6. Reina

Chapter six

Reina

M y throat aches but I can't speak. I'm boiling alive.

I distantly notice Jasper reach into his pants as he advances on me. "Lift your hands!"

So hot!

"Reina!"

I fall to the side and water hisses around me. Jasper growls in pain.

Clink-clink .

Like a landslide, my power rushes out in a torrential scream. Blue fire licks my tongue and lips as I howl at the cave ceiling. It punches through the rock, incinerating it into ash. My magic spirals off into the sky, and embers whirl around us in a storm of my agony until it's finally done.

Relief rolls through me, so deep and pure it makes my body tremble. I suck down gulps of air as I stare at the stars through the molten hole I blasted above us.

"You may not know how to swim, princess," Jasper says beside me. "But you are not helpless."

I chuckle once in my haze of euphoria. "I've never done anything like that before."

"Nor should you be doing it again. That little display is going to have someone looking this way. Soon."

I sit up and the chill of the air shocks another shiver out of me.

Jasper hisses in a breath as he rebandages his burned and bloody hands. I look down and see the manacles resting in the water beside me.

I could kill him and escape…

But I can't swim, hunt, or barter, as I admitted to him. I don't know where we are other than southwest of Fynren in the sea somewhere. I will die without him, and I can't die. Not yet, at least.

"Give me your hands," I say.

Jasper glances up at me in amusement. "Truly decided you're better off with me, did you?"

I reach out with my palms up. "For now."

His face goes stony as our gazes lock. I can't help but feel he's deeply troubled by something. His lips part and he sucks down a breath like maybe he's about to tell me something important.

But then the spell breaks.

He smirks and rolls his eyes as he moves closer to me. "I'm never going to live this one down, am I?"

I purse my lips. "Depends on how long you live, I suppose."

He reaches out with his mangled hands but stops before reaching me. I'm not sure what has him hesitating, but the sight of his fingers is making me ill, so I reach the rest of the way to end his suffering.

A buzz of energy surges up my arms as I hold him steady. Blue twists between our joined hands and mends his wounds. I feel his piercing stare burning my face as I sweep my thumbs across his palms and thread him back together.

I can hear my heart beating in my ears. Something about the touch of his hands has me excited, and not in a way I want to be with him.

He stole you from your home.

He's going to sell you to a vile aristocrat as little more than a broodmare.

The facts don't stop the feelings. Perhaps if I break this wretched silence.

"You're lucky I'm a high-blood magus."

"For more reasons than one," he says.

"Is it smart to remind me I'm healing my enemy?"

"Not very well," he says, flexing his finger where a long scar remains.

"These are your reminders," I say.

He chuckles. "Reminders that a princess saved my hands."

I smile up at him coldly. "Reminders that if I'm still alive after all this, I'll be coming for you. I want you to look at these marks every time you take a bite, every time you take a piss, every night before bed when you're running your hands down the cheap whores you've purchased with my enslavement."

His face slowly falls, the weight of his actions dawning on him.

I lean closer. "You'll see those marks and remember you're always one moment away from being on the other end of my magic."

He stares at me for a long, quiet second. Then he grins. "I'll look forward to seeing your beautiful face again."

I pull away, cutting the magical connection healing him. "Don't be vulgar."

"I'm not," he says, serious again. "I don't want to sell you like a slave, or see you hurt. I don't want to see these marks and remember the darkest act of my life."

I swallow hard, feeling the truth of his words. He hates himself for what he's doing to me. Maybe I can reach him. Maybe if I plead gently enough, desperately enough, he'll break.

"So stop this," I whisper. "Take me home."

He purses his lips and I already know the answer. "I can't."

Anger sears through me from my stupidity. How could I possibly believe he'd have any shred of empathy for me?

He sighs heavily and picks up the manacles. "We need to find food, pack our water, and get back to the raft. I want to be off this island before sun fall."

"I'm not wearing those," I say indignantly.

Amusement is plain on his face as he clips the manacles to his belt. "I'm not going to make you wear them while we're alone. I can trust you not to kill me when I'm your only prospect for survival."

He turns and walks deeper into the cave.

"Where are you going?" I ask, not wanting to just blindly follow him without question.

"Leaving."

I cross my arms. "How do you know that won't get us deeper into the island rather than off it?"

"I know."

"How?"

"I just do."

"Some special selkie magic?" I ask.

He glances over his shoulder with a wink.

I wobble over the rocks to follow him. "It is special selkie magic, isn't it? I've heard your kind are the most powerful creatures in the seas."

"That Ki'ah Ohn know of," he says.

"Ki'ah Ohn?"

"It's our word for two-legged assholes that ravage our villages and enslave our people."

Ah. He's talking about me and my people. My mother did just have several ships in the Emerald Sea going after rumors of selkies. I have no idea if she captured them or not. I didn't even consider it after the initial rumor spread around the Upper Kingdom.

Maybe I'm a two-legged asshole, after all.

The light of the moons dwindles the deeper we get into the cave and my other senses go on high alert. Random drips and splashes draw my eyes, despite not being able to see them. Sounds echo around us, creating an ambiance that raises the hairs on my arms and makes me shiver.

It's colder here and I'm wet, that's all.

"So, what is the most powerful creature in the sea?" I ask.

