by Amber Garr
For a second, he froze in terror. But when I saw the smirk weave its way through his features, fear slammed me in the gut. I wasn’t strong enough yet.
He jumped at me and managed to push us both into the surf. The water pounded against our bodies, nearly drowning me in the process. The only thing I could do was change.
The dress would have normally been an obstacle, but tonight my legs shifted freely without the need to shred my clothing. In seconds, I felt the final tingle and lifted my tail hard into Graham who still pinned me down.
The impact knocked him over my head, so I dove into the water and began to swim. Somewhere in my peripheral, I could sense others following. But at this moment, I needed to put some distance between Graham and me.
After several minutes, or maybe it was seconds, of swimming, I stopped to see where he was. Some instinct encouraged me to do so. My wedding gown weighed me down, yet the adrenaline kept me afloat. I looked around the surface, trying to take in the situation. Just past the surf, and moving fast in my direction, I noticed the wall of water.
The tactic was undeniably Graham’s, but it was Kain I saw first. There, on the beach, was my Kain. He held out both hands like he was commanding somebody to stop, but he focused entirely on the wall moving toward me.
I only had a moment to wonder why he was sending the water in my direction, when I saw him. Graham exploded from the surface five feet in front of me, in full merman form, and slammed against my chest. I could barely grasp a breath before we plummeted into the dark waters.
Graham’s hands tightened around my arms as we hurdled down and away from the scene on the beach. My shoulder slammed into a piece of coral, slicing it open and forcing the burning salt water inside. I tried to scream, but then realized I didn’t have much air in my lungs. If we didn’t surface soon, I worried for my survival.
Feeling the cool, yet painful sting of blood leaving my body, I attempted to knock my head into Graham’s chest. But with the way he was holding me, almost like a surf board, I couldn’t reach an area on him that would do any type of harm.
The sudden, piecing howl sent a wave of relief through me. There was simply no mistaking the war cry of a selkie.
In a whirl of motion, Graham was knocked away and something nudged me in the side. The seal head banged against me several times before I had enough sense to swim up to the surface. I knew without looking that Brendan was here.
I’d never be able to describe the range of emotions my heart experienced at that moment. After all we’d been through, after his instinctual nature prevailed, Brendan was still trying to save me.
When I didn’t move fast enough, he nudged me in the direction he wanted to go. First, I needed to get to the surface, so instead of going to the side as he requested, I headed straight up to catch a breath of salty air. The mumbled sounds beneath the sea suddenly exploded into an orchestra of battle noises. Yelling, fighting, the cracking of burning buildings all caught my attention at the shoreline. Where did the fire come from?
It was the briefest of thoughts, but for some reason I was fixated on it. Perhaps that was because it reminded me of the night Graham and I escaped Lucian’s attack at Jeremiah’s. Part of his house had burned along with the sleeping quarters of so many human servants. It had been my first encounter with ratchets and it had changed my opinion of the world I lived in.
Brendan suddenly bit down hard on my arm and pulled me further away from the shore. His teeth hurt, yet I was temporarily lost in the past and incapable of moving forward. Within a few minutes, my back hit shallow ground. It woke me up out of my haze and I looked around wondering why I was on land this far out in the ocean.
Brendan released his hold on my arm, but continued to nudge my side. Rolling over so that I could see in front of me, I pulled myself up onto the narrow sandbar. Why did he push me here? This was land, not sea. As if reading my thoughts, Brendan barked at me. It was a sound unique to him and I knew what it meant. Change.
I closed my eyes and willed my legs back to me. It took way too long, and I began to panic. A warm, furry body sidled up to me, instantly putting my mind at ease. Brendan had always been able to comfort me with one touch, and now I felt like I needed him more than ever.
He nestled against me and growled. It wasn’t a mean growl, it was more like a purr. Relax Eviana, it meant. And so I relaxed.
