Page 92 of The Demons in the Deep: Extended Edition
The bones were rain-slick, but they had edges, and so, bit by bit, he ascended.
I will save her from him.
From herself.
His arms, strengthened from long swims and training, surged with power as he climbed, higher, higher.
He reached.
Clapped his hand over the railing of the ship. Gave a last heave, fueled by loving rage.
And flipped over onto the deck.
He crouched immediately, slinking back into the shadows. A lantern burned some distance away. A few sailors were hunched under hats or hoods, miserably carrying on with their duties. Mid-morning, yet it was dark as night—perfect for him, for his large eyes could see easily, while the humans aboard would have difficulty discerning his shape through the gloom and the pouring rain.
Now to find Mai. And he’d best do it quickly, for he wouldn’t go unnoticed long, rain or no rain, if he kept skulking about naked on deck.
He was so angry at Mai he could scarcely keep his teeth under control, and yet his anger was mixed with regret, too. But he had no time to consider what he would say when he found her.
Quietly he made his way past barrels and empty slave cages, between crates and around thick coils of rope. Light poured from a large cabin ahead—the captain’s cabin, most likely. Rake crouched, creeping along beneath the window and rising just enough to peer inside.
Feral sat at a broad desk, with his back to the window. Mai was not in the room.
She must be somewhere nearby though. A man like Feral would keep his prize close. And he would put her somewhere comfortable, to reassure her that she had made the right decision and would be treated well. Rake did not trust for a moment that the good treatment would continue. A man like Feral couldn’t be trusted.
How could Mai have been so foolish? Giving herself and her talents over toFeral, of all humans.
And how could she leave, after she’d told Rake she loved him? To love someone and leave them behind for selfish ambition, that was—
He stopped, struck by the horror that he had done the same thing to Jewel. Or perhaps not the same, but he’d caused Jewel a similar pain. Rake had been blinded by the desire to see his ancestors’ city, and he’d left his tiny son behind, alone.
That pain and guilt was more than he could bear in the moment. He crawled past the window, got to his feet, stepped around the corner of the cabin—
And crashed into a pair of sailors.
They barely had a moment to go wide-eyed before Rake’s claws slit their throats.
The rain muffled their dying chokes and gurgles as he dragged them swiftly to the railing. With a mighty effort, he heaved them both over it, into the churning sea.
Slavers, he told himself.Stealers of lives. Deserving of death.
But as he moved back toward the cabins, someone yelled from the other end of the deck, and two more voices lifted as well, echoing the alarm.
Rake moved faster than he’d ever moved on legs. If he didn’t silence those three, he’d be caught, and he’d lose his chance of taking Mai back with him. Feral would capture and sell him—he was sure of that.
A flash of limbs in the rain, and he was upon them. One had drawn a cutlass; the other two brandished knives.
But Rake was a predator of the deep sea, and he had his own knives.
He could still smell the hot blood of the pair he’d killed, dripping from his nails. And as he dove into the fight with the trio of crewmen, his mind blurred until all he could think of was that smell—hot, steaming, crimson blood, and the slick pleasure of plunging claws into flesh—not just claws, but jaws.
When Rake came back to himself, he was sitting in a lake of blood and entrails.
Three dismantled bodies. Pieces missing. Gloomy rain still hammering across the deck.
Rake threw himself backward, away from it all, panic racing along his nerves. He sat there in the rain, waiting, but no one else emerged onto the deck. Perhaps a few shouts during a storm weren’t enough to alarm anyone.
His bare skin was coated in blood, but already the rain was washing it away. It ran in crimson rivulets down his chest and abs, over his thigh, along the deck.
