To my left, the green monster flung out its tentacles. Two of them wrapped around Connor, and pulled him down toward the creature’s mouth.
I reached Lachlan.
He held out his hand for mine. “Just in time, Penny.”
I clutched his hand. I threw back my head and I screamed, “Stop, stop, stop! We surrender.”
“You hear us?” Lachlan yelled at the top of his lungs. “We surrender.”
The monsters didn’t stop. The red creature was on top of Clarke and Naelen. She was pouring arrows into the thing, and they weren’t doing any good. The green monster had dunked Connor under the water, only to have him surface, sputtering, and the black eel-thing was inches from Felicity, its jaws wide.
“Stop!” I cried, my voice breaking.
And then…
They stopped.
The water churned and swirled and rose up in front of us. It took shape, the shape of something female, with hair that rushed like waterfalls over her shoulders and back. She was beautiful. She was terrible. “If you surrender, then we will kill you all,” she said.
Lachlan held up a hand. “You take us.” He pointed back and forth between Penny and me. “We’re the ones you want. No one else stands a chance against your kind anyway. Take us to the Green King. And you let our friends go.”
“Ah,” said the water woman. “Now, I see.”
“That’s the deal,” I said. “Let our friends go.”
“You will come with us willingly?” said the water woman.
“Yes,” said Lachlan. “And I am the blood dragon.”
“We know what you are,” said the water woman. “Very well.”
“Let them go,” I said.
But she was losing shape, turning into a tumbling wave.
And then she crashed over us, and I was lost in a swirl of dark, freezing water. I felt it go into my ears and my nose. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. And then everything went black.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
When I came to myself again, I was still in the dark, and I was cold. The air smelled like the sea. I felt the lap of water against my wet skin. Slowly, shapes and figures started to become clear to me. I was in a dark cave. I was lying on wet stone, right next to a huge pool of dark, dark water. The water was full of creatures like the ones we’d faced. Various colors, various sizes, some with fins and some with claws. But they all had a creeping feel to them. They were a swarm of dark insects. They didn’t speak, but the way they crowded spoke of menace and cruelty.
They were all facing forward, looking into the depths the cave. In the center of the dark pool was a stone that jutted up out of the water. It resembled a dais, and on the dais was a throne. And on the throne sat the Green King.
I knew it was him. Something about him projected dark, icy, cold power. He was green, a dark brackish green that is practically black. He had a human-shaped torso and shoulders, but the rest of his body was snakelike—sleek and slim, long and curling. His body wrapped around the throne, wrapped around the dais.
His face was dark green with bright red eyes. Looking at him was like looking into a void. It was like being sucked out into deep space with no air or heat. He had a pull to him, something horrid and yet compelling. I couldn’t bear to look at him. I couldn’t take my eyes away.
Lachlan was standing right in front of him. He was at the foot of the dais, and his skin had turned red, as if he was half-way in between dragon form and human form. Lachlan’s fangs were out. He was peering up at the Green King as if mesmerized.
He was so far away.
I gulped.
Some plan this was. It had seemed like such a good idea at the time, and it had worked. We’d surrendered and we’d been taken to the Green King. This was his inner sanctum. He was surrounded by his creatures. This was the place to fight him.
But how were we going to do that when I was all the way over here and he was over there?
I didn’t know what had happened. I was susceptible to water, but Lachlan wasn’t. He was a vampire. He couldn’t drown. He would have been aware all the way here while I had been unconscious. And if I was really honest with myself, I realized that I couldn’t be sure how well our plan had worked. I didn’t see Clarke, Felicity, Connor, or Naelen anywhere around here, but that didn’t mean they were safe. They could all be dead.
I pushed myself into a sitting position.
I couldn’t take my eyes off the Green King.
He wasn’t speaking, but it looked as if he and Lachlan were communicating somehow. They were staring at each other, gazes locked. Lachlan twitched from time to time, and his body grew even redder each time he did. His wings were starting to sprout from his back.
