.”
“Unless you end up having to stay here and be a giant Mermaid toy.”
He chuckles. “I am going to try to avoid that. I would much rather be a giant Witch Fairy toy.”
I hug him tighter and then let him go. “Okay. Let’s go kick some Merman butt.”
Undine turns around as we approach and she has an evil grin on her face. “These are the rules. The first two events will be magic free. You will compete against my strongest warrior and you will compete alone.” She’s talking to Kallen, not me.
“Why can’t I compete?” I ask.
“Because I do not like you.”
Oh. At least she’s honest. “What are the first two events?”
After a quick dirty look in my direction, she turns to Kallen. “You will race to free your…female before Kai is able to free his wife. Next, you will wrestle Ocatavian. Then, a final showdown of magic. You will compete against me.”
Okay, first, I don’t like how she said female. Like I’m a bug just waiting to be squashed under her fish tail. Second, the way she looked at Kallen when she said that the final showdown would be against her makes me want to use several tridents on her face. “What do you mean, save me?” Evil grin. Wow, her Merpeople really like her as their queen? She’s a horrible person.
“You will be placed in danger and your husband must save you.” She’s practically purring now. This is not going to work out well for me. “Take her,” she says to two Mermen who have obviously found some under the sea steroids. They are huge. Freakishly huge. And they’re grabbing my arms. “Hey!” I try to shake them off, but without magic, I don’t have a chance.
Kallen’s eyes are flashing with anger, but he doesn’t say anything as they drag me away. He better win this stupid competition so I can yell at him for that. But, win or lose – there’s no way I’m leaving him here.
The Mermen swim away with me and it takes a good fifteen minutes to get to wherever we’re going. I haven’t bothered to struggle against them anymore. It’s actually kind of nice floating along like this. Until we get to our destination.
“No way,” I say, finally trying to put up a fight. “You are not leaving me here.”
All I get in return are two smirks. Then I’m pushed into a giant cage. A giant cage of crabs? I wish. A giant cage of some of the ugliest sea creatures I have ever seen. This would be a National Geographic photographer’s dream. I can’t help a little scream when I spy this floating blob of pink with what looks like bat ears and one huge bluish grey eye staring at me. With my scream, its back side shoots out to resemble squid tentacles that are connected by webbing – like duck feet. Its ear looking things lie flat and it starts to swim away. “What is that?”
One of the Mermen laughs. “That is a vampire squid.” Stupid vampires. I knew they’d show up sometime. “Is it going to eat me?”
He shrugs. “That one will not.” Implying that the others will. Great. Kallen better swim fast.
A moment later, a Mermaid shows up and she’s all smiles. She’s also on the other side of the cage walls. “Aren’t you coming in here?” I ask. She must be that guy Kai’s wife.
She looks at me like I’m crazy. “Of course not. That is not safe.” Gee, thanks for clearing that up for me.
Some of the things in here are starting to get curious about me. A couple of them start swimming towards me and it’s all I can do not to use magic against them. I know if I do, Undine will say I cheated and declare us losers in this part of the competition. And I’m guessing it’s not a two out of three sort of thing. So, I suck it up and cower in the corner, ready to punch the first thing that gets too close to me.
After what seems like four lifetimes, I finally see Kallen and Kai. They’re both swimming hard but Kai is still a little bit ahead of Kallen. Until Kallen sees me in this stupid cage. Now he’s as panicked as I am. Which fortunately for me means that he starts swimming faster. Unfortunately for me, I’m paying more attention to him than I am to the creatures I’m in jail with and I feel a pinch on my arm. When I say pinch, I mean a pain so bad that it makes me say a lot of words that my mother wouldn’t like. I shake my arm and a little tiny snail goes flying. I was bitten by a snail? I didn’t even know they had teeth.
