Salt & Venom (Blood, Bloom, & Water Book 2)

by Amy McNulty

  “No…” Calder tapped his fingers on the steering wheel with one hand as the other cupped his mouth for a moment. “So that’s how they move fast?”

  I nodded. “And it looks like if they touch a person, they can make them move fast with them.”

  Calder let out a curse and pounded on the steering wheel, making the truck honk. “This isn’t fair. Nothing about this is fair!” He growled. The light turned green, but he wasn’t moving.

  “Calder,” I said, laying a hand on his upper arm.

  Honks behind us made him snap back to it, moving the vehicle forward as another flash of lightning sparked across the sky.

  I checked to make sure Cascade’s car was still behind us. It was, Bay up in the front seat twitching, looking over his shoulder at the third lane for turning vehicles.

  “This time freezing thing won’t matter when it comes to our plan of getting Ember to your house,” I said. “Once there, that won’t give them any advantage.”

  “Really? Because I call being able to move when your opponent is immobile a pretty big asset.”

  “I just mean—” But my throat went dry as I realized what I was looking at in the sideview mirror. “Watch out!”

  A gray car was barreling past Cascade’s vehicle in the right-turn-only lane, clearly not letting up as it approached the next intersection. It passed Cascade’s car and now pulled up alongside us.

  A man with blond hair—no sunglasses, no bright blue eyes—leered at us as his car sped faster and faster, the lane in front of him about to end.

  A flash of Ember in a similar manic driving position reminded me of what I should have realized earlier—I’d seen this rental car before. I’d seen this man.

  Ember’s dad was driving like a maniac in the rainstorm, preparing to mow down our vehicle.

  “Get to the left lane!” I screamed, reaching across the console to push on the steering wheel.

  “Wait, Ivy! There’s a car there!”

  The orb slipped from my fingers and tumbled onto my feet as Calder slammed on the brakes.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The car in front of us careened into our lane, mere feet from hitting us, just as the lane it had been in ended and the driver was supposed to make a right turn. Fortunately, Cascade was on the ball behind us, screeching to a halt in time with us and avoiding hitting the back of Calder’s truck—though she did jackknife just slightly.

  The van that had been in the left lane kept driving past.

  Ember’s dad opened his car door and got out.

  “That’s Ember’s dad,” I said quickly. “This isn’t just some average car accident. Calder, we have to get out of here!”

  Grim-faced, Calder checked over his shoulder and then floored the car, steering right. It bounced as it went over a patch of grass and down into a ditch to get into the turn-off. A scream escaped my mouth as I took hold of the dashboard, but somehow we made it through, the truck’s tires squealing as we hit the pavement once more. Stretching my muscles, I turned around to see what was going on behind us. Ember’s dad was making his way back to his car as another vehicle swerved past him, honking the whole way. Cascade’s car was going in reverse, just narrowly missing hitting another car.

  I gasped, my lungs going still until the need for air seized up in my throat.

  Cascade and the others fell in line behind us as we took the ramp off the highway onto a backroad I was unfamiliar with.

  Hyperventilating, I had to consciously slow my breathing until I could finally speak again. “What was up with that? Was he going to try to kidnap me in the middle of a highway?”

  “Or worse.” Calder swallowed visibly.

  “But he can’t do that alone, can he? It’s supposed to be champion versus champion, not champion versus… champion’s dad. Holy cow, she’s involved her dad in this. How on Earth did that happen? I thought she wasn’t even close to him.” I was rambling now, but there was so much my brain was attempting to process at once, and none of it was making sense.

  “He’s not a vampire,” spat Calder, his mouth curling around the last word. “Yet.”

  “So the rules don’t apply to him?” I sighed. “But what happens if…? What if…?” I didn’t want to say it.

  “Either you or Ember die, but not by one of our hands?” Apparently, someone had no qualms voicing my concern aloud. “Then we’re back to square one. So no, I don’t think the vampires want anyone but Ember to kill you.”

  That was… reassuring?

