Nic was right. It was time to stop running and take a stand. These sea caverns were a water fada’s natural habitat. The fae would be uneasy in the dark, and with her night vision, Cassidy would see them before they saw her. If they used fae lights, it would make them even easier to locate.
Even a dolphin fada could go clawed. She’d rip out their throats before they got her daughter.
Footsteps sounded in the hall. Rianna scrambled out of the water and ran to Cassidy, but Ben said, “It’s all right. It’s just Mister Marlin.”
Cassidy and Rianna stepped into Nic’s outer room. The dreadlocked shifter sank down on Nic’s futon, breathing hard and bleeding from his right arm and leg.
“Marlin?” Cassidy crouched next to him, Ben on the other side. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah.” He inhaled raggedly. “Just had a run-in with a dolphin fada. Don’t let anyone tell you that bottlenoses are all fun and games. That was one nasty mofo.”
“I know,” she returned dryly. “I’m one myself.”
He managed a crooked grin. “Right. Anyway, he’s dead.”
“Dead—a bottlenose fada? What’s going on?”
“That’s what I came to tell you.” Marlin dragged in another breath and then with an obvious effort, pushed himself up to standing. Ben was instantly there, bracing him with an arm around his shoulder. Marlin looked at Cassidy and shook his head.
She rubbed her hands down the sides of her jeans. “What is it?”
“It’s Lady B, like Nic figured—and she bound him with iron,” Marlin told them. “He’s stuck in his human form, in a fucking iron collar. The bitch wrapped me in a magical net, but Nic helped me escape and we managed to get it off. But Nic can’t get out of the collar.”
Cassidy pressed a hand to her mouth. “How is he?”
Marlin cut his eyes at Rianna, who had an arm wrapped around Cassidy’s leg and was hanging on their every word. “As good as can be expected.”
Cassidy lifted Rianna into her arms. “She wants us too, doesn’t she?”
Marlin’s jaw set. His mouth opened, then shut.
Rianna stuck her thumb in her mouth and sucked furiously.
Ice settled in Cassidy’s stomach. She tightened her grip on her daughter. “Tell me the truth. A lie will only harm you, and I deserve to know what’s going on.”
“I don’t know.” He dragged a hand over his wet dreadlocks. “I didn’t stick around to let her capture me a second time. But I’d say the answer is yes.”
“Joe?” asked Ben.
“In the ocean, sticking with the powerboat.”
Cassidy nodded and set Rianna down. “Why don’t you go back in the water?” She rubbed her wet curls. “The big people need to talk.”
Rianna’s little brow creased with anxiety. “I want my Annie-doll,” she said around her thumb.
“She’s in the rucksack. You can play with her next to the pool.”
Marlin waited until Rianna was seated by the pool murmuring to her ragdoll before saying in a low voice, “The collar burned a line into Nic’s throat. You could smell his flesh. Joe tried to saw it off with his knife, but he ran out of time.”
Nausea clogged Cassidy’s throat. Gods, she hated to think of what Nic must be suffering. “Where is he now?”
“She ’ported him back onto her boat.”
“The bitch is a teleporter?” Ben asked. “Fuck.”
“Yep.” Marlin’s mouth set in grim lines. “Thank the gods she doesn’t know the caverns or she could ’port right in here.”
Cassidy and Ben nodded. A teleporter needed a picture or coordinates to ’port to a place they hadn’t seen before.
“Nic killed a male ice fae.” Marlin held up his index finger. “And then I got the dolphin fada, and Joe took care of a third man, another fae.” He raised two more fingers. “That’s three, which means the only one left is Lady B. I waited to see if she’d leave with Nic, but she anchored the boat near the main entrance. Joe’s in the water keeping an eye on them.”
“She wants Rianna, too. That’s why she hasn’t left.” Cassidy clenched her fists and stared at the ceiling, stomach knotted at what she had to do.
But there was no choice. “I have to go to him. She knows that if I’m here, Rianna can’t be far away. I can distract her long enough for the rest of you to rescue Nic.”
