The sea turned darker than midnight, frothing mad at her intrusion. Waves crashed over her feet, her calves, her thighs, her waist, and still she trudged in deeper, the water so cold it sucked the breath from her lungs. But she hadn’t gone far enough. Not yet.
“Jacinda! Wait!” Gabriel waded in after her, the wild waves having little effect on his vampire strength. But when it came to his safety, it wasn’t the water she was worried about.
It was her.
She was up to her neck now, water sloshing into her mouth, already tugging at her. Clawing.
The darkness inside her churned and bubbled.
“Jacinda!” he cried out for her, his voice a million miles away, even though he’d waded so close she could see those green eyes flashing, so close she could reach out and touch him.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Then Jaci lifted her arms, tilted her head up toward the moon, and opened her mouth.
A vicious roar clawed its way from the depths of her soul, exploding out of her with all that stolen rage, all that darkness. The sea swirled into a vortex, trapping her and Gabriel inside, rising up above them in an endless funnel that stretched up toward the stars, suspending them in a tiny circle of calm.
Lightning crackled across the sky, flickering in Gabriel’s eyes, one bolt after another chased by thunder so deafening it seemed as if the sky itself would shatter. The ocean continued to churn around them, Jaci’s arms trembling with the effort of holding it at bay.
If she let go for even a moment, she and her vampire would be swept out to sea.
Gabriel reached for her face, closer than she realized now, fingers skimming her cheeks. “Come with me,” he whispered, almost begging. “I can protect you.”
But he didn’t understand. She wasn’t the one in danger. She held the power of the sea at her command, a tempest that swirled around her,forher, crackling with energy and black magic and fury and wrath, all the darkness unleashed by the slaughter of the mages channeled directly into her soul.
She’d never felt so fucking powerful.
But it was too much. Magic, rage, lust, all of it still coursing through her blood, feeding the angry ocean just as the ocean fed it right back to her.
As powerful as it made her feel, she couldn’t contain it. She was losing control, arms trembling, her body close to giving out.
Jaci opened her mouth to warn him, but he was already there.Rightthere, drawing her close, holding her against his chest, steadying her.
“Let it go,” he murmured in her ear. “Whatever happens, I’m with you. Let it go.”
“Gabriel!” she shouted, and all at once her body gave out, like a rubber band stretched too far and finally snapping. The water crashed down around them, the sound like the end of all things, the force of it sucking and tearing, demanding, claiming.
But somehow, Gabriel was stronger.
He blurred them out of the tempest, out of the angry sea, a massive tidal wave forming in their wake. They stopped to catch their breath on the shore, rain pelting them so hard it stung, lightening blasting across the sky, and still the vicious water chased them, the wave cresting so high it cast a shadow over the beach.
They saw it at the same time—a rickety structure set off in the distance, no more than an old boathouse perched at the end of an ancient pier. Gabriel swept her into his arms, and the world spun out of focus, the sudden weightlessness making her dizzy. When she opened her eyes again, they were inside the boathouse.
Gabriel pushed her against the wall, shielding her body as the tidal wave crashed over the top, spilling through the cracks, shaking the foundations, calling to the darkness still festering inside her, seeking her, chasing her. The wind howled against the walls, wave after wave crashing, smashing, tearing.
And then, just as quickly as it had risen, the magic inside her fizzled out and the vengeful black water receded, slowly crawling back out to sea.
Gabriel stepped back, taking her face in his hands. “Are you all right?”
Jaci’s lungs pulled in deep gasps of wet, salty air, her heart jackhammering, the roar of the ocean still echoing in her ears. The boathouse was dark and musty, rotten with disuse, dripping with cold, wet water.
The bleakness of it, the smallness, the death, the way the darkness ate up all the light… It reminded her of the cave. Of all the dark, dangerous places where she’d been shoved. Tortured. Left to die.
She fisted her trembling hands in his wet shirt, unable to speak.
She was supposed to hate him. Her captor, her tarnished prince, the monster.
The monster who’d seen the darkness inside her and didn’t run from it.