What the hell was the Green King doing to Lachlan?
I didn’t like it. It looked as if the Green King had my fiancé under a spell, and that he was influencing him in some horrid way. When Lachlan broke away from the terrible gaze of the thing on the dais, would he even be himself, or would he be one of the Green King’s own creatures?
Maybe it wouldn’t take much. I thought of Lachlan when I’d first met him, driven by blood lust, unable to stop himself from feeding on me. It must have been the sight of his fangs that brought that to my head. He looked like a monster, like he belonged with all these other creatures in this dark, dank place.
I had been worried all along that something was going on underneath with his transition to the blood dragon, and there had to be a reason for that. Maybe this was the reason. Maybe I had been prescient of the fact that he was going to turn against me here.
And the terrifying thing was that I wasn’t even sure if I could fight against the Green King myself. Perhaps the monster could do the same thing to me that he was doing to Lachlan. Hadn’t I succumbed just as easily to my own darkness under the influence of the blood bond?
I peered down at the ring on my finger. It allowed Lachlan and I to access such amazing power without consequences, but I couldn’t use that power alone. Divided, we were useless.
Well, not useless. I couldn’t allow myself to think that way. I was Penny Caspian. I had run away from my destined mate. I had faced down ancient vampires and terrifying sea monsters. Hell, I had saved Santa Claus. I wasn’t useless. I needed to do something.
No one had noticed that I had sat up. At least they hadn’t let on if they had. They all seemed mesmerized by the Green King himself.
Slowly, quietly, I moved so that I was crouching on the slippery rock. I perched there, looking over the surface of the black water like a cautious prey animal, ready to dart.
The problem was that I didn’t have any idea what my next move should be. I didn’t know if Lachlan was with me anymore. For all I knew, if I went to him, he’d be on the side of these awful creatures, and they would overpower me.
My own fire wasn’t even enough to kill one of them, let alone the Green King.
Should I try to escape?
No. I couldn’t leave without Lachlan. If he was gone beyond all recognition, that would be one thing, but if he was still himself, he would need me.
I crawled forward, and I touched the dank water that surrounded the rock I lay on. It was cold, so cold that it made my body shiver, and the shivers seemed to reach all the way into my very core. I felt invaded by the coldness, as if my body was no longer completely my own. It was a horrible sensation, and I sincerely wished I could get out of this place. But not yet. I had a stand to make.
And the only way to do that was through the water.
Shuddering, I slid into the water, feet first. The coldness seeped into me, and I was overtaken by an involuntary rush of shivers. The water around me rippled from my movement.
I forced myself to stop shaking, frightened the creatures surrounding me would feel the change in the water. I waited, heart in my throat, for them to turn around.
But they didn’t, and I began to wade through the water. It was shallow here, only coming up to my waist. Moving through it was like moving throug
h the stuff of nightmares. The cold cut into me like sharp knives.
Suddenly, all the creatures moved together. They raised their arms over their heads and let out a cry. Some laughed. Some shrieked. It was an unnatural sound, like wailing coyotes. The sound of it unnerved me. They were celebrating.
What had happened?
That was when I noticed that Lachlan had fallen onto one knee. He was bent over, clutching his stomach.
What was happening to him? Was this the final stage? Would he rise from this a monster? Would his eyes glow like the Green King’s?
The Green King threw back his head and uttered a chilling laugh.
The creatures laughed too.
The laughter hurt inside my head, like shards of glass in my eardrums. It was horrific, jarring and discordant. I clutched my head, moaning.
The Green King’s body uncoiled—springing out fast like a whip in the air. His flying coils thumped into Lachlan.
Lachlan let out a groan, and he toppled over sideways. He convulsed once, and blood came out of his mouth. Then he didn’t move again.
What? What was this? I pushed through the water toward him.
The Green King poked Lachlan with the end of his tail.
