AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Instead of using a wall, he moves through the fight with targeted attacks that send the mermaids hurtling back to water. I can’t tell if we’re making headway with their numbers, or if they are truly unending. It certainly feels like it. In reality, judging from the frothing waves around us, there are … maybe a hundred? It’s hard to estimate when they move so chaotically.
Hedd swings his ax wildly at a knot of the creatures. I might hate the man, but even I can admit that I’m glad he’s not fighting us. He’s cutting through the mermaids as if they’re paper. I shudder. “He’s a monster.”
The sweet scent of pot reaches me. “So are most of the Cwn Annwn. You haven’t been around long enough to notice, but the ones they pick up who are gentle folk don’t last long.” Dia’s tone is neutral enough, but when I look up at her, her dark eyes contain sorrow. She’s lost someone she cares about. Maybe several someones.
I’m trying to come up with a response when a roar makes me whip around. A mermaid has latched on to Bowen’s back, its teeth ripping into the spot where his shoulder meets his neck. I scream and lurch forward to break the shield on instinct. I don’t know what the fuck I can do to help, but I can’t just sit here and watch him die.
I never get a chance.
A burst of power surges from him, so strong that I can feel it even through the shield. It sweeps the deck, and for a moment I swear nothing actually happens.
Then the mermaid on Bowen’s back slumps to the deck, boneless in a way that makes my stomach queasy. Then it happens again, and again, and again. Everyone goes still and silent, shock written across all their features. But not just shock. They stare down at what’s left of the mermaids on the ship with disgust and fear—and those emotions aren’t directed at the dead monsters at their feet. They shift away from Bowen as if that will do anything when he just killed every single mermaid on deck.
Nox steps onto the railing, one hand clinging to a line of rope, and leans over. They whistle in the sudden silence. “Best I can tell, every single mermaid is dead, Captain.”
Bowen collapses to the deck, unconscious.
No.
I don’t make a conscious decision to move. One moment I’m screaming in my head as I watch Bowen fall and the next I’m at his side. I barely register breaking the shield to get to him. “No, no, no, oh, you fucker, don’t you dare die. You promised me!” I never thought it was even a possibility. From the moment I met him, Bowen has been larger than life. Untouchable.
As I fall to my knees next to him, he looks all too human. Too pale. Too still. “Bowen!” I can’t lose you. Oh gods, please let him be okay.
“What the fuck did I tell you?”
I glance up to find Hedd standing over us, cursing and spitting. He hardly looks like the captain I’ve come to dislike so intensely, his form twisted and strangely out of proportion. He’s also still holding his giant ax, its double blades dripping deep purple blood.
He’s a threat, but I can’t focus on him right now. Bowen is losing too much blood with no sign of stopping. I press my hands to his wound, but it does nothing. Right. What the fuck am I doing? I have magic. I’m not as good at healing spells as Bunny was, but I can keep him alive until we can get to a proper healer. I trigger the glyph over my heart and press my hand to the wound again. For a moment, nothing seems to be happening, but then the flow of blood begins to slow. The skin doesn’t knit back together, but I’m pretty sure I see several veins reforming.
Now I have to deal with the captain.
I very much do not want to put any distance between me and Bowen, but this motherfucker seems to respond only to strength, and I have to get us out of this alive. There’s no way I can win a fight against a berserker, but I’m not thinking about that when I slap my hand to my chest and summon violet fire in a ring around me and Bowen. It takes more power than I want to admit to keep it from actually making contact with the deck.
I rise to my feet. Hedd looks downright demonic in the flickering light of the fire. I can only hope I look half as intimidating. “You’re welcome. How many of your crew are down? Bowen just saved us all.” I fling my hand out to encompass the various fallen forms. I don’t know how many of them are alive or dead, and later I’ll feel guilty for the fact that I was only worried about Bowen and no one else. But not yet.
“He disobeyed a direct order.” He’s not backing down. In fact, Hedd grins at me as if he can’t wait to see what I’m capable of.
Fuck. I might have just made a fatal mistake. I look around again, frantically searching for something that will stop this fight before it starts. My fire is fearsome, but it’s draining my magic as an astonishing rate. I normally use it only for concentrated blasts—not to create barriers.
My only hope is the crew themselves. I lift my voice. “Is your desire for a fight worth your entire crew? We did what we came to do. We eliminated the mermaid infestation.”
He lifts his ax like he wants to cleave my head from my shoulders. I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do if he attacks. In his berserker form, I don’t think my fire will kill him. It might not even slow him down.
“I will brook no disobedience.” Nox appears at Hedd’s back. “Bowen was given an order and he failed to obey. You’re challenging your captain as we speak.” They cross their arms over their chest and jerk their chin at the island in the distance. “We can’t have you on the crew, so we’ll leave you on the shore of First Sister. You can find your own way from there.”
Hedd turns a mottled purple, but he doesn’t counter his quartermaster, not with the crew slowly gathering around and murmuring about what a close one that was. Not everyone made it out alive. I see the exact moment he realizes that Nox has allowed him a graceful way out. “Nox, get them off my fucking ship.”
Things happen quickly after that.
Dia appears and helps me heft Bowen’s unconscious form to the side of the ship and then into a smaller boat. She grabs my hands before I can follow. “Take care of him.” I open my mouth to ask her to come with us, but she shakes her head before I can. “I have my own path to follow, Evelyn. We’ll see each other again.”
I’m not so sure.
Not a single member of the rest of the crew tries to help us. They go out of their way to avoid my gaze as I give the ship one last sweeping look. Their apathy is more or less what I expected, but it’s still really fucking shitty considering Bowen just saved all their lives.
We came on board with only the clothes on our backs, and that’s how we leave. Considering Bowen had a crisis when he was left behind by the Crimson Hag, I’m not looking forward to how he reacts when he wakes up and realizes that we are yet again stranded, this time on a different island.
We sail the distance in record time, propelled long by some strange combination of water and air magic, courtesy of Nox. They stop us about ten yards off the beach. “This is as far as I go.”
