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Our heads break the surface, smiles splitting our faces as we swim back to shore, splashing each other and laughing.
Something coils around my leg, pulling me under so fast I didn’t have a chance to call on my magic. I panic, but even through the pounding of my heart in my ears under the water, I hear Serena screaming my name.
Light magic is my most powerful, coming almost as easy as breathing. I call to it, lighting the area around me as I’m dragged further and further below the surface. Serena’s face above me helps me push through my panic. I need to get free and get back to her. She doesn’t have control of the elements. If she keeps coming after me, she’ll be out of air long before she reaches me.
Judging by the stubborn set of her jaw, she knows it too, yet she continues toward me.
Air fills my lungs, and I keep my gaze fixed on her, focusing my magic to do what I need in order to get to her. I might have access to all the elements, but that doesn’t mean I’m great with them. Some are easier than others, but right now, knowing she’s in danger, I feel like I know them better than I ever have before. My fire magic courses through my body, and I focus on the area where my leg is being held as I’m pulled ever deeper. But even as I ramp up the heat, the hold doesn’t lessen.
Damn it.
I’ll have to fight it right here and now if I want to get back to Serena.
I peer up at her, drinking her in and finding the strength that always fills me at her very presence. My magic responds in an instant, as if it understands.
I’m glad at least one of us does, but that’s something to worry about later. Right now, all I need to be focused on is fighting the beast, who seems to believe I’ll be a nice snack.
My light expands, and I force myself to turn away from Serena to look down into the depth below me to see what I’ll be fighting.
Shit, a giant squid?
Of course, it has to be huge. Why couldn’t it be average size, as if having a million legs isn’t enough?
Fire is out of the question unless I create air pockets to allow it to burn, but that’s a lot to maintain at once.
Earth and air it is.
A few of the beast’s tentacles float in the water around us, but some of them are lying on the lake’s floor. I pull on the dirt, willing it to swallow those tentacles. I don’t have enough control over Earth to have it swallow the whole thing, but maybe with fewer limbs, it will be easier to handle.
I get three before it seems to realize what I’m doing, and it lifts the rest, but that’s three less to deal with, so I’ll take it.
Unfortunately, the one that has me squeezes tighter as another snakes its way up my leg to wrap around my waist.
Shit, at this rate, it’s going to squeeze the life out of me.
I pull air close to my torso, creating a barrier of sorts between the water and myself. Maybe that will buy me a few more minutes, keeping the beast off me.
It doesn’t.
As it continues to drag me towards it, I watch it shift. Even with three of its tentacles trapped in the ground beneath it, somehow, it maneuvers to expose its huge, deadly beak.
Fuck, it doesn’t just want to kill me; it intends to eat me.
Do squids chew? Or do they swallow food whole?
I don’t really want to find out, but I don’t have a lot of other options. At least from inside its mouth, I can burn it.
I stop struggling to escape as it pulls me toward its mouth, and with one more glance back at Serena, I send up a silent prayer to the gods that they don’t chew. The panic in her eyes makes my chest tight.
‘Garrett!’
Her voice rings in my head, and I can hear everything she doesn’t say. The plea for me to fight. I beg her to trust me, but can’t say much more, not when I’m focusing on keeping the air shield up and need to keep my attention on this thing to BBQ it from the inside out.
I punch the air in excitement when the beast shoves me into his mouth, whole. But my excitement is short-lived as huge rows of teeth begin to close around me just inside of its mouth.
Shit.
They bite into my skin like a million tiny paper cuts. Its tongue pushes me up into them harder, pain erupts from every place its teeth cut me, and I can’t stop the scream that rips from my mouth even as I take in water. I’m not sure what it is, but something about these cuts is worse than just the tear of flesh, and I get the feeling it’s something about the beast.