  “So he wanted to kidnap me for his daughter.”

  “I guess.”

  Vampires certainly didn’t know how to fight fair. What did Orin think of pulling highway stunts like that? Unless he didn’t know.

  That reminded me of the orb. I moved forward to grab it, only to be choked on the seatbelt.

  “Stay still,” said Calder, revving up the truck’s engine. “We’re going to shake him.”

  The rain picked up its relentless pace and Calder increased the speed of the truck’s wipers.

  “I think he’s sufficiently shaken,” I said, checking the sideview mirror again to be sure. “He had to get back into his car and turn around, for starters.”

  Calder nodded, his foot letting off the pedal slightly. He shifted in his seat to grab his phone from his back pocket, handing it to me. “Dial my mom, will you?”

  “Okay,” I said, brushing aside some notifications to get to his contacts. Once I dialed “Mom,” I put it on speaker phone and rested the phone in the drink holder between us.

  “Yes?” snapped Nerida’s voice, clipped and irritable.

  “It was trouble, just like we thought,” said Calder, his focus on the road ahead. “They almost got Ivy.”

  “She okay?”

  “Yeah.” He sent a quick glance my way with a fluttering smile. “She can hold her own and then some. She showed them we have the orb—that made them back off.”

  “That and the rain,” I added. “Bad day for a vampire plot, if you ask me.”

  Calder and I exchanged a look then and my heart skipped a beat. It was hard to focus on how handsome he was when he and I kept clashing and there were vampires potentially around every corner.

  Nerida went quiet for a moment. “Anything else I need to know?”

  “Oh”—Calder turned, taking us down a backroad I started to recognize as an alternative route toward Standing Springs Park—“there was a human who chased after us. Tried to run us off the road.”

  I was about to add the fact that he was Ember’s dad, but Calder did the little “zip the lips” move as he turned to face me and I closed my mouth.

  “Probably one of their meals,” said Nerida. “Looking to win their favor and get granted an undead existence. They can prove useful before they turn, before water and sunlight bothers them. Though their exposure to even small doses of vampire venom can make them a bit… irritable around blood…” Nerida’s voice drifted off, perhaps lost in thought.

  If the vampires had a whole army of these people, maybe our merfolk fortress plan wouldn’t keep them away. Then again, if they were only human, they wouldn’t pose that much of a threat regardless.

  “We lost him on the highway,” Calder continued, “but I need to know if they’re near the house and if we should take an alternate route there.”

  “Just take the lake,” said Nerida. “No human or vampire can follow you that way. Report back to me when you get home.” The call cut out.

  “We’re swimming home?” I asked, pointing out the window. “In this storm?”

  “We’ll be fine,” said Calder, then he asked me to dial Bay. I did and he relayed the plan, but as I went to end the call, one of the notifications I’d dismissed earlier popped up and I caught sight of the first line.

  From “Mom.”

  End this before she finds out.

  Putting the phone back carefully in the drink holder, I bent slowly, the seatbelt slackening, to hold the orb between my fingers once more.

 
Calder tossed his keys to Llyr as Cascade picked up the damp clothing Bay and Laguna were leaving behind. “Just circle the block to be sure. Watch out for any hiding in the woods. They might have walked there.” Calder peeled off his shirt and put it on Llyr’s pile.

  Llyr grinned. “I’ll be in a truck. I can run them down.”

  I raised an eyebrow, the rain battering my nose, making it look like it was running.

  Llyr shrugged. “Hey, the faefolk can’t get upset about a little self-defense, right?”

  Who knew what Orin would allow anyway? That reminded me to scratch more at the orb, but there was no denying it—the faint third color was glowing.

  I wanted to ask Calder about it. But that text bugged me.

  “I’ll take that,” said Bay, fully nude as he reached for the orb between my fingers.

  Luckily, no one in their right mind was visiting the park in a downpour.

  My face reddening, I almost just handed it over to have him go on his way, but it felt… Too important. Not until I was sure what was going on.

  “Give it to Bay and get undressed,” said Calder, working on his own pants.

