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Clumsy with need, Liam lunged forward. The low waves hampered him, and his flailing flung water into his eyes with a blurring sting. Gina’s name, and a wail of frustration built in his throat, choking him. Then he staggered to a halt with the sudden horrible certainty that this was just another of his nightmares. Yet again, he would wake up really wailing, his arms empty.
But the chilly sea saturating his jeans and T-shirt was too cold to be a dream. And the figure beneath the water was clearer still, moving towards him. His pounding heart felt close to bursting, his senses wound to such a screaming roar, it was almost unbearable.
The submerged girl was almost within arm’s reach. Emerging from beneath the surface, she rose to her feet, water streaming from her. Clad in a clinging white shift, wet dark hair sleek to her head, she stood waist-deep before him. An utter stranger.
Her eyebrows rose, her eyes widening with recognition. Water trailed down her pale skin and glimmered in her spiked eyelashes. Her lovely lips parted, and for the second time that day, someone he’d never met before called him by a name that was his, yet not his.
“Davian?” she breathed. “How can this be?”
Liam’s mind focused with steel clarity. This had to be one of what he’d suspected existed, what Daniel Sebastian had written about. A race of ocean predators - surely Gina’s captors. Her murderers. His hands moved without his conscious thought directing them, and closed around the girl’s throat, squeezing, squeezing.
She pulled at his wrists. Her strength was surprising but no match for his fury. Her hands, and her skin beneath his were as cold as the water they stood in. Despite his vicious focus on ending this creature, wondering how long it took to choke the life from someone who breathed water, the memory of a cold palm clasped in his own at Bliss Café surfaced; resonated. His choke-hold loosened a fraction. Hunter.
Hunter, who had appeared from nowhere, looking exactly the same as when Skye’s mother had drawn him years ago. Hunter who had attached himself to Skye, and who had called him Davian. Hunter...must surely be like this one. There must be more of them. He went still for a moment, his mind racing, staring at his captive’s face.
Killing this one wouldn’t fix anything. No. He had a better use for it. He would drag the truth out of her, hunt them all down, and kill them one by one until they gave up Gina or the truth of what happened to her. Abruptly he hauled the girl closer, saw her eyes widen a fraction before he twisted her around and into the choke-hold of his bent arm, and began to drag her towards the shore.
He’d thought she’d been resisting before, but it was nothing to now. Writhing violently, she thrashed against his hold, twisting and reaching behind her to scratch his face, his neck, tearing uselessly at his clothes. He tried to lift her higher, swinging her ahead of him towards the beach so he could try pushing her forwards instead of pulling, intent on his purpose until she began to scream. An eerie high-pitched wail of agony that despite his hatred made him quail. It was the sound he made in his dreams.
To his horror he watched her skin shiver, writhing in a different way. Her fingers, her wrists and arms shimmered like a mirage, wisps of mist rising like wood smoke towards the evening sky. She was dissolving. Despite his own blood-lust, he thrust her away from him, back, realising that shoreward could be the end.
She toppled heavily into the water, and sank beneath the surface, immobile apart from the gentle rocking of her body in the tide. Had he killed her?
But soon she began to move, stretching, testing her limbs, seeing if she was still intact. Liam didn’t hesitate a second time. Plunging his hand into the water, he seized a wrist and hauled her upright. He didn’t know what he was going to do with her, all he knew was that he had to keep the upper hand. He would never get this chance again.
In seconds she was on her feet, but this time she didn’t fight him. Instead, he felt the eerie sensation of a strange touch on the surface of his self, unbearably intimate. Like a hand had slipped beneath his skull and stroked his mind, something moved across his thoughts and feelings.
Oddly, it wasn’t a completely foreign sensation. It was like the reverse of something he knew. Still gripping her wrist, he reached out with his feelings, something he had done most of his life, trying to sense what he was dealing with. But instead of finding emotions, as he so often could with the people he wanted to persuade, this time his attempt slipped as if off a shiny surface, unable to find purchase. They stared at one another, each searching the other’s face.
“You are not Davian,” she said, “but of our line. Unsurprising given his free-spirited ways. I see it on your face, and sense it in your thoughts.”
“Get out of my head,” he spat.
