Darian moved closer to me, his silver hair glittering so bright in the sun that it was hard to look at. “Locke wants you to swim, Raine lovely,” he said.
“Swim?”
“Yes, back to shore,” he clarified, tipping his head in the direction of the beach and the mountain beyond that. “You can swim, can’t you?”
I nodded reluctantly, resigned to what I was going to have to do. I didn’t begrudge Darian for being a part of it all. I’d known Locke was going to make my life hard. But if there was the chance that getting me to swim for my life was going to bring on the change, then I was all for it.
Squinting, I peered in the direction of the mountain and then at the monster city spread beneath its shadows with its blue rivers and pointed buildings. From here, the mountain was only the size of my finger. Could I really swim that far? The water seemed to stretch for miles, an endless landscape of green and blue.
“So he wants me to drown?” Sure, I’d swum around my island, but I’d never gone far. My energy felt rejuvenated after whatever power I’d used the night before, but my limbs still ached, my body still drained from the last two nights with Kade, Darian, and Asher. I wouldn’t make it back to the shore.
Darian grimaced, clearly not happy with the whole situation. “He won’t let you drown. That’s why I’m here. He asked me to watch you. But don’t tell him I told you that.”
I pieced together what Darian wasn’t saying. Locke wanted me to think they would let me drown. He wanted me to be as scared as possible in the hopes it would help bring on the change, but in reality, he’d asked Darian to watch over me. I thought then of how Locke had made me strip out of my leathers. The thick material would have become waterlogged and would have been difficult to swim in.Had he been thinking about my comfort when he gave me the order?
The idea that, in his strange way, Locke had done something kind was too much for my already frazzled brain, so I settled with muttering a curse at the vampire. He’d still dropped me. Treading water, I peered upward to try to catch a glimpse of the monster, but he was nowhere to be seen. I had no idea if he’d just left me there with Darian or if he was hiding behind one of the enormous clouds spread across the endless blue. I wouldn’t have put it past him to go back to the rooms and relax while we were out there, but either way, it didn’t matter.
Bringing my attention back to the mountain in the distance, I pushed forward in the water and began to swim. I’d swim the whole damn ocean if it meant it’d get me to change into a monster.
CHAPTER 9
~ Locke ~
Iflewthroughthecloud that had drifted past me and swooped lower until Darian and the human were again in my line of sight, even if they were just pinpricks of black against the endless blue-green of the ocean.
It hadn’t surprised me Raine hadn’t changed during the fall. She’d already fallen down the pit of Reask, and she hadn’t turned then. But I still thought it was worth a try. I knew she’d been expecting me to torture her. She likely thought I would chain her in a dungeon and bleed her dry until she turned. Not that I’d given her any reason to think otherwise.
Darian had been surprised when I’d told him my plans for her, but he’d been happy to agree to catch her and watch her from the water. And now, seeing them together, I couldn’t help the annoyance that had me clenching my jaw.
Time passed as the watery sunlight beat down on me mercilessly, the sun’s rays sinking into me and sapping my energy. The sun wouldn’t kill me, but it did weaken me, as it did all vampires, and I hated it. But this was the safest option for Raine.
It wouldn’t be too hard to spot us out in the open, but thankfully most monsters were sleeping. I’d already told Garan we’d be out there and that his guards needn’t worry about us.
I arched in the sky, coasting on another wind drift before I came around again, still watching Darian and Raine from above. The human swam slowly, but she kept up an even pace as she made her way back to the shore. She was a fighter, this one, and I had to admire that.
Stroke after stroke, she swam with Darian by her side. If she didn’t change by the time she made it to the beach, I was going to have to take her into the mountain and push her until her body gave in to the curse. She couldn’t stay human. If she did, she’d have to compete in the Week of Orash as a human, and it would only be a matter of time before Warrick discovered her secret. Her life and ours depended on her turning into a monster.
You would think her remaining human would be a good thing. Warrick had been searching for a cure to the curse for nearly two centuries, and if she remained human, she could be the key to unlocking how to break the fae queen’s magic. But as much as I wanted to be human again, I knew my father would kill her to extract her secrets. She would become just like the outliers I brought to him. He’d carve her open as if she was nothing more than an animal if it meant he could finally solve the puzzle that tormented him. And I wouldn’t let that happen.
Though I tried to suppress it, deep within me, the urge to protect her had become strong enough that just staying away from her for the last two nights had been my own personal torture. Whatever the bond was between us, the magic within me was like a parasite digging deeper with each passing moment we didn’t find a way to break it.Fuck.I knew my brothers felt the same way. I could see it in their eyes, see it in the way they stayed by her side. Kade had already all but fucking claimed her as his mate. And even worse was the craving. Her blood called to me, threatening my control, and no amount of synthetic blood would make the need leave me. She needed to get away from me.
I couldn’t decide if the little human was ruining us or healing our broken souls. When Kade’s family and the other wolves had been slaughtered, he’d entered a place so dark that I couldn’t drag him from it. But Raine had. She’d saved him from the depths of his despair, and for that, she’d earned some of my respect.
A large ripple on the surface of the water drew my attention, pulling me from my musings, and I dropped lower in the sky until Darian and Raine looked less like pinpricks and were the size of my fist. Neither of them noticed as I hovered above them.
I narrowed my eyes as I scoured the ocean.
There.The ripple in the water was three hundred yards away from them now. At first, I thought it must be a shark, but the shadow was too big.A whale?Neither of those creatures worried me. Darian could easily handle the sea creatures in his siren form, and whales were known to be harmless.
But as I stared, the ripple turned into a wave, the water rushing toward Darian and Raine with frightening speed, becoming higher and higher. Massive black spines broke free of the water’s surface, tall and thin, and a monster’s enormous black head sprang upward out of the ocean, its huge maw opening to reveal sharp, needlelike teeth.
Outlier.
My brows slammed down, and my gaze shot to where Darian and Raine were swimming in the ocean, seemingly unaware of the monster behind them and still far from the beach, surrounded by nothing but the sea. Panic burst in my chest as I imagined Raine and my siren brother being swallowed by the outlier. I wouldn’t let them be fucking taken.
Opening my mouth, I bellowed at the monster, then I tilted my head downward, pulled my wings in, and speared toward the ocean.
The icy wind yanked painfully at my wings and tore tears from my eyes, but I didn’t fucking care. The relentless sunlight stung my skin, sapping my energy, but I continued downward. Darian and Raine were down there, and I wasn’t going to let the outlier have them.
