Клэр Белл - The Named - The Complete Series

Ratha knew that Newt could mount a sharp, quick attack, tearing her throat or pulling her into the sea and dragging her under. Newt wanted more than just her death: She had discovered the savage pleasure of tormenting an enemy.

The sea behind the raft was soon littered with shreds of driftwood, rushes, and bark-cord. Gray water welled up through the floor, soaking Ratha’s feet and half covering Mishanti. She tried to hold the fraying mass together with her claws, but Newt relentlessly pulled away one piece after another.

Ratha found herself clinging to the last fragment of the raft, holding the cub in her mouth and staring at the foam-streaked back of a wave. As the swell lifted her, she caught sight of white surf in the distance. Waves breaking meant land of some sort, even if it was no more than a few rocks. She held to the raft as long as she could, then launched herself over Newt’s head into the sea.

The shock of cold water punched the breath from her. The weight of the struggling cub dragged at her jaws as she fought to get her nose above water. For one panicky instant, she almost let him go in order to get a precious breath.

She suddenly wondered why she was fighting so hard to save the youngster. Hadn’t she taken him from Fessran’s den to exile him from the clan?To abandon him, not kill him, a hurt part of her cried. The irony of that claim made Ratha cringe with shame as she shivered and struggled in the ocean. Had she really fooled herself into thinking that young cubs taken from their mothers and abandoned far beyond clan ground would survive?Quit fooling yourself. You were going to kill him. And now you probably will whether you intend to or not.

With an angry sideways toss of her head, Ratha flung the youngster back over her shoulder, still holding on to his scruff. He slid off, dangling in her jaws and threatening to drown both of them. Once more she tried, giving a fierce kick and a wrench of her neck. He fell across the back of her shoulders and she felt cub-claws drive in deeply, making her snarl with pain.

She wallowed in a trough between waves, searching for some sign of the breakers she had seen from the raft. Disoriented by the swells, she picked one direction and struck out with Mishanti clinging to her neck. A roller lifted her, showing her the distant surf line once again, and she changed her course.

It was slow, hard paddling, with bouts of exhaustion, disorientation, and panic. Several times she lost sight of the breakers and ended up swimming aimlessly. Her breath seared her lungs and the back of her throat. Her limbs felt heavy and the cub on her back even heavier.

And then she saw a shape circling her, and she thought about all the creatures of the sea, especially those who ate meat. Her heart sank further when she recognized the sleek form gliding around her. The thought came to her that without Mishanti, she would have a better chance against Newt and the ocean.

His eyes are empty. I should let the sea take him.

Ratha growled deep in her throat, angered by the suggestion and at the part of her that made it. She knew that if she sacrificed the youngster, she would be much closer to Newt’s image of her. But why did it matter, a part of her cried out, despairing. The cub would die out here anyway.

The stinging pain of claws in her nape told her he wasn’t dead yet. She forced herself to stroke with limbs that throbbed with weariness and lungs that burned with ashy dryness, despite all the water around her. And all the time, Newt circled her like a shark, coming in to rake her flank.

Newt’s attack was strangely languid, as if she were only sporting. Perhaps she was playing with her quarry as a hunter would toy with prey. Or perhaps she was surprised to see that Ratha had come this far and wondered how much farther she would go before the sea overwhelmed her.

Ratha only fixed her eyes on the tossing surf and struggled toward it.

It seemed to Ratha that she had been swimming forever in a gray, heaving landscape of waves, foam, and sky. Her limbs slowed of their own accord, and she hung in the water, utterly bewildered as to where she was or how she had gotten out here. She was tempted to just lie in the trough between swells and let the waves roll her around until she sank.

Then she felt the soggy weight of the cub on her neck, remembered, and paddled onward. The sting from his claws faded. Either she was growing too numb to feel anything, or he was weakening. That thought stabbed her with alarm, and she redoubled her efforts.

The sight of Newt cruising around helped to wake her cold-muddled wits with a surge of anger and sent her thrashing through the whitecaps.

She panted and gasped, her throat raw from salt and hard breathing, her chest seared with pain. A spume of spray fountained into the air ahead of her, raining down onto her head. The boom of waves breaking against rocks penetrated her dulled hearing.

A little surge of triumph fought its way through the layers of exhaustion and fear, but before she could really feel it, Mishanti started to slide from her neck, too weak to keep his claws fastened in her nape any longer. Again she grabbed him, slung him back into place, hoping the jolt would revive him long enough for her feet to find some purchase on the rocky bottom.

But the rocks where the waves broke seemed to plunge right down into deep water, with no way to scale their sheer faces. With leaden paws and a growing fear weighting her down, Ratha swam behind the surf line, searching for some shoal or shallows where she could drag her weary self ashore.

At last she came to a place where sea-battered stones had split and tumbled, forming a field of islets. Here she might have a chance of getting through before the breakers dashed her against the rocks. She splashed and scrabbled, tearing her pads on mussel shells that encrusted the islets. She floundered on her belly, nearly lost the cub again. Dragging him by his scruff, for she was too weary to lift her head, she clambered up through tidepools, slipping and falling on slick strands of seaweed, while backwash from the surf dragged at her legs.

Her vision, already blurred from exhaustion, threatened to fade completely. Desperately she sought a shelf or slab of rock far enough above the spray to offer some refuge. Just when she thought she would have to collapse atop the jagged crest of the wave-beaten rock, she caught sight of a low, sloping band of sandstone. It was steep and tilted down toward the surf, but it was better than lying on sharp-edged coral and shells. She struggled across the mussel beds, her pads bleeding and throbbing.

At last she found herself crouching on a tiny, worn table of rock that barely rose above the sea. At least her refuge was flat enough so that she wouldn’t slip off, but it offered no protection against wind or wave. With no room to stretch out on her side, she huddled up with Mishanti against her chest and fell into an uneasy drowse.

The flapping of wet fur woke Ratha from a sleep that had been too short and often interrupted by spray blown in her face by the wind. Groggily coming awake, she had to blink and stare before her eyes would focus. She felt her skin prickle, but her fur was too wet to bristle and her limbs too weary to respond, even to a surge of anger. Ratha could only watch Newt clamber onto a boulder that stood next to her own refuge.

Newt stopped to shake more brine out of her coat. Ratha endured a long silence with only the sound of the sea and her daughter’s harsh breathing. The gray-green eyes stared at her, never wavering. Their color shifted like the hues on an incoming breaker.

Then Newt came slowly down off her rock and onto Ratha’s. Though Ratha’s limbs screamed in protest, she gathered up the cub and scuttled away as far as she could go. Head low, eyes fixed, Newt limped after her.