Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 97188 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97188 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
I don’t see the wave coming. All I hear is Maeve’s scream of warning and then the boat is tipping, tipping, tipping. No amount of grace or balance is enough to keep me out of the furious water. I spin to the selkie as the boat flips entirely, throwing us into the sea.
There’s barely time to suck in a startled breath before I’m plunged deep. The few times I’ve had cause to be in the ocean, it was deceptively calm. Serene almost. That’s not this ocean.
Another wave slams me into the overturned boat hard enough to rattle my brain in my skull. I barely have the presence of mind to stab the wood with my nails, digging deep enough to keep me attached to it.
Unless the next wave rips my arm clean off.
“Lizzie!”
I twist, searching for Maeve in the darkness. There’s no fucking light. Even with my superior ability to see in the dark, I might as well have a bag over my head. I can’t concentrate enough to search for her with my power, but even if I could, it would be a lost cause. The water is too damn cold, and it’s likely sucking the warmth right out of Maeve’s body more efficiently than a vampire ever could.
Then she appears beside me, a waterlogged angel. “Lizzie,” she gasps. “The straps.”
I don’t think. I release the boat to loop an arm around her and keep her head above water. The result is both of us sinking. Maeve shoves me off her and claws her way to the surface. I manage to follow, sputtering out salt water. “Hey!”
“You’re going to get us killed,” she snarls. My sweet selkie is nowhere, replaced by a furious woman who looks like she wants to drown me herself.
My selkie.
I must have hit my head harder than I thought if I’m calling her that, even internally.
Maeve half crawls onto the overturned boat and yanks something out of the side of it. Some kind of opening? She motions impatiently for me to come closer, as if it’s the easiest thing in the world.
The rain chooses that moment to pick up, trying to drown us from above. I can barely see Maeve through the sheets of water falling from the sky. Fuck Threshold. Fuck sailing. Fuck nature entirely.
I battle my way back to the boat. Every part of me hurts, which I wouldn’t have thought possible. It’s only been a few minutes, but the sea has beaten me more efficiently than any fight I’ve ever been in.
Maeve grabs my upper arm with more strength than I expected. She hauls me to the side of the boat and drags my hand up to . . . a strap. That’s what she was pulling out of the side of the boat. A fucking strap on its underside.
I glare at her. “You knew this was going to happen!”
“Shut up and hang on.” She tilts her head back, her curls plastered to her face. “We just have to outlast the storm and we can flip the boat back over.”
She’s . . . entirely unfazed.
I want to yell at her some more, to expel the awful energy inside me that tastes just like fear. But that won’t do a damn thing. So I cling to one of the two straps on this side of the overturned hull, expecting to be ripped away at any given moment by a particularly strong gust of wind or a rogue wave.
Through it all, I watch Maeve. The tight line of her lips is the only sign of stress. She’s got her head tilted back as if she can drink in the entire sky, her brows relaxed and her eyes shut. It’s almost as if she’s enjoying this, just a little. I want to hate her for it, but she looks so damn good while doing it. And she may have saved my life, because even as my strength flags, the angle of the strap around my wrist keeps me above water.
I barely register the storm leaving. One moment the waves are slightly less violent and the next we’re floating on a relatively calm surface, and the rain feels more like mist on my skin than a deluge trying to shove me under the surface.
Maeve leans her head against the boat. “Take a breather, and then we’re flipping it over.”
Just like that.
Damn it, I can’t help but admire her a little in this moment. She handled that crisis significantly better than I did. She’s still handling it better than I am.
I drag in a salty breath and make a face. I’m pretty sure I’ll never be dry again. “Why wait? Let’s get this bitch flipped now.”
chapter 12
Lizzie
The less said about the three days between the storm and washing up on the shores of Khollu, the better. What little luxuries we had were consumed by the waves, leaving only the bare food and water Maeve had strapped down. Neither of us has been much for conversation in the meantime. The trip was something to be endured as we fought our way in the general direction Maeve was certain we needed to go.