Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 97188 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97188 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Rin’s tail twitches nervously. “The best smugglers don’t draw attention to themselves and never need to fight.” Ze gives Maeve an apologetic look. “Sorry about your skin, though. We didn’t know that Bronagh was going to take it. Apparently he had a buyer interested.”
She waves that away with her usual grace. “I have it back and Bronagh is dead. There’s nothing to apologize for.”
“All the same.” Rin glances back past the stern to where the ripples have gotten more prominent. “Might not get a chance to apologize again, and I like you, selkie.”
“Um, thanks. I kind of wish you saying that when we’re about to be attacked didn’t feel like a goodbye.”
“No one is going to die,” I snap, though Rin’s words catch my interest. A buyer. Maeve mentioned in passing at one point that there used to be a market for selkie pelts. If this person specifically wanted one, they may try again. Once we find my heirlooms, we should hunt them down and remove the threat they represent. In the meantime, I have a more immediate danger to deal with. “Except for the water horse. I’ll kill it. Simple enough.” I hope.
Again, they exchange a look. I’m getting heartily tired of being tiptoed around like I’m a foolish child. I glare. “Stop looking at each other and speak. Why don’t you think I can kill it?”
Maeve clears her throat. “In a fair fight, you could without issue. But water horses don’t fight fair. It will come over the railing and take someone below, dragging them down until they drown. It will do that enough times to get the food it requires, and then it’ll feast.”
The shiver of fear working its way through me tries to gain strength, but I muscle down the reaction. Yes, the thought of being dragged to the depths is a terrifying one and my personal nightmare. But this is just one creature, magical or not. It doesn’t even have claws and fangs. It’s a fucking horse. Granted, I’ve never seen a kelpie, because they were hunted to extinction a long time ago. I know the stories, though—my family keeps excellent records. “I’ll rip its heart out before it has a chance to.”
There’s a shout from the crow’s nest, and we all turn as something emerges from the waves behind us. It’s a black horse, just like I expected, but the closer it gets, carving through the waves to race on top of them, the more I see that the similarities are superficial at best. Four legs, a strong body, an arching neck, all a deep blue that’s nearly black. A mane and tail that stream out behind it as it closes the distance between us and it. What was I saying about fangs and claws? It has both.
Not to mention that it’s bigger than even a fucking Clydesdale, with the body type of a thoroughbred. Fighting that thing will be a godsdamn bitch. I wish I had my rifle with me. That would put an end to this with a single bullet between its eyes.
“Get everyone who’s not exclusively required off the deck.” I speak softly. Everyone is so tense, a harsh word might make them panic. Might make me panic. Damn it, no. I am a hardened killer, and I will not quail in the face of an overgrown herbivore that thinks it can be a predator. “It has to come on board in order to take a victim. When it does, I’ll deal with it.”
Alix clears their throat. “It might not be that simple. This is . . .”
Maeve makes a sound that is part laugh and part pure desperation. “This is what?”
“This isn’t any normal water horse.” They shudder. “It’s too big. And the color is wrong. I’ve been warned about this one, but I’d hoped to never see it in person. This motherfucker sinks ships.”
The charge seems impossible. Surely one singular creature could not sink a ship, even if this isn’t a warship like the Cŵn Annwn sail. But Alix isn’t joking, and Rin’s scales have gone from a nice healthy green to something closer to yellow with zir fear.
I have to keep them talking, keep them thinking. If I don’t, at best they’re going to be useless; at worst, they’re going to get us all killed. Having to mop blood off the deck will upset Maeve, so I’d like to avoid that outcome. “You obviously know plenty about this creature. How would you have dealt with it under normal circumstances?”
“We wouldn’t be traveling this route in the first place. But if we had to, we would get our air-user to bolster the wind until we outran it. It might be a monster, but its stamina doesn’t last forever.” At my askance look, Alix shrugs. “Our captain was the air-user. You killed him. Therefore we have no air-user. This water horse is going to sink us, and then it can eat the crew at its leisure.”