“No freakin’ way.” Marlin held up a palm. “You can’t go—you’ll be playing right into her hands. She’ll capture you, too—and if I live through this, Nic will slit my throat for allowing it.”
“And what about Rianna?” Ben added in his deep, calm voice.
“Yeah,” Marlin said. “We can’t leave her here alone.”
“But if we don’t try,” Cassidy returned, “Lady B will take Nic back to Iceland to the ice fae court, and we’ll never see him again. She might not be able to kill a dragon, but with that collar on him, he’ll wish he was dead.” Her voice broke. “I couldn’t live, knowing he was being tortured by that fae woman.”
They all looked at one another. Nic would be in pain, but worse―to a fada, imprisonment was worse than death. That alone might kill him, even if Blaer didn’t torment him so she could feed on his negative emotions.
Marlin scowled and shook his head.
“I say we try it,” Ben said. “Rianna can hide in the pool as her sea dragon. Nic says it has an exit to the ocean.”
Cassidy nodded. “He told me.”
“If the fae lady gets past all of us, Rianna can head into the ocean and back to the mainland. There are sea fada along the coast—they’ll find her eventually.”
Cassidy bit her lip. “But would they take in a sea dragon?”
They stared at each other. “Tell her to shift when she reaches the beach,” Marlin said. “The humans will take care of a little kid like her until she’s old enough to return to Ireland.”
Cassidy’s whole being revolted at the idea of leaving her baby unprotected. “I have a better idea,” she told Marlin. “You stay with her.”
“Me?” His start of surprise would’ve been comical if this wasn’t so serious.
“Yes. You can hide with her at the bottom of the pool where Ben can’t. And besides, you’re hurt. You need time to heal.”
He passed a hand over his face. “I don’t know, Cassidy.”
“It’s the only way,” she returned.
Beside her, Ben nodded.
Marlin shook his head and then gave in. “All right. But when this is over, I’ll have to head to Mexico, because Nic is going to be after my fucking hide.”
“Thank you.” Cassidy hugged him.
He blew out a breath. “I can tell Nic’s going to have his hands full with you.” But he gave her a hard squeeze back.
“So,” she said before he could think of another objection. “How are we going to do this?”
“You distract Lady B,” Ben said. “Joe and I can free Nic.”
He laid out a simple plan: Cassidy would take out a kayak. Meanwhile, Ben would swim next to her, using the kayak to block Blaer’s view from the powerboat so she couldn’t see him in the water.
Ben would be armed with an iron dagger, and presumably Joe would see what was going on and join Ben. While Blaer was distracted with Cassidy, the two men would slip onto the boat.
“We’ll take care of Lady B.” Ben touched his quartz, and it glowed a soft purple—a sign he was accessing his earth fada strength. “If anything goes wrong, we’ll toss Nic into the ocean. He’s weak, but he should be able to make it back to the caverns.”
Marlin nodded. “That should work. It’s two against one now, not counting Nic. And Cassidy, of course,” he added when she quirked a brow at him. “The fae bitch is powerful, but she’s drawn heavily on her magic for the past couple of hours. She has to be weakening.”
Ben showed his incisors, reminding Cassidy his animal was a large, predatory cat. “Easy prey.”
“Let’s do it. But I’ll be armed, too.” She tapped the iron dagg
er in her pocket. “Just in case.”
She glanced at where Rianna played next to the pool. Now for the hard part—telling her daughter she had to stay behind. Cassidy sat next to her and explained what they’d decided.
Rianna’s lower lip trembled. “But I don’t wanna hide in the pool without you.”
Cassidy lifted her onto her lap. “You have to, alanna. I need you to be my brave little fada right now, okay? I don’t want to leave you, but the bad fae has Daddy. We have to go help him. Mister Marlin will stay here with you.”
Two tears squeezed from those green eyes that were so like Nic’s. Her thumb went into her mouth and she gave a few hard sucks, before saying, “Okay,” in a resigned voice that tore at Cassidy’s heart.
“That’s my girl.” She tightened her grip on Rianna, a hairsbreadth from crying herself. “I love you fierce. You know that, don’t you?”
Rianna nodded against her shoulder.
