“Bella, I can’t fucking swim!”
Shit.
His wings flick against the water, but the shape of them catches the water like a bowl at the center. His body isn’t made for this.
And I have no damn idea how I’m supposed to rescue a giant of a man like The Ruiner.
“It’s okay. It’s okay,” I tell him. I say it over and over again. I slide my arm around his slick torso, his wings jarring into my every stroke as I head toward the shore.
But it’s so far away.
“It’s okay,” I tell the both of us.
I reassure myself as much as I do him. I say it to keep morale. I say it—I say it because the sea is pulling me back with every inch I gain.
It’s impossible.
And still, I keep going. Ruiner has saved me more times than he even knows.
I won’t fail him.
My eyes aren’t even open when jagged coral cuts into my arms. I fling at the sea. My poor attempt to keep swimming is just engraved into my brain, even as my tired limbs start to give out.
It feels like broken glass along my knees. My palms splay out to hold myself up from the unseen sharpness, but pain slashes across my flesh there too.
Until I’m scooped up. My dark hair covers my face. I’m too tired to even try to blow a breath of air at the veil of wet, messy locks blinding my sight.
“It’s okay,” Ruin whispers sweetly to me on that crushed velvet voice of his.
My head jostles into his shoulder when his knees hit the ground. His protective hold never releases me as he slowly lowers to the grass. Through my tangled hair, I see his lashes close, his ragged breaths turning slow and even finally.
He leapt into the sea to save me. He knew his wings would sink him, and yet he leapt after me anyway.
Why does his near-death experience feel all warm and fuzzy inside my chest?
His strong heartbeat settles into a steady rhythm that fills my ears as I lean into his smooth chest. It’s easy to fall into him and curl up in his big arms. There was never a problem with finding comfort in my friend. There was only the problem of remembering just that: my strong, gorgeous protector... is just a friend.
Chapter Six
It takeshours to find our way back. It’s a journey to travel from the sea up to the highest point of the kingdom. Dense silence carries on for so long, our little dirt path widens to smooth cobblestone streets. The Kingdom of Carnal soon comes alive all around me, and I still can’t help but peer around at the buildings that hang lanterns at each door. This strange world is notorious as a refuge for Monsters. Other creatures, the prettier ones like the Fae kingdom to the north, they don’t welcome the broken the way that Carnal does. Anyone strange and bizarre, they’re welcome here with open arms.
And they’re created here too.
The parasitic magic of this kingdom that sinks into your bones and infects your flesh, that’s the price you pay for acceptance.
An old woman with a tattered, graying shawl fills a baby carriage with knickknacks. Old clocks, vases, figurines, and rusting tins fill the pale blue stroller to the brim. We pass her by on the wide-open street, and her graying eyes fill with white smoke as she looks up at me, pinning me in place with the weight of her stare.
“Care for a souvenir, Pretty Girl?” Her talon-like hand reaches out to me, and in the palm of her lined hand rests a silver ring with an opal gem at the center.
“I’ve seen that ring before,” I mutter as I stand transfixed, staring at the jewelry as dozens of others pass me by.
That’s Ivy’s ring. I gave it to her for her birthday last year.
My fingers lift one at a time as I reach for the memento in the flat of the old woman’s palm.
And then something hard stings across my knuckles before I ever make contact.
“What the fuck!” I glare up at my friend at my side. Before he can explain the slap he just gave my hand, he’s ushering me away from that side of the street entirely.