Death Doesn't Bargain

  And while this wasn’t quite as bloody and cruel as Kalder’s thorough gutting during their last meeting, Cameron was, however, quite certain that in his mind this session ranked right up there behind it.

  How could it not?

  You bloody bitching-troll …

  Cameron wanted to slap the woman for her unnecessary cruelty as she showed such blatant favoritism between her children. Especially when she saw the way Kalder’s pewter gaze remained guarded and emotionless, as if he were afraid to let any part of his façade slip for fear of what they’d do to him should he display any sort of weakness.

  It infuriated her on his behalf. Family shouldn’t be like this. They were supposed to support each other. Bolster you when you stumbled. Hold your hand when you were afraid.

  Embrace you whenever you came home, and hold you as if they were afraid of letting you go again.

  Instead, Kalder stayed in the doorway while his brothers went to their mother and Muerig. Like an outsider who didn’t belong with his family.

  And that made her ache for him. He should be welcomed with the same happy fervor.

  Yet they turned their backs and treated him with less regard than they gave her and the rest of the crew.

  He meant nothing to his family, and it showed. The fact that they displayed this so openly was all the meaner.

  But the real rub to her was the fact that Kalder didn’t expect better. He didn’t bother to reach out.

  Because this, to him, was normal.

  And this should never be normal to anyone.

  “Why didn’t you tell me Muery was back!” their mother chided as she reached for Varice’s hand to rub it tenderly.

  “He just arrived.”

  “How is this possible?” She glanced around and then her happiness faded as she finally spotted Kalder in their group.

  In one instant her expression became the epitome of cold and ruthless.

  Kalder inclined his head to her respectfully. “Greetings, Mother.”

  That made her eyes go as dead as the grave. “What are you doing here?” Her tone dripped with a coldness that even the Arctic would envy.

  “Returning your son to your loving arms. I knew how much you missed him.” And with those emotionless words spoken, he headed off in the opposite direction, away from them.

  No one stopped him.

  No one.

  Cameron couldn’t breathe as she realized that not a single member of his family cared for him. They went right back to his brother without a single second glance at his retreating form.

  He didn’t matter to them at all. He was forgotten the moment he vanished from their sight.

  Unable to bear the callous way they treated him, and aching in sympathetic pain, she rushed after him. No one deserved to be treated this way. To be so disregarded.

  She couldn’t imagine a worse cut.

  By the time she caught up to his long strides, he was outside the building, in a peculiar marketplace. She paused at the strangeness of it all. There were many more creatures here similar to Chthamalus who walked about on tentacled legs, alongside “humans” and other entities she couldn’t even begin to identify. Some as beautiful as angels and others …

  Hideous would be a kind description.

  But the buildings were the oddest things of all. Iridescent and shiny, they were made of a material the likes of which she’d never beheld before. It reminded her of the skin of a pearl, yet the texture was closer to that of steel. And just as inside the palace, there was a light here akin to sunlight, yet no obvious source for it.

  What magick made this place possible? How could this exist and her world know nothing of it?

  Incredible!

  “Mr. Dupree?”

  He slowed at her call to look back over his shoulder. Then he paused, too. “You shouldn’t have followed me, Cameron.”

  Biting her lip, she closed the distance between them. “I couldn’t leave you be. Not after that cruelty.”

  A tic started in his cheek. That was the only sign he gave as to how much their actions hurt him.

  Aye, he was a strong one. Always. He kept his pain locked in and spoke nothing of it. Only those stormy eyes betrayed what was locked inside his heart.

  And it made her burn for him that he’d been so neglected. Yearned to hold and soothe him until the pain was gone from those stormy eyes. To keep him close and give him what they’d so obviously failed to.

  Before she could stop herself, she reached up and placed her hand to his cheek. The roughness of his whiskers teased her palm and contrasted sharply with the softness of his lips. “You’re a good man, Kalder Dupree. Never let them, or anyone else, tell you otherwise.”

  He crushed her against him and gave her the hottest kiss of her life. One that left her breathless and aching. It was raw and hungry and whetted her appetite for things she knew better than to even think about.

  Yet she couldn’t help it. Every time she neared him, she hungered in a way that was sheer madness.

  When he finally released her, he cupped her face in his hands and ground his teeth as if he were fighting with himself. “You don’t know what you’re saying, lass. A good man would walk away from you.”

  “Why? Because your brother’s an arseling? You’ve met mine. Trust me. Few is the family what doesn’t have a stockpile of them. So what if some have a few more than others. It’s more about the size of the one above the overall quantity of them, anyway.”

  Kalder laughed, amazed that she could amuse him when he felt so low and hurt. Yet that was the beauty of her. She always made him feel better. And he didn’t know how. Others annoyed the very shite out of him. He couldn’t stand to be near most people. They tried his patience with nothing more than the sound of their breathing. In and out. The sheer monotony of it made him want to choke them till they stopped.

  Cameron …

  She, he craved with a madness indescribable. When others would ride his nerves into the ground, with barbed spurs on, and make him crave their hearts for it, her mere presence amused him. Soothed him. He could spend forever listening to her most inane prattle. And he didn’t know why.

