Please no—
Kaan swings his head around, as though he felt my gaze brush across the back of his neck.
Our eyes lock.
Time slams to a still.
And deep within my frosty lake, somethingsnarls.
Amyriad of emotions burn in Kaan’s eyes like a forest set to flame, butoneoverrides the rest. Mimics the way I’m feeling in gut-wrenching synchrony.
Horror.
“Ohhhhfuck,” Pyrok says, perhaps noticing me. Though I can’t bring myself to rip my gaze from the beautiful male rowing that Creators-damn boat toward his oblivion.
Fear grips my heart and squeezes so hard I choke through my next breath. And decimatingragefor the situation he’s somehow landed himself in.
We open our mouths at the same time—
More bells tinkle their airy wake-up call. Close.
Too close.
The glowing bugs on the stalactites begin to blink out as the atmosphere turns parched and hollow. Like it just withered up and died with the remnants of my composure.
I snarl, stalking toward the rippling water that’s losing more of its speckled luster, Kaan’s eyes widening with a surge of wild emotion.
Distractingemotion.
I look away.
“Raeve—”
His gravelly voice becomes background noise as I grab my iron ring and rip it off, pocketing it. Clode’s chaotic squeals slit my eardrums with brutal precision.
Shereallydoesn’t like being ignored.
“Deil de lu, no veirie lui sois teil nahh de larughe,”I whisper-sing—a lullaby that speaks of her gusty allure, glorifying her strength and majesty.
Charmingher.
Clode’s violent melody lolls a little, and she leans into my song, preening for it.
“Hailen es ta vuilo de.”
She’s coaxed into a giddy dance that does nothing to mimic my own catatonic emotions, swirling around me, lifting my cloak.
“Glei, ei asha tui!”I tack on, and she cuts across the water, leaving a trail of spray. She powers toward Kaan, who’s roaring something I can’t hear, his face a savage twist of rage that only spurs the emotion fizzing through my veins.
Pyrok wobbles to a stand, blade drawn. He leaps, lands on the second boat, and begins hacking at the prisoner’s binds.
Clode appears to slap her airy hands against the whitewashed vessels, shoving both toward the pier. They plane across the surface with such gusto their peaked noses rear up, tossing all three passengers back into the hulls.
They overshoot the pier’s end and power toward the lake’s near-vertical shore, left of the exit. As if Clode decided this is afantasticmoment to prove just how fucking brilliant she is, taking my instruction, then doubling the effort required.
I barely have the chance to pull a breath before they smash against the stone, hulls cracking open like split skulls. I wince as Kaan, Pyrok, and the prisoner are unceremoniously dumped backward into the water.
Creators, I hope they can swim …
