Chapter 50

Lillian

The pain that radiated through my chest was excruciating, and the force with which it hit me made me drop the egg. The breath was knocked out of me for a solid thirty seconds.

I turned around, looking for the egg, but the hippocampus was charging for me again. I waved my hands to try and scare it off, but it didn't stop. I reached behind me to pull out the dagger and got it in front of me just in time to make contact with its neck.

It made a strange screeching noise before hustling away, my dagger still embedded in its neck. I felt terrible, but it was a necessary evil to get this trial done. I would bring its egg back when we were done, and I would keep the baby safe until then. I wished I could tell it that. Maybe it would understand.

I took a deep breath, wincing when the soreness in my chest finally registered. I rolled my shoulders around, trying to feel things out, then dove for the egg. I was so afraid something had happened to it, but I found it sitting in perfect condition on a rock below. I cradled it and started swimming again.

The egg weighed me down a bit, but I was sure I was getting close to the surface. That was good, because I could feel it getting harder to breathe. My time was quickly running out.

Just before I reached the surface, something grabbed my leg and dragged me back so hard, the egg was wrenched from my grasp and I was flung backward. When my body stopped, I got a good look at my attacker, the hippocampus that had attacked me before, the dagger still sticking out of its neck.

Scratch that.

There were three of them now, two swimming up on either side, sights set on me, looking angry.

Fuck me.

I had no weapons, no way to protect myself, and my lungs were starting to ache. I was running out of options, and time, fast.

Suddenly, they charged at me, all three at once. I put my arms out in front of me out of instinct, not that it was going to do anything, and closed my eyes tightly, bracing for impact, knowing three at once could kill me.

I really was going to die this time.

Loud screeching filled my ears, and I opened my eyes to see the hippocampi stopped cold, blood dripping from multiple wounds. I looked around, but there was no one else who could have inflicted the damage. I squinted my eyes, looking closer.

Poking out of their skin were shards of ice, like small ice daggers, just like the ones I'd seen Nicholas form.

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

The hippocampi seemed to gather themselves, looking even more pissed off than before. The one in the middle, the one with my dagger, started to charge at me once again, but it halted when a loud, high-pitched scream sounded.

It was so loud, so piercing. I covered my ears, and my eyes squeezed shut too.

Soon after, my arms were grabbed, and I was zipping through the water. I opened my eyes to find two women—well, sort of women—pushing me to the surface.

They had forest green, scaly skin, even their hands and faces, and the tail of a mermaid, but they were definitely not mermaids. Their eyes were an even deeper green, but they seemed to shine like there was a light behind them. Their hair was long and black, and their ears were strangely shaped and jagged. They were beautifully terrifying. It was difficult to look away.

I remembered seeing a picture of a similar creature in Keir's book, the one he'd shown me when he told me about the hippocampus. She was a siren.

We got close to the surface, and they stopped, one of them swimming back down toward the hippocampi, the other staying with me. Another similar-looking siren, but smaller, swam up, the egg in her arms.

I tried to breathe a sigh of relief, but I choked. I started to try and swim to the surface, knowing my time was up, but the siren who'd helped me grabbed my arm, stopping me. She turned and took the egg from the smaller siren, who left to follow the siren who had already swam away, and handed it over to me.

I needed to breathe, but I couldn't help but stare at her, enthralled by the sight of such a strange, enchanting creature. She opened her mouth, and I expected words to come out, but it was a strange language I couldn't understand.

I didn't need to, though. She gestured to the egg then to the surface, then finally toward the shore, where the king waited for me. She even put her hands on top of her head in a sort of crown shape. It was clear she knew exactly why I was here.

She let my arm go and brushed my hair back. Her eyes examined every part of my face, like she was trying to remember it, before she gave me a push to the surface.

I gasped for air once I emerged. I carefully lifted the egg into the boat, but before I could think about how I was going to crawl into it, hands were lifting me by my feet, dumping me inside.

I turned to say thank you, but she was already gone.

The row back was a nightmare, my body screaming at me for mercy. I couldn't stop, though. I needed to get this egg to Satan, prove I had completed his insane trial, and get it back to its nest somehow.

I should have known he wasn't going to be merciful.

When his blade struck the egg, ending the precious life it held, he might as well have stabbed me too.

All I could see was that poor, mutilated creature I had promised to keep safe as it laid bloody on the ground.

It was all my fault…

It was all my fault…

It was all m—

"Lillian," a voice ripped through my nightmare. "You're safe, princess. You're safe. I've got you. You're at home, in bed. You're not there anymore. Come back to me."

