Page 99 of The Demons in the Deep: Extended Edition
She’d gotten much faster with her new tail, but she didn’t have his stamina. After a short sprint through the foamy waves, she began to lag behind, and Rake swerved around and came back.
While he held her in place, keeping her head and shoulders above the surface, Mai took off her breathing device and gloried in a long inhale. “Can I ride on your back awhile?”
“I’d like nothing better. But hold on tight. I’ll warn you if I’m planning to go under.”
She wrapped her arms around him, with her face against his sharp cheekbone, and she let her own body and tail relax while he swam along the surface, a safe distance from theWind’s Favor.
“Did you talk to Flay and Jazadri about Jewel?” she asked.
“I did. They’ve promised to pick him up from Kiken Island on their next voyage and bring him to Meroa.”
Mai gave him a quick squeeze. “I can’t wait to see him again.”
“You love him, don’t you?” Rake’s voice held a throaty warmth, a satisfaction that made her smile.
“Yes, I do. He’s precious.”
“We’ll be a family.” Rake pronounced the word with such care and weight that Mai’s heart thrilled with tender pain. “You, me, and Jewel.”
“We’ll find a little place in Meroa,” she murmured against his cheek.
“Somewhere near the water,” Rake said soberly. “I need to swim, to hunt. It keeps that side of me satisfied.”
The side of him that killed two men on the pier in Stragnoag. The side of him that ripped apart more than a dozen men on board theAscendant. The side of him that nearly devoured her.
She never wanted to see that side of him again.
“There’s plenty of money now, so we can certainly afford seaside lodgings,” she assured him. “Might take a little while for people to get used to your appearance, but Flay says there are strange folk from various isles popping up in all sorts of port cities these days. We’ll find a way to blend in. And when I’ve finished my studies, we’ll come back to the ruins. Flay’s going to make the cave city into a sort of hideout for his fleet. We can live there with Jewel, and work there, and explore together. It’s going to be perfect.”
Rake was silent for a moment, and then he said, “Put your breathing device back on.”
“Why?”
“Because my heart is full of joy, and I need to swim very fast. I may go underwater.”
With a laugh, Mai settled the device between her lips again and latched it securely at the back of her head. She tapped his shoulder to signal that she was ready.
Rake tore through the waves, his powerful tail and lithe body driving them ahead so fast Mai wanted to scream with delight and terror.
Then they dipped under the surface, streaking through the gurgling deep, swerving around lazy turtles, slicing through schools of fish who wriggled aside in a flurry of silver scales.
“I’m going to try something,” Rake said through the water. “I saw some rays doing it once, while searching for a mate. And I’ve found mine, so it seems appropriate. Hold on tight.”
Mai clutched him while he shot forward faster than ever—and then he lunged upward, propelling them both out of the sea in a glorious arc of sunlight and spray.
The clouds had broken, and golden light streamed over the two ships sailing near them, glittering on the spikes of one hull, gleaming on the bones of the other.
And Mai realized that the light would never be truly gone for her again, because it lived inside her. It had eyes of liquid darkness, and a golden tail.
31
SEVEN YEARS LATER
Flay kept his eyes closed as Mai had ordered, while something cool and smooth latched around his left forearm.
A quiet click, and a gentle whirr of tiny gears.
A sting of pain in one, two—no, three spots, and more—a prickling all over the end of his residual limb.