“Hey.” Marlin crouched down on the other side. “It will be fun, princess.”
“I’m not a princess,” she returned automatically.
“You’re Princess Rianna of Dragona Island.”
“Truly?” She lifted her head.
“You betcha. After we’re done hiding, I’ll make you a crown. Okay?”
She gave him a tremulous smile. “Okay.”
“Time to shift, love.” Cassidy rose to her feet with Rianna in her arms. “And then stay underwater with Mister Marlin until I come back. The only time you should come up is to take a breath, and make sure nobody’s around when you do it.”
Rianna tightened her grip on Cassidy. “Promise you’ll come back.”
Her stomach twisted. She exchanged a look with the other two men over Rianna’s head. They looked as upset as her.
“You know I will.” She hugged her daughter tight against her heart. “But if anything goes wrong, head into the ocean, okay? You know how to get back to the mainland—swim east toward the sunrise, and when you get to the beach, shift to a little girl. Got it?”
“Swim toward the sunrise,” Rianna repeated.
“And shift when you get to the beach,” Cassidy reminded her. “Remember, no one sees your dragon. Right?”
She waited until Rianna nodded and then dropped a kiss on the top of her head and set her down. The little girl walked into the pool, shoulders drooping, and changed to her beautiful, iridescent dragon. Marlin slid into the water after her.
Cassidy swallowed over the rock in her throat. This plan had so many holes, she could drive one of those smelly human buses through it, but she couldn’t stand by and let Nic be imprisoned and tortured without doing anything. Only she could distract Blaer—the fae would kill Marlin or Ben before they reached the boat.
She touched the iron dagger for luck. “I love you, sweetness,” she called and waited for Rianna to acknowledge her with a slap of her tail against the pool’s surface before trotting with Ben to the main entrance.
The earth fada stripped out of his clothes and grabbed a kayak for her while she got a paddle.
Cassidy itched as if a thousand ants were crawling over her skin. “She’s close.”
Ben’s expression was somber. “Hell, even I can feel her now.” He slid the kayak into the water and held it steady while Cassidy lowered herself into the cockpit. “Ready?”
“I am.” She slid the dagger under her right thigh. The ocean surged into the tunnel. Cassidy readied the paddle and waited until the water headed back out. “Now.”
Ben put his dagger’s handle between his teeth and shoved her into the current. She bent at the waist so she wouldn’t hit her head against the low, jagged roof and paddled. The current grabbed her and she shot through the archway and into the ocean, Ben right behind and on the kayak’s starboard side so that he was hidden from the sleek white powerboat lurking thirty yards away.
One side of the boat was charred. Cassidy smiled. Nic had apparently gotten a few licks in.
A tall blond woman in a slinky ice-blue gown stood at the boat’s helm—Lady Blaer.
On the seat behind her, Nic slumped, head listing and his right hand shackled to a rail.
Cassidy’s breath snagged. She paddled faster.
Blaer’s gaze fixed on Cassidy, her spooky black eyes lit with an unholy satisfaction.
“Cassidy O’Byrne. Come here, or I’ll cut out your mate’s heart.” A wicked silver blade seemed to jump into her hand.
Cassidy stilled, wishing she knew more about sea dragon physiology. As a dragon, Nic was immune to fae magic, but Blaer had him trapped in his human body. And silver had special properties. Could she carve out his heart?
Nic’s head jerked up. “No! Don’t come…any closer, querida. It’s a bluff.”
The fae lady flicked her fingers and he jerked, his fingers going to the collar around his neck. The scent of burning flesh wafted toward Cassidy.
He growled and set his jaw. “Go,” he mouthed at her. “Please.”
Cassidy’s heart hurt at that please. She knew how hard it must be for Nic to see her heading into danger.
She put down her head and continued paddling. A hundred feet to her right, a shark’s fin appeared—Joe.
The fae’s eyes narrowed. “Where’s the girl?”
When Cassidy didn’t respond, Blaer sent a whip of energy at her. It wrapped around her throat with an icy-hot pressure—and squeezed.
Panic raced through Cassidy.