Lachlan’s body absorbed the poke like a slab of meat. He rolled over at an unnatural angle, flopping down so that I could see his face, mouth open, eyes wide and senseless.
I let out a little cry.
Every creature in the place turned to look at me.
They laughed.
The Green King laughed. His red eyes caught mine.
And I was incapable of looking away.
His voice spoke in my head, deep and booming and cold. It hurt. It was too loud. But I didn’t think he was talking aloud, because I couldn’t hear him with my ears. “You are very easy to influence, dragon.”
I coughed. I wanted him out of my head. He didn’t belong in there, and his voice was scratching at my skull, raking sharp nails against the back of my eyeballs. I let out a guttural noise. I had the strong urge to begin ripping at my own skin, just dig my nails in and peel it all off.
The Green King laughed again. Both out loud and inside my head.
I screamed.
“You didn’t even try to help him,” said the Green King, “and now he’s dead.”
“No,” I said. Lachlan couldn’t be dead.
“See for yourself,” said the Green King. “Come closer, dragon.”
And I wasn’t sure whose idea it was, mine or the Green King’s, but I was wading through the water toward him as fast as I could go. The creatures all moved away, parting to let me through. Some of them made funny clicking sounds that I thought might have been more laughter.
I was repulsed by them, repulsed by the Green King, and yet I went to him.
No, I thought. I’m going to Lachlan.
Within minutes, I was climbing up onto the dais. I scrambled over to Lachlan’s body. It was cold. Freezing cold. The blood that had poured out of his mouth was cold. But he was a vampire, and vampires were only made warm by the blood they drank, so it might not mean anything. It wasn’t easy to kill a vampire, whatever the Green King had done to him. Lachlan hadn’t been burned. His head hadn’t been cut off. He wasn’t dead.
“You think I must maim him in order to end him?” boomed the Green King inside my head.
I looked up at him. He had heard my thoughts?
“Yes, I hear your thoughts,” said the Green King. “And I have influenced them as well. Perhaps if you had run for your lover right away when you woke up, perhaps then you two might have stood a chance against me. After all, you are very powerful, and he is full of the magic that was created to fight me. He is my enemy, made as strong as he could be. Strong enough to face me. But you didn’t come for him, because you doubted him. You thought he had become evil. You trust him so little that you were easily swayed. And I was able to reach inside him and drown him from the inside.”
I licked my lips. “Vampires can’t drown.” I might as well say whatever came to my head. He could read my mind, after all.
“No?” said the Green King. “Well this one has.”
“He’s alive.” I pulled his head into my lap and I stroked his face, stroked his hair. “Lachlan, I’m sorry,” I whispered to him. “I should have known you weren’t turning evil. I should have helped you.”
The Green King laughed. “Try to revive him if you don’t believe me.”
I felt so cold. My fingers felt like icicles dangling from my hands. It was hard to move. But I had to get Lachlan some blood. The Green King was giving me a chance to do that. He was old and arrogant and stupid, and I could save everything— I pressed my cold fingers flat against the ground, feeling around for something sharp. I’d cut myself on it, feed my blood to Lachlan that way.
But the surface was smooth. I let out a little sob, feeling helpless.
“There’s no point in it, anyway,” said the Green King. “He’s dead. He’s gone.”
“He’s not!” I tried to scream it. My voice came out quavering. And there. A sharp rock. I ran my finger over it, brushing the edge. I could barely feel how sharp it was. My hands were numb. There was no way I could pick the rock up. So, I pressed my finger into it, made a movement to slash the flesh.
It hardly hurt. I was too cold to feel it. But it did start to bleed. The flow was sluggish since most of my blood had rushed from my extremities. I blew out bit of fire, just enough to warm my hands.
All of the creatures made unnatural shrieking noises.
The Green King cried out and the claws inside my head scraped against the inside my skull. “No fire!” said the Green King.
I screamed in agony at the pain. I couldn’t stop screaming. It hurt so bad.
