Fire: The Mermaid Legacy Book Two. Natasha Hardy

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ wound himself tighter and tighter as he’d desperately tried to fight his way free. The net had cut a deep gash in his side and the blood had swirled around him as he fought, mingling with the water around him which was already clouded a sickening greeny yellow in claustrophobic fear.

      The shark had shaken him so violently it had broken bones and these created unnatural angles beneath his skin. Yet despite how seriously wounded he was, his face was serene, a faint light still drifting in his eyes.

      “Qinn,” I whispered again, my voice cracking. “I’m going to get you out of this net and then I can heal you.”

      The corners of his lips twitched.

      “Get away from here, Alexandra,” he rasped, pushing uselessly against the net.

      “I won’t leave you here,” I told him firmly as I swam over him, searching for the edges of the net.

      “This is a trap,” he hissed at me, his face twisted into an inhumanly furious mask as he wriggled uselessly, the long flared trousers that normally enabled him to swim winding into a knotted stringy mess and entangling him further.

      I pulled at the netting with all of my strength, focusing my fear and anger into the action and expecting the usual surge of power that this effort normally brought. Nothing happened. I tried again, concentrating on where my fingers were laced through the web of netting, willing the steely fibres to part beneath my fingers.

      Qinn twisted in the net again, and my hand, which was now entangled in the net, rasped across the barnacled rocks on which he was so tightly ensnared, scraping a layer of skin off. A wisp of my blood twisted into the cloud that surrounded him.

      “Oh that’s not good,” he whispered as we both watched my blood mix with his.

      “It’s not as bad as your cuts, I’ll be fine,” I told him, finding his statement strange.

      “They’re on your trail, Alex, your blood will only lure them closer.”

      His statement made my blood run cold.

      “Who? Neith?”

      Qinn nodded, his face twisting in pain as he pulled jerkily at the net, his movements unnatural as if his muscles were moving without his full control.

      And then he went completely still and panic blossomed in my chest as he stared past me.

      “Qinn!”

      His gaze jerked back to me for a moment before returning to what he’d been staring at. My heart thumping hard in my chest,I turned slowly to see what he was so fixated on.

      A whisper in the water had Qinn straining to touch my skin, desperation and fear distorting his normally handsome features.

      “Give me your hand.” His voice was strained.

      “What are you doing?” I whispered, as I pulled again at the net.

      “Just do it!” The panic in his eyes stopped all questions as I wriggled my hand through a tiny tear in the net to touch him.

      “Can you heal my wound?”

      I focused on the gashes that covered his body, the tattered skin and pink flesh waving ghoulishly in the ever-moving current. I knew how to use this talent well having worked with Maya, an incredibly gifted healer, to help many of the Oceanids who had been in the cave when I’d first met them, but try as I might and as hard as I willed it I couldn’t close Qinn’s wound.

      I shook my head, “It’s not working.”

      He muttered something in the liquid language of the Oceanids as he wriggled in the net, staring at my hand as I watched, in fascinated revulsion, as a rapid dark and light brown mottling raced up my arm. Quickly it spread over his too and then we both disappeared, camouflaged perfectly with the colours of the reef. The whispers were closer and they were discussing how to find me, their voices growing more distinct as I closed my eyes and strained to listen.“We picked up her scent at the surface just over the plate reef,” one of the voices was reporting.

      “And then?” There was irritation in the question.

      “Well, it got sort of garbled after that,” the voice replied. “I thought you told me you were the best tracker this side of the equator!” Definitely irate!

      “I am.” The tracker was getting irritated. “She must have had some sort of help, or she knew we were onto her or something…” he finished lamely.

      A sigh of frustration. “So where is she now?”

      In sheepish tones: “I don’t know, it’s almost as if she got out of the water…”The voices grew fainter as our pursuers swam off into the distance. I sagged with relief for a moment, but then a

      flurry of bubbles and a muttered curse from Qinn had my eyes flying to his face in panic. The mottling on his skin had grown faint enough for me to make out the fear in his eyes.

      “Alex, I’m dying, I’m not going to be able to disguise you here much longer.”

      I shook my head, tears welling in my eyes and joining the salt of the sea instantly.

      “Qinn, you’re going to beOK,” I whispered, hoping he’d prove me right.

      “No,” he mouthed.

      I shook my head, reaching through the netting to touch his skin.

      “Keep the reef behind you and swim hard until you reach the kelp forest,” he whispered. “You’ll be safe…”

      “No Qinn, you’re going to come with me, we’re going to go together.”

      I wriggled my hand out of the net and ducked beneath him, trying to find the anchor of the net. It was wedged so deeply into the bed of the rock on which it was caught that it could only have been set up like that by a sentient creature. Qinn had been right; he was caught in a very clever trap.

      “Alexandra.” His voice was edged in pain.

      I moved back to where his head now lolled at an unnatural angle, as if his neck was too weak to hold it up any more. I supported its weight and cradled him as he spoke.

      “You must go now,” he told my, fire sparking in his eyes. “If they catch you all will be lost, please…”

      “I’m not going without you,” I replied firmly, twisting away from him a little as I searched the reef for something sharp to cut the net with.

      “Listen to me please.” His voice was tinged in desperation.

      “Qinn, if I can get you out of the net I can heal you. I…I don’t know why I can’t heal you when you’re in the net but I’m sure if I can get you out it will work again.”

      He groaned a little as he shifted one of his arms from where it had been wrapped around his midriff. Dark blood blossomed around us and bile forced its way up my throat. The net had only protected him from being carried away by the shark, but the ribbons of flesh that had clearly been ripped by sharp teeth had sealed Qinn’s fate.

      I СКАЧАТЬ