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No matter how many times I’d told myself I wasn’t a mermaid, a foolish part of me held on to the hope that one day some mysterious magic might awaken. Magic that would let me master my tail. That same stupid hope was the reason I’d stuck around after I fought my way out of King Eamon’s cage. But now the truth was painfully clear.
I was never going to master my tail.
I could feel my lips quivering as I fought back a maelstrom of emotions. The ocean was beyond cruel. There was no amount of sorrow that could fill an eye with tears underwater, so I let bitter laughter burst from me instead.
“Night vision.” Hysteria gripped me, my fingers curving into claws as my hands tightened over the sand. “So, I can see predators coming but can never escape them, right?Right?What a joke!” Oh, I was pissed.
“You hear me, Poseidon?” I screamed into the cloudy murk. “I don’t need this useless tail!” My fists seized tufts of seagrass, my muscles burning as I dragged myself through the sand one handful at a time.
If the mermaid part of me couldn’t take me up to the surface, I’d use the part of me that was human.
“You can keep your gifts, your magic! Take them all back. I don’t want a single thing that’s yours!” My hand knocked into a solid mass I didn’t need magical night vision to identify—concrete. A solid block that likely supported a wooden post.
The pier.
How had I not thought to search for the pier sooner? I stretched over the tide-beaten block, and my fingernails sank into the algae-slicked wood of one of the pier’s posts. And damn it, I pulled. Fury filled me, fueling my pursuit of the surface. Inch by inch, my jaw clenched in concentration as my hands alternated their search for the next highest place to grip.
I panted out breaths. “I’m going to slap Aleena so hard in the face when I get up there.”
A fingertip breached the surface, and a rush of adrenaline hit. Almost there. Muscles straining, I yanked myself even higher.
Hair clung to my face as I broke through the surface. I stretched an arm high, searching for the flat of the pier I knew would be overhead. With my torso above water, the deadweight of my tail felt heavier than ever, but still my spine stretched, reaching for a beam to latch on to.
Water crashed over my back, the waves bringing me higher one moment, only to suck me back down the next. I was so close. Grit crunched under my molars. A little higher.
With one last stretch, my hand found purchase, and I pulled, fighting for life and revenge.Oh, I’d give just about anything to see the look on Poseidon’s shriveled, archaic mug when I made a fool of all his gifts.
My forearms burned, and my muscles strained more than they did after an entire day of hauling in fish. The wood was so slick it was hard to keep hold with my entire weight pulling behind me, but I—
A force knocked into me with the momentum of a speedboat, and I was suddenly airborne. My body lurched, curving through the air, until my arms and stomach fell in a heap. I hit the pier with a wet slap powerful enough to knock every lingering grain of sand from my lungs.
“What are you—?” A timid voice shrieked from… somewhere. My senses reeled from the impact, but I scrambled to bring my torso up off the wood.
Of course the harpies were still hanging around. Why wouldn’t they be making sure I wouldn’t resurface? I cursed aloud, my mouth hitting the syllable with the same blunt force Leander always used when he said it. “Fuck.”
Footsteps scraped over the pier, and I knew they were coming for me again. My eyes focused in time to catch Aleena’s feet as she made her way over. The deep stain of lipstick curling over her teeth revealed her irritation as she let out her own string of curses. She strutted down the pier in quick strides, her heels spiking into the wood with every step.
I needed tomove. My tail draped behind me, close enough to the edge she could push me right back down.
Just as I reached for the boards in front of me, the combined note of the twin’s gasps played like a duet on the wind. Aleena’s ankle gave out from under her, and she stumbled a step, the color in her face draining to a sickly coral white.
What were they—?
Wood crackled as another force hit the pier. It landed beside me with a great quake that shook the entire deck and sent a spray of salt water raining over my back. Something brushed against my arm, pointed and firm, and I was suddenly facing down a monstrously wide stretch of teeth.
“YOU. OUT.”
Joy struck my heart like cannon-fire—the same emotion that originally brought me to the edge of the pier. I fought the urge to clasp at the warmth fluttering through my chest.
A dark weave of scars coated the sides of its mouth, but I already recognized the creature beached beside me. The bull shark’s jaws opened, and I held in a gasp as it thrashed about, its fins and tail working its body back toward the edge of the pier. Mist sprayed over me as it dropped back into the harbor.
My eyes widened in disbelief.
The shark had left more than just splintered wood behind. A knife was next to me, its flat edge gleaming as water formed in droplets on the blade. It was the same knife I’d held to Leander’s throat. The knife I’d used to free the bull shark from the net. I thought I’d lost it in the boat, but now here it was.
Aleena’s voice turned vicious. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a shark look so hungry. It’s a shame it missed you.” Her back straightened like she was trying to brush off the shock. She perched a hand under her chin, her hair fanning behind her as she continued her approach. “Well, let’s not keep it waiting.”
Eyes gleaming, she held me with a predatory gaze that suggested she thought she’d already won. Which meant she hadn’t seen it.She didn’t know what the shark had done.