  I couldn’t look at him now, either.

  “Laguna and I will get the orb back safely,” said Bay. “Calder’s got your back.” Bay took the orb from me before I even noticed, all because I couldn’t look at the parts on full display.

  Gritting my teeth, I peeled off a layer of sweater but left my shirt on. I put the sweater and the borrowed backpack atop the pile in Llyr’s arms. Behind Calder, Bay was submerging himself into the water, the blue and red coloring the water around him, showing him off underwater like a beacon that drifted deeper and farther away. Laguna’s red hair bobbed as she took a leap through the rain-soaked air like a fish, her full half-person, half-fish body on display before she dove in, the tips of her fins the last thing to vanish.

  For a moment, I was in awe. Of the mermaid. Of this fantasy I was actually living.

  “Pants, Ivy,” said Calder, snapping me out of the moment. “You have to at least part with that much.”

  I glared at Calder’s upper half. “Meet me at the water.”

  A hand behind his head, Calder gave me a soft smile. “Okay.”

  Llyr tilted his head toward Cascade, who was leaning on her car, her head back, just soaking it all in. “Why don’t you give her your slacks?” he suggested. “See you back at the house.” He grinned. “Good job back there.”

  “Thanks,” I said, moving back so he could get into Calder’s pickup.

  Shuffling toward Cascade, I sighed as I slipped out of my pants and handed them to her. “Do you ever get embarrassed?” I asked. “Having your cousin and other guys see you in the nude?”

  Cascade’s eyes snapped open and she laughed. “No. None of us care. We just know that we have to wear clothes to go out because humans have this thing called shame.” She gave me a onceover. “Why you’d be ashamed of such a cute pair of legs, I’ll never know.”

  “It’s not the legs part that bothers me.” I took in a deep breath as the sky rumbled overhead and took my panties off, dropping them atop my pants, phone in my pocket, in Cascade’s hand. “See you later!” I said, scrambling to the shore of the lake.

  “What about your top?” Cascade called from behind me.

  Yeah, no, still not doing without that part, so long as it doesn’t rip off me.

  Calder was already in the water and I felt my face flush despite the cold of the rain as I ran, my hands covering the area below my bellybutton as best as they could.

  Unfortunately, the water pounding my bare skin, the thought of Calder checking me out, and the stress of everything came together too early and my legs snapped together, sprouting scales, my feet morphing into fins.

  I stumbled forward, flat on my face in the sand.

  “Ivy!” called Calder from nearby.

  “I’m okay.” I spat a mouthful of sand out from my lips as I pushed myself up. It tasted like sandpaper and vomit. “I’m okay,” I said, wincing as I shimmied forward. I was so close to the water.

  I finally got there, whipping my tail around to submerge it entirely, gasping as the soothing touch of the waters seemed to relieve all my muscle soreness. Calder had swum out to meet me by then and he wrapped a protective arm around my shoulders as he pulled me deeper into the lake.

  I took a last gasp of air but found no reason to expel it as my head joined the rest of me down below. Blinking, the water went from fuzzy to clear, if tinged with a bit of murkiness. My lungs felt refreshed as I somehow took in the water through my skin, got my oxygen needs from the molecules.

  It felt peaceful down here, the thunderous echo of the rain above us like a waterfall, offering protection from above as well as below.

  In water, a mermaid felt at home.

  “Let’s go,” said Calder, shifting his grip to my hand.

  My shirt felt heavy and sticky and I had to fight my instincts to rip it off and leave it behind. It was nothing Calder hadn’t seen before—but he hadn’t seen mine before and… Something felt off within me. To be honest, I didn’t know where we stood anymore.

  “Can we talk first?” I asked. I searched around for a sign of any other merfolk, but the most company we had was an eel and a couple of skittish fish.

  “Of course,” said Calder. His face seemed to go ashen, though that could have been the dim light.

  I swam toward the little palace of sorts under the island in the middle of the lake. As Calder swam up to join me, I took a moment to admire the giant bubbles making their way from floor to ceiling in an endless cycle.