I’m get a little woozy now. It barely registers that the cage door has been ripped open and Kallen’s dragging me out. “Xandra, listen to me. You’
ve been bitten by a textile cone snail.” Okay, I can handle a snail bite. What’s the big deal? And why does he sound so far away? “It is extremely poisonous. When it bites you with its hollow teeth, it injects a lethal amount of poison into your system.” Oh, that’s bad. “You need to heal yourself.”
Heal myself? But that would mean using magic. And then Kallen would have to stay here. “No magic,” I mumble and even I can barely understand what I just said.
“You have to use your magic, Xandra. If you do not, you will die.”
A woman’s face swims in front of me. “Listen to him. If you have the magic to heal yourself, you need to do so quickly. The poison is fast acting and you do not have much time left.”
Well, if the Mermaid thinks I should use magic I should probably use magic. Using the magic I already had ready to use against the sea creatures, I send it in search of the poison flowing through my system. I imagine it destroying each particle as it cleanses my blood. In just a couple of minutes, I start feeling a lot better. I must look better too because Kallen looks relieved.
“The use of magic is forbidden in the first two events,” Kai says with his arms crossed over his chest. His pecs are so big that I bet he’d wear a size fifty triple D cup bra. “I must inform the Queen that you have broken the rules.”
Before I can tell him he’s a jerk, his wife does. With her hands on her fishy hips, she gets in his face. “You will do no such thing if you plan on coming home with me today.”
Kai’s face falls. He may be big but it’s quickly becoming clear that he is not the one in charge. “But Arie,” he whines. She just glares. He shuts up.
Turning back to me, Arie says, “Are you feeling well enough to return now?”
I nod. “Yes.”
“Good, then we should head back. The sooner these ridiculous games are done, the sooner you and your husband can leave here.” Okay then. She’s not going to tell on me, but she’s not a fan either. Got it.
It’s taking me a long time to swim back. I just don’t have the leg muscles for it like Kallen does. Tired of waiting for me, Arie says something to Kai and he swims back to me. “Get on,” he says gruffly and then he turns his back to me.
“I can help her,” Kallen says between clenched teeth. Good to see I’m not the only one who can get jealous.
Kai shakes his head. “You need to save your strength for Octavian.”
I think Kallen’s going to argue, but he doesn’t. Hey, I am not going to pass up a free ride. This swimming everywhere is hard. I wrap my arms around Kai’s neck and my legs around his waist. As soon as I’m in place, he starts swimming again and I can feel Kallen’s glare all the way back.
Just before we get to the city, Kai stops. “It would be best if Queen Undine not know that I have assisted you.” Arie nods in agreement. I let go and swim to Kallen who doesn’t look very happy with me at the moment. I guess I wouldn’t have wanted to watch him be that close to a hot girl so I don’t say anything.
When we get back to Undine’s mansion, there are already Merpeople scrambling to put her house back together. Everyone stops working when they see us. Undine is already giving me the evil eye.
Kai stops in front of her and bows his head. “My Queen, I regret to inform you that the Fairy was the first to retrieve his love.”
Oh, I thought she was mad before. If she wasn’t in public, I think she’d hit him. Turning her eyes to Kallen, her expression softens considerably but she is definitely still mad. “You are strong. I will enjoy having you live among us.” Live with her is what she means. I do not like her one little bit. “Now, we will see how truly strong you are. Octavian!” she calls out like she’s calling a dog.
Or an octopus. One of the ones that we squashed against the wall earlier I believe. It still looks pissed. And I think it’s grown a little bit in the last hour.
Undine reaches out and pets the octopus. “Octavian here loves to wrestle,” she purrs looking at Kallen like she wished it was him that she was petting.
“You want him to wrestle an octopus?”
“Unless he would rather concede defeat now and save himself the trouble,” she says. I really want to use my magic on her.
“I will continue with the challenge,” Kallen says.
Undine looks disappointed but she turns to the crowd and says, “Make room everyone. You know how Octavian likes to thrash about.”
The Merpeople back away and form a large circle. To their credit, none of them look as if they’re enjoying Undine’s little show. No one is stopping it but it’s good to know they’re not as psychotic as their queen.
Undine backs away from the octopus and says to Kallen, “You will wrestle Octavian until one of you admits defeat.”
Kallen looks as puzzled as I feel. “How does an octopus admit defeat?”
She laughs. “It has never happened so I honestly do not know.” Yeah, that was funny.
Kallen approaches the octopus and it lashes out at him with one of its tentacles. He avoids it and in a move similar to what he did in Ireland, he uses the octopus’s momentum to swing it around in a circle sending it spinning towards the crowd.
When it stops spinning, it goes on the attack again. Shooting back to Kallen, it goes after him with several tentacles and Kallen isn’t fast enough to avoid them all. It reels him in and covers his face with a giant suction cup.
I will wait until the count of three and if Kallen hasn’t gotten free then I am going to hit the thing with so much magic that it will literally explode into tiny little pieces. Fortunately, I don’t need to do that. Good, I wasn’t looking forward to picking little bits of octopus off from my wet suit.
Kallen forces the suction cupped tentacle off from his face but keeps hold of it. With his legs he grabs several other tentacles. Then, he stretches out as far as he can pulling the tentacles in opposite directions. It’s like he’s playing tug of war all by himself. The octopus starts thrashing around but Kallen holds his grip with both his hands and his legs, so the octopus is only hurting itself by struggling. Wow. I always knew Kallen was strong but this is amazing.
I glance over at Undine and she looks torn between being angry with him for possibly winning and in love with him because he’s so strong and sexy. I think the strong and sexy part is winning. I hate her.
Kallen is starting to look tired but he doesn’t let go until the octopus stops struggling. Letting go of it, he quickly swims away. He turns back towards it ready to keep fighting. Octavian doesn’t seem to want to keep fighting though. I didn’t know that octopi could look sullen but apparently they can. Kallen moves towards it and it backs away. The crowd parts and the octopus goes off to wherever it came from. Kallen won!
There’s a lot of murmuring in the crowd. The louder they are the more pissed Undine is getting. Good. Maybe she’ll be as mad as I am soon. I’m getting really tired of her making it so obvious that she wants Kallen.
I swim over to Kallen and throw my arms around him. He’s still breathing heavy after exerting so much strength, but he pulls me to him and kisses me. A long, open mouthed kiss that is probably making the crowd uncomfortable.
“You have not won yet,” Undine growls. “There is the last challenge and you will fail against my magic.”
I feel her pulling magic. A lot of magic. So do I but Kallen grabs my shoulders and forces me to look at him. “Xandra, you cannot use your magic on her. That will allow her to win without any effort on her part. Trust in me that I am stronger than she is.”
But that’s so hard when I have my magic pulled and ready to use. I know that Kallen’s magic is strong and I am ninety-nine percent sure that he can take her. It’s that one percent I’m worried about. With a sigh, I let my magic go.
“Thank you,” Kallen says. Turning to Undine, he says, “I am ready when you are.”
Undine smiles and raises her arms. “Loving sea now at its gentlest, your Queen calls you into a raging tempest.” I’m loving how short these Merpeople spells are.
The water around us begins to swirl until we are in the eye of an underwater hurricane. The Merpeople swam for cover as soon as they realized what she was going to do. Cowards. The walls of the hurricane are moving closer to us, ready to send us flying any second now. Kallen sends out his magic and I can feel when it touches Undine’s. Their magic sparks against each other. It’s not like when Kallen’s and my magic press against each other; there’s no line of magical lava. This is more like an electrical storm. As Kallen keeps pushing against hers, Undine’s magic slowly recedes and the storm begins to quiet. The madder she gets about that, the more her magic falters. It doesn’t take long before the storm quiets. I love Kallen so much.
Blood of Destiny (Witch Fairy #6) Page 10