The prickly sand grains pressing through my toes was the first feeling I noticed when my legs returned. Although shaky, I used them to sit back on my knees. Brendan looked at me for a moment, then placed his seal head in my lap. I couldn’t help but stroke his fur while all of our years together danced through my mind. The first time we met, our first kiss, the night in the mountain lodge…all of the wonderful memories we’d shared.
He had been a part of my life for so long, and now he was back in it. Saving me. Protecting me. A new hole opened in my heart and I began to sob uncontrollably. Resting my head against his, I held Brendan in my arms, with no intention of letting him leave. He whimpered and tried to pull away, but I wouldn’t let him. I couldn’t let him go so easily.
“Well, isn’t that a sight.” Graham said as he emerged from the water and walked along the sand bar. His pants were missing, but the white wedding shirt remained. He shook the water off his head, and smirked. “Too bad this will be your last moment together.”
I didn’t have time to register the threat before a wave swallowed us both.
Eviana
I tumbled over backward, the ground skimming my legs and the water swallowing me whole. Reaching out for Brendan, I barely caught a glimpse of his form and a touch of his hair, before being ripped away from him again. It took several moments of being tossed around like a stone before I could orient myself, and by then, my body was battered and nearly broken.
The rumbling of the churning water drowned out all other sounds. Peaceful in its own way. I was meant to be under the water, it was in my nature. But the constant feeling of defeat was not something I would ever be accustomed to.
Just as I decided to take back control of my fate, the water suddenly disappeared. I stopped rolling against the ground and sucked in a deep, energizing breath. Landing on my back, I opened my eyes to see that the water hadn’t vanished, it was instead hovering in the air around me. Had I done that?
Someone grunted nearby, but the water surrounding me blocked the view. I heard a shout, followed by the unmistakable sound of a fist hitting skin. Without much thought, I stood and forced the water to fall to the sides. Finally free of the element, I could see how isolated we really were on this sand bar. The shoreline was still visible, but when I was knocked backward in that wave, I’d been pushed further out to sea.
Standing ankle deep in water, I struggled to find the source of the commotion nearby. Two men fighting in the distance made an eerie silhouette against the flames burning brightly on the beach. They were too far away for me to notice who was winning, but in my gut I knew Kain and Graham wouldn’t stop until one of them was dead.
That thought dropped me to my knees as the pit in my stomach ripped open. Kain couldn’t die. Not for me. Not ever.
I had to end this.
Swallowing the fear, and pain, and worry pulsing throughout my body, I forced myself to stand and began to move toward them. A small wave, one not conjured by a merman, rushed up against my legs causing me to stumble. Something large and furry landed in front of my shins, making me jump over it. However, I wasn’t quick enough, and I ended up stepping on top of him instead.
“Brendan?” Still in his seal form, he seemed to wake up and take in the situation. I kneeled down next to him to look for injuries. There weren’t any obvious bites or tears, but he was disoriented and slow in his movements. “Are you okay?”
I’ll never forget the look in those green eyes for the rest of my life. He stared at me with such intensity, such love, that it settled deep into my soul. Never to be thrown out or forgotten again.
I sat down, unable to breathe
and unable to stand. Brendan crawled a little closer so that his flippers straddled both of my legs. Although initially serious, his eyes now twinkled with mischief. Again I was reminded of the very first time we met. The world disappeared around us for the briefest of moments while stared at each other’s eyes.
Kain’s scream ended everything. I remembered that there was someone else in my life now. I remembered that Brendan left me and we would never be together again. And I remembered that we had to help Kain.
Brendan must have noticed the change in my expression, because he narrowed his eyes at me and snarled. He wanted me to stay out of it.
“No way. I need to help him!” Wiggling backward, I tried to get out from under the two-hundred-pound seal. He barked in my face. “Get off of me, Brendan!”
Kain yelled again, only this time the end was cut off with gurgling sounds. Brendan turned toward them and then back to me. He huffed and hung his head. It confused me for a minute, until his eyes caught mine again. I swear they shimmered with fresh tears, even though I didn’t know selkies could cry in their animal form.