And then it stopped. And my finger was bleeding. I put it in Lachlan’s mouth.
I waited.
Nothing happened. He didn’t start to lap at the blood. He didn’t start to suck. He didn’t even swallow what must have been trickling down his throat.
Nothing.
I quaked. What had the Green King done to him?
“The same thing I’m going to do to you,” he said. “Look into my eyes, dragon. Look.”
And my gaze swung up to meet the monster’s.
CHAPTER THIRTY
I was tumbling into the Green King’s red eyes. I associated red with warmth and heat and fire, but this was a cold red. It was a frozen red, like ice that had been stained with blood, like flesh left in a freezer. Cold was spreading through me. Ice was claiming my veins. I wanted to scream again at the pain of it, but I couldn’t move.
Everything was over now. I only had a few moments left. I could sense that.
I didn’t want to think of Wyatt, because I didn’t want the Green King to know about him. I didn’t want him chasing after my little boy. He was of no consequence to the Green King, anyway. Wyatt no longer had any powers. He was nothing more than a normal little boy.
Leave him alone, I ordered.
But the Green King didn’t speak to me anymore, not out loud and not in my head. He just stared. His cold, red gaze burrowed into me. I felt as if I was turning to ice, as if I was hardening and expanding. I would be too big for what contained me soon. I would break the outer shell that contained me, and I would seep out into the dark water.
I was sad about leaving Wyatt. I knew what it would be like for him. I had lost my parents when I was a little girl, and now Wyatt would have to grow up the way I did, without a mother to love him, without a father to protect him.
I remembered the emptiness it had made within me when I was younger. Sometimes, seeing a kid with a mother had hurt me so bad that I hadn’t been able to stop crying. As a child, I was sometimes overtaken by such fierce sadness, it was hard to breathe. The loss of them hurt me deeply. I felt incomplete. I felt as if there was always something missing. And that was what I was condemning Wyatt to.
Actually, that was the best case scenario, because now the Green King would
be free to roam the waters of the earth and do what he wanted. Who knew if anyone would even survive such an onslaught? Maybe the whole of humankind was doomed, and my sweet little boy among them.
No.
No, I had to try harder. I had to fight against this.
The Green King seemed to stir. “What are you doing?” said his voice in my head.
I remembered once I’d used the whiteflame against Darla Tell on my own. Lachlan had been unconscious—now that I thought about it, Lachlan ended up unconscious a lot of the time during these sorts of showdowns.
“Dead,” said the Green King. “He’s dead.”
But I’d still been able to access the power. And Lachlan and I were touching right now. If I reached out for the blood bond, what would I find?
“Stop,” thundered the Green King.
I touched an edge of bright white power. It was like reaching for something trapped underneath a couch. My fingertips brushed it, but I couldn’t quite grasp it. I thought, though, that if I stretched…
I was rocked by another wave of the worst agony I thought I had ever felt. There were claws scratching my skull, scraping my eyeballs, the inside of my neck, the back of my rib cage, sticking sharp points into the notches of my spine.
The pain was too great for thinking or being or moving. I couldn’t even cry out, because it hurt too bad.
And yet I could stretch. And I did, thrusting my reach into the power of the blood bond. I got a grip on it, and I pulled.
It burst out of me, erupting out of my chest. Not the normal whiteflame, but the kind that Lachlan and I made together now that he was the blood dragon. It was agony too, because it was so hot. My body was cold from what the Green King had done to me, and this power was hot. It felt twenty times hotter against the cold blood that ran in my cold veins. But I could make noise now, and I let out a grating, keening cry.
The whiteflame engulfed the head of the Green King.
He screamed.
All around me, all of the creatures screamed.
The sound was even worse than the sounds before. It was unpleasant and terrifying.
The Green King was on fire. His face was burning. His features were melting. He thrust out his long, scaly tail and flicked me off the dais. Flicked Lachlan off too.
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