Stubborn, furry, arrogant male.
But a smile tugged at the corner of my mouth, and I found myself basking in the warmth of his gaze. At least he could be a sounding board as I tried to work out how to handle the leviathan, even if I wasn’t yet ready to tell him about my father and what I might have to do to the Deep Dwellers. Besides, I had to admit, if only to myself, I was becoming more and more fond of his company.
I opened my mouth to speak, drawing in a quick breath—and froze. The fetid taste of sulfur touched my tongue and strange magic oozed against the periphery of my senses.
“Wait.” Keegan stared hard at the water.
Suddenly, he grabbed my shoulder and hauled me back, away from the rail. He put his supernatural strength into it and I went flying back. A human woman would’ve broken bones landing on the hard street.
As it was, I sat up just as a net flew over the rail and engulfed Keegan.
He was dragged right over and into the bay.
Fear stabbed at me, not for myself but for Keegan. No!
I scrambled to my feet and rushed forward, stopping short of the rail. I would not be caught if there was another net.
Below, a half dozen of the Deep Dwellers bobbed on the waves, their heads and shoulders visible. They hadn’t even bothered trying to look human.
“Come,” they hissed at me. It was a language close enough to mine to understand, yet different. “Come to the sea to save your friend before the moon sets, or he dies and we will still hunt you. Come on your own, and he lives.”
Shouts rose up. A human dressed in random clothing was screaming, waving his arms and running along the street toward the aquarium. Lights flashed and a siren cut through the night. Human police were responding, coming to investigate the hysterical cries of alarm.
I darted into the shadows of the aquarium, looking for a niche or unlocked door while I stayed away from the railing and the edge of the pier. I needed to hide.
“Steady, sea-born.” Silver bells chimed in that sweet voice. The fae. “If you remain still, my magic will hide you. We must wait for the human authorities to finish their search and leave.”
Lights flashed and humans stomped on the pier, shining their handheld lights down to search the surface of the water, but there was nothing to see. The Deep Dwellers were gone, and with them, Keegan.
A vagrant stood gesticulating wildly, insisting he saw someone fall into the water.
“Seriously, man. I saw it. Nets came flying out of the water and dragged someone in. I saw it!”
“Nets?” The police officer sounded dubious.
“You gotta believe me! Someone could be drowning right now.”
“We’re looking,” the police officer assured him. “While we do, you can help me by breathing into this breathalyzer right here.”
Keegan could drown. Even with his sea lion skin in hand to transform, he needed air in his other form. They could kill him simply by keeping him underwater until they were far enough out into the bay to avoid being seen by humans.
I was helpless. Standing there, I could do nothing but wait and watch the police search the area. Eventually they took the vagrant into custody, stating he was both drunk and high. Maybe he was. But he’d still seen what he’d seen. The other humans were too quick to dismiss information simply because it came from an unreliable source.
In this moment, it made no difference, because they couldn’t have helped either Keegan or me anyway. If they’d witnessed what happened, gone in after him, they’d have drowned. Or died a worse death. I wasn’t absolutely sure what the hunting habits were for the Deep Dwellers.
I needed to come up with a plan to counter them. Their spears and their nets were not the issue. Their advantage had been the element of surprise. I could evade those or take magical measures to counter them, now that I knew about them.
“What will you do, sea-born?” the fae asked. Her voice was a whisper on the night breeze.
“I need to find a way to deal with my enemy.” Anger burned in my gut. They were causing so much harm in the effort to get ahold of me.
“Do you hate them so?” There was amusement lilting in the fae’s voice now. “You only have retribution as your goal.”
I shook my head. “I wouldn’t hate them if they had kept innocents out of all this. But no, they caused the deaths of those killer whales, took the leviathan out of its home, and now they’ve taken Keegan.”
Loss was a hollow feeling in my chest, but somehow it had weight to it, and I didn’t know what to do with it. Keegan had recognized me for what I was, found me in a way, and he’d changed my solitary life.
