Heart of the Fae (The Otherworld #1)(60)

Sorcha had always been a fighter. She wouldn’t suck in the salt water until the very last second or until she passed out. Her body convulsed, arguing with her mind that she needed to breathe. Her eyelids drifted shut so she could forget for one second that she was underwater.

Just a moment longer, she thought. Just one more moment to enjoy being alive. To feel the cold water on my fingertips and remember that she lived.

A warm hand wrapped around her arm. Her eyes snapped open. It was too dark to know whether the shadowy figure was a merrow man, but she didn’t care anymore. She just wanted to breathe.

Heat spread from the gentle touch as it slid down her forearm and found where she still clutched her hair. An odd scrape of scale abraded her skin, slicing through the lock of hair easily.

No, not scale, she realized. Crystal.

She clutched onto his shoulders with clawed hands and desperately kicked. If she could just get to the surface. If she could just inhale.

His hand wrapped around her jaw, forcing her head down. She didn’t want to look down into that darkness. Why wasn’t he moving? Didn’t he understand that she was moments away from inhaling water and—

Warm lips wrapped around hers. He squeezed her jaw and her mouth opened for a moment. He exhaled. She breathed in his air desperately. The pain in her lungs eased.

It wasn’t enough, but it would do. Sorcha squeezed her eyes shut and hooked a leg around his waist, anchoring herself to him. She tried not to take too much of his breath, he’d need it to get them back to the surface. But it was addicting.

The crystal running down his upper lip sliced through the waterlogged skin of her cheek. She winced at the pain and drew back. Salt stung the wound.

With her securely held in his arms, Stone pushed off the bottom of the ocean. They shot through the water like an arrow from a bow. She held tight to his broad shoulders, ripples of muscle shifting beneath her fingertips.

They broke the surface, and she gasped in air. It was too much, she choked violently and hung onto him for dear life. He wasn’t even breathing hard. He simply waited until she stopped coughing and then rolled onto his back.

When she struggled, he brushed the wet strands of hair from her face. “Easy, relax. Let the ocean take you back to shore.”

Sorcha coughed again, “I can swim on my own.”

“Let me do the work, Sorcha. Stop fighting me.”

She felt as though a bolt of lightning had struck her. That was exactly what she had been doing since the moment she reached this isle. Fighting him, in every conversation, in every rule he made. And yet, he still saved her.

Waves rocked them, white caps growing dangerously high as the storm raged above them.

“I trust you,” she whispered and let her body go limp.

He wrapped a strong, bare arm across her shoulders and drew her back against his chest. Crystals bit into her spine from his gaping shoulder wound, but she refused to complain. He swam them back to shore with the grace of a selkie. The waves rocked forward, seaweed brushed her legs, and the wound on her cheek bled freely.

“What were you thinking?” he growled.

“I wasn’t.”

Lightning cracked overhead, casting his face in a grim light. Sorcha turned away from the disappointed expression. She had already disappointed herself, she didn’t need him to be, too.

“Obviously.”

The wind rushed overhead, drying her hair in stiff coils. She shivered violently.

He cursed. “We’re almost there. Just a few more moments.”

How had she been carried so far out? Sorcha hadn’t noticed the tree moving, but it must have slid along the ocean floor.

His feet touched land, and Stone dragged her forward into his arms. The steely bands wrapped around her as if she weighed nothing. Perhaps she didn’t to him.

The bulging muscles of his chest were distracting. Not a single hair covered his skin, not even on his arms. Up close, the crystals were so much angrier. The wounds carved into his skin and deep past his bones. It was a miracle he could even move.

“I can walk,” she rasped.

“Enough.”

“I’m not so weak as to—”

“I said enough, Sorcha.”

She looked up at his severe face, unable to resist tracing the smooth line of his jaw. “That’s the second time you’ve called me by name. I don’t remember giving that to you.”

The muscles under her fingertips bunched. “I have my ways.”

“Obviously.”

Shivers rocked her body, and it didn’t escape her notice that he tucked her tighter against him. Sorcha shifted until her head was underneath his chin. He was so large she could tuck her knees into his armpits and still be comfortable.

“Why are you so much bigger than me?” she asked, teeth clacking with chills.

“What kind of question is that?”

“I just want to know. All the other Tuatha dé Danann are the same. Y-You’re all larger than life.”

“I’m not that much bigger.”

“You’re a veritable giant compared to me.”

“We’re not human,” he grumbled. “That’s the only answer I have.”

Sorcha glanced over his shoulder, brows furrowing in confusion. “Why aren’t we going to the hag’s hut?”

“I’m taking you to the castle.”