You’re distracting her, forcing her to drain her magic. That’s good.
But the primitive part of her brain screamed at her to claw at the icy white rope, to get it off.
Blaer’s spooky eyes flashed red. “I said, where’s the girl?”
Chapter 22
Nic ached everywhere. Even breathing hurt as the iron continued its relentless march through his system.
This time, Blaer had made sure he couldn’t escape. She’d tossed him into the boat and ’ported somewhere. He’d tried to make himself move, but he was too weak. By the time he’d managed to pull himself up on the seat, she’d returned with an iron cuff. She snapped it around his right wrist and locked it to the boat rail.
“Why?” he asked as she anchored the boat near the den’s entrance. “This isn’t about that night we spent together?”
“No.” Her scarlet mouth quirked. “You were good, but not that good.”
He grimaced. Thank Deus for small mercies.
“Then this is because I’m a dragon. But how did you know? I bought the best available glamour.”
“I didn’t know—not that night. But I sensed you were using a glamour, and I guessed you might be a do Rio. You’re not the only brother who keeps sniffing around, seeking answers about Ula and Nisio.”
“Because they’re our parents,” he said between clenched teeth, “and the king kidnapped them once and trapped them in one of his damned illusions.” His parents had wandered in a white mist for over a week until they’d gone half-mad from sensory deprivation. “Who’s to say he didn’t do it a second time?”
The fae’s smile was enigmatic. “You’d do anything to know what really happened, wouldn’t you?”
A growl filled his throat. Inside, his dragon lashed its tail.
Blaer leaned back against the console, arms folded over her chest. “I was curious about who you really were. So after you fell asleep, I hid a tracking device in your backpack. I followed you to Ireland, and found out you were the grandson of the alpha, and Nisio and Ula’s middle child. I have a spy or two in the Shannon base. I asked them to keep an eye on you.”
“The dead dolphin,” Nic muttered.
“He was young, and easily persuaded.” Blaer moved her shoulders in a tiny shrug. “Then I heard rumors of a sea dragon, and put two and two together. But I lost you when you left Ireland.”
“The backpack fell apart. I bought a new one from a Shannon seamstress.”
“So you never found the device. I didn’t think you had—I wove it into the fabric—but I wondered.�
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“But why go after me? Your magic is useless against an adult dragon.”
She smiled. “I’ll have centuries to study you. I have men constructing an iron cage back in Iceland.”
The full horror of what Blaer had planned for him slammed into Nic. “Try it, and you’re dead,” he gritted. “I don’t know how or when, but you…will…die.”
“Then I’ll have to make sure you stay locked in your cage.”
His nostrils flared. His left hand twitched on his thigh, his fingers itching to wrap around her throat.
“My spies told me you’d impregnated a Shannon female. It was just possible you’d passed on your sea dragon genes. I’ve been keeping an eye on little Rianna ever since she was born.”
“Mãe de Deus.” If only he’d known. He narrowed his eyes. “You can’t hold me forever. You’ll slip up, and then I’ll slit your fucking throat.”
Blaer’s smile was as cold as the Arctic tundra from which her people had sprung. “I won’t have to. You’re going to sacrifice yourself—or your mate and daughter will die.”
“Like hell I will. They’re safely hidden. If you knew where they were, you’d already have them. And if you go inside the den, you’re dead.”
He bared his teeth at her. Stalemate.
Blaer considered him, and then turned to scan the cavern entrance.
He drew in a breath. He had one last bargaining chip. Like dragons, the fae had a weakness for shiny things.
“What if I give you my treasure?”
Her attention snapped back to him. “I’m listening.”
He knew his dragon was staring out of his eyes. Giving up the treasure would be like ripping off a limb, but the dragon was in full agreement—no payment was too great to ensure Cassidy and Rianna’s safety.
Blaer blinked, but held his gaze. “Well?”
“A lot of ships went down in this area. I’ve had several years to comb through the wrecks. I found diamonds, rubies, Spanish doubloons—gold and jewels that would be worth millions in the human world.”
“Where is this treasure?”
A cold satisfaction curled through him. He’d hooked her. Now to reel her in.
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