Page 80 of The Pirate Queen of Ruin
When I stare at them, all I see is the rage and hunger in my soulmate’s gaze. She’s controlling herself so I can do this, so we can do this together. For as much as I want Miles Bradshaw to rot for eternity, so does she. Orthia is keeping good on her promise to be better in a way that’s violent and bloody and so fucking hot.
The final pillar of my revenge cries like a baby in the face of death. Miles looks at me with fear and I love it. I want him to fear me, to feel the inevitability that I felt that night. Wind whips at my dress and the tide begins to rise. There is a rumbling in the air.
“Ple-” he chokes on his words, pleading to me.
Orthia’s tentacles lash around his throat and she forces him to look at me. His shrieks carry in the breeze, out across the bay for anyone to hear.
“Look at her,” she demands. “You defaceda goddessand now you will pay for your crimes.”
There is no speech or gloating. On shaking legs, the void in my belly threatening to implode as the waters become choppy, I grab hold of Miles’ jacket. The black fabric crushes beneath my hand. I feel the padding. He isn’t as strong as he wants people to believe. Miles is just as pathetic as he was when we last saw each other, using other people and a facade to create his strength. He isn’t scary, he isn’t stronger than me really.
“I win.”
My dagger sinks into his torso, my hand shaking as he tries to breath but can’t. His body jerks like he wants to run away, but instead, it just tears his insides. Love’s power surges through me. Victory, revenge, it’s all mine but something isn’t right. Pink fills my vision, my arm burns with the force of it, but it won’t stop. I can’t pull my knife from his chest.
“Delphini,” Orthia says my name, but I can’t respond. Blood trickles over my hand and I’m mesmerised by how much it looks like tentacles slithering over my hands. It takes all of my focus to pull my gaze back to her. There is nothing but fear in her eyes now. “What’s wrong?”
She is a vision in pink. I can’t blink away the haze, and the longer I stare at her, the more fuzzy she becomes. Orthia isn’t a human any more, replaced with a mass of tentacles, all writhing and forming the shape of what she should be. Her head bobs atop them like a small boat at sea, and I feel almost seasick watching it.
“Love, what’s happening?” she demands.
Her hand grabs onto mine, and she tries to pry my fingers from the blade, anything to get me disconnected from Miles, to stop the power still surging through me. It’s not working. My body is locked into this space as she shouts at me and at Love. She doesn’t understand and I can’t help her.
The sky erupts with lightning and the ocean quakes. A tentacle, monstrously large and teal, rips through the yacht, through Orthia’s holds on me. The last thing I hear is the many voices of our patron– whisper, screeching, sobbing.
“Trust us.”
Chapter twenty-seven
Delphini
0 Days
AmIdeadagain?
Is that what this floating feeling is? I didn’t fail. Love’s power flowed through me like it should have, but I didn’t feel the rush of energy like I had previously. There wasn’t the hunger or the surge of greatness like previous times that made me feel truly invincible. I can only remember the burn of it that welded me to Miles, to the dagger I had plunged into his torso.
Orthia’s fingers attempting to pry mine free.
I move my fingers to make sure they still work, that I am in control of them once again. My toes are next, then I scrunch my nose up just to test it works. My body is weightless here as I float through a dark abyss. As I exhale through my mouth, I see faint pink bubbles float above me.
“Love, what’s going on?” I call out, but they don’t answer.
Centering myself doesn’t help. The more I practise cycling breathing to focus on myself and my energy, the more scared I get. I am trapped again in the dark, but I can’t feel anything. I can’t get out of this place.
What did I do wrong?
Even in the pink glowing light from our collective marks, Miles didn’t die until I killed him. My promise to Love has been fulfilled as they required it be. I toppled the fourth pillar of my revenge.
“Is this enough?” A distinct and sharp voice screams.
There is another sound, wet and grotesque, before something heavy splashes around me. The void I’m in turns red, stained with whatever that was and now seeping around me. It creeps across my skin, trickling up into my body until all I see is Orthia.
Her body is drenched with something, her cheeks blotchy. A light around her explodes and my vision of her goes with it. What has she done?
I need to go to her. She has to know I’m okay, but that something is wrong. Whatever is happening isn’t her fault. We did everything we were supposed to do. Love has never steered her wrong before.
Their words to me echo around the space as if by thinking back to the first time I was ever in a place like this has materialised them.
