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"For fuck's sake," Harvey growled when the skies opened above us, icy, driving rain pounding our heads and shoulders, making the water thrash more treacherously. "Rain?Nowof all bloody times?"
"It's the hippocampi," Emlyn shouted, pumping his arms to stay afloat on the other side of the passage, his strong legs keeping him afloat but for how long? "They control the weather."
"Anything else they control?" Wynvail barked, his grip slipping on my middle the more the water rocked.
"The sea," Emlyn replied, foreboding heavy in his voice.
"Oh, great," I groaned, straining for my knives again.
The horses glided closer, the gills on the sides of their slick necks now visible, and the transparent frills where a mane ought to be. There was nothing remotely like a normal horse about them; their eyes were milky and opaque, their movements too fast, too smooth to be natural. Goosebumps flashed all over my body.
What the fuck could we do? We were trapped and cornered. My heart raced, stomach knotting.
"They touch you, and they die," Wynvail promised, his cold voice making me shudder even harder.
"You're squashing my wings," I snipped at him. "Let me go."
"No."
I growled in the back of my throat. This asshole was going to get me killed. If I couldn’t swim how was I supposed to defend myself?
"Where's Kai?" I breathed, my heart skipping when I searched the frothing waves and couldn't see him."Kai?"
I scanned the chamber again. He wasn’t here. He should have been here.
"Shit!" Harvey yelled. "The black one's got him."
My blood ran cold, an unnatural calm spreading through me until my heart beat slower. "Let me go, or I'll kill you to get to that fucking horse."
Wynvail's lips pressed to the sensitive spot under my ear. "Fine. To watch you kill, honey, I'll let go. Just know if you get hurt, I'll be spanking that cute little ass until it's red raw."
I shoved him, ignoring the catch in my breath and the way his fingers glanced across my wings. I hated that they were so sensitive, such an obvious target.
"Kai!" I yelled again, swimming hard and following where Harvey dragged himself through the silvery waters. He was little more than ram’s horns and rich brown hair, but I kept close to him while I scanned the thrashing water, the rain whipping it into a frenzy.
I finally spotted Kai and my heart stopped. Gods. The black hippocampus had closed its jaws around his arm, and was dragging him, kicking and snarling, into the other chamber.
Everything inside me went even stiller.
Likefuckwas this thing stealing my mate.
I let the water carry me for a few seconds, reaching down to grab my volcanic daggers and glad I’d been paranoid enough to sleep with them strapped to me.4With a dagger in each hand, I dragged myself through the churning waters, my jaw clenched and murder in my eyes. That cool calm spread even deeper when I saw how hard Kai fought the hippocampus.
"Harvey!" I shouted, drawing his attention. When he swam closer, wet and furious, I said, "I'll distract it; you grab Kai and get him back to the others."
He gave me a look that said I was mad for even asking him to leave me. "I'll get Kai and all three of us can go back to the others."
I groaned, but a sudden rush of water poured down my open mouth and stopped me arguing. More forced its way up my nose until I choked on the taste of salt and water, until I couldn’t breathe. It threatened to unseat the killer calm keeping me steady, but I coughed up the water from my lungs and gasped down air.
Now, I was angry. And disoriented. And fuckingcold.5
"Kai, hold on!" I yelled, my voice hoarse now. "Andyou,hippocampus dick, let him go and pick on someone your own size."
"Hey," Kai protested weakly. His snakes cut paths through the water, but they moved sluggishly, and only one of them hit the horse in the neck. It didn't dislodge its jaws locked around Kai's arm. Fuck, the water around them was tinged with red foam—his blood. "I'm … size," he slurred.
"Of course you are," I agreed, pumping my arms faster and kicking my feet to propel me closer. I gave Harvey a nod, and lifted my wings from the water, flapping them until I rose above the water line.
"I'm what you really want," I called to the seahorse, sinking into my magic until heartbeats throbbed in my ears, muffling the horse's high pitched cry.
