Leaving me bleeding and in pieces.Again.
Turns out, Xumi had nothing on Fate.
* * *
I sat on a boulder by the water.
The wind barely kissed the surface, rippling it into small waves. This lake was no bright transparent bliss. Like my thoughts, it was dark and murky. Full of things best left unseen.
If I stayed, I’d have to face who and what I’d been, before I could become someone or something else.
Far better to embrace a new life as a free agent. I’d have a long, profitable career ahead of me in the underworld. I could pick and choose my jobs. No more assigned targets that returned to haunt me. I could bury them for good, and move on.
So why did my gut twist?
I gazed across the lake to the sprawling academy headquarters. I no longer needed it or what it offered. But it wasn’t, and maybe never had been, about that. My issues had names. Anna. Matt. And if he lived, Sebastian.
I sighed, and looked down at myself. At the blood and clots of gore that still clung to me. I stank of smoke and dead things. I transferred my gaze to the dark water and found myself wondering just how much swimming really was like flying.
I’d swum before, but couldn’t remember thinking of it that way. Many Dragons loved a good soak, but I’d lacked the opportunity to do so in a natural body of water. Cities tended to be low on lakes.
I stood up, retracted my scales, and waded in. The cool water stung the cuts that had reopened when I shifted form, and the ground dropped away from my feet surprisingly fast.
The water pulled at me, threatening to take me under. As I stroked swiftly through the waves, I supposed the current coursing beneath my arms could be interpreted as a wind, if I closed my eyes and imagined hard.
I’d just reached that conclusion when tentacles whipped around me from beneath, and yanked me under.
I sprouted talons that sliced me free. A huge mouth lined with wicked teeth snapped at me, and I twisted away, rolling in the water. My feet collided with a solid body much larger than my own.
My wings sprouted from my back as I surged high out of the waves. But more tentacles wrapped around my legs, and my wings beat the water to foam.
Then a bright-red body shot to the surface directly alongside the giant fish. I only caught a glimpse before tree trunk arms grabbed my assailant by two of its long tentacles, and yanked it off me.
Fish and Dorinthian female vanished beneath the waves.
I flapped clear of the water and completed my shift while I frantically searched for her. At first, I saw only waves, but then something moved near the shore. Mari walked straight up out of the lake.
I flew to her, relieved to see her without any marks at all. I landed and regarded her with astonishment. “Hows did yous kill it?”
She plucked a bit of plant matter out of her hair. “Kill it? Why would I kill it?”
“It tried to eats me.”
“You were swimming directly over its den. It’s got a thousand babies in a cave down there. It was just defending them.”
I stared at her. “It wasn’t trying to eat me?”
The ogress tilted her head and narrowed her eyes at me. “Sometimes these things are a matter of point of view.” She cleared her throat. “Not everything is as it seems. Something you need to think about.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Thank you. I think.”
“Don’t make me regret it.” Her orange eyes were alarmingly piercing as she continued. “I was firmly of the opinion that you were a bushpig for flying off on Anna like that. But Matt assured me that you just had things to work out. That you needed time.”
Bushpig? That sharding Dire was rubbing off on everyone. She plucked something else out of her hair—a bit of tentacle? Before continuing. “Are you coming back?”
I clacked my jaws together. Her too? “I don’t knows.”
She straightened. “You are a remarkably stupid Dragon. I regret saving you from the fish.”
