Chapter 18

CHAPTER 18

Deacon

I ’m coming, Jac!

I had just opened the door to the balcony for some fresh air when I had seen him go under. I jumped from the balcony, the landing jarring my entire body, but pure adrenaline filled me as I stood up and ran toward where the tentacles had taken him. My feet barely registered the ground beneath them—the world was a blur in my vision. The only thing in focus was the exceptionally still water of Rex’s moat.

It was as though nothing had even happened, but I’d witnessed everything with my own eyes and knew Jac was beneath the surface.

Diving straight in, I realized I was unarmed in the water with whatever thing had dragged Jac under. Beneath the water, I could see within the first two meters, but deeper was pure darkness. Fallen branches at the edges provided detritus for small fish and other creatures to hide around or eat, while jagged black coral protruded from the bottom in random clumps.

I swam up to catch a big breath, before dipping back under.

I broke off a branch—the sharpest one I could find in a hurry—and hunted for that thing. I had never seen anything like it in my life and had no idea what it was capable of. I had seen squids and brolacs, of course, but nothing with tentacles that long and thick. Something squiggled in the dark below and ahead, so I dove toward that cold blackness.

It was like the water column was distinctly layered. As soon as there was no more light, everything was frigid, trying to suck the air from my lungs. They burned like fire from the heaviness of the water and my relentless strokes through it. At least my lungs would keep me warm for a time.

Another squiggle ahead.

I pressed on, desperate to find Jac. After decades of friendship, I was intimately familiar with his worst fear—drowning, because he could not swim. I couldn’t believe this was happening to him. I refused to believe it.

No! I’m going to find him!

But, as fates went, it sounded better than being eaten alive by that thing, whatever it was.

As I dove deeper into the abyss, the jagged coral came closer. Unsure if it was moving toward me or if it grew in tighter bunches near the bottom, I could no longer avoid it in the pure dark. I swam into a cluster of it, slicing my hands and arms to ribbons. I almost dropped the branch, but I clung to my only weapon.

I’m coming, Jac.

The pressure built in my body under all that water. I couldn’t guess how deep I was, and I didn’t want to know. Stars burst in my vision, and I knew I would have to turn back soon for air. I’d be no good to Jac dead.

But then I realized it was fish and not my lungs causing the star bursts. Tiny fish pulsed pale blue light near me. They began to pick at my skin, but I didn’t feel it, so I didn’t mind it. The deeper I went, the more there were, and I could see again.

Just in time to see the gaping maw in front of me.

I dodged to the left of the massive beast, but its protruding teeth scraped my leg before I could move it. It was twice my height and had the same width. As it swam by, tentacles trailed behind. Creatures, great and small, hung in the tentacles as future meals, I assumed.

Jac .

His limp body dangled there behind the living mouth, illuminated by those tiny fish having a nibble.

I grabbed onto the tentacles, pulling myself up them as the beast wriggled and tried to escape my grasp. My mangled hand was barely strong enough to hold on, but I managed to climb them. When I was close enough to the rear of the creature, I plunged the branch up wherever the tentacles dangled from, puncturing…something. The creature swished side to side until it began to drift downward in the water. No voluntary movement. It was dead.

The tentacles released Jac and some other fish. He sank next to his fellow victims, but I swam down and caught him. Kicking as fast as I could, my lungs on fire from lack of air, I pushed him up to the water above me, trying to get him to the surface. As he broke through, something latched onto my leg and tried to pull me down.

I kicked it off of me, and boosted Jac over the edge of the moat, with only his legs hanging in the water. The thing beneath me tried again, this time yanking more violently on my ankle. I was close enough to the surface to catch sight of it when I looked down—another one of those beasts like the one that had taken Jac.

I panicked. No more weapons. I can’t reach the branches anymore. Jac is unconscious at best.

We are fucked.

As it pulled me down, I thought in desperation of trying to break off some coral for a weapon with my ruined hands. Before I could, a shadow zipped toward me and the tentacle beast. Twice as big and much faster, the razoeeth zoomed behind the tentacle beast and swallowed it in one gulp, severing the tentacles. It didn’t even slow down to chew.

Those tentacles released my body, and I did everything in my power to reach the surface, muscles straining and my lungs screaming for air. When I broke the surface, I gasped so hard, I thought my lungs might collapse.

Jac was purple on the side of the moat.

I climbed out and dragged him away from the water and any other lurking danger. Almost reaching the wall I’d jumped from, I turned Jac onto his side, whacking his back the way I was taught in the army. But the water didn’t leave him. I pulled him onto his back, searching my memory for what to do. That CPR thing we did to Sarah, would it work for a Ladrian?

I had to try.