Brendan leaned forward and touched the tip of his snout against my nose. He brushed it lightly from side to side, giving me his seal version of a kiss. It felt like a lifetime since I’d last had that kind of touch from him. Without thinking, I lifted my arm to pet the top of his head, and closed my eyes for one quick second. I knew right then that a part of me would always love him.
When I opened my eyes, Brendan was gone. I glimpsed his back flippers disappearing off the edge of the sand bar and into the sea. He was heading straight for the two mermen and I panicked. Brendan wouldn’t stand a chance against Graham’s compulsion.
Demanding my legs to work, I ran toward the three guys in my life. For good or bad, they were all connected to me and all fighting for me in different ways. It was time that I stood up for myself.
I’d almost reached the far side of the sandbar, when I realized why Kain had been yelling. He had managed to trap Graham’s legs in a cyclone of water, but he was holding his head and howling in pain. Just as I got close enough to attack, the last of Kain’s water drizzled back into the surf. Graham’s focus intensified and Kain began to sink into the sand.
“Enough!” I yelled at Graham. He flew backward through the air so quickly I didn’t even know what happened. When his body slammed into the ground, he actually laughed.
“Nice work, tart.” It wasn’t more than a whisper, but using his nickname for me sent me into a rage. I ran forward and jumped on his stomach. It surprised him enough that I was able to get two quick punches to his face before he caught my hands. “We’ll have time to role play later. But for now I must ask you to stop ruining the best part of my body.”
I couldn’t believe he wasn’t taking this seriously. I began to push the back of his head into the ground, trying to will the water to swallow him whole. As soon as he realized what I was doing, a look crossed his face that sent fear running through me.
He wrapped both of his hands around my throat and squeezed. It wasn’t time to use compulsion or water control, he was simply trying to kill me. “I thought we’d be happy together, Eviana. You know how much I’ve wanted you since the day we met in Seattle. Why couldn’t you make the right choice?”
He squeezed harder. I tried to pull his hands away at the same time I reached deep into my mind for the ability to control others. But my brain was fighting for oxygen right now and it wouldn’t focus on the task at hand.
“Really, tart. I feel like killing you is such a waste.” In my weakened state, he was able to roll me off of him so that he now straddled my waist. It gave him much better traction for the strangulation posture. He pushed down. “I asked, no begged Lucian to keep you alive, but he insisted that you’d be a problem if you didn’t submit.”
I clawed at his face, tried to kick his legs, but nothing worked. My body was shutting down. I managed to catch a glimpse of Kain, buried chest deep in the sand and completely unconscious. How had Graham done that?
Stars. I saw stars above my face. Some were real in the sky, others flitted by as the last of my will to fight disintegrated into a haze. For a second, I thought that this end was fitting. Lucian would not have me. Graham would not have me. In my own way, I was going to win.
A large shadow flew over top of me and slammed into Graham, knocking his hands away and pulling me back into this world. It hurt like hell. My lungs burned and screamed for oxygen, yet when I opened my mouth to inhale that much needed air, every muscle in my throat seized in pain. I wondered if Graham had broken something; my windpipe, my spine, my will to survive. No, I couldn’t let this happen.
In the amount of time it took for me to recover, Brendan and Graham had created a bloodbath. Literally. The water splashing around our legs had a darkened tint to it that only blood can produce. I could even smell the metallic flavor in the sea spray.
When my eyes finally focused, I watched Graham slam his hand into Brendan’s side. He yelped in pain as Graham repeated the same motion over and over. At one point, the light from the beach fire glimmered off the knife the he was plunging relentlessly into my selkie. Where did he get a knife?
I crawled toward them, still unable to speak or breathe very well, but someone grabbed my ankle. Kain, buried in the sand, shook his head and stopped me from helping Brendan. Before I could ask if he was crazy, he squeezed his eyes shut and started to lift from the ground. Even in the dark I could see the moisture of the dampened sand disappear while Kain forced it to move his body out of the trap.
