by Dee J. Stone
We look at her. She nods vehemently.
“All right,” Syren says. “We shall assign this Sapphire a new shark.”
“I love you, Shoney,” I say against her rough skin.
I love you, too.
“We’ll once again make a kickass team.”
She nuzzles my nose.
I just hope she doesn’t get turned off by my sea serpent side. Sharks are ruled by their nature, and it’s their nature to attack the enemy. As if sensing my worried thoughts, Shoney nuzzles my nose again and says, Do not worry. I know who you are and I trust you.
I press my cheek into her side. And this is why we’re perfect for each other.
Damarian swims over and fastens his arms around the two of us. “I am now quite certain we shall triumph.” He smiles as he pats Shoney’s head. “The sea serpents are alone. We are not.”
That’s true. We have the whole ocean on our side—well at least those that are willing to help—while they just have each other. But we can’t underestimate their abilities. We sure as hell know what they are capable of.
This is it, there’s no turning back. The final battle that will either kill off all the sea serpents for good, or the battle that will destroy the lives of every creature in the ocean.
“I’m ready,” I tell Damarian, letting go of Shoney and sliding my hands up his body and locking them around his neck. I push myself closer to him, wanting to meld as one so I can extract as much comfort and confidence as I can.
I guess he doesn’t mind our PDA because he dips his lips to my throat and softly brushes them against it. This is all I need. Being in his arms like this and feeling his warm, loving, passionate lips pump me up with so much determination and fire. I want to feel this for the rest of my life. To wake up every morning in his arms, both on land and in the sea. To have all the time in the world to make out and learn everything we can about each other and our worlds. To be free.
Chapter Fifteen
I think I’m going to throw up.
I have no idea if it’s even possible for me to do so in the ocean, but I’m not in the mood of finding out. Damarian squeezes my hand and gives me a reassuring smile, though his lips are tight and his eyes are filled with anxiety. He’s trying to make me feel better when he’s just as freaked out as me.
The battlefront isn’t far from the colony, but the swim there seems to take forever. I try to push away any negative thought that crawls into my head, but that’s not exactly easy. I tell myself I need to keep it together because if I lose it, I won’t be able to protect Damarian.
There are fifty of us heading for battle: Ryter, Callen, Syren, myself, Damarian, Shoney, Fiske, and newly-trained members of the Guard. Thirty of them will replace the more trained members who are currently fighting and are assigned to watch over Damarian. Some of them look no older than twenty. A large lump forms in my throat. They’re putting their lives on the line all because of me. No, I can’t keep thinking this. I need to focus on the task at hand—killing every single sea serpent.
I hear them before I see them, and it takes all of my willpower not to run away with Damarian and hide in the palace where it’s safe. The sound of teeth biting into flesh, the strangled cries of the fallen, the sinister, hair-raising laughs of the sea serpents. The water that should be a beautiful color of deep blue is thick with blood, and the smell wafts into my nose. Parts of tails, fins, bones, limbs, and shark guts float around.
It’s a slaughterhouse. And it’s us who are being massacred.
My heartbeat pounds in my head so violently that I grow dizzy. The sight in front of me…I just can’t believe it. It looks like something out of a horror movie. I’ve never seen so many body parts before. Or so much blood. And it’s not just from the merpeople and sharks. So many other sea creatures are fighting gallantly, like the dolphins, sea turtles, manta rays, barracudas, killer whales, and humpback whales. I even see jellyfish, species of fish I’ve never seen before, large creepy-looking crabs—I didn’t know crabs can swim this deep—sharks that don’t serve the five clans, octopuses and squids, and many others I can’t identify. It gives me hope that so many creatures are willing to help. But from studying the scene before me, it doesn’t look like we have a chance of winning. I need to hang onto the hope.
The enemy side consists of the sea serpents and the rebels and their sharks. A small army against a large one, but ten times stronger. It doesn’t look like any more sea serpents have been killed.