  The sound of her voice alone brought him peace.

  Unaware of how she affected him, she glanced around the city. “What is this place?”

  “Wyñeria.”

  “Your homeland.” Her smile made him instantly hard and wanton. “Now I see what you meant when you tried to describe where it was located, you tricky man. Though you could have told me about some of these incredible marvels.” She tsked at him. “We’re under the sea, aren’t we?”

  “Aye. Very observant you are, lass,” he teased lightly. “Truly astute.”

  Without taking offense, she turned around, trying to take it all in. “It’s so beautiful. Wondrous! Unlike anything I’ve ever seen. So where does the light come from? Surely the sun cannot reach this far down, can it?”

  “Nay. Bioluminescent plankton that only grows down here. We call it surilah.”

  She sucked her breath in sharply. “That’s a lovely name! It just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? So then, how is it dry here, anyway, if we’re under the ocean? Shouldn’t we be wet? How do you bathe? Can you bathe? Can it rain? How do you grow food? Do you have seasons?”

  Kalder laughed as she rattled off on a roll, asking more questions before he had a chance to answer any.

  Cameron was always so full of questions. Always rambling them off, one after another, usually in rapid-fire succession.

  And he didn’t mind a bit. “Our legends say that it was placed on the ocean floor by the first king after his Myrcian wife told him that she would only birth him a son when she could lie comfortably on a dry bed of silk. But since he insisted his son be ocean born, as was the way of our people, this city was his compromise with her.”

  “And the portal that brought us here?”

  “Only the Barnaks and our versions of priests control them. They can come and go as they please. And they can br
ing humans down from the surface. Getting you back to your world without killing you is trickier for them for some reason—that requires one with special skills—a sacerdos. They are able to bend the laws of magick enough that they can prevent the human body from becoming ill and dying. As for us … we have to swim back and forth between the two. Our bodies don’t survive the portals well.”

  So that was why he’d arrived wet while the rest of them weren’t. And why his gills had been exposed. Now she understood.

  “Is it a long way?”

  “Not the way we swim. But you wouldn’t survive it. The human body can’t adapt to the water like ours does. We’re made for it. You’re not.”

  She moved to touch the wall of the nearest building. “It’s so pretty the way it shimmers so.”

  Its beauty couldn’t touch hers. Especially not the way the light played against her skin and in her eyes.

  In either of her forms. He’d never seen a more beautiful woman in all his life.

  She looked up at him with an adorable smile. “I can’t imagine you as a boy here.”

  He jerked his chin toward a group of them who were playing nearby. “I wasn’t as carefree and happy as they. Me brothers and father saw to that. Rather, I spent the majority of me time skulking about the ruins.”

  “The ruins?”

  He nodded. “Aye. Would you like to see them?”

  “Sure.”

  Kalder took her hand and led her out of the city, far away from the bustle of the Myrcians he’d thought were long dead. How weird to be back when he’d been fully convinced that the entire city was gone. It was surreal to find it so eerily the same and yet very different from the place of his childhood memories.

  He recognized much, and at the same time it was like being in a foreign land he’d never seen before. Familiar and lost, at the same time.

  I should be used to being an outsider. He’d always felt that way here. Never quite fitting in. Never feeling wanted by anyone.

  It was what had driven him to find solace in his own solitude where he didn’t see disappointment or irritation in the faces of others. Where he didn’t hear open agitation in a strained voice as it barked at him for being in the way when all he was trying to do was become invisible. Here, he didn’t have to guard his words or actions.

  He could just be.

  That precious and ever-elusive peace he’d savored and clung to every moment he could. Because he knew how fleeting it was. And that all too soon they’d be on his back again. That the insults would return, a relentless soundtrack in his head, and from their angry mouths that never gave him any reprieve.

  Only Cameron silenced that wave of endless criticisms that constantly flogged his sanity. The inner hatred that threatened to drown him. He didn’t know how, but her presence made him want to be a better person. Made him want to be the man she saw him as.

  She allowed him to breathe for the first time in his life. And he wanted to share things with her that he’d never shared with anyone else. Most of all, he wanted to keep her laughter ringing in his life.

  In his heart.

  Cameron slowed her steps as they came to an edge opening that looked out over the tumbled stones where bright fluorescent coral had grown. Like the walls, it glowed, only this was a vibrant coral as opposed to green and blue. The water over it made it appear to move and breathe.

  As far as she could see, there were the remains of shattered buildings in the dark water, covered by the glowing plankton. A vibrant and yet dead and crumbling city underneath the water that lay outside the city’s walls. “What is this?”

  “The remains of a war my people fought against Poseidon, long ago.”

  “Who won?”

  “We did. But at a great cost, and loss of life. It’s what really happened to the Pharos of Alexandria. It wasn’t destroyed by an earthquake. Rather, a group of our warriors went after it in retaliation for the destruction they did to us here.”

  He gave her a sheepish smile that lit the shadows of his handsome face. “Would you like a closer look at it?”

  “I would love one.” Cameron glanced out the window that was covered by a membrane where the sunken city lay asleep beneath treacherous dark ocean waters. “But how?”