"A horror beyond your imagining."

"What do you call it?"

"You're speaking to me quite a lot for all that hate you supposedly harbor."

"I just want to know the name of the creature I'll summon to destroy you," I say smartly.

I slip, my ankle twisting as I go down. Jasper grabs my arms, catching me before my knees hit the rocks. He grips my forearms tightly and pulls me up. Opal light is glowing in his eyes, transfixing me in his gaze. I can't look away. It's so beautiful.

Jasper smirks. "Steady on, princess."

I yank my arms away, scowling at my lapse.

Beautiful? Nothing about him is beautiful with a soul so black.

He turns, walking on into the darkness as if it doesn't affect him. "I can't properly speak its name in this form, but it closely translates to ‘Voice of the Abyss.' There is only one that we know of, and it lives in the deepest trench in the south sea. Some believe it's the god Yegress himself."

I follow him more closely as the walls narrow. "What does it look like?"

He chuckles. "I haven't had the misfortune of laying eyes upon it, but accounts say it's the size of a mountain, with a long maw full of dagger-like teeth, huge black eyes to see into the darkness, and scales that protect it from the most vicious sea beasts, like electric serpents."

I step closer to him so I don't have to shout to overcome the sound of rushing water. "Could it be a dragon?"

"Who knows."

He stops. I'm acutely aware based on the echoing sound that we've reached a dead end.

"You knew where you were going, did you?" I ask.

"Yes. We have to get in the water now."

I laugh incredulously. "In pitch black? I don't think so. I'll go back and blast myself a way out of the cave."

"Scared, princess?" he asks, voice thick with enjoyment as his magic lights up the small ledge.

I cross my arms. "I'd be stupid not to be."

"I won't let you drown."

My heart thunders as loudly as the water. "As if you'll have a choice in the matter when the passage is longer than my breath can hold out."

"It's not," he says, sitting at the edge of the rushing bank. "It lets out into the sea just a few—"

"I'm not getting in there!" I shout, surprising myself.

Jasper stands. He reaches out but I take a step back.

"I'm not going to throw you in."

He puts a hand on my shoulder. I want to jerk away, but the weight of him has my pulse slowing every moment we stand like this. That opal glow overtakes his irises once more. It makes his dark hair and stubble shimmer. It's entrancing, and the longer I look at him, the calmer I feel. How can a man—a selkie, rather—have that effect? Is it his magic?

Jasper squeezes my shoulder gently. "Better now?"

I don't want to admit that I do feel better, so I choose to say nothing.

"I will not let you die or become irreparably injured on this journey. I will protect you with everything I have, all my power."

"Why? Why do you need me so badly?"

His magic glows brighter for a flash, then dims until I can barely see him. "I've got my sights set on a very nice boat I'd like to buy, and you're my coin purse."

"A boat," I deadpan.

"Among a few other trivialities like a palace and all the most beautiful women to fill it with." He grins, but the smile doesn't reach his eyes.

"You're despicable, and a liar."

He sits on the edge of the rushing waterway.

"Do you really think I'm that stupid?" I ask.

"You're getting in this water because there is no other way out and I'm not going to starve to death down here with you."

I sit on the rock beside him. "You're not in this for money."

"You think too highly of me," he says. "I am a greedy selkie, and I want more than what I have."

"But it's not money that you want," I say.

His eyes glimmer with that stunning light as he looks at me. "Take a deep breath."

I will figure him out. I will be able to escape this.

Jasper grabs my hand. "Don't let go of me."

I exhale all the spent air from my lungs and gulp down a deep breath. He doesn't give me time to think. As soon as my lips close around the air, he tugs me against his side and dives forward into the rushing river.

Water slooshes up around my ears and threatens to push into my nose. Jasper tugs me along, kicking his legs furiously.

Don't panic. Don't. Panic.

Moving too much, or panicking, will spend your breath faster. Just let him hold you. Just let him lead you.

Something sharp drags down my back. I grunt in pain and air escapes from my nose. Jasper pulls me closer, wrapping one arm behind my back to press us together. He kicks harder and reaches forward with his other hand.

My lungs burn. The dark confinement of the aquifer threatens to undo my mind and turn me into a beast. The water pushes us along and Jasper surges through it, but not fast enough.

I let out the last of the burning air in my lungs and hold onto him tighter, begging my body not to breathe in water.

Suddenly, Jasper grabs my jaw and presses his lips against mine.

He forces my mouth open and blows air into me. It's hot, but it eases the ache in my chest, so I take it in greedily like the animal I've become at the brink of death. Jasper releases me and kicks harder than before, his legs moving from wall to wall.

Finally, a pinprick of light appears ahead. I tighten myself against him, refusing to get left behind. The passageway narrows even more, and I feel Jasper knock forward as his shoulder hits the wall. It slows us down, and my aching lungs remind me that Jasper likely doesn't have any breath left for himself at this point, let alone another one for me.

He pulls my hands from behind his back, then grabs my waist and thrusts me ahead of him in one massive move. I kick my feet, desperate for the air that's promised just on the other side of the light ahead.

The water rushes faster, pulling me out into the early morning. I suck down a deep, sputtering lungful of air.

Then promptly release it in a scream as I fall.