“Come in the water!” I shouted.
“Maeve!” His response was brief, sharp, and filled with fear.
My brow furrowed.
Cormac lifted a shaking finger to the horizon; all the color had fled his face.
I followed his gaze.
Between the two cliffs at the end of the lagoon, curling around the water like cupped hands, rested a pale white dragon so large that its two legs rested on either cliff.
It was miles away. Logically, I knew that it could not see us from such a distance. Cormac and I were tiny specks on the beach.
But the dragon extended its long neck, sending a roar through the skies that shook the water, pushing an incredible wave towards the shore.
“Get in the water!” I shouted, my head whipping from the dragon to the Mer on the beach.
“I fecking can’t!” He growled.
The dragon extended its wings.
“Cormac!” I slapped the water in frustration.
It took off from the cliffs in one swoop, diving down to the surface, its wings outstretched as it rode the breeze on the sea. The opalescent beast was eating up the distance faster than I could comprehend.
Snarling in frustration, I took off for the shore, swimming as if my life depended on it.
I could’ve dived deep and hidden in the coral, but I was afraid. Not of the dragon, but that I would lose Cormac the second I got too far from the Mer.
His previous words had stuck in my craw, as he had intended them to.
Cormac wasdead in a different way than I was.
Panic scattered my thoughts like a frightened school of fish, as I reached the shore and pulled myself free.
Cormac stared up at the sky with wide emerald eyes, frozen. I grabbed his biceps, pulling his gaze to mine.
“Run!”
Before either of us could move, the breath exploded from my lungs as a claw latched onto both of us, lifting us to the sky.
Too high, too cold, the wind above the sea stole my voice and plugged my ears, as the dragon’s claws dug into mymiddle, pressing me against Cormac Illfinn as we sailed above the lagoon.
Chapter Nine
Shay Mac Eoin
Scylla roared as she dove into the sea, blocking the moon's light with her monstrous body.
The world slowed as Shay watched the translucent skin on her belly warp and grow—another face forming under the skin, and rolling up her body like a parasite bursting free.
Scylla gathered her acidic saliva at the back of her throat, the glutinous liquid glittering and smoking before it had even left the beast's mouth.
The water rose up to greet him. Shay contorted his body against gravity to form a spear, slicing effortlessly into the water. A flurry of bubbles stole his vision, and the crash of Rainn’s fall followed his.
The Kraken’s lair lay beyond the siren’s cove. Shay kicked out, swimming as fast as he could.
Scylla hit the water.
