“Your ancestors would be proud. Your power is quite impressive.” A detached clinical-sounding voice flowed toward me from the back of the ship.
I clumsily twirled around, since I felt drunk on the raging power flowing through my veins. “Where are you?” I hissed.
I surveyed the area, barely able to do more in my debilitating position as power vibrated through my body. I directed all of my attention on the source of where I thought the voice had come from.
“I didn’t expect you to pursue me but am pleased you did,” Jakub continued. “It’s interesting that you thought you could catch me, if that’s what you were attempting? But I’m glad I’m here to witness this, to know beyond any doubt that you truly are the blood descendent. The key.”
Kaillen snarled and lunged, but Jakub-Dipshit was nowhere to be found. I couldn’t see him, yet I could sense him. Something prickled along my skin and tingled my nerves.
He’s hiding under a cloaking spell. That realization snapped me upright, because it meant he could be anywhere.
I staggered around, searching for any hint of Jakub’s presence as Kaillen and his friends did the same. Instinctively, we formed a circle, our backs to one another so that we were all facing outward.
I nearly buckled as the last of the crew members died from my power. “Why can’t we see him?” I managed. “We’re all strong. We should be able to see through whatever cloak he wears.”
“Because I’m commanding more power than you,” Jakub answered in that cold tone again, except he was closer this time.
I swung toward his voice, and the power that I’d harvested from the fleet of supernaturals surged against my skin.
“Tala,” Kaillen said, and then groaned, as the strength of my caged power barreled toward him on the mating bond. His growl came just as something cold caressed my skin.
Jakub.
A powerful zap of magic snaked over me, and my eyes widened when I recognized the feel of a portal key about to activate.
I rocked myself back, knowing that if I didn’t escape Jakub’s grip, he would steal me away by using the portal key I’d sensed, and the two of us could be anywhere in seconds. I would be alone. Trapped. Potentially at his mercy.
I cast a curse lightning fast, hoping I’d casted it on him. If my curse hit its mark, it would link me to him so my magic could find him and tether us. Then I would know where he was even if I couldn’t see him.
Something brushed against my curse’s power, but it was there and then gone. I had no idea if my curse had taken root because the power from the dead supernaturals was surging inside me, stirred up by the absolute panic I’d felt when Jakub had tried to whisk me away.
I groaned, but I couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t contain it.
I spun toward where that last sensation from Jakub had come from, just as all of the power brimming inside me rushed to the surface.
“Watch out!” I cried.
An explosion of magic, as wide as the slowly sinking ship, shot from my chest. Radiant energy rocketed out of me, the gathered magic of all of those I’d killed pouring from me in one vicious and uncontrolled blast. It rose like a tidal wave, higher than the masts, wider than the ship. It was as though a tsunami of energy blasted into everything in its directed path.
The ship’s side turned to fizzling embers when my explosion hit it, and all of us were jolted off our feet as the remaining floor beneath us gave a great, groaning creak as half of the ship fell away.
“She’s sinking!” Barnabas clamped a hold of my arm just as my legs gave out.
He jumped us farther up the deck as water swirled around our ankles and the entire ship tilted upward, sinking so fast that it was a miracle he was able to retreat us at all on the heaving vessel.
The call of the sirens increased, their deadly beautiful song carrying through the night on a dark melody. Their curved claws scraped along the bottom of the tilted ship, beckoning us closer.
Shining eyes peered up at me from the darkness as their pearly skin caught the moonlight. Their luminescent scales reflected beneath the water as their powerful tails kept them moving with the ship while it heaved and groaned.
Razor-sharp teeth appeared between the sirens’ lush lips as they continued to sing their enthralling song, coaxing us toward the water.
Go. Must go to them. Touch them. Kiss them. Hold them. So beautiful.
I wanted to fall forward and plummet into the sea, to be swept up in their embrace. Another giant lurch came from the ship, and a rush of water flooded its hull.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that my magic was gone. The foreign magic that my awakening power had gathered had been detonated. My shield spell had been obliterated, and I had nothing left. Nothing but that alluring song which called to me and beckoned me closer.
“We need to get off this ship, now!” someone yelled.
An arm clamped around my waist and then I was moving upward. Kaillen’s cedar and citrus scent flooded my senses, and I tried to thrash against him, to return to the enchanting sirens as water flooded the deck below us amidst the sinking ship.
“Where is he?” Fallon asked in clipped tones while he scrambled up the near vertical deck to the railing’s edge.
I was vaguely aware that they were all climbing the deck’s tilting surface. Kaillen threw my limp, useless body over his shoulder so he could use his hands. “Don’t know,” he grunted.
“Jump now! She’ll be under within the minute!” Barnabas called sharply.
Night air caressed my cheeks as Kaillen catapulted us through the air, and then we were landing on Barnabas’s ship.
Kaillen rolled us across the deck, maneuvering me so his body took the brunt of the fall. Bone-white floorboards gleamed in the moonlight as Kaillen lay me down on the deck, my body supine as he hovered over me.
“Tala? My love?”
I blinked as the sirens’ angry hisses and thrashes grew quieter. Then came the sounds of gurgling and creaking before a steady spew of water shot into the sky from Jakub’s sinking vessel.
The ship we’d been on only a moment ago disappeared from view as it sank into a watery grave, and then all that was left was Barnabas’s ship rolling gently on the waves. Any evidence of the battle we’d just waged had disappeared beneath the silvery water.
The sirens’ song abruptly vanished as they returned to the depths of the sea.
My head cleared, and I blinked, then blinked again as Kaillen peered down at me. A golden glow and crimson fire waged in his irises as he smoothed back my hair and cupped my cheek. “Tala?”
“I’m okay,” I finally managed even though weariness flooded my limbs, and a heavy sensation cleaved my thoughts.
He growled. “Bullshit you’re fine. You just used your awakening power and depleted yourself.”
My eyelids grew heavy. I struggled to keep them open, but I wanted to know, needed to know . . . “Is Jakub dead? Did my blast kill him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can we sail?” Fallon’s question came to me on the breeze as he and Barnabas inspected the damage done to The Only Lady I’ve Ever Loved.
“She’ll hold till we reach port,” Barnabas replied, but that cocky swagger had left his step. Part of the mast was cracked, and one of the sails had been shredded when Barnabas had rammed into Jakub’s ship.
“Get us back to land!” Kaillen barked. Prickly energy surrounded my mate, and low rumbling growls came from his chest as I lay weak and cold in his arms.