Page 29 of The Sea Witch
Ben was torn apart into shreds—his blood spattered across her face. A nightmare creature towered above her, a mix of man and sea beast, ten feet tall and rippling with muscle, covered in scales. Its maw bristled with teeth, and black claws topped its huge hands. Raw horror froze her in place as it lunged for her.
She gasped as she tumbled onto the floor of her cabin. Her body shook and her legs trembled. Her hands pressed into the rough wooden planks. Sweat coated her skin, and she shivered with its cold.
Cold, yes. It was cold and real and she was awake. The dreams were only that. Just dreams. They were his dreams. And hers.
There was the rattle of chains as someone awkwardly shuffled closer. A pair of boots appeared before her, bound by iron shackles, and then a hand reached down to wrap around her wrist, bruising in its power. It hauled her up so that she was on her knees, facing Ben as he stood beside her bed.
“What the hell,” he rasped, “wasthat?”
They stared at each other, eyes wide. Waves of confusion and anger swirled within her, leaving her adrift and isolated. And yet, though these emotions spun inside her, they belonged to someone else.
In his stunned face, she knew the devastating truth.
They were linked, woven together. A twin self beside her own, like another heartbeat. Fierce and pounding and close, so very close.
She was part of him now. Just as he was part of her.
And there was no going back.
Chapter Six
Hot and cold danced over Ben’s skin. His mouth was sand dry, and an incessant throbbing pounded behind his eyes as he stared at Alys Tanner, his hand wrapped around her strong, sinewy wrist. Beneath his fingers, her pulse hammered.
Despite the manacles binding him, he didn’t relinquish his hold of her, pulling her up from where she knelt.
She allowed herself to be hauled to her feet. Whatever had just transpired between them, she had to be affected by it in no small measure, else she would have resisted him far more. There was fight and fire in the pirate captain. As it was, she was unsteady, and in the dimness of her cabin, her face was carved of pale marble.
“What have you done?” His words abraded his throat.
“I didn’t mean to,” she answered.
“You were...” He tried to run his free hand down his face, to ground himself with the textures of his own skin, but the chain stretching between his manacles was too short for him to hold her and touch his cheek. There was nothing to anchor him. “I dreamt. And you werethere. And you’re...” He was able to press his hand against his chest. “You’rehere.”
Uncertainty cut through him, but it washerdoubt he felt,heruneasiness and uncertainty and volleys of questions that buffeted him as much as they tormented her. The flame of her energy blazed within him, singeing him from the inside out.
His arms throbbed with the echo of her, a reverberation from his dream. The dreaming remembrance of her sleek and taut limbs pressed against his vibrated through his flesh. Even as the dreams faded, the resonance of her continued. He could still feel the sand beneath them, holding the impression of their bodies on an unknown beach, and feel the shadows of passing storm clouds.
“Whatwasthat?” he pressed.
“Dreamwalking. I’d planned to,” she confessed, “to learn about the Weeping Princess. But... it’s not supposed to happen... not unless both people involved seek it.”
“I didn’tseekthat.”
“Something... something made it transpire. Something in me sought you out. Something in you... came to me.” Her look was unsure.
He tightened his grip, her flesh damp and hot within the cage of his fingers. Numbness ebbed, revealing a jagged, rocky shore of anger.
“I would never come to you,” he insisted. “Not in the waking world, and certainly not in the world of dreams.”
Her gaze met his. “Yet you did. I was in your dreams.”
He grimaced. “And I was in yours.”
There had been a gentle young woman, her hands careful as she had cradled a bird. And Alys’s fear for this girl.
“The Weeping Princess is a waterfall, perhaps where we’ll find the fail-safe,” Alys said after a moment, “but the precise where of it, that I don’t know.”
“There are corners of my mind that you haven’t plundered?”
