Chapter 34 Mermaid kiss
Chapter 34 Mermaid kiss
Too bad for them. This one was mine.
I kissed her nose as she gathered herself. She fought it, but a smile lit her face all the same. Bubbles floated up towards the surface when she chuckled. She shoved my shoulder, trying to pretend I hadn’t softened her heart. “Get off me, you stupid prick.”
I pulled out of her in one piece and grinned before shifting back into my natural form. For all her complaining, she grabbed my fin and laid across my back like she wanted to take a nap.
My crazy bitch.
I
woke up as we floated in the main ocean. The sun was long gone, and the moon was on its downward path to kiss the ocean good morning. I’d lost
quite a bit of time, but I was comfortable where I was as Kam lazily let the tide control his movement.
Ocio’s constant song was something I missed listening to. At least until her ethereal voice took a sudden turn of pure jubilation.
My eyes snapped open.
That song was reserved for someone specific. Someone who was supposed to be dead. My heart stuttered in my chest.
There was no way.
Kam shifted into a man and grabbed my thighs to hold me up as we bobbed. “What’s wrong with you?”
A loud echoey roar pulsed through the air, making the waves pick up and the sky turn gray. A shiver ran over my skin at the terrifyingly familiar sound.
“Kam?” I didn’t like how small my voice sounded. My mouth had written plenty of checks that my ass couldn’t cash over the years, and this was one of them. This one had haunted me for thousands of years.
“I thought Hunter Esmerey killed him.” Kam’s hands tightened on my thighs.
“We aren’t anywhere near Serpent’s Trench.” Heavy raindrops pattered down hard enough I couldn’t see more than a foot in front of me.
“Get out of the water!” Kam shifted, and I grabbed his fin so we could flee that much faster. The waves thrashed against us, slowing down.
Fuck.
Light blue scales glittered despite the lack of sun. I looked behind us, only to realize the largest creature who ever lived in the deep surrounded us.
Rinus, the Leviathan; the sea serpent. Ocio’s favorite and eldest son.
A beast that I foolishly attacked when I was young, when he came too close to my pup. Most beasts would have laughed it off and apologized. Would have said moms will be moms, but not this mean son of a bitch. He gave no fucks about the rules humans and the supernatural lived by. He didn’t need to follow anyone’s rules. He’d been around longer than anything else on this planet.
This wasn’t our first round with the Leviathan, but we’d never been surrounded like this. He must have been resting deeper in the water.
How kind of us to bring him a snack.
His head moved so we could finally see him now that it wasn't camouflaged with his body, and those beady blue eyes were locked on us. His skull was twice as large as Kam’s whole body. Deadly fangs curved and protruded past his lower lip, ready to ensnare us in his bone-crushing jaws. He’d snap us like celery sticks. I may have been a sailor’s nightmare, but he was the reason humans took so long to sail the seas. My sisters shredding a man out of existence was nothing to the gut-clenching fear of facing off the Leviathan. He was the only sea serpent left because he killed them all, so he wouldn’t have to share territory.
Rinus aimed his humongous mouth right for us. Kam sped off, barely dodging out of the way. That didn’t deter Rinus, and he changed course with his fast snake-like body and whipped after us. I shrieked as loud as I could to throw him off track, just enough for Kam to outswim his attack.
“Will you just get over it already? I said I was sorry,” I called out to Rinus.A fang pierced my tail, and I screamed in agony as he destroyed my fin. I held onto Kam tighter, but the opposite force was too strong. Rather than hold Kam back, I released his fin and with every ounce of Ocio’s wrath that I could gather shrieked in Rinus’s direction. He jerked me around like a doll in an attempt to get me to shut up, but I refused. I clawed at his eyes and face to get him to let me go. His hide was too thick, and he protected his eyes by closing them.
Damn immortal bastard. We should have known better. Hunter Esmerey never stood a fucking chance against him. No witch did. Not even her daughter could take this primordial creature down. But I wouldn’t go down crying. I'd die being the biggest pain in the ass I was capable of being.
My throat burned from how long I used the ocean’s wrath, and my nails cracked against his scales. He roared in pain, and I could only hope I managed to get a hit between the slits of his eyes. He reared his head back and tossed me across the water. The rush of water whipped around me with stinging slaps I didn’t know were possible until my back hit a rock wall and took my breath away. I gasped as I hit the seafloor.
But I was alive, not many could say that. Movement splashed through the water, catching my attention, and my heart dropped into my stomach.
“Kam!”
Kam tore patches of skin off of Rinus’s body, but the scales healed before Kam could even get his next bite in. I kicked my tail to no avail. No matter how badly I wanted help Kam. I kicked my fin to go help him, but I didn’t move. That bastard tore the ligament that helped me swim.