I didn’t know what it meant yet, but I didn’t want him dead.
“Ah.” The fae breathed that single word into my ear.
“His life wouldn’t be in danger if it weren’t for me.” Guilt. I was binging on a range of emotions tonight.
“Selkies are warriors.” The fae sounded unconcerned. “His kind are always in danger. It is in their nature to face it, in the ocean or here on land among the humans.”
What the fae said was true. I agreed, if I looked at the situation objectively. But I wasn’t as distanced from the situation as the fae was, and I had to admit, a few days ago I might have been. But now, this meant much more to me than a simple hostage. “I will not leave him at their mercy.”
“So fierce.” The fae sounded pleased, admiring even. “You were always a passive presence here. So strong, and yet you did no harm, made no moves to unbalance the others. I’ve been watching you.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I kept my mouth shut.
The fae’s voice continued as the police cleared the area. “The vampires, werewolves, and the others, they all vie for power in the city. From the shadows, they seek to control the human world. But you are different. You’ve been sleeping. The ocean and its children are calling for help, and your strength is rising in answer.”
Maybe.
“It’s an interesting point of view,” I whispered. “But you make me sound like a hero in an epic ballad, and I am not. Whatever my strength, it isn’t sufficient to control the leviathan, let alone send it elsewhere. Even if I did, it needs to survive. It needs to hunt. Beyond the leviathan, there are too many of the Deep Dwellers for me to take at once. I’m going to have to get sneaky to try to deal with them…and hope they don’t kill Keegan in the meantime.”
Laughter echoed quietly through the shadows. “You are uncomfortable. Attack, subdue, destroy. These things aren’t in your nature. You only rise up to defend.”
I clenched my jaw against the bitterness on my tongue. “To defend and never attack is to eventually be obliterated.”
“True.” The fae was having a wonderful time throughout this entire situation. Her sense of humor and mine were definitely different. “But you are special because you look for other ways.”
There was a pause, and I thought perhaps the fae had left, now that the humans were gone. I was going to need to slip back down to the water and go after Keegan.
“Here.” The fae’s voice had returned.
I looked around me and saw a small package wrapped in seaweed on a nearby bench in the shadows. I didn’t think it’d been there earlier and it didn’t look like anything a human would’ve left by accident.
“A gift.” The fae was suddenly somber. “A gift for the guardian. Because you are not alone, sea-born. We would see you continue your watch over the ocean’s children. They will need you as humans continue to forget about them.”
I picked up the package and let the seaweed wrapping fall open. Nestled in the package was a handful of spheres, glowing softly in the night.
“Food, for your leviathan,” the fae’s voice whispered in my ear. “A few of these will sustain him for a long time, so he will not have to hunt as often nor consume as much. You will find more of these growing at the base of the pier underneath the aquarium. Harvest them at the full moon to feed your beast.”
Again, I was careful not to
thank her. I only wrapped up the precious gift and headed for the ladder down to the water. I had one solution for the leviathan, but I still didn’t know how I’d save Keegan or deal with the Deep Dwellers.
As grateful as I was for the gift, I didn’t have hope for a sudden solution for the other two problems.
But I was going out there anyway.
7
Considering the problems in front of me, I decided to deal with them one at a time. Or at least tackle the one I had a solution for first. Well, I had a partial solution. Addressing the leviathan’s hunger would be a start.
Besides, the Deep Dwellers expected me to swim after them and were undoubtedly prepared to ambush me if I tried to follow them directly.
Instead, I swam beneath the pier. I paused, listening to the sounds of the bay and searching with my magic to make sure I was alone. Then I touched my fingertips to my larimar pendant and drew a bit of my power to me, focusing on my intended destination: the deep waters just off the San Juan Islands, in the shelter of the rocks we’d been waiting on when we’d first seen the leviathan.
In response to my will, my power coalesced and formed a temporary portal. It would allow me to cross the distance in an instant, avoiding any possible ambush along the way. But in the few heartbeats it took to open the portal, I’d been completely vulnerable, so I wasted no time darting through and closing it behind me. I paused in the shadow of the rocks, listening to the sounds of the seas there and reaching out with my magic. The killer whale pod was close by again. They were too afraid to go to deep water, staying in what little safety the shallows could offer them.
Because there was a ready supply of its newly chosen prey, the leviathan was here too.
I recognized the feel of it in the sea now, a heavy presence in the symphony of the ocean. Its voice was full and sonorous, the timbre of its call rich in harmonics. Every few minutes, it emitted a series of staccato clicks, echolocation. I watched it lay on the sea floor with its limbs waving slightly in the current, and I realized that while it could chase down its food, it could also be an ambush predator. Maybe the scars human scientists found on sperm whales weren’t always from giant squid. Or maybe giant squid weren’t only hunted by sperm whales.
Approaching it while it was like this, almost motionless, would be much easier than trying to stop it as it was charging through the ocean after the killer whales. Of course, I had to avoid becoming its next meal as I got closer.
To me, this was a lot less scary than what I’d done to rout it last night. The hard part was to remain calm, project that calm, and resist the urge to hurry. Keegan was out there, but I couldn’t rush or I could end up dead before I even tried to save him.
I swam toward the leviathan slowly, murmuring a soft song as I did. I wove calm and serenity into my song, hoping to lull it into a less-ready-to-eat-me state. The leviathan heard me coming, and as I got closer, it turned its head to watch me, too. It remembered.
I wondered if it had ever encountered other merfolk. It might’ve been alive when my people still swam the oceans of this world. How long was its memory? Would it forgive me for what I might have to do?
I hovered close to the sea bottom, carefully holding out one of the spheres the fae had given me. In the darkness, the orb glowed faintly, like the bioluminescent spots running along the sides of the leviathan. I floated just within reach of those appendages, a cross between a squid’s tentacles and a sea mammal’s flippers, and held out the orb.
As one of those limbs drifted towards me, I tensed, but only the very tip of the huge appendage lowered and almost touched the orb in my palm. I didn’t want the leviathan to try to pull me in closer, so I took a risk and released the orb upward into the water. Immediately, the appendage curved around the orb, bringing it to the leviathan’s mouth.
Snack delivered.
I waited. The leviathan stared at me. I really wasn’t sure what it would do next. The orb had seemed ridiculously small, considering the size of the leviathan’s mouth and the prey it had been chasing up until now. But the leviathan extended its limb toward me again. It stopped just short of me and held its arm out, possibly waiting. I obliged and released another orb into the water toward it. The leviathan consumed that too. I fed it a third when it made motions requesting more. We continued that way for a few minutes, with me feeding the leviathan one orb at a time.
Its song changed, the tones becoming more intense but brighter somehow. It lifted its head closer and brought its eye even with me, where I floated in the current. Taking a chance, I reached out slowly and placed my hand flat on the ridge over its eye. It didn’t withdraw. I ran my had over its eye ridge, wondering over its thick hide. It was almost armored, yet still pliant somehow.
The water around me began to vibrate, and I realized the leviathan was humming. Its emotions seeped into me through our contact, and I got the impression of its hunger being sated.
It was…happy.
I’d apparently made a friend. I was equally relieved the fae’s gift had been so incredibly effective. One problem solved. I could harvest more of those orbs with each full moon and find the leviathan to feed it. Even if it stayed in the area, it wouldn’t need to hunt the killer whales anymore. And I didn’t need to get it out of the Puget Sound. This changed everything.
Or nothing.
My father still wanted me to send the leviathan to Salacia to help him win his wars. The fae gift would only make maintaining the leviathan easier for my father. I’d have to live with the guilt that I’d brought the leviathan to such a fate, a tortured life of battle after battle—if I even survived creating a portal big enough to send it there.
