Page 16 of The Ocean's Heart
I held my peace, straining to see into the gloom. A ripple and another soft splash.
There was something out there, and it wasn’t King Vaarin, because I had no doubt that he would have announced himself. My sword sat on the other side of the boat. I would have to move to get it, and doing so might alert the intruder that I was aware of its presence.
Instead, I slowly, silently, drew the single oar out of its nook and gripped it tightly, a proxy weapon if I should need one.
Something knocked against the boat, and then long, pale fingers curved over the starboard edge. My heart beat, sluggish with fear at the sight of the inhuman digits, and my breath snagged in my lungs as a dark head rose above the lip of the boat, followed by black eyes and a noseless face. I blinked in shock, and the face morphed into something else. A young man with thick dark hair and inviting dark eyes. He smiled tentatively.
“You’re lost,” he said. “Allow me to help you.” He held out his hand.
Yes, he could help me. All I needed to do was take his hand. But even as that thought filled my mind, my body reacted by gripping the oar tighter.
His gaze dropped to my hands, to the oar, and the look of disappointment on his face made my heart ache. “You don’t need that. You don’t want to hurt me. Come…” He beckoned. “Take my hand.”
I wanted to. Yes. I should. I lowered the oar, my grip on it slackening a fraction.
“Yes.” His eyes lit up with joy. “Come, I can take you home.”
Home…But…I wasn’t going home.
The creature’s face flickered, dark eyes, no nose, and wide mouth filled with serrated teeth.
“Don’t fight, delectable one,” he said. His features were human again. Achingly beautiful. “Come with me.”
My heart pounded faster, blood ringing in my ears as I fought what I now recognized to be compulsion.
“No…” I ground out even as I dropped the oar. “No…” I leaned toward the thing.
It dropped the façade of humanity and lunged at me.
My scream cut through the night as its cold, wet fingers grazed my skin, but in the next moment, he was gone. Tugged beneath the surface of the water. Its hold on me snapped.
I sat back with a thud, a sob breaking from my lips just as another face appeared over the side of my boat.
A woman with green hair and eyes like an abyss.
This time, I grabbed my sword. “Get away from me!”
“Is that any way to treat the person who saved your skin?”
“You’re not a person.”
“No, I suppose I’m not. Name’s Meredith. These are my waters, and that thing that attempted to coerce you into the waves was a scavenger. I do not permit scavengers in my waters.”
“I’m not a scavenger.”
“Oh, I know who you are. A guest of King Vaarin. You are under his protection and now under mine.”
Several faces appeared around the boat, and my pulse went into overdrive. “What are you doing?”
“Relax, Princess. King Vaarin has sent us to take you to the Cursed Isle.”
How could I trust them? What if they were scavengers like the thing that came before?
“I can see you have doubts,” Meredith said. “But what choice do you have?”
The gentle lap of water punctuated the silence that followed her question.
She was right. I was trapped. “Where is he? Where is King Vaarin?”
