Page 89 of Drown Me Gently

Sea and sand blurred in his vision as the world tilted. Auren held onto consciousness by sheer will alone. Each step a war against his own body. But he didn’t stop until his feet slammed into the first rush of incoming tide.

The moment salt water touched his skin, the pain hit him full force. Auren screamed as the ocean yanked him under. His body convulsed. His vision went white.

He felt it then—the release. A protective grip around his body, one he hadn’t even known was there, let go. Ulric had been holding him the entire time. Without that shield, the full weight of Poseidon’s blood ripped through him. Tore him open and reshaped his flesh.

There was no mercy of unconsciousness this time. Auren felt every twist of sinew and bone, every searing shift beneath his skin as his legs fused, his spine elongated, and his scales erupted. The gills at his neck flared wide, and fins split from his hips and wrists like living sails.

It was agony.

His scream dissolved into bubbles. Water flooded his ears. Still, even in the white-hot hell of transformation, Auren waited.

For a splash.

A pulse of magic.

The humming ripple of someone entering the sea behind him.

He waited, breathless in his gills, tail twitching where it had reformed—sleek and green and opalescent, as though it had never left.

The water swirled around him. Silent. Empty.

Nothing came.

No surge. No shadows in the deep.

Only the crash of white-capped waves above him and the shifting tide around his body.

Please. Please. Please.

But with every heartbeat, every passing moment⁠—

The dreadful words in the back of his mind surged forward. Until they were no longer words. But screams.

He isn’t coming.

Auren’s tail curled weakly beneath him, twitching in disbelief. His chest heaved as if he still needed to breathe air. The truth hit him with the weight of a sinking ship.

Ulric was gone.

Not following. Not behind him.

Gone.

Ulric said he would follow. When Auren transformed, he’d have the strength to meet him in the water. He swore.

He lied.

Auren’s heart lurched in his chest. He was helpless. Powerless. His magic was hidden somewhere inside him—dormant, unreachable—coiled deep in his blood like a sleeping beast. Useless. Stagnant. It couldn’t do a damn thing to help him.

A scream clawed its way up Auren’s throat, hands tearing at his hair in rage — And then, like a mountain falling, realization crushed him.

The tattoo.

The final mark.

“Oath Breaker.”

Weeks ago, in the cave, Ulric’s voice, quiet and distant: