Waterfall (Dragon's Fate)

by Lacy Danes

The water ran down, tickling everywhere it touched. She forced herself onto her back, and her skirts and back drank in the moist sea.

  Hudson groaned and staggered up to a seated position four feet from her.

  If only her hands were free, she could fight back and run faster.

  “Isslange,” Carmen’s voice demanded.

  “Isslange?” What was that?

  The water on her body glowed and shimmered. What was happening?

  A tendril of water swirled up beside her in a long, thin cone. Her eyes widened, and she stilled. The end of the cone tapered and solidified into a shard of ice. An ice snake. In hasty jabs, the snake stabbed at the rope, which split and separated, freeing her hands.

  She was free, and how that happened, though concerning, mattered not one bit. As she scrambled to her feet, water rushed down her legs and into her slippers, creating ripples on the shore’s edge. She glanced about. A breeze tickled the tree branches, and her vision warped in a circular wave of multicolored light. Her breath caught in her throat.

  The beach she stood upon was not the same beach she’d run out onto. Wreckage littered the shore from one end to the other. What had happened here?

  Hudson sat to her right, between a large, split-open cask and a piece of ship mast with tatters of sail still attached. Blood trickled down his forehead from a long, thin gash. He closed his eyes and leaned his head against his knee.

  The sound of a male throat being cleared came from the trees’ edge. She jerked her gaze in that direction. Jordan stood there. Then was gone. The water heated next to her, and she turned toward the intense warmth. Jordan stood next to her, in the water. She jumped.

  “How did you break Ferrous’s cloaking spell?” His voice was calm and questioning.

  “Pardon?” This was all a bit vexing. How did he appear from the water? How did she break what?

  “All is well. We shall figure it out together.” Humid waves lapped in the air between them. Her body trembled, wanting to feel his strength about her to protect her from the oddness and fear that pulsed through her conscious mind. She needed him.

  “What happened here, Jordan?”

  “This is the beach I found you on.”

  No. She shook her head. No, the beach she’d woken on had been clear, and she’d darted into the woods… Clear as this beach had been only moments before. Her stomach dropped to the soles of her boots.

  “You were barely alive.” His voice came softer. “I thought to give you peace, so I bit you.” He protectively wrapped his arms about her shoulders. The heat of his skin against her provided no comfort. “Every woman I have ever bitten has died. I-I had no inkling you would live… I never would have left you, if I had known.”

  Celeste’s tongue thickened, and the scene before her swayed. “This—this—is the ship I traveled on?” The words slipped out of her as if it were her breath itself. “My aunt?” She tried to pull from Jordan’s arms. “Where is she?” Oh God. She closed her eyes. No. Tears welled and tumbled down her cheeks.

  Jordan tightened his hold. “There are no survivors on this beach or in the water. Yours was the only heartbeat we heard.”

  Her aunt was dead. Her throat tightened. “You heard my heartbeat?” she rasped out.

  “Yes. Your faint-beating heart that now beats strong.” He turned her to face him. “I had come to Hudson’s today to talk to him and bring you here. To explain my part in this folly and to also make him and you understand you are meant to be mine.” His large thumb gently gathered the salty tears on her cheekbone. Yet, she felt nothing.

  “No!” Hudson shouted out from where he sat. He pushed to his knees and slowly stood, wavered, then fell again.

  “We need to get him to a doctor. Or…” Jordan turned and glanced at the small dinghy that was tied to a large rock on the shore. “Here.” He pulled on Celeste’s hand and led her to the boat. “Get in and sit. I will get Hudson.”

  Celeste stared at the boat. In her mind, the dinghy shrunk smaller and smaller. She had never liked the sea or lakes. She certainly had never learned to swim. Her skin flushed with heat. “Where are we going, Jordan?”

  “My brothers and I own an island a bit off the coast. We will take Hudson there so we can figure out what’s going on.” He turned from her and headed toward Hudson.

  “A bit off the coast?”

  “Yes.”

  A lump lodged in her throat, and she swallowed. A bright flash of red light slammed into her mind, and her ears rang.

  The boat tilted slowly to the right, slowly at first and then with haste. She couldn’t hear; the ringing was too loud. She scrambled toward the wooden door of her bunk. Another jolt shuddered the vessel. She slid sideways as water and bright light poured into her berth. Pain ripped through her. She bent forward and clutched the pink satin and pearls of her new dress. Her pink gloves spread with a dark stain in the dim light. She trembled uncontrollably, and her head grew light. A wooden shard of the ship’s hull had pierced her torso through.

  “Celeste?” Jordan’s voice sounded from afar.

  A loud snap cracked in her ear, and the vision vanished. She turned slowly toward Jordan, and her knees weakened. She sat on the edge of the boat.

  Jordan stopped in his tracks, balancing Hudson on his shoulder. “All is not well?”

  “I died. I-I don’t want to go back out there.” Everything was numb. How had she even formed those words?

  She couldn’t tell him she was afraid of the water, of the boat, of swimming. And especially of water that became solid and cut her ropes.

  Jordan reached her side. “Is it the boat wreckage?”

  Why did he have to question her? “Yes and no. It is all of this. I-I do not like the sea.” She waved her hand in the air across the beach. “I never have.” She inhaled deep. “The sea did this…” She stared at the wreckage strewn across the pebbled beach. “I am afraid.” In truth, she was terrified.

  Jordan placed Hudson none too gently into the boat on the back wooden bench. “You have nothing to fear in water. Not now. Not ever again. The water is yours to feel, to know, to become a part of.” He cupped her cheek in his hand. “I know this is hard to comprehend. You are my mate. We are the water; water is us. The water cannot, will not, hurt you.”

  She wanted to believe the conviction in those stormy blue eyes. But she couldn’t.

  Jordan stared down at his mate. Fear shone in her eyes and shivered through his soul. Damn it. He hated to put her through another trial when all he wanted was to sit with her and show her. Teach her what he knew and admit to her what he did not.

  And there was a lot he did not.

  He glanced at Hudson sitting on the bench. Hudson had gone daft, and that damn gray bird! What was that all about?

  Jordan needed to take Celeste to the only place they would be safe. The Isle would conceal them, and he could also hold Hudson there with ease until he could get word to Ferrous to join them. He would have to send another boat for Ferrous. Ferrous could not simply swim to the Isle as easily as he could.

  Celeste turned her head and stared out at the sea. “I cannot swim.”

  The corner of his mouth quirked up, and he let out a chuckle. Now that was ironic. A water-dragon mate who didn’t know how to swim and who didn’t like the sea. Oh, how her world was about to change. “Come.” He held out his hand. “You have nothing to fear, as you are with me.” And he had no doubt they could figure this out together.

  She gently reached out her hand, and her fingers fluttered nervously into his. “It would be nice to believe that, Jordan. It is not that simple.”

  Jordan stared at her. She was not a simpleton. She had logic in her actions. Something had to have happened to her beyond the shipwreck to make her fear the water. He needed to find out what that was so he could help her learn that she had nothing to fear from him or from their abilities.

  He closed his hand tightly, enclosing her hand firmly in his. A jolt of pleasure stole his breath. “Indeed it is.” He trul
y was blessed to be the first one to find his mate, no matter the obstacles to obtaining her for good.

  “Step in. You can sit in front of me and keep your eyes shut the entire way. Nothing will happen to harm you.” If they did capsize, her instincts would kick in, and he would ensure she made it to shore.

  She gathered up her skirts and stepped into the boat, sitting as far away from Hudson as she could.

  Chapter Six

  Jordan clutched the edge of the boat and pushed off the beach. His bare feet hit the water, and his stomach muscles tightened. He reached for any sign of trouble in the water deeper out at sea. The water lapped calmly through his veins. Good. The Isle was a three-quarter-of-an-hour row from Blood Cove across a deep section of water. On occasion, seals and other water life swam close to the boat. With Celeste skittish and Hudson erratic, the last thing he needed was a frisky seal trying to bump the boat.

  He jumped into the boat, rocking the vessel from side to side, and sat on the center bench. Hudson still lay where Jordan had placed him at the back. Celeste hunched on the front seat, facing Jordan, her arms wrapped tightly about her torso and her eyes closed. He pulled on the oars, and the boat slipped farther into the sea.

  Without opening her eyes, Celeste shifted slightly on her seat. “Just before you emerged on the beach, Hudson had tripped on a half cask and toppled me into the water.”

  “I’m sorry I hadn’t gotten to you sooner. I was dealing with Hudson’s footmen.”

  She nodded, and loose pieces of her golden hair caught in the breeze about her face. “When I landed in the water, I wished my hands free from the rope that bound me. The water spiraled up and cut the ropes for me. It was terrifying, yet beautiful.”

  His brow pulled tight. She couldn’t have spoken the language of the elements. Though maybe she had but not realized it with all the stress she was under. “Ah, I would not have expected you to have had that kind of ability. Not so soon anyway, but yes, you have a special affinity with the sea. I will teach you more about that.”

  “Pfft. The sea. No.”

  “Why do you deny it?”

  “Ever since I was a child, I have had a fear of the sea. My nurses would place me in the water when we went to Brighton, but I would scream and cry when the water splashed me. The water pricked my skin.”

  Interesting. “How did the sea water feel today when you fell in it?”

  “Different yet the same. Like hundreds of pinpricks that tickled at the same time.”

  “Better, then.”

  “I suppose so. But the cutting of my ropes, still… That is… Well, what is that?”

  “Water is ice and snow. It is mist. It is rain. And everything in between. I am relishing the future and teaching you what I know.”

  Celeste opened her emerald eyes and stared directly at him.

  He smiled. She had the fortitude to face her fear.

  Then her eyes widened, and she sucked in a startled breath.

  Jordan turned his head, and a large dark object rushed at him, slamming into his head. A piercing pain flipped him back, and he hit water. All went black.

  The large rock anchor jerked back and forth in Hudson’s hands. Jordan had pitched over the edge of the boat from the force of the anchor’s blow, and the oars slipped into the sea with him. Celeste glanced back toward the cove they’d left only moments before. She could not see the land. Bubbles burst up from where Jordan had pitched into the sea. Hudson had tried to kill him.

  Her throat tightened, and she stared past Hudson to the isle to which they traveled. A distant jagged silhouette poked out from the waving sea on the horizon. She was trapped. Surrounded by the sea she had feared all her life. Her mouth dried, and her shoulders shook.

  The anchor dropped from Hudson’s hands and settled with a loud crack on the boat’s wooden floor. As he stared at her, his eyes became black pools, and wavy orange lines grew on his skin like spider legs around them. The wind swirled about the boat and the sea waves with it. Hudson’s neat fair hair tousled into disarray. “All will be well. I will get us back to shore, and we will go home. You have nothing to fret about.” His eyes narrowed, and then he gazed to the sky.

  Nothing to fret about? There were no oars, and that crack… Celeste stared at the rock anchor on the boat floor. A gash marred the wood plank bottom. Water slowly bubbled in. The boat would surely fill with water soon.

  Jordan!

  She stared at the sea where waves washed the spot he’d disappeared into away. He needed her.

  A gray bird swooped toward them in the blue sky. With a flap of its wings, the unusual raven landed on the edge of the small boat.

  “Jump into the water.” Carmen’s voice rang in Celeste’s head.

  Hudson stepped toward her, rocking the boat.

  She stared at the dark sea as the waves slapped against the edge of the boat. The words Jordan had spoken to her on the shore replayed in her mind. “You have nothing to fear in water. Not now. Not ever again. The water is yours to feel, to know, to become a part of.” Jordan had said to trust him. That the water could no longer hurt her, and Jordan needed her.

  Just as she needed him.

  Hudson’s hands flailed and grabbed for the top of her head.

  “Jump now!” Carmen ordered.

  I will trust Jordan. Celeste ducked out of Hudson’s reach, rocking the boat, and tipped herself over the edge.

  Oh! What was she doing? She could not swim!

