Waterfall (Dragon's Fate) (10 page)

Without opening her eyes, Celeste shifted slightly on her seat. “Just before you emerged on the beach, Hudson had tripped on a half cask and toppled me into the water.”

“I’m sorry I hadn’t gotten to you sooner. I was dealing with Hudson’s footmen.”

She nodded, and loose pieces of her golden hair caught in the breeze about her face. “When I landed in the water, I wished my hands free from the rope that bound me. The water spiraled up and cut the ropes for me. It was terrifying, yet beautiful.”

His brow pulled tight. She couldn’t have spoken the language of the elements. Though maybe she had but not realized it with all the stress she was under. “Ah, I would not have expected you to have had that kind of ability. Not so soon anyway, but yes, you have a special affinity with the sea. I will teach you more about that.”

“Pfft. The sea. No.”

“Why do you deny it?”

“Ever since I was a child, I have had a fear of the sea. My nurses would place me in the water when we went to Brighton, but I would scream and cry when the water splashed me. The water pricked my skin.”

Interesting. “How did the sea water feel today when you fell in it?”

“Different yet the same. Like hundreds of pinpricks that tickled at the same time.”

“Better, then.”

“I suppose so. But the cutting of my ropes, still… That is… Well, what is that?”

“Water is ice and snow. It is mist. It is rain. And everything in between. I am relishing the future and teaching you what I know.”

Celeste opened her emerald eyes and stared directly at him.

He smiled. She had the fortitude to face her fear.

Then her eyes widened, and she sucked in a startled breath.

Jordan turned his head, and a large dark object rushed at him, slamming into his head. A piercing pain flipped him back, and he hit water. All went black.

The large rock anchor jerked back and forth in Hudson’s hands. Jordan had pitched over the edge of the boat from the force of the anchor’s blow, and the oars slipped into the sea with him. Celeste glanced back toward the cove they’d left only moments before. She could not see the land. Bubbles burst up from where Jordan had pitched into the sea. Hudson had tried to kill him.
 

Her throat tightened, and she stared past Hudson to the isle to which they traveled. A distant jagged silhouette poked out from the waving sea on the horizon. She was trapped. Surrounded by the sea she had feared all her life. Her mouth dried, and her shoulders shook.

The anchor dropped from Hudson’s hands and settled with a loud crack on the boat’s wooden floor. As he stared at her, his eyes became black pools, and wavy orange lines grew on his skin like spider legs around them. The wind swirled about the boat and the sea waves with it. Hudson’s neat fair hair tousled into disarray. “All will be well. I will get us back to shore, and we will go home. You have nothing to fret about.” His eyes narrowed, and then he gazed to the sky.

Nothing to fret about? There were no oars, and that crack… Celeste stared at the rock anchor on the boat floor. A gash marred the wood plank bottom. Water slowly bubbled in. The boat would surely fill with water soon.
 

Jordan!
 

She stared at the sea where waves washed the spot he’d disappeared into away. He needed her.
 

A gray bird swooped toward them in the blue sky. With a flap of its wings, the unusual raven landed on the edge of the small boat.

“Jump into the water.”
Carmen’s voice rang in Celeste’s head.

Hudson stepped toward her, rocking the boat.

She stared at the dark sea as the waves slapped against the edge of the boat. The words Jordan had spoken to her on the shore replayed in her mind.
“You have nothing to fear in water. Not now. Not ever again. The water is yours to feel, to know, to become a part of.”
Jordan had said to trust him. That the water could no longer hurt her, and Jordan needed her.

Just as she needed him.

Hudson’s hands flailed and grabbed for the top of her head.

“Jump now!”
Carmen ordered.

I will trust Jordan.
Celeste ducked out of Hudson’s reach, rocking the boat, and tipped herself over the edge.

Oh! What was she doing? She could not swim!

Pinpricks that verged on pain pushed against her skin. She flailed her hands and kicked her feet, but her dress filled with seawater. With each stroke she made, the water pulled her down. The water swallowed her whole, like a snake eating a rat.
 

She opened her eyes, and the water burned. Everything blurred. Water bobbed and swirled, and the edge of the boat slid farther and farther away from her as she sank. She pushed with her arms to no avail and slipped farther down. The water’s edge glowed above her. She refused to close her eyes. She needed to find Jordan. Her ears clogged, muffling all sound. She thrashed. The tightness in her chest increased as she held her breath.
 

Jordan.
 

Jordan.
She called out with her mind. She blinked and strained her eyes. Murky streaks of light pierced the water in sword-like blades.

Little bubbles danced along her clothing and skin and floated toward the surface. Why couldn’t she be like them?
 

Panic seized her lungs, and she gasped. Water slid down her throat. She would die here in this water as she always feared she would. As she had already done once. She would not die here again. Jordan’s words fluttered again in her mind.
“You have an affinity with water…” Then water save me.

Carmen’s voice echoed in the sea.
“Say Vand undtagen mig, aloud.”

But if she spoke, she would drown.

“Do it, or you surely will.”

She closed her eyes. “V-Vand-”—water rushed into her mouth and filled her nose—“udtagen mig.” The sound was strained in the water’s weight.

The sea around her warmed and pushed against her. Slipping under her bottom like arms, pressure thrust her up. Her face broke the surface, and the cool air burned her cheeks.

She coughed, sputtering, then gasped, pulling air to her lungs. The water held her in a cushion of pulsing current so that her head bobbed along the small waves.

The gray raven cawed, and the sound of rushing water came from behind her. Fanning her hands, she turned about. A large whitecap raced toward her.

Jordan emerged from the crest. His eyes were no longer the blue of the calm and tranquil sea. They flashed a deep green, and he opened his mouth. A loud hiss with billowing smoke hurled from his nostrils.

His skin had changed to an iridescent blue, and the scales about his elbows glowed like shimmering gold.

A shrill cry and another billow of blue-green smoke surged from his mouth. The wave he rode swept her forward, pushing the current that held her toward the shore.

Jordan plunged at the boat, landing on the bow. The gray bird tossed into the air and flapped its wings, gliding above the wave that swept Celeste toward the shoreline of the Isle.

Jordan would be fine, but two was better than one. She wanted to help him. The water listened to him, and it listened to her words, or Carmen’s. She focused on the boat. “Put the boat on the shore.” She swapped her concentration from the boat to the gentle slope of pebbled shore.
Move to the shore. Please.

Nothing happened. Her heart lodged in her throat.

Carmen’s voice rushed through her mind again.
“In Nordic. Stil båden på bredden.”

Celeste swallowed the lump beating in her throat. “Stil båden på bredden,” she croaked out.

The water about her glowed, and she twisted backward. In a torrent of pinpricks, her skin burned, and she shrieked.

A streak of gold glowed in the water and circled from the wave that carried her to the boat in which Hudson and Jordan struggled.

The water swelled and glittered, and the boat rushed toward her.

It worked. Her eyes widened.
It worked!

The boat passed her by, pushing her