Fingers of sea foam reached for my toes as I neared the water, running across my skin, their touch cold and somehow comforting. I strode on, my heart in my mouth, my nose filled with the twin scents of sea and pepper.
He was near. So near.
Despite the iciness of air and water, sweat began dribbling down my spine, soaking through in coin-sized patches on my T-shirt. It was all I could do to hold my pace, to not panic.
The water reached my knees, moved up to my thighs. Safety was close, so close. I let my fingers trail in the water, feeling for the energy running underneath the waves. It danced around my fingertips, little sparks of electricity no one else would ever feel, let alone see. I closed my eyes briefly and called it to me.
And then I heard it. The soft click of a gun’s safety being disengaged.
“Stop,” he said. His voice was guttural with an accent I’d never been able to place. “Don’t move any farther into the sea.”
I had no doubt he’d shoot, and that knowledge was powerful enough to not only halt my steps, but to have my heart leaping up into the vicinity of my throat. But I hadn’t come all this way to let him catch me so easily. The sea was my home, the one place where I could fight him, and I’d be damned if I’d let him take me here. I bit my lip and forced myself to keep moving.
Are you totally insane? part of me screamed. Probably. But in many respects, I’d rather be dead than go back to those cells. And if he did kill me, at least the sea would protect my body. She would whisk it away so it could never be used by those men.
But I had no intentions of being killed today. Not by this man. Not if I could help it.
I heard a click—a sound so faint he was obviously using a silencer. Felt the vibration of the shot run across the air, across my skin.
I dove sideways.
I wasn’t fast enough to avoid the bullet—not that I really expected to be.
The metal tore through skin and muscle before blasting its way back out of my shoulder—the same damn shoulder as before. The water went red and pain rolled through me, flooding my body, making it difficult to concentrate. But I battled the darkness threatening to swamp my senses. If I gave in to the call of unconsciousness, I would be his.
So I called to the energy of the sea and let it fill me. It raced through my muscles, energizing and renewing. Giving me the strength I needed to fight. I dove deep, keeping low and close to the sandy bottom, swimming out to deeper waters. But not too deep. I needed to draw him out.
Needed him to feel safe while doing so.
And for that, he’d need his feet on the bottom. He knew how well I could swim, so he’d neither risk going too deep nor bother shifting shape. Air dragons couldn’t breathe underwater like we could, and it was harder for them to take off from deeper water—there wasn’t enough room for the full sweep of their wings. Besides, while the beach wasn’t packed, there were still people about, and if there was one thing the scientists were fanatical about, it was not revealing our presence. Marsten didn’t want to share the glory with anyone.
It was probably the one thing he and the dragon communities would ever agree on.
When the depth was right, I headed for the light and the air. As I neared the surface, I let myself go and simply floated on the waves, as if unconscious. My arms were outstretched, my fingers in the water.
And still I called to the power of the sea and the waves, gathering it to me, letting it build, until the energy swirled around me, an unseen vortex ready to be unleashed.
For several minutes, there was no reaction from the dark-skinned man. No vibration or movement disturbing the waves rolling toward the beach.
Then I felt it. One step. Then another. Soon he was splashing through the waves, hurrying toward me. I moved my fingers slowly through the water, caressing the power, readying it.
Fingers touched my foot tentatively. Tension ran through the water, thick and heavy, as the man who held my foot braced himself against the slightest hint of movement.
I didn’t twitch.
His grip against my foot became firmer. Tentatively, he tugged me backward. The power of the sea surged against my control, as if eager to grab my assailant. I held it back, felt the anger of it roar through my body. Knew I wouldn’t be able to control it for very much longer.
His chuckle filled the air. A satisfied sound if ever I’d heard one. So I flicked my fingers wide, unleashing the vortex. It swirled past, sending me spinning, and hit the dark-skinned man hard, sucking him down into the ocean.
I flipped around, taking a breath of air, then ducked under the water. The hunter was spinning under the surface, held there by the vortex. Even if he changed, it wouldn’t have helped. The vortex was too strong, too powerful, and would have ripped his wings to pieces. Besides, shifting shape wasn’t an instantaneous thing, and he probably would have drowned in the process. The fear etched on his face suggested he knew that.
I spread my hands wide, flicking my fingers toward the surface, raising the vortex and allowing him to grab a breath before yanking him back down again. It was a pattern I kept as I swept him out to sea, until there was no beach, no nothing. Just ocean. Endless blue ocean.
And us.
Even then, I didn’t set him entirely free, keeping him locked within the vortex but no longer spinning. Just because I believed that dragons couldn’t take off in deep water didn’t mean that they couldn’t. It was definitely better to be safe than sorry with these bastards.
“Oh God, oh God,” he said, over and over as he fought to get free, movements panicked and almost believable.