“You first,” she said coolly. “Do not think I am unaware you seek to know my mind just as I would know yours.” She smirked, her lovely eyes full of amusement at his shock. “Hello, cousin an-uncountable-number-of-times removed”
“We are not related. What are you - some kind of sea witch? How many of you are there?” He yanked her closer, his voice rising. “What did you do with my girlfriend? Where is Gina?”
She raised her other hand placatingly. “You are of our line. I see it in your face and by your gifts. But not our line only, I think.” Her eyes narrowed as she studied him closely, and a cold look of hatred passed over her face. A faint hiss passed her lips sending a shiver down his back. “I see. So. That is where Davian was spending his nights. You may be one of our line, but you are also one of theirs.”
Her chest heaved and she drew herself in as if gathering herself for attack. Instinctively Liam let her go, stumbling back as he recognised pure murder in her eyes. He had underestimated his prey. But as he watched, she mastered herself, her expression smoothing, a small sweet smile curving her lips. “No, stay, I beg you. You are no more to blame for your ancestry than any grain of sand on this beach is for once being a rock upon a cliff face.”
“Lady, I have no clue what you’re talking about. If you think I’m related to you, you’re crazy. You’re just trying to buy time.”
“I have nothing but time.” Her eyes were veiled, and Liam felt out of his depth. What had happened? He’d had this thing in his power, and suddenly he was standing here chatting?
“You spoke of a loved one. Gina.”
He froze.
“A pretty thing, auburn-haired, not unlike my own colouring. Yes?”
Heart pounding, he nodded
“Perhaps that is why she was chosen, taken...enjoyed.”
He could barely hear over the thundering in his ears.
“Such a shame. She’d lived so little. So few experiences of a human life to offer one starved of them. Yet not nothing to offer, I think...”
Quick as thought, he lunged forward and seized her by her wet hair close to her skull. This time he would end her.
“Wait, please wait,”
He ignored her, dragging her forward again.
Her cry of wait rose to a choking scream, “I’ll tell you who killed Gina”
He paused.
Her fingers were beginning to shimmer like a mirage, a wisp of steam rising from their tips again. Despite her obvious agony, her eyes challenged him, “If you kill me now, you will have my blood on your hands, and the one who took and killed your beloved Gina will go free.” He stared at the mist rising from her hand, the pain on her face.
“Trust me,” she urged in a whisper, pushing at his will. “You could end him, end them all. I can tell you how.” He didn’t need the nudge. Ending all of them was exactly what he wanted.
He released his grip on her hair, seizing her wrist again, and allowed her to retreat from the water’s edge to sink beneath the surface. The relief on her face made him itch to wring her neck again. She deserved no measure of mercy. He braced for a fight in case she tried to twist free. But rising to stand again, she showed no sign of wanting to leave.
“Why would you want all of your kind to die?”
Her look of cold clarity and intense focus felt familiar to him. “Revenge,” she said so coldly he believed her. “Trust me,” she urged again, “we can help each other. I have plans for their demise, for reasons of my own. I know it can be done and I need your help to do it. It begins with...Hunter.”
“Hunter?”
“I see you know the name. He is essential to my plan and to your revenge. Bring him to me.”
“Did he kill Gina?” He demanded.
“No. That lies at the feet of a clansman of mine, and in a way, of yours: Jarrod.”
“How can I find him?”
“You can do more than that. Jarrod has plans of his own. He raises a force to bring this village of yours under his dominion. You don’t know what you are, but you are the means to ending us all. Your forbear once ruled us, and all of these lands. You are descended from the one who did this to us.”
“Glad to hear it,” he sneered.
Her lips drew back, and once again in her face Liam saw a hatred so deep a rash of goosebumps passed over his skin.
She swallowed her emotions back down, smoothing her expression, her eyebrows archly rising. “How fitting it would be for you to finish the job he began countless years ago.”
Liam studied her. “Man, your people must have really done a number on you for you to want them dead,” he probed.
“It will be repaid,” she hissed, making him shudder. “Do you agree to this?”
As long as her plans served his own purposes, Liam realised he didn’t care what her reasons were. If he really was descended from someone who tried to destroy them, bring it on. He was the guy to finish the job. And he’d make sure this terrifying witch joined them.
“I agree.”
“What is your name, boy?”
Liam straightened, raising his chin, “Liam. Liam Noble.”
She smirked disdainfully, and he stifled another urge to choke her. “And you?”
“I am Thea. I will be waiting for you, Liam Noble. And then...then we shall begin.”
