Windburn (The Elemental Series #4)(29)

Nausea rolled through me at the simple thought of trusting my life to a human contraption. “No, we’ll go to The Bastard. If you’re sure.”

“The only choice we have, I think,” Peta said, “and until you get your second familiar, maybe we can convince him to help us. He is a bit of a glutton, so a food reward would work. Or the offer of some attractive ladies.”

I grimaced. I’d heard The Bastard was difficult . . . one of those few creatures who was truly alone in the world since he was a creation, not a natural occurrence. Even the Trolls got to breed and have babies. The Bastard, not so much.

“Then it’s set, we’re off to see him. And hope we can convince him to help.”

I had a feeling it wouldn’t be all that easy, but it was a long road between us and Greece. Perhaps in the interim we’d find a simpler way.

Somehow I truly doubted it, but one could hope.





CHAPTER 10





“ou think the ferry is safe?” Cactus crouched by the edge of the boat while we waited for the sun to rise and for the human who owned the boat.

“You want to swim across the channel?” I lifted an eyebrow at him and he shook his head.

“Nah. It’ll ruin my hair.”

Peta snorted and shivered lightly. “Lark, I have a funny feeling—”

There was no warning other than Peta’s words. A wave shot up above our heads with a speed that could only mean one thing. An Undine had decided we were a threat.

I bolted backward, Cactus and Peta with me, as the wave crashed down where we’d been standing. The tail end of it caught my legs and sent me sprawling onto the rough cement that touched the docks.

The jagged footing tore at my pants and ripped at my skin. Hissing, I rolled to my back to stare at where we’d been only moments before. A high-pitched giggle rebounded toward us and for a split second I thought Finley, queen of the Undines, was playing a prank on us.

A figure rose up out of the water and stepped onto the docks. Not a girl, not even a woman, but a rail-thin man stared at us. His eyes flicked from me to Cactus, to Peta, and then back to me. A full-body shiver rocked through him and he snapped his head back as it reached the top of him. He had dark eyes and darker hair and looked far too much like Requiem for my liking. Requiem had raped Bella, tried to kill Ash and me and had nearly taken the throne of the Undines. To say he was not one of my favorite people would be an understatement. If he’d still been alive, that was.

The Undine shivered again, softer this time. “Do you know who I am?”

“Peta, he look like anyone to you?”

“Mouse turds, he looks like Requiem.” She clicked her teeth together. “I thought we killed him?”

The Requiem look-alike dropped to a crouch and scuttled forward, like a crustacean. “Requiem, Requiem, he was my brother. A bastard to the core, he had me banished and here I am, mad as a hermit crab with no shell. No place to call my own, cut off from the place that feeds my soul.”

He scurried toward us and I took several steps back. A banished elemental . . . already mad with the loss of his home. I grabbed Cactus’s hand. “I don’t want to hurt him. If Requiem banished him, he was probably one of the good guys.”

“We may not have a choice.” Cactus turned me to the side where a second elemental crept our way. Another Undine, by the fins that sprouted along the edge of his arms and legs.

“Peta, tell me we can talk them down.”

She whimpered. “No. The banished are to be killed on sight. Not because they should die, but because they are dangerous—”

The Undine on our left roared and leapt toward us, his arms and legs spread wide as he shifted into a giant octopus, tentacles reaching for us. I dropped to one knee and yanked my spear clear of my belt. The octopus shifter landed on top of Cactus and me. Before I could get my spear free, the tentacles wrapped around us with a speed I’d previously reserved in my mind for striking snakes. We were jammed together as the Undine tightened his hold on us. My head pressed up against his bulbous eye and his thoughts rushed through me.

Kill them show loyalty, don’t question, kill them take me home please take me home don’t leave me out here I’m dying my spirit fades kill them take me home find me a place kill them.

His pain and sorrow flooded my mind, and if I’d been standing, the emotions would have brought me to my knees. Cactus groaned and then a burst of flame lit him up, covering his body long enough to make the tentacles release him. Except that they re-wrapped around me.

We slipped backward toward the water. Panic reared its ugly head.

“Worm shit, Cactus, help me!”

“I’m trying.” The sound of flesh sizzling under a ball of flame met my ears a split second before the Undine holding me dropped over the wooden dock edge and into the icy channel.

With my arms trapped to my sides, all I could do with my spear was swipe it uselessly through the water and hope I hit something. We rolled and I was looking up at the surface of the water. The tentacles tightened and then loosened a fraction of an inch. Enough to turn and get my spear up.

Time seemed to pause as our eyes met. He blinked once, shook his head and reared back. The parrot-like beak of his mouth aimed for my face. He let me go another few inches, and adjusted my position with his tentacles.

Lips clamped shut tightly, I thrust my spear tip up into the center of his head as I tried not to think about why he was banished. Because he’d opposed Requiem? Because he’d tried to stop a raging tyrant from taking over his home?