  Pinpricks that verged on pain pushed against her skin. She flailed her hands and kicked her feet, but her dress filled with seawater. With each stroke she made, the water pulled her down. The water swallowed her whole, like a snake eating a rat.

  She opened her eyes, and the water burned. Everything blurred. Water bobbed and swirled, and the edge of the boat slid farther and farther away from her as she sank. She pushed with her arms to no avail and slipped farther down. The water’s edge glowed above her. She refused to close her eyes. She needed to find Jordan. Her ears clogged, muffling all sound. She thrashed. The tightness in her chest increased as she held her breath.

  Jordan.

  Jordan. She called out with her mind. She blinked and strained her eyes. Murky streaks of light pierced the water in sword-like blades.

  Little bubbles danced along her clothing and skin and floated toward the surface. Why couldn’t she be like them?

  Panic seized her lungs, and she gasped. Water slid down her throat. She would die here in this water as she always feared she would. As she had already done once. She would not die here again. Jordan’s words fluttered again in her mind. “You have an affinity with water…” Then water save me.

  Carmen’s voice echoed in the sea. “Say Vand undtagen mig, aloud.”

  But if she spoke, she would drown.

  “Do it, or you surely will.”

  She closed her eyes. “V-Vand-”—water rushed into her mouth and filled her nose—“udtagen mig.” The sound was strained in the water’s weight.

  The sea around her warmed and pushed against her. Slipping under her bottom like arms, pressure thrust her up. Her face broke the surface, and the cool air burned her cheeks.

  She coughed, sputtering, then gasped, pulling air to her lungs. The water held her in a cushion of pulsing current so that her head bobbed along the small waves.

  The gray raven cawed, and the sound of rushing water came from behind her. Fanning her hands, she turned about. A large whitecap raced toward her.

  Jordan emerged from the crest. His eyes were no longer the blue of the calm and tranquil sea. They flashed a deep green, and he opened his mouth. A loud hiss with billowing smoke hurled from his nostrils.

  His skin had changed to an iridescent blue, and the scales about his elbows glowed like shimmering gold.

  A shrill cry and another billow of blue-green smoke surged from his mouth. The wave he rode swept her forward, pushing the current that held her toward the shore.

  Jordan plunged at the boat, landing on the bow. The g
ray bird tossed into the air and flapped its wings, gliding above the wave that swept Celeste toward the shoreline of the Isle.

  Jordan would be fine, but two was better than one. She wanted to help him. The water listened to him, and it listened to her words, or Carmen’s. She focused on the boat. “Put the boat on the shore.” She swapped her concentration from the boat to the gentle slope of pebbled shore. Move to the shore. Please.

  Nothing happened. Her heart lodged in her throat.

  Carmen’s voice rushed through her mind again. “In Nordic. Stil båden på bredden.”

  Celeste swallowed the lump beating in her throat. “Stil båden på bredden,” she croaked out.

  The water about her glowed, and she twisted backward. In a torrent of pinpricks, her skin burned, and she shrieked.

  A streak of gold glowed in the water and circled from the wave that carried her to the boat in which Hudson and Jordan struggled.

  The water swelled and glittered, and the boat rushed toward her.

  It worked. Her eyes widened. It worked!

  The boat passed her by, pushing her to the side, and slammed with a loud crunch into the shore. Hudson and Jordan flew from the boat onto the pebbled sand.

  The rocks rushed up at her as her wave continued to carry her to the same shore. She did not want to toss herself with the same force to the sand, but she had no idea how to control water to that degree!

  “Simply stop the water,” Carmen’s voice screeched. “You are making me queasy!”

  “Stop it!” Celeste cringed. Her words did not work.

  “Nordic! Holdt.”

  “Holdt!”

  The water crested on the shore in an elegant sweep. She wavered but simply stepped forward onto the beach. Goodness! Her knees trembled, and she dropped, but not before she had stepped onto the shore. The shore! She had not died. She gripped a fistful of pebbles as her head spun, then closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.

  Why did the Nordic tongue hold such power over the sea?

  “The brothers are all Nordic born,” Carmen’s voice stated. “You will need to learn the language.”