Page 115 of Whisper of Nightmares

The ocean pummels into her from one side. Then another.

But is this just the tide? Or are the waves attacking? Tossing her around the way a cat would a mouse. She has no way of knowing⁠—

Until she hits of pocket of water so cold it buckles her. It slithers into her lungs like a pool of ice, even thought her mouth is closed. Water so frigid it slows her movement until it’s nonexistent.

It drags her under.

Turns her muscles frozen.

Her bones to shards of ice that pierce her flesh like a thousand tingling pinpricks if she so much thinks about moving. About reaching. Straining for the surface that is growing more and more distant as she plummets.

Euphemia can’t move.

Can’t breathe.

Can’t escape.

The depths of the cruel ocean will have her. And all she can think is she hopes it takes her before she has to face any maiden.

Euphemia closes her eyes. Thinks of her sisters. Her mother. Of the husband she never truly got to meet.

Then she opens her mouth to let the water in⁠—

Before the drowning can take her, a hand grabs the back of her chemise.

It lurches her to the surface and Euphemia gasps, a spluttering, squelching sound that she thought she’d never get to make.

Relief floods through her, tears hot in her eyes.

She looks behind her to the hand dragging her toward the shoreline, but with hair plastered to her face, she can barely make out her savior.

She swipes the hair aside and finds her beastly creature helping her to safety. Saving her again. As he always does.

He came back for her.

The water spirit had taken him to shore, and he had turned around. Dived into the cursed waters and battled his way through the waves to save her.

No words can adequately capture her appreciation, so Euphemia does not utter any.

Instead, she kicks, hoping her efforts will prove helpful and not hindering.

When suddenly, he stops.

Euphemia is ready to curse this ocean and all oceans that come before and after it.

She glances ahead. By now, they’re close enough to the shore that they can stand, the waves only coming up to their knees.

They could run now.

It’s only a short distance away.

But between them and the grey sand is a large bloom of red.

“Is that⁠—”

He silences her with an upturned hand. Which would’ve been enough to quiet her. Out here amidst these unnatural waves and the red bloom of water prowling before them, she’d do just about anything he commanded of her.

But it’s not just the command that makes her words stop.