I turned away. I didn’t have the power to carry out my father’s wishes just yet. I’d lingered here long enough, and Keegan might be dead already. I needed to take on the Deep Dwellers, quickly.
As I started to swim, the water shifted around me and I glanced back. The leviathan had risen from its spot on the sea floor, following me.
This was unexpected.
I swam ahead, away from the islands and out towards the deeper water where the Deep Dwellers had originally risen to attack me. The leviathan followed, the way I’d seen dogs following some of their chosen humans around the city.
Well, I couldn’t predict what the leviathan would do next but I was reasonably certain it wasn’t going to eat me, and having it at my back couldn’t be worse than heading out there alone.
Timing is everything. I’d been worried I’d taken too long with the leviathan.
Out of the deep, the call came. It was the bass notes, flat, a minor key in the ocean. When the Deep Dwellers called, the leviathan at my side stopped singing. It didn’t change course or speed as it swam with me. Every few moments, it sent out its rapid clicks. But it had stopped its song.
I swam closer and reached out, placing my palm on its eye ridge. The leviathan was wary.
Apparently, my theory had been right. The Deep Dwellers had been able to drive the leviathan out of its territory and even coax it here to the Puget Sound, but they didn’t have control over it. Their action had been a reckless choice on their part.
And now, they were leading me straight to them.
We approached them directly. With the leviathan at my side, I wasn’t vulnerable to their nets. They had Keegan suspended in a bubble of some sort, and at least one worry eased at the sight of him. He was alive for the moment. If I could get him free, then he could swim for the surface and air. He could survive.
I wanted him to come out of this alive.
The Deep Dwellers’ song faltered as the leviathan and I approached. They hadn’t been expecting this. Rage ignited in the leviathan when it saw them, stoking my own anger into higher and higher flames. We faced the Deep Dwellers together, completely in accord.
They opened their mouths wide, their jaws dropping impossibly low for human faces, and they screamed. Spears flew through the water at us, magically driven.
The leviathan moved ahead of me and
turned, taking the spears on its side.
“No!” My cry was lost in the water.
Some of them failed to pierce the leviathan’s tough hide and fell away, down into the deep. One or two stuck. The leviathan turned its head toward the Deep Dwellers and roared its own challenge.
Something inside me snapped.
I would not let the leviathan fight this battle for me.
I was done with thinking and worrying. Finished with allowing others to come to harm for my sake. These Deep Dwellers had come hunting a Sea King’s daughter.
They needed to learn how foolish they were to have targeted me.
I was more than a simple cetacean, a denizen of the oceans. I was more than a daughter of the Sea King. I may not have led his armies as intended. I might be nothing but a disappointment to him. But here, now, I had more than my claws and fins. I was more.
And a paltry dozen Deep Dwellers was not enough to take me.
I rose up in the water to hang, suspended, above the leviathan. I saw them coming, swimming hard and brandishing more spears. I expanded my chest, letting it fill with sea water and magic.
And I screamed.
The leviathan ducked as my siren’s scream raced through the water. Alone, the sound was enough to stun anything in the near area. Backed with my power, my scream was raw enough to send shock waves rushing through the water to strike the Deep Dwellers with concussive force.
Yes!
My power swirled around me. I could do so much damage in this moment. But I held back because Keegan was there, and because he’d told me to conserve my energy in combat so I could not only fight my first opponent, but also then the next.
Instead, I dove down and placed my palm flat on the leviathan’s head. I pictured Keegan clearly in my mind and did everything I could to project my desire to get him out of danger.
The leviathan shot forward through the currents. The Deep Dwellers had been trying to rally but scattered as the leviathan bore down on them. But it didn’t just break through their ranks. As it swam through their group, the leviathan extended its limbs and caught them up in ones and twos, wrapping them tightly in its grip.
Siren's Calling (The Sea King's Daughters Book 4) Page 6