Page 38 of The Ocean's Heart
A voice filtered through my rapidly thickening haze of panic.
Take the sea with you…
The sea fae who’d saved me from drowning had said those words…She’d given me something…energy…and then…the sea had fueled me and the trident…
It was all connected.
Connected.
That’s what I needed to do—connect to him, and I suddenly understood how.
I grabbed the trident, biting back a cry as fire pulsed down my spine. Once the pain ebbed and I felt its energy low in my chest, I turned my attention to Vaarin, gaze dropping to his mouth.
Take the sea with you… Yes, I had it with me and now…now I could bring it to him.
I pressed my lips to his and closed my eyes. A second passed where nothing happened, and I might have lost hope, if not for the growing swirl of energy in my chest. But I held firm, heat gathering behind my eyes because I needed this to work, I needed my conclusion to be right.
Another second passed, and doubt attempted to seat itself in my mind, but wait…something was happening—power unfurling slowly, my hand tingling, energy sweeping up my arm in waves.
I gasped as the vibrant energy rushed up my throat and into my mouth, spilling into Vaarin.
My eyes popped open, and his skin began to glow. His arms wrapped around me, crushing me to him as he siphoned from me, through me, every iota of power loaned to me by the ocean. Power that belonged to him, and I surrendered it all, allowing it to spill from me into him until darkness gathered around me, thickening into a forever night.
ChapterTwenty-One
THALIA
Iwoke to Vaarin’s rumbling voice, and memory rushed in to crowd my mind and tense my limbs.
“You’re safe,” he said softly. “It’s all right.”
I blinked up at his handsome face, no longer pale. No longer dying. There was color in his cheeks now, and his sapphire eyes burned with fire. “You saved my life, but I am at a loss to understand how.”
“You’re not the only one.” I was on a bed, propped on real pillows. Vaarin sat at my hip, his keen gaze assessing me. “Where are we?”
“On a boat home.”
“You swam me out to the boat?”
“No, we took a second boat. I’ll have both returned to theYarissaeventually.”
I plucked at the oversized shirt that covered me. “You undressed me?”
He nodded curtly. “You were soaked, and I didn’t want you to catch a chill. Don’t worry; I was quick. I did not linger on the task.”
I wasn’t shy about my body by any means, but I found my cheeks heating regardless.
He studied me with sharp intensity. “What happened, Thalia? What happened on theYarissa?”
“I’m…I’m not entirely sure.” I filled him in on my almost drowning and the woman who’d saved me, then on the fight with the Obsidian Pearl and how I’d been able to wield his trident. “She told me to take the sea with me, and so I brought it to you.”
A slight frown marred his forehead. “A mortal cannot wield a relic without being burned to ash. The fact that you did…it means you are no mere mortal.”
“You’re wrong. I’m human and?—”
“Maybe, but you also belong to the sea. It is in your blood. There is no other explanation.” His eyes narrowed. “There is sea fae in your bloodline. An ancestor maybe?” He chewed on his cheeks. “It is the only explanation.”
But his words spawned a different understanding inside me. Because I wasn’t who he thought I was. I was an orphanfoundat sea and adopted by a human king. Was my mother a sea fae, then? Coupling between female sea fae and human males always resulted in half fae offspring unable to live beneath the waves, while the offspring of sea fae males and human women produced pure sea fae. Had my mother abandoned me because she couldn’t raise me beneath the waves?