  “Do you trust me?”

  How could he ask her such a thing? “Of course.”

  Cameron froze as he began to slowly unbutton her heavy woolen jacket. “Mr. Dupree?”

  “It’ll weigh you down in the water.”

  She would ask about that, but his hands were directly over her breasts now, and it was all she could do to maintain her composure. Especially when one accidentally brushed across her hardened nipple, causing her stomach to involuntarily contract. Worse, it sent a sharp stab through the center of her body, giving her a sudden ache and hunger the likes of which she could barely understand.

  It took everything she had not to rise up on her tiptoes and kiss him. Or, more to the point, grab him and start tearing at his own clothes.

  Her breathing turned ragged.

  And when he dropped her jacket to the ground behind her, she’d never felt more exposed in her life. Honestly, her white linen shirt might as well be bare skin the way she felt.

  By the devilish grin on his face, she suspected he knew as much. Rather than apologize, he pulled her body against his and fell back into the water, through the membrane, with her in his arms.

  She gasped as they plunged into the lagoon and the ice-cold water enveloped her whole body and invaded her every sense. But this was unlike anything she’d ever experienced before. The pressure of the water was heavy and thick.

  Invasive and dark. She held her breath and still they went deeper into the blackness with no end in sight. Not that she could see anything.

  Worse, the salt stung at her eyes when she opened them. Her lungs began to burn as the pressure against her chest built even more.

  Panicking, she started to flail in an attempt to save her life.

  Until Kalder kissed her.

  Nay, not kissed …

  He breathed air into her lungs. Air that alleviated that pressure and made her feel instantly lighter.

  Startled, she pulled back to stare aghast at him and those mesmerizing eyes that glowed mercury silver in the midnight depths.

  “’Tis the Adum.” Somehow, she heard him plainly through the water, as if he were speaking normally.

  Cupping her face in both of his hands that were now webbed and clawed, he again breathed air into her so that she could live beneath the waves. His tanned skin turned to a peculiar luminescence that made his tattoos stand out even more. “Underwater, my people exhale pure oxygen, so I can breathe for us both … if you let me.”

  Stunned, she stared at him in his Myrcian body, which was even more handsome than his human one. “Can you understand me?”

  “Perfectly.” He kissed her hand while she hovered in the water by his side. “Are you scared?”

  A little, but she kept that to herself. “Not when I’m with you.”

  His smile warmed her more than anything could. He breathed into her a gentle kiss, then pulled her through the crushing weight of the water so that he could show her a dark, cavernous world unlike anything she’d ever seen before.

  But the best part, bar none, were his breaths of life that he stopped to give her every few seconds.

  His gaze turned warm and teasing. “I’m right here, Cameron. Grab a nip whenever you feel short of breath.”

  Yet as they went on, all the light vanished. It became an endless, oppressive night that began to terrify her with visions of a painful, watery death. “It’s so dark here … how can you see to know where we’re going?”

  She’d barely finished those words before the entire area lit up. Gasping, she turned to see that the source of the light was Kalder, himself.

  He glowed from the inside out.

  Her jaw went slack. Never had she seen anything like this.

  “How are you doing that?”


  He winked at her. “One of me many talents, me lady phearse. We’re able to secrete light in the water. I can do it on land, too. But tend not to, as it makes the humans lose all semblance of reason whenever they see it. Damn near scared one bugger to death when he caught me lighting up once in the woods. Next thing I knew, he’d written a whole series of stories about a will-o’-the-wisp ghoul over it and turned me into a major villain. Sadly, I was only out to take care of me business in private. Truth be told, I was the one who should have been horrified by the whole, personal encounter, more so than he.”

  Laughing, she allowed him to pull her through the heavy water that caressed every part of her body. All around her, the aquatic life seemed to dance to some song only it could hear. Schools of beautifully colored fish swam by them, and some that were so ugly she couldn’t even describe their forms. They twisted out of shape and contorted.

  Like the skeletons of fallen Titans, the crumbled buildings spread out as far as she could see. But what amazed her were the creatures who made them their homes. Both plant and animal gave new life to the destruction left behind by war.

  Out of devastation comes hope.

  Out of death, there is life.

  Cameron paused as she remembered something her parents had taught them when they were young. Something she’d hadn’t thought about in years.

  Out of tragedy comes strength.

  Out of pain comes wisdom.

  Out of sorrow comes insight.

  You will never know how high you can soar until you’ve learned to fly with wings that were broken by enemies and reforged by your own determination to succeed and let no one hold you down ever again. To show them all that their cruelty will not define you. That you will not live by their rules or dictates. You are your own master and they will never have power over you again.

  Let nothing hold you back. Let nothing hem you in. You set your course and you fly to the heavens. A beautiful, imperfect creature, capable of love and trust, even after betrayal. Capable of mustering courage in the midst of utter terror. And capable of delivering mercy even after all you’ve ever been shown was cruelty.

  You will rise above the ashes of the future they attempted to burn to the ground, a stronger creature, steadfast and more determined than ever to see this through. For there is nothing more terrifying in this universe than the Soul Determinatus. For it will not be stopped and it will not be daunted.