Page 73 of The Demons in the Deep: Extended Edition
Every bone in Mai’s body locked in place. Her throat tightened, and heat stung the inside of her nose, crawling up to the backs of her eyes, forming tears.
The world had felt empty and sorrowful without him the first time. If he died again, it would be so much worse.
“I’m sorry.” Rake shifted her hair back from her temple with a delicate graze of his claws. “I only meant—”
“I know.” She cut him off, gripping his wrists and looking up into his face—his handsome, savage face with those kind, curious, intelligent eyes. “Don’t die, do you understand? I forbid it.”
“It would give you a chance to study my insides.” His mouth tweaked up at the corner. “I remember a time where you would have given anything for that opportunity. I give you permission now. If I die, you may dissect me.”
“Stop it.” She shoved his shoulder, half-laughing, half-crying. “You fiend of the deep. Bastard.”
He gathered her close, until she could feel his laughter vibrating through his bare chest.
“You have to live,” Mai whispered against his skin. “For me. For Jewel. For all of us.”
He nodded. “But if I die, you’ll take care of him for me?”
Mai hesitated. She had plans for her life, and they didn’t involve children. Well—perhaps later, once she had accomplished a few things.
But Jewel was different. Sometimes she felt as if he was already partly hers. A connection had formed between them when the others left them both behind; and when they’d grieved Rake together, that bond had deepened.
“Jewel is precious to me,” she said. “If anything happens to you, I’ll go to him. I won’t let anything stop me. And he’ll stay with me as long as he wants to.”
A great sigh lifted Rake’s chest. “Good. Now will you walk with me to the inn, my pearl?”
“Pearl?” Mai craned back, lifting an eyebrow.
He grinned. “I’m naming you.”
“I already have a name.”
“But you need another. One that’s just for me.”
Mai considered the nickname. A pearl was small, but beautiful, formed from layers of fluid that hardened and sealed over grit and pain.
She nodded. “I like it.”
“Good,” he said, kissing her. “My Jewel and my Pearl. I will fight for both of you tomorrow.”
21
Kestra had dealt her fair share of death.
She’d chopped the fingers off more mermaids that she could count during an attack on theWind’s Favor. And she’d been partly responsible for the eradication of the mermaid hordes around Kiken island.
But the kill she always remembered was the mermidon, the warrior-class mermaid she and the others had caught and held in the cage Mai designed. Kestra had dragged a knife through the creature’s throat, but it got stuck, and Flay had to help her finish the job. Gentle, sunny, exuberant Flay. She wasn’t sure how many people he’d killed, if any. Something for them to talk about in the years to come, perhaps.
Kestra had been merciless in that moment, and Flay had been surprised by it—but he hadn’t turned away, or rejected her. She could understand him even better now—why he’d wanted so badly for her to be the sweet girl he could save from monsters. Why he’d thought of her as a soft creature of light that he could preserve.
It was because ofthis—his family, his fleet, the city he called home. Barbaric practices like the Brawl. People with darkness and savagery inside them. A family wrecked by resentment, greed, and secrets.
Flay had wanted someone different.
But perhaps the person he’d wanted at first hadn’t been the one he needed. And Kestra was grateful down to her bones that Flay had persisted, loving her even when she showed him the secret cruelty and bitterness in her heart.
He sat next to her in his family’s box, overlooking the arena below. Beyond him was Feral, flanked by a pair of simpering women in silks. And beyond Feral, the Magnate and his wife presided over the tournament, fortified by a tavern’s worth of drinks set out on a silver table between them. Flay’s mother had snorted a pink powder earlier, and her head lolled against the high back of her cushioned chair. A smile glazed her face as the announcer’s voice droned through the arena, outlining the brackets for the competition.
Since theWind’s Favorwas higher in the rankings after the success of the Hunt, Rake wouldn’t have to fight until several of the other champions had battled each other.