Arms wrapped around me, scooping me up, holding me against their warm chest. I couldn't open my eyes, not yet, but I smelled him, earthy with notes of whiskey.

Keir.

My body was shaking. My face was wet.

"It was all my fault," I wept.

He hugged me tighter. "It was not your fault," he murmured, lips pressed against my forehead. "You did nothing wrong. You did what you had to do to survive. He's the monster, Lillian, not you."

He was cradling me like a child, and to be honest, I felt like a scared child at that moment. I had relived the second trial every night since—five nights, to be exact. I had relived that trial five fucking times.

It didn't get any easier. It was gut-wrenching, heart-stopping. I'd alternated sleeping with the twins and Keir, but with it being two nights before the third trial, I was in his bed for the next two nights.

Keir and his rules.

He'd tried everything to help me, though. Extra training to exhaust me, making the bedroom relaxing with a warmed bed and lavender in the air, even having someone brew a special spell that was supposed to ward off nightmares. None of it worked, though, not even having my brains screwed out each night before bed.

They all already knew what had happened; I'd told them as soon as we got home. I didn't leave anything out. Not the attack. Not the ice shards that left my hands, which excited the twins the most. Not even the sirens who helped me. I told them everything.

Apparently, the sirens hated Satan more than anyone else. He'd thinned out their numbers hundreds of years ago, and they'd been struggling to reproduce fast enough to keep their race from being endangered. No one was surprised to hear that they'd assisted me, and Ida let on that she may have even had something to do with them finding out about the task in the first place, though she said it was better I didn't know specifics.

I looked at the clock; it was five in the morning. I'd almost made it all night without a nightmare. I leaned into Keir, wishing I could stay like this forever, safe and comfortable in his arms.

"I didn't mean to wake you up," I finally said to him.

He buried his face in my hair. "Who needs sleep anyway? There is nowhere I'd rather be than awake with you in my arms, princess." He hugged me tighter for emphasis. "Are you hungry?"

Right on fucking cue, as if this man commanded my body, my stomach growled.

He chuckled, and the sound made me smile. I loved when he laughed. It warmed my body and made my stomach do flips.

"Get dressed and meet me in the kitchen." He placed me back on the bed, my body instantly missing him, and stood.

I watched him stretch his arms over his head, pushing his abs and chest out. I didn't hide the way I admired his muscles, his tan skin, his tattooed chest and arms.

Fuck breakfast.

He laughed again, his eyes sparkling with mischief. "Meet me in the kitchen," he repeated. He walked to the door slowly, watching me drink him up like a tall glass of water. "If you listen like a good girl, maybe I'll reward you."

I got out of bed before he even closed the door, grabbing my clothes from the drawer and yanking them on. I stopped for a split second to admire the glass pieces Keir had made for me: a black dragon and a blue hippocampus, a warmth of pride and pure adoration spreading over my chest, before running out the door. I was still pulling on my shirt when I left the room.

The sound of dishes clanging met me as I made my way to the kitchen. He was standing at the counter, already whisking away at some batter.

"How did you do that so fast?"

He looked up from his bowl and smiled. "It's my kitchen, so I know where everything's at, and I have many, many," he looked me up and down, "talents."

I rolled my eyes and strolled over to him, planting my hands on the counter and hoisting myself up right next to him. "What're you making?"

"Cake."

I hesitated, sure I'd heard him wrong. "Cake? For breakfast?"

"Mmm-hmm." He poured the batter into a baking pan and placed it in the oven, which I happened to notice had been preheating. "Ida used to make us breakfast cake when things were not so great. She said, ‘cake makes everything better, especially breakfast cake'. It's not like a birthday cake; it's dense, like a coffee cake, but as a kid, you don't notice the difference when someone says you can actually have cake for breakfast."

He looked so at peace, so happy when he talked about his good memories. I loved seeing him like this and wished I could capture him like this all the time.

He cocked an eyebrow when he caught me staring. "What're you thinking?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "Just that you seem happy, and I really like you happy."

The oven made a beeping noise, and he held up his finger, pausing things before putting the cake into the oven and setting a timer. He walked over to me, putting himself right between my knees. "I'm the happiest." He planted a kiss on my nose. "Because I have you."

His words made me laugh—not because they were funny, but because just a few weeks ago, he was pushing me away, steadfast in his idea that we would never be a thing, yet here he was, head over heels for me, just like I was for him.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and did the same with my legs around his hips.

"What do you think you're doing?" His eyes darkened and dipped down to watch me bite my bottom lip.

"I'm trapping you," I said as I kissed his cheek.