I don’t realize I’m frozen in place until Damarian gently tugs on my hand. He doesn’t have to say anything—I see it in his eyes. He’s telling me, Be strong, my love. We must be strong in order to defeat them.
I close my eyes and inhale a large gulp of water, letting the oxygen and nutrients flow through every part of my body. You can do it, Cassie, my mind tells me. You need to do this.
When I open my eyes, I feel like a new person. A braver, determined person. Taking Shoney by the fin, I swim in front of the others. “Let’s do this,” I say.
Callen gives me a curt nod before making a sharp turn toward the fighting Guards. He whispers something to a Violet female, who nods to another, who nods to another, and so on. Syren motions the thirty Guards floating near us to join them, and as soon as they do, thirty Guards who appear much older and experienced surround Damarian and me. One of them is Kyle.
“Kyle!” I want to fling my arms around him because I’m so glad he’s okay, but now isn’t exactly the right time.
“Cassie. Damarian. My king and queen.” He gives us a quick bow of his head. “I will do all I can to protect you.”
The others bow their heads, too, and murmur similar words.
Damarian nods. “I am extremely thankful to each and every one of you.” He takes my hand. “I promise we shall rid the sea of those beasts.”
I nod.
Ryter, who seems to be getting impatient, pushes forward, followed by his large great white shark.
Syren holds out his arm. “Promise me you will not sacrifice your life,” he says to Ryter.
“I will not promise that.”
“Think of Kiandra, of the devastation you will cause her.”
“I do not believe now is the time to discuss this.”
“Promise me, Ryter.”
“I stated I will not.”
“Not for your daughter who has such an immense love for you?”
Ryter doesn’t say anything.
“She has lost her mother. Is it your wish that she lose her father as well?”
“Grandfather, please,” Damarian says.
Ryter shrugs before pumping his tail and storming toward the battlefield. My jaw drops when I see the way he directs his shark at the sea serpents, like he’s a trained assassin. The shark bites and snaps its mouth, evading the sea serpent’s attacks effortlessly. When Ryter was a kid, all he knew was chaos and bloodshed. He grew up punching. The merpeople of this generation don’t know war.
“Cassie.” Damarian takes my hand again.
I nod. I’m ready.
With the Guards surrounding us, we advance to the battlefield, Syren and our sharks by our sides. The sea serpents must sense Damarian is near, because they stop fighting and surge toward us. I gasp when I see them zooming at us at an extremely fast pace, and instinct makes me jump in front of Damarian. But he shoves me away and pushes me behind him.
“Damarian, stop!”
“I will be all right.”
I’m about to yell at him to stop being such a freakin’ man and let me protect him, when I realize the sea serpents are only a few feet away. The Guards send their sharks, but half of them are killed within seconds. My hands fly outward just as one of the sea serpents slashes its claw at the Guards who are stationed right in front of us. It doesn’t make contact with them. Its claw bounces off an invisible shield, one I’ve created.
The sea serpent releases an enraged roar before slamming its claw on the shield, slamming and slamming over and over again, each one str
onger than the last. My arms weaken and I cry out in pain as I feel the energy seeping out of me. I won’t be able to maintain the shield for much longer.
Damarian wraps his arms around my middle, and the next thing I know, we’re no longer floating in front of the sea serpents but behind them. The Guards use the opportunity to send their sharks at the sea serpents, but unfortunately, the sea serpents manage to understand what’s going on and kill off most of the sharks.
We’re basically left with no protection.
Those sharks…all of them butchered. I underestimated the sea serpents’ ability. I didn’t think they would be this strong—I mean, I’ve seen the dead bodies sinking to the bottom of the ocean, but I thought we at least had a chance. No, we do have a chance. I’m not giving up and letting them kill any more sea life. I’m the one responsible for bringing the bastards into the ocean and I’ll do every damn thing possible to get rid of them.
