Chapter 62

This time when she opens her eyes, a gurgled scream rips up her throat as she reaches for the ceiling, her violet irises gobbled up by blown pupils.

“Kai? Are you—” Wheezing through short, bubbling breaths, she searches the space around me. I can tell by the erratic wobble of her eyes that she’s lost her sight.

‘Let out. Let out. Let out.’

I ignore Zyke’s screeching pleas and grip Orlaith’s seaweed-bound hand. Do what little I can to tether her by planting a kiss on the inside of her wrist—right where her rapid pulse picks at me. Too fast.

Too violent.

Zyke becomes a manic, thrashing swirl in my chest, whipping against my ribs with his slashing tail.

“Treasure …”

Her lips tremble, face crumbling. She lifts her other hand and blindly pats my chest. “You’re here …”

My heart cracks.

I should have been there.

And now—

I scan her war-stricken body, recalling the wounds I discovered when she first came to us:

Deep cuts in her palms.

An arrow through her arm.

Bite wounds on her neck …

All healed, then replaced by boil upon boil upon fucking boil.

I pull a strip of seaweed from a slurry of spit and seawater and dress another wound as Zyke releases a whining lament. “I’m here, Treasure.”

I’m finally here.

TAP.    TAP.    TAP.    TAP.    TAP.    TAP.    TAP.    TAP.

I sweep the beads of sweat from her brow, stealing a glance at the ceiling while that fucking tap continues to ricochet all the way down to my trove.

It’s bold. Relentless.

It hasn’t stopped for hours.

Days.

I’m not even sure anymore.

All I know is that he did this to her.

Rhordyn.

He’s a land beast. He should have protected her.

If she dies, I’m going to murder him. Let Zykanth masticate him into blood and guts and gore, then spit the residue into all five seas so his cells will never bind themselves together again.

Not in this lifetime. Maybe if the world implodes, then rekindles again in the form of another.

I use a clamshell to collect a dribble of fresh water from the split in the smooth, black-stone wall, then bring it to her chapped lips, coaxing her head up. She drinks, and I feel a sense of relief, until she tips to the side and retches it straight back up again—now tinged with blood.

“It’s okay, Treasure.” I rub her back while she heaves. “You’re okay …”

A filthy lie I’ll never forgive myself for. She’s not okay.

Not at all.

Her frail, infected body buckles to the tune of her retching, and a heaviness sloshes upon my chest.

TAP.    TAP.    TAP.    TAP.    TAP.    TAP.    TAP.    TAP.    TAP.    TAP.    TAP.    TAP.

Zykanth whips against my ribs so hard I loosen a hissed breath. ‘Free Zykanth. Eat violent man and steal stick. Angry man pay for hurting treasured one.’

Orlaith falls back against the pelt of damp seaweed, head rocking side to side as she whimpers. “That sound—”

“I know, Treasure.”

I fucking know.

If she asks to be rid of it, I’ll set Zykanth free. Let him swim up there and silence Rhordyn for good.

Orlaith tries to scratch her weepy, boil-riddled skin, then whimpers and screws her face up when she realizes her hands are useless—bandaged in flat ropes of weed. She kept tearing at her skin, encouraging more sores to spawn.

I lift her, pull her close to my chest, rocking her gently.

Giving her hush sounds.

I think it’s been longer than five days since she plummeted into Zykanth’s open maw when she fell from the cliff, and she’s only gotten worse.

I failed her.

She whimpers, reaching skyward again when the tapping somehow grows louder.

More abrupt.

“Rhordyn …”

Zykanth growls so loud the water lapping at our treasured shore ripples, sound waves ricocheting off the curved ceiling. A few coins even tinkle down the slope of our coin mound.

I brush a tangle of hair back from her face. “No, Treasure. It’s Kai—”

“I need him,” she rasps, setting her hand on my face as she tries to look at me. “I need—”

Her body spasms with another coughing, spluttering heave, and my upper lip trembles.

I steal a glance at the ceiling. In the direction of that shellhead with the stick. But then I train my attention back on Orlaith and see a look in those unseeing eyes that mimics a pain I feel in my chest at the absence of my vicious one …

Zykanth stops his slithering stir, tapping at Orlaith’s edges. ‘Treasured one want angry man? Treasured one must have sick heart like sick skin.’

“I don’t think that’s it,” I whisper aloud as her eyes roll backward, her body going limp.

Lifeless.

If it weren’t for the quiet tap of her heart, I’d almost believe …

Swallowing thickly, I gently lower her to the pelt, planting a kiss on her blazing forehead. Hating myself for not being able to save her.

Zyke lets out another long lament.

My heart grows heavy, wetness glazing my cheeks as I look to the fucking ceiling again, knowing exactly where I would want to be if I were drawing my last breath …

With Vicious.

‘Bad idea. Zykanth not agree to bad idea.’

‘We’ll let him have her,’ I tell Zyke, my tone as firm as my resolve.

Let her die with him.

Let him see what he’s done. How much he failed her, too.

Zykanth stills, listens …

‘Once she’s gone, you can kill him.’