Bride of the Sea Monster - Eve Langlais Page 0,28

too fast, and the water remained too dark for me to truly see anything. Just a sensation of motion.

We travelled for a while, zigging and zagging, zipping through coral reefs, plowing through schools of fish that I couldn’t see, only felt as they parted in panic at our rushed charge.

I wondered who would tire first when I saw the glow. My captors didn’t slow as we approached a narrow gap in a rocky formation layered in coral. They aimed for a skinny slit that we barely fit through, the fingers digging into my shoulder keeping me moving forward at an angle while the dude at my feet kept them from smacking the walls.

The fit was tight. Too tight for a kraken.

There was a bellow that vibrated the water, and then a squeal as the guy holding my feet suddenly let go due to a sharp yank. I guessed that a tentacle had gotten him because the fellow in the lead squished me against the wall as he jabbed with his spear behind me.

There was another vibrating yell, more sensation than sound, followed by a shudder as something hit the rock and caused the tunnel to tremble.

Not good. Not good.

No, it’s not. The seeing chose to stop sulking, and I saw a few different futures where the walls collapsed. Another where the impact brought some hideous creature from the deep. And one where Ian didn’t come after me at all.

Then nothing but a blank wall of water.

I snapped back to the present when my head lifted above the surface, and my bubble popped. I dragged in a few breaths of salty, moist air. We’d entered a large cavern, the rounded walls lit somehow without lanterns or torches. The lichen clinging to the rock glowed in a variety of pastel colors. The water gently lapped at a shore where more fish-faced people stood. Male for the most part, but I saw boobs covered by shells on a few, their loincloths the same as the guys who’d grabbed me.

Speaking of whom, we hit shallow waters, and my two remaining captors stood, yanking me with them. My toes dragged in soft sand. One of the women approached and knelt to remove the bindings around my ankles and then the ones around my hands.

An obvious sign on their part that they believed I couldn’t escape. Where would I go? I looked behind me at the water, hoping to see a tentacle peeking out. But the surface remained still.

A shove at my back sent me to my knees, and my hands hit the sand, the tiny grains digging into my palms. I spent a moment bombarded by visions. The cavern full of fish men, fleeing in panic. Another with something smashing its way in from the deep, exploding and destroying everything. Yet a different future where it was empty and decaying, abandoned without even anyone left to bury the bodies left behind. That’s the one Lucifer fears…

Yanking me upright, they broke the contact, and I blinked. The room steadied. The situation, however, wasn’t improved. My captors were leading me up some coral steps which had been polished smooth. My bare feet got too many impressions to sort, so I ignored them all. The seeing had chosen to go into overdrive, showing me too many options. And none of them had to do with me.

“Where am I? Why have you brought me here?” I asked.

They didn’t deign to reply, or maybe they couldn’t. I’d not heard them actually talk. Perhaps they didn’t use vocal sounds for speech. Whatever the reason, I didn’t like it. It made the strange, wet wheezing and flop of their feet all the more ominous.

To distract myself, I resorted to examining my location. It appeared there was a series of tunnels linked to that underwater grotto. Channels burrowed into the very rock itself, smoothed by water and time.

“What is this place?” I asked, trailing my fingers along the wall. I saw enough to mouth a name, Atlantis. And we traveled through the catacombs.

“Where are you taking me?” No reply. I couldn’t help a fervent, Not the stew pot.

Personally, I wasn’t a fan of fish, but I knew tons of people who were. Had these dudes had family members eaten? Did their aquatic genes give them a taste for humans? Sharks seemed to find us tasty.

The seeing thought it a good time to show me a celebration with some fish people dancing around a spit, a skewer of meat rotating. You could guess what