Bride of the Sea (The Prophecy of Sisters #2) - Hayley Faiman Page 0,23

I hear someone shout behind us, but I can’t make out what they’re saying. I don’t understand anything, nothing at all.

Aaric’s hand drops from mine, he spins around, but I can’t look behind me at whatever now holds his attention. All I can do is think about this gorgeous woman standing in front of me. This is his woman. I’m the other woman, I’ve cheated and nothing that happened between us was real—not a single ounce of it.

The woman shifts her gaze from me to the new wave of commotion that happens behind me. Her eyes widen and she lets out a scream. Only then do I turn around to see what has everyone upset.

My lips part in awe or shock, I’m not sure what I’m feeling, it’s indescribable. The green water swells, then curls, as gigantic waves crash against the dock and the shore. Something causes my stomach to clench and I double over in pain.

The water starts moving harder and faster. People are screaming, running, panicking all around me while I stand frozen, just watching as people scramble to get livestock and cargo off of the ships.

I can’t watch. I take a step back, stumbling when I run into the beautiful blonde, Isolda. I try to sidestep her, then turn around to run. I don’t know where I’m going to go in this strange place, who will help me, what will happen to me, but none of it matters.

Maybe if I run, I’ll find my way home?

She doesn’t allow me to push past her. She lifts her hands, her nails digging into my biceps as she grips me tightly. She leans down and hisses something in my face, then shakes me a couple more times.

Lifting my arms, I wrap my fingers around her wrists and try to pull her from me. She’s so much stronger than I am, so much so that she actually laughs in my face at my feeble attempts to break free of her.

Shifting my hands from her wrists, I place them against her belly and I push as hard as I can. It doesn’t do much more than just piss her off. She lifts one of her hands from me and reaches back before she slaps me across the face. No, she doesn’t just slap me, she backhands me.

“Isolda,” Aaric shouts from somewhere behind me.

I can feel blood dripping down my nose and onto my lip. I don’t bother trying to wipe it away or even move. She has me, there is nowhere that I can go right now. The sound of the waves crashing around us slowly die off. Before Aaric even approaches me, everything is silent and still.

He reaches for Isolda, wrenching her hand off of my arm. What happens next is in complete slow motion. Aaric growls some angry words toward her. I watch as her face pales and then he reaches behind him and backhands her the same way that she did me, except her body doesn’t stay upright the way that mine did. She falls down to the ground, hard.

Aaric takes a step toward her, pointing his finger to her, and his deep voice rumbles with a ferocity that frightens even me. Then I catch his brother’s name, Fiske, in his angry speech.

Isolda shakes her head a couple of times, her lips moving quickly between her sobs, but Aaric doesn’t respond to her. Instead, he takes a step back, bending slightly, he slides his arm beneath my knees, the other around my back and wordlessly carries me away from her.

Chapter Eight

LIV

Aaric doesn’t say a word as he takes me into a small wooden cabin and plops me down on a hard wooden chair. Looking down at my lap, I avoid lifting my head to see where I am, partly because I’m terrified of where he’s brought me and partly due to the fact that I can still taste the blood that’s slowly dripping from my nose.

I can hear Aaric moving around, he’s so big and heavy that each step he takes on these creaky wooden floors I can not only hear, but feel. I hear him whisper to someone. Then a woman’s soft voice murmurs back and my stomach twists again.

How many more women are in this guy’s life? This needs to be done, I need to get home. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I need to figure it out, and fast. Playtime is now over. I don’t know what I thought by getting