He stopped above another layer of clouds, and the air became thin enough that I began to breathe in shallow gasps. The steady flap of his wings sounded in my ears, and I tried to focus on the rhythm instead of thinking about the fact the ground was miles away.
I knew I wouldn’t survive the fall. I tried to console myself with the idea that he’d catch me. That he wouldn’t let me die, not when he thought the bond between us meant he’d die as well, but then I wondered whether he’d found a way to break the bond and hadn’t told me.What if he no longer believes our lives are linked?The monsters were the ones who’d said they thought that would be the outcome. For all I knew, they’d been lying the whole time. I didn’t know why they would, but anything was possible.
“Don’t,” I rasped, hating the way I clung to him. For a brief moment, I felt his arms tense, gripping me tighter to him, but then he relaxed, his head leaning toward my ear once again.
“I warned you,” he said, his deep voice calm and even. “I gave you two nights.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing myself not to look at the sky around me. There was no stopping him and no escape.
“Do it, then,” I snarled and released my grip on him, letting the hard leather of his outfit slip from my fingers.
He hesitated a moment longer. Then he let me go.
Theicywindtoreat me as I careened toward the ocean, my eyes watering and limbs flailing. Instinctively, I spread my arms and legs, making a star shape, and I stopped spinning, but I was still falling way too fast. Too fast to survive a drop into the blue-green water far below.
The wind raked cold nails through my hair and against my body, and my ears popped at the pressure of the fall. Down. Down. Down. I continued to fall to the ocean, each moment bringing me closer to death. I tried to tell myself Locke wouldn’t kill me. He just wanted to scare me, but that didn’t help the fear that made my chest feel as if it were caving in on itself.
Thirteen thousand feet. Ten thousand.
This was it. I kept expecting to see Locke swoop down. I kept expecting the shadow of his outstretched wings to fall over me as he dropped down from the sky, saving me from the fall. But he never came. There was only the rush of the wind in my ears and my never-ending descent toward the ocean.
Eight thousand feet.I can’t fucking die now.
I thought of the energy that had sparked inside me when I’d taken the Silver Sand, and I tried willing it to my fingertips. If it was me that created the wind in the room, perhaps I could control the wind now. Maybe I could get it to push me to land or something?
Down I fell.
Nothing happened as I tried to conjure the energy inside me, and I growled in frustration.
From high above, the rippling waves of the ocean looked like something from a painting.
Five thousand feet.
Three thousand.
A spark of energy went through me. Light shone in the backs of my eyes, and I could feel something inside me building, stretching, and pulsing under my skin. It didn’t feel the same as when I’d controlled the wind. This felt…different.
One thousand.
Five hundred.
My whole body tingled with power, but before whatever was inside me was unleashed, a sea creature burst out of the ocean below me, and water sprayed in all directions as muscled arms wrapped around my waist, slowing my descent and dragging me to the ocean.
I cried out at the impact and sucked in a breath before I was pulled under the water, but the monster didn’t let us sink too deep. Warmth sparked where the creature’s skin touched mine, and it took me a moment to realize it wasn’t just any creature holding me butDarian.
His silver hair trailed around us in the water, and he winked at me as I stared at him. His huge fishtail swished in the water, propelling us back to the surface, and with his strong arms still wrapped around me in a vise grip, he lifted me back into the sunlight.
The moment my head was above the surface, my mouth burst open, and I sucked in a gasping breath and coughed. Darian released me, moving away as if trying to give me room to breathe.
“What the hell was that?” I spluttered as I began treading water. I was still annoyed that Locke had dropped me, but I couldn’t help giving the siren a small smile. The last time I’d seen him, he was still unconscious, and I was happy to see him beaming at me.
“That was me making sure you didn’t die,” Darian responded as if he was proud of himself, and I resisted the urge to punch his arm.
“Wow, thanks for that,” I said sarcastically.
His brow wrinkled in confusion. “Did you want me to let you fall to your death?”
I let out a heavy sigh. “Of course not. I just—” I trailed off and let out a frustrated sound. Darian wasn’t the one I was angry at. “What do we do now?” I asked instead.
