Anne Brown - Promise Bound

It wasn’t so much a dive as a collapse. Lily crumpled, falling inelegantly into the water. Her skin split and tore, finally exploding in a riot of pink sequins. But it didn’t matter to me how she entered. What mattered was how she was going to leave.

I raced along beside Lily, pushing her forward. We listened to the sounds of the lake, but there was nothing human. No swimmers, and there was not enough wind for the slower-moving sailboats. Lily was already giving up. She was pathetic.

“Don’t give up so easily,” I coached. “They’ll come. There’s always someone.”

“No one’s in the water today,” Lily said.

“Then lure one in.”

“How?”

“Lily, you’re a stunningly beautiful creature. Do what comes naturally, but you’ll need to move fast. There can be no hesitation, or they’ll sour. Strike. As soon as the impulse hits, you must strike and dive.”

Lily groaned, imagining the feeling that would fill the empty recesses of her heart. To feel what she’d once felt so easily and taken for granted …

“Listen,” I said. “Someone is talking.”

“They’re not in the water.”

“No, but they’re close to it. You need only ask. They will follow you.”

The current pulled Lily’s hair across her face, and she drew her arm over her eyes to clear her view. She smirked at me with red lips. Then suddenly—like some supreme gift—the body behind the voice entered the water.

Lily and I both gasped with exaltation as a white-hot explosion of unrestrained joy burst from the woman, more exquisite than anything in recent memory.

“Strike!” I cried

Lily’s thoughts echoed back to me: “Yes!”

“Do not hesitate!” But then, from a different direction, a familiar scent flooded my senses … though not firmly rooted in my memory … Pavati’s child? Pavati’s child was in the water? How could this happen? My luck was finally changing. If I could do away with Pavati’s child, there’d be no more need for this silly standoff between us. Things could go back to normal. We could finally be a family again.

Pavati raced up from behind us, yelling, “No! He’s mine!”

Lily Hancock was all but forgotten.

PAVATI WHITE

A boat motored overhead, then pulled away, cutting the engine and dropping anchor some fifty yards from the pier. I waited for the customary fishing line to drop, but nothing happened. Instead of the leaden plunk and the thin, spiraling fizz of the sinker, there was the faraway sound of Maris and Lily talking. I groaned. Same old, same old. As soon as my back was turned, Maris was always right there, setting her hooks, making her play.

I would have followed them, but a new scent shot through the water. It took me by surprise and sent flashes of memory across my mind—like a slide show of flickering light.

Me, huddled in a cave, pressing my palms against my pregnant belly, drumming my fingers against my taut flesh. Ripe with expectations.

My baby, nestled against me in a dark cave, as my skin tightened with dehydration, and I whispered my dreams in his ear, telling him that it would all be fine. That we would be reunited soon.

Me, crying. Begging Maris for more time. Would he forget me? Would he remember my face? Would he know the look in my eyes that said I loved him?

Maris, telling me to shut up. That I wasn’t the first person to give up a child. A year was nothing. And so what if he forgot me? It would be easier if we weren’t tied down by a child.

My baby’s sweet smell in the water? What was he doing out here? My ears were full of sound, ringing. My mind fell numb. I squeezed my eyes tight and searched for Daniel Catron’s scent, but he was absent. I didn’t understand. A prickly flash of goose bumps ran the length of my arms.

Had Adrian fallen in? He was too young to transform. Had Daniel Catron lost his mind? Had he thrown our child overboard? Lily was right. This was my fault for having neglected him.

I tore off in the direction of Adrian’s scent, only barely aware that it was the same path the boat had taken, and then just as quickly as it had appeared, it was gone.

What? Where? I jerked around, left, then right, searching the water. Fear clutched at my mind and dragged me to a place I didn’t want to go.

Maris hurled herself in my direction. Her thoughts told me she was focused on Adrian, her senses not as keen to him as mine were. She tracked the memory of his scent, not realizing he was gone.

“Mine!” I warned Maris. How dare she touch him?

Daniel’s voice yelled from the boat, “I see her!” The words were followed by a splash—too big for Adrian.

Maris followed the sound—and so did I. Myself, out of fear. She, with a mind for destruction.

When I located the source, it wasn’t Daniel or Adrian. It was Sophie Hancock in the water. Her golden hair trailed upward as her body sank a few inches below the surface, her arms extended as if waiting for something … or someone.

“Stay away!” I warned Maris.

Then Daniel’s peppery scent flooded my senses. What was this insanity? His strong arm reached over the side of the boat and plunged deep. I watched with gratitude as he yanked Sophie out of the water.

Maris beat me to the boat, and she rose out of the waves, cracking her tail like a black bullwhip against the aluminum sides. An unfamiliar female voice screamed.

“Stop!” I cried. “Maris, leave them alone!”

Maris turned on me, whirling with a black swirl of her tail, blocking my line of vision. She pulled back like a cobra about to strike, her shoulders hunched, her thoughts snarled. She lashed out at me with one arm, fingers aimed at my eyes.

“Pavati!” Daniel cried from the boat before diving into the lake.

“Idiot!” I cried out to his deaf ears.

Maris turned her attention from me to Daniel, who was floundering ridiculously toward us. Maris wondered what to do with him—her third potential target in less than a minute’s time. Still, she was not one to be too picky.

“I’m doing us both a favor,” she said to me before ensnaring Daniel in her arms, making an inescapable cage. She pulled him toward the bottom, her voice screeching in his ears.

I cut off her path, swiping at her face with my fingernails, beating her back with every muscle in my body. She twisted and headed north, a silver train of bubbles sweeping behind her.

I chased, and when I caught up to her, pulled her hair, snapping her neck back. Her body buckled, and Daniel broke free. He kicked for the surface, and I heard a boat motor start up. Seconds later, he was climbing back into the boat. His feet kicked at the hull, making a dull thudding sound in the water.

Maris seethed at me, her brow shadowing her eyes. She glared and pulled her lips back over her teeth. Then she came at me, biting down on my shoulder and tearing at my flesh.

I tasted my own blood in the water. We were mere feet below the surface. She wrapped her arm around my neck, her elbow just under my chin, and her tail churned the water until, from the surface, it must have looked like a feeding frenzy.

Maris tightened her choke hold. My vision faded to a blank canvas. I lost touch with sound. It was as easy as falling asleep, but still my tail twitched. There was a scream from the boat: “Who are they? Do you see Jack with them?”

Another splash and I felt Daniel back in the water. He was a slow learner. What could he hope to achieve? But I had to applaud his courage.

Daniel swam directly at us, fighting hard against Maris’s grasp on my body. He pulled at her arms, prying her hands from around my neck. There was a slashing motion, a flash of a copper-handled dagger, and I opened my eyes to see a line of red corkscrewing away from Maris’s body before dissipating into a pale pink smear in the otherwise clear water.