I listened for his heart and heard nothing. So, I pressed his ribs the way he had shown me for her. Ten quick pumps, then I breathed into his mouth twice. Nothing .

His chest didn’t even move up and down, the way Sarah’s had when he had breathed into her. Ten more, two breaths. Nothing, but my bloody handprints on his wet shirt. Don’t do this to me! Ten more pumps, two breaths. Still nothing.

“No, no, no, Jac,” I rambled, battling the fear taking hold. “You can’t die. This isn’t how it happens, you get your ass up now, soldier!”

Tears burned my eyes as I compressed his heart again. When I blew in his mouth, my lips came back salty from my tears.

“No!” I screamed at him. Sheer terror swept over me. I yelled for help, and no one came.

As my heart pumps became clumsier, I had a strange thought, something from Basic Human Anatomy class. Human hearts beat almost twice as fast as Ladrian hearts. I slowed the pump of my hands, still performing ten, but at half-speed. I also slowed the breaths.

Something in his mouth moved, giving me hope.

“Jac, are you—”

But a severed tentacle slithered from his mouth, still twitching.

I flung it across the grass and resumed the breaths. His chest rose and fell this time, now that his airway was unblocked. I did the slower chest compressions, and another breath. His leg twitched. As it did, the faintest sound of air escaped his mouth. Then his eyes popped open as he began to cough and retch into the air.

I turned him onto his side as he came alive, the panic, the horror, the overwhelming joy all hitting me together. He didn’t vomit moat water or any more tentacles. He only coughed and struggled to breathe.

When that stopped, he rolled back against me, almost smiling. “Where am I?”

“Rex’s estate. You were—”

He looked around and scooted backwards until his back was against the palace wall. “We have to get out of here,” he blurted as he stood up and tried to climb the stone wall and failed.

I’d seen him scale a hundred mountains, so I knew it wasn’t a lack of skill that stopped him. It was sheer fright. “Jac, we’re okay—”

“No, no, no,” he tried to run, but his feet didn’t obey him, either. He fell onto his hands and knees but crawled as fast as he could toward the rear of the manor.

I chased after him. “Jac, it’s dead. The tentacle thing is dead. Both of them.”

He didn’t stop. “Both? There are two ?” he shrieked.

I caught up to him easily enough. I had never seen him so vulnerable and terrified. It shook me to my ghost. I helped him to his feet, but he grabbed onto my bloody hand and wouldn’t let go. The pain made my eyes water. He gave me no choice but to run beside him.

I yelled loudly, trying to out-shout his fear, “They’re dead!”

But his violet eyes burned with horror, all the same. So, I decided to run with him, wherever he went. I didn’t fight it any longer. He needed to run the fear out of himself.

He didn’t slow until we ended up in a garden behind the manor. The moat curved back for a while, until it snaked through a mountain and away from the garden. Jac checked and rechecked that’s where the moat went to, before he let himself collapse on the ground to breathe.

I laid next to him and held his hand, despite the pain from my wounds. “You’re alright now, Jac. I’ve got you, and I’m never letting you go.”

He was quiet for a few minutes until his breathing calmed. His voice was hoarse as he grumbled, “I fucking hate Rex.”

I laughed so hard that I had to sit up. I couldn’t breathe for a much better reason this time. The relief of hearing his voice, seeing him move, knowing my dearest friend and the man I loved was going to be alright, all of it washed over me in a huge wave of emotion.

Jac sat up and kissed me. Had I the energy for more, I would have wanted to take him right then and there, so tight was his grip on my shoulders as he clung to me. But the pain in my hands and the dives and the battle and the horror of losing him a thousand times in my mind during those precious moments before he came around was enough to stop my cock from doing little more than hanging in the wind.

“Gentlemen, perhaps you could limit your salacious activities to your rooms?”

We broke apart and looked around to find the source of the voice, not finding anyone until a tan hand waved at us over the top of some flowered bushes.

“It’s me. Helios Vestig,” he said in a haughty tone. “With some of Rex’s guests. For a business meeting. As a matter of decorum, I think it best…eh, if you could go and clean yourselves up? Hmm?”

“What are you upset about now?” I snapped.

“You are naked, sir,” he said, looking down his nose at us. “And while I’m sure no one minds that where you’re from, here clothing in public areas shows respect.”

I looked down and I was, indeed, naked. I had opened the balcony door without dressing and in all the commotion, forgotten about my own nudity.

Embarrassment warmed my cheeks. “Ah,” I covered my cock as best I could, “well, um, yes, I—”

A woman’s voice behind the bush said, “He’s using both hands and I can still see it!”

“Wonderful,” I muttered, before I turned tail and ran into the manor, with Jac right behind me.