Brendan snarled and this time Graham screamed out in pain. The two of them twisted and turned in a horrifying dance that wouldn’t end well. I tried to step closer again, but Kain wrapped his arms around my chest and held me back. I felt the empty knife sheath on his waist and panicked.
“Let go,” I shouted, but it only came out as a hoarse whisper.
“No, we can’t help them.”
I swung my head around to look up into his face. “What are you talking about?” Just then, I heard it. The sound that water makes right before a wave peaks. The deep rumbling of power.
Brendan’s teeth sank into Graham’s neck moments before the two of them were encircled by angry water. The globe trapped them both and sent them hurdling away from us and down the sand bar.
I think what happened next only lasted a few seconds, but it would forever change my life.
Brendan ripped out Graham’s throat. The merman grabbed for the hole, but was unable to slow his death. It came quickly and horribly. I could barely see it through the water, but just as Brendan seemed to have won, he dropped to the ground and sucked in a large amount of liquid.
The aqueous barrier disappeared, and Kain couldn’t stop me from running toward them. I reached Graham first, and although we’d shared a few intimate moments in our brief life together, I jumped over his corpse and dove to the ground next to Brendan.
His seal skin now rested over a human body as though he were taking a nap. Blood seeped out from several wounds, with the worst one being just above his heart.
“Brendan,” I cried and threw off his skin. What I saw stopped me cold. Graham’s knife had pierced through every opening between his ribs. Part of his internal organs were showing, and the blood pumping from his heart began to slow. “No, no, no.”
Kain fell to the ground next to me and placed his hands over Brendan’s heart, trying to stop the bleeding. I sat there and cried. We couldn’t save him, and only a few seconds later, Brendan left me forever.
My world stopped being. My heart seemed to stop beating and I stopped living. Brendan was dead. He died fighting for me and after all of the bad things that happened between us, I didn’t think I could survive his death. It was one thing to know that he left me yet was still in this world, it was another to lose him completely.
My gut ached with longing. Brendan had been a part of me for so much of my life, I simply couldn’t imagine him not existing anymore.
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��Eviana?” Kain’s heavy arm wrapped over my shoulders, but I really didn’t feel anything. The weight of the world already pulled me down. “Eviana, we have to go.”
I snapped my head in Kain’s direction, annoyed that he wanted to leave so quickly after Brendan had just died. When he saw my look he tensed up, but then pointed in the other direction. Abhainn was floating above the surface, just past where the sand bar dropped off, waiting for us.
“I am very sorry, Mistress Dumahl,” he said. “But we must get ye to shore. Now.”
I couldn’t speak, but somehow I moved. I don’t remember exactly how I did it, but I reached down and gave Brendan’s beautiful face one last kiss, then grabbed his skin. Kain gave me a look that I ignored. I wasn’t ready to let go completely just yet, and they could keep their opinions to themselves for all that I cared.
I walked into the sea deep enough to change and dove head first under the surface hugging all that I had left of Brendan tightly against my chest.
Eviana
The silence under the water should’ve calmed my senses, but instead it infuriated me. Was everyone dead? All of the ratchets that fought for our cause? All of Lucian’s supporters? Was this war finally over?
I had my answer the moment we reached the shore. Bodies littered the beach, some moving and groaning, others still. The once romantic resort had been reduced to a battlefield reminiscent of years past. Several of the private villas looked like they’d weathered a hurricane, while the gazebo continued to burn. Even though the scene was disturbing in so many ways, my focus couldn’t be deterred.
I walked from the ocean, transitioning as soon as my tail brushed the bottom. Dragging behind me like a symbol of my fury, Brendan’s seal skin splashed in the waves. I don’t know why I carried it really, I guess I couldn’t let it go. I felt Kain and Abhainn hovering behind me, but I only had eyes for one merman.