my other half finally relinquished control, the vampire, ghoul, and demon survivors had plugged the largest of the fissures with multiple pieces of debris from the house. It wasn’t a permanent fix, and seawater still ran through the cracks, but it was no longer the massive deluge that had overwhelmed me with its power before.
And I was so exhausted, I couldn’t even pull myself into a sitting position as I watched bloodied survivors wait at the edge of the ruins. Some were crying, some were praying aloud that their loved ones would be among those still being pulled out from under the collapsed house. I couldn’t hear heartbeats beneath the rubble, but I hoped that was because of all the noise those digging through the ruins made. I wanted to join them to help, but I couldn’t seem to move yet.
When something foaming and deep blue rose up from the sea, for a moment I thought it was a rogue wave. Then I realized it was several Leviathan forming out of the waters. Of course, once they did, they came out of the surf and headed right toward me. I couldn’t even summon the energy to be afraid. All I could think was, Took you long enough.
Then ripped black pants filled my vision. I followed them upward to see a muscled, pale back and soaked auburn hair. Ian raised his arm, and the horn that had been wrapped around it stabbed at the air as if wishing it were flesh.
“I chalked up the first threat to her life as a cultural misunderstanding, but now I’m all out of fucks to give,” he said in a loud, chipper tone. “So if any of you water-logged sods comes near her, I’ll shove this horn so far up your arses, Poseidon himself will be screaming from his new hemorrhoids!”
If that was the last thing I ever heard, at least it was memorable.
“That will not be necessary,” a smooth voice stated.
I don’t know why I thought it would be Yonah. Probably because I’d saved at least some of his people, so I’d hoped the demon would speak up in my defense, if it came to this. But the man who stepped into my vision had long white hair instead of a shiny bald pate, and his skin . . . Wow, I thought hazily.
He must’ve had it covered up by an elegant tuxedo at some point, but deep rips in the fabric revealed skin that at one moment was so pale it resembled moonlight resting on the waves, while in the next it was deep blue shot through with silver. Staring at it was like watching light refract and diffuse as it penetrated through water, and now I knew what his hair reminded me of: the roiling froth that formed when seas were at their stormiest.
“The Leviathan ruler,” I mumbled. I might not have seen him when my other nature took control earlier, but I’d felt him, and that was enough to recognize him now.
Ian turned, placing himself now between the stranger and me. “You don’t say?”
Ian’s drawl didn’t fool me. His aura burst out like the detonation of a bomb; a warning as clear as the deadly horn now pointed at the tall, white-haired Leviathan ruler.
“As I said, that won’t be necessary,” the stranger replied. With that, the Leviathan melted back into the sea.
Ian didn’t relax his stance. “Do I owe you thanks, or did you call off your sea dogs to take a crack at Ariel yourself?”
“Ariel?” The Leviathan ruler’s lips twitched as he looked past Ian to me. That’s when I finally noticed that if his skin wasn’t so unusual, he’d look like a normal, handsome young man. “You of all people named yourself after a fictional mermaid?”
I summoned up the energy to reply. “That book wasn’t written until the thousands of years after my sire named me, but the irony of it isn’t lost on me now.”
Another smile touched his mouth. Then he looked back at Ian. “I mean her no harm.” But you couldn’t stop me if I did, his newly hardened stare added.
Ian’s smile made me drag myself into a sitting position. I’d seen that same smile right before Ian threw himself into a gleefully violent fight to the death.
“I could use some help,” I said to distract Ian. It wasn’t a lie. My body felt like a wet rag, and now Yonah was striding toward us with his wings out. That couldn’t mean anything good.