  My fingers reached out to touch one, and Calder slipped in beside me, his arm cradling mine, as he gently pulled my hand away. “They’re decorations,” he said. “But they break easily.”

  He looked about ready to cry—if one even could under water. Letting go, he drifted slowly over to one of the rocks doubling as a chair. “We shouldn’t linger too long. They’ll think something happened to us.”

  “In the water?” I asked. “Like your mom said, no vampire or even human could follow us here.”

  Calder nodded slowly, chewing his lip. “So what do you want to know?”

  That was an odd question to ask. Not what did I want to talk about. What did I want to know.

  I got right to it. “What does your mother not want me to find out?”

  Calder’s shining eyes found mine. “I don’t know where to start.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Start with what your mother doesn’t want me to find out.” I flipped my fins, finding it harder to focus on staying in one place with nothing else to distract me than I would have thought. “Did you… Did you think about the fact that I might see your texts when you had me dial for you?”

  Calder’s face twitched. “I was a little shook from what happened on the road.”

  “This is war—apparently,” I said. “I’ve only been in this business officially for just over a week. You should have had a lifetime of getting ready.”

  Calder directed a long, pained look at me, then hung his head.

  A sigh escaped my lips. “Look, I didn’t mean to make this like I was lecturing you about accidentally letting me see something you shouldn’t have. Considering I don’t want any important secrets being kept from me, I guess that actually worked out in my favor.” I clenched my fists at my sides. “What bothers me is… It seems like Ember just has to sit back and let her dashing vampire guide her. I can’t always count on you to have my back.”

  Calder’s form seemed to crumple in on itself, as he no longer flapped his fins to stay seated in one place, letting himself float into a nearby alcove.

  “I don’t…” I swallowed in a large gulp of water, letting the cool comfort of the liquid soothe my worries. “I don’t mean you let me down today. You did as good as you could. We all did.”

  “No. I just let you down every other time you fought a vampire.”

  It was my turn to go silent.
I swam closer to his alcove and slipped inside beside him, resting what would have been my rear end on the hard surface.

  “I tried to keep you out of this. I really did.” Calder threaded his fingers through his short hair. “At Homecoming, I attacked the vampires on my own. So long as you weren’t my champion, I figured the faery wouldn’t call foul if I took a few out in self-defense.”

  I nudged my arm against his. “Self-defense? From what I hear, you lured them to the pool and set a fire before they laid a hand on you.”

  Calder’s shoulders slumped. “That may be true, but I didn’t do more than cause some water to sizzle on them. They had me cornered in that pool and it was up to them to run or hurt me.”

  It made sense now—and was more in line with what I believed. Timid Calder wouldn’t have gone on a battle rampage. He’d have waited for the vampires to make the first move. But I just hadn’t realized he’d had it in him to force their hand—to make it so they had to walk away or take the first shot, absolving the merman of blame.

  “You didn’t even call your friends in to help,” I said quietly, the mermaid voice making even the soft-spoken sentence seem airy like a song. “You didn’t invite me to meet them. You were doing everything all alone.”

  “Much to Mom’s chagrin,” he said. He opened his mouth, a bubble bursting forth, but then closed it, clearly thinking a moment. “Ivy, I don’t want… So much of me doesn’t want any of this. Not for you. Not for my friends. Not for anyone.”

  “Then why?” I asked. “Why fight at all?”

  “You’re our champion now.” A flittering smile passed over his lips. “I’m in this fight whether I want to be or not.”

  I thought about that for a moment. “But apparently, I don’t have to be your champion anymore. We have the orb. You dropped that little bit of news on me that there was a way out of this…”

  He grimaced. “Ivy, I… I’ve run away from this for too long.”

  I waited for him to speak more. He took my hand in his.

  “I can’t force you to stay—now that you know,” he said. “Mom… Mom doesn’t know you’re already aware. She wanted me to keep the fact that you could drop out with the orb a secret from you.”