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My lungs convulsed, burning for air, but if I opened my mouth, I would die within seconds. My vision blurred as I shook my head violently, pressing my lips together, prolonging the inevitable.
Something moved, catching my attention. A streak of blue and green shimmered in the depth, cutting through the darkness like a beacon.
And then Dyf was there, prying icy fingers from my legs. He wrapped an arm around my waist and kicked toward the surface with powerful strokes. My captors clawed at my feet, desperate to drag me back down to my watery grave. But Dyf was relentless, tearing me free from their clutches with determined ferocity.
We broke through the water, and I coughed and cried while gulping air. When I could speak, I choked out, “You came.”
“Did you think I would abandon you?” Dyf’s voice sounded half angry, half exasperated.
“Thought crossed my mind,” I gasped, still struggling to catch my breath. The cold air stung my face, but it felt like heaven compared to the suffocating void below.
He pulled me up on the pebbles at the river bank. When I was out of the water, he took my face and said simply, “I will always come for you.”
My vision swam, the world around me a blur of colors and movement. My chest ached, waterlogged lungs still struggling to take in air.
“Can you breathe?” This time, concern tinged his voice.
“Y-yeah,” I wheezed, trying to ease the pain that shot through my chest with each breath. Dyf rolled me to the side, which helped with coughing out water. He kneeled before me, moving my hair from my face. The stones beneath me were uncomfortable, but I didn’t care. Compared to what could have been, a little discomfort was a small price to pay. And I enjoyed Dyf’s focus on me.
He hadn’t abandoned me. But how had he fought off those creatures? Images of shimmering scales surfaced in my mind, and I flinched as I realized what I’d seen under water.
“You had a tail.”
Dyf hesitated, then nodded, his face turning grim. “You saw.”
I blinked, struggling to stay awake. “Dyf, why... do you have... a tail?”
“Only when I need it,” he muttered, glancing away like he didn’t want to talk about. “It’s part of who I am.”
“Who you are?” Exhaustion weighed heavily on my thoughts, making it difficult to focus.
He answered with barely contained fury. “We need to keep moving.”
What had I done to make him so very angry? I didn’t have the strength to ask. My legs wobbled beneath me, unsteady from the ordeal. He wrapped his arm around my waist, helping me walk.
The sun had disappeared behind black clouds, and raindrops fell, first lightly, then heavier. I was so cold, my teeth chattered like a drum kit.
“Are you sure you can walk?” he asked, worry creasing his brow. His grip on me tightened until he dragged me under his arm. The rain pelted us relentlessly, although my clothes were already soaked and my skin was so chilled, it barely made a difference.
Somehow, I’d kept my shoes on. Otherwise, I would have had to walk barefoot across the sharp stones on the path. As we stumbled through the darkness, I thought of how his tail had glistened in the water.
So he was some kind of merman. And why not? I’d seen so many weird things since walking through the portal—what was one more?
There was this one time when Daeary and I’d had sex in the palace pool. It had been the weirdest thing. One minute, I’d been coming as he fucked me. The next, I’d passed out. But just at that moment, as my vision failed, there’d been a male in the pool with us who hadn’t been there before.
He’d had long, blond hair—a bit like Dyf. But I couldn’t remember more than that. I’d woken up in my bed, and Daeary had gone. That was the last time I’d seen him.
“How long to the Vale of… What did you call it?”
“The Vale of Shadows.” His expression was grim. “It is a dangerous place with twisting trails and shadow beasts, but it will mask our scent and footsteps. We will find safety on the other side.”
I did not like the sound of shadow beasts. Were we really about to enter another dark, dank forest? Fuck. It seemed like all of Gwerin consisted of forests, one creepier than the next. As we passed the first trees, the canopy protected us from the worst of the rain. The dense vegetation absorbed the roar of the river like a green sponge, and soon we were swallowed by total silence.
We had entered the Vale of Shadows.
Chapter twenty-two
BETH