I grab Damarian’s hand as my body goes haywire with so many emotions. Fear, hatred, fury, love for the merman who has stolen my heart and the people whom I have adopted into my life. I feel the power build up inside us. We rise higher in the water, our heads thrown back, our tails pointed straight. Our other hands spring above our heads and electricity shoots out. But this isn’t the same electricity we’ve had before. It’s more powerful and intense, and when we lower our hands and fire at the sea serpents, the electricity passes through one and hits the other. The one in front has a hole in its torso and roars so loud it echoes in the whole ocean. It flails around as it drops toward the bottom of the ocean. The one behind it doesn’t seem to be hurt, just frazzled.
No, not frazzled but mega-pissed. It charges at us so fast we don’t have time to react. It knocks the Guards protecting us like they’re bowling pins, and the force causes Damarian and me to fly backward. A massive wave crashes down on us, catching Damarian and me in it. We tumble around and our hands come apart. “No!” I try to cry out. I can’t lose hold of him. I need to protect him.
When I stop spinning and my head stops ringing, I see three of them crowding Damarian, inching closer and closer as though they are savoring every moment. I’m too far away—I won’t make it in time. I can’t see Damarian’s head but only his tail, because they’re blocking him. It shakes violently like he’s scared out of his mind. Many of the Guards are floating in the water unconscious. Others who still have their sharks are battling the other sea serpents. I see Kyle and a Violet trying to dodge their opponents so they could rush to Damarian’s side and protect him, but the sea serpents are doing a good job at keeping them busy. They’re doing a good job keeping Damarian separated from us. From me.
My palms thrust toward the three serpents surrounding Damarian, and they are bathed in a black mist. They rush away from him and shake their heads, hissing and baring their fangs, like they’re hurt. When they realize they can’t see Damarian due to that mist—whatever the hell it is—and that I’m the one creating it, they speed toward me.
My chest is huffing and puffing as my gills struggle to provide me with the oxygen I desperately need. I won’t be able to fight them off, and when I look around, at the Guards sworn to protect us and at Syren and Callen, I see they are all busy fighting off the other sea serpents and the rebels and their sharks.
This can’t be it. There’s no way this can be the end.
Suddenly, I’m flipped upside-down like a pancake and remain suspended above. The sea serpents crash into each other, their claws slaying one another. They growl as though they are yelling at one another, and then they notice me above them. Just as they’re about to zip toward me, I’m once again tossed, though this time it’s to the left, into Damarian’s arms. “You are safe,” he whispers into my ear.
“You saved me,” I breathe.
“You have saved me.”
“I don’t know if we can do this, Damarian. I just don’t—” My mouth snaps shut as the sea serpents head toward us. Kyle and some of the other Guards who still have their sharks leap in front of us and start fighting off the sea serpents.
“Fall back behind the battle line!” Kyle calls out to us as his tiger shark nips a sea serpent’s tail.
He’s right. I didn’t realize we’re right in the middle of the war zone. “Come.” I grab Damarian’s hand and teleport us to our side, behind the merpeople and other ocean creatures.
That’s when it dawns on me how naked we are. I grab Damarian’s arm. “Where are Shoney and Fiske?” The last I saw of Shoney was when she was trying to sink her teeth into a sea serpent. My blood turns ice-cold as different scenarios play in my head, of my shark dropping to the bottom of the ocean, of the sea serpents twisting her body, of them slamming her into the nearby rocks.
Damarian scans the fighters and then points. Shoney and Fiske are battling some of the rebels’ sharks. They make a good team, using their different sizes to their advantage. I see their eyes examining the ocean, as though they’re looking for us.
Shoney! I call to her in my mind.
Her eyes zero in on me. She and Fiske dash over to us.
Damarian, Fiske says. We did not know what to think when you lost contact! We feared you were killed.
Shoney nuzzles her nose into my neck.
“We are all right,” Damarian assures him. “But we must annihilate these beasts before they grow too strong.” His eyes move to me. “I believe I feel my power energizing them.”
“Shit,” I say.
The sea serpents must have given up on trying to kill Damarian and me because they are back on the battlefront. It’s like I suspected—they want to peel off our armor so that we’re bare.
A group of sharks that serve the five clans join the battlefront—they must be here to replace the ones that were lost. Hope blooms in my chest. This is not over, not at all. We can still win this. We have to win this.
One of the sea serpents stretches its claw toward spongy-looking coral a few hundred feet away. It’s plucked out of the ground and is launched into a Diamond’s mouth. He tries to spit it out, but the sea serpent makes it grow larger and larger, so large that it sticks out of the Diamond’s mouth. His face grows red as he chokes, and then his eyes roll over. He slumps toward the bottom of the ocean.
That’s all it takes for Damarian and me to grab hands and join the fight. The members of the Guard assigned to protect us have surrounded us. Shoney and I nod to each other, and then I send her off. It scares me to death to see her battle the sea serpents, but I have full confidence in her abilities. She’s one hell of a warrior. Fiske hurries after her.
From all the way back here, Damarian and I use our electricity and other powers to attack the sea serpents. We manage to do some damage, but it’s nowhere near the damage they’re doing to us. One of them stretches its claw behind him and then sweeps it forward. A group of small fish are yanked to him, as though they’re attached by strings. The sea serpent extends its claws, causing the fish to line up in a hexagonal formation. It flicks its claws and the fish bounce in their place, like they’re ready to take off. Then the sea serpent thrusts its claw and the fish are hurled toward a female Sapphire. They pierce her body and come out the other end, like bullets. Blood bursts out and she drops toward the ocean floor.
Damarian tightens his hold on me as his eyes fill with silver light. He raises his other hand and waves it at the sea serpent. Its claw twists backward, and I swear I hear bones crack. The sea serpent hollers out in agony.
It flashes red eyes at us and pushes its claw the other way. The force is so strong that Damarian and I are jerked forward, banging into the merpeople in front of us. Our hold on it breaks, and the sea serpent raises its claw above him. It’s bent in an unnatural shape. It releases another holler, and the claw straightens out.
“They’re healing on their own,” I say to Damarian, the realization causing my tail to feel numb.
Damarian’s eyes are huge as he stares at the sea serpent. “We must hurry. They grow stronger as we speak. We gain nothing by rem
aining here, only death. ” He takes my hand and tries to weave through the Guards protecting us, but they close in on us.
“We cannot allow you in the battlefront, my king,” a female Violet says.
“I order you to let us pass,” Damarian says.
The Violet exchanges glances with Kyle who is on her left. “I beg of you, my king—”
“I order you!”
“Damarian,” Kyle says. “We insist.”
“Please do not force me to defy your wishes.” The female Violet lowers her head. “It is my sworn duty to protect you. And I shall.”
Damarian fists his free hand. He turns away like he’s backing off, but then he throws his arms around me, and the next second, we’re back in the center of the battlefield.
“Damarian!” I hear Syren call. “Cassie!”
He ignores him and makes his way toward a sea serpent, pulling me along.
“Damarian, slow down—”
His eyes fill with that light again. “Cassie, it is my duty to protect every creature in the sea. Look around!” He drops my hand and throws his up. “Look at the bloodshed. Look at the death.” His lower lip trembles. “They are all dead because of me.”
“Because of me,” I whisper.
He’s about to say something when his eyes widen at something behind me. Just as I make a move to turn around, Damarian thrusts out his palms, encasing us in another invisible shield. Green liquid splatters against the shield. Damarian thrusts his hands again, and the shield knocks into the sea spent, throwing him back with so much force that the two of us are hurled backward, too.
Someone knocks into my right side, and I’m about to hold out my hands to attack, but then I realize it’s Shoney. Her eyes that were filled with relief suddenly darken. She bolts toward something behind me. An extremely large sea serpent.
I zip after her until I’m at her side. As she opens her mouth wide and bites into the sea serpent’s side, I raise my hands toward it and force its claws behind its back so it can’t hurt her. Shoney bites and mauls, leaving a trail of blood and yells. The sea serpent looks so weak I bet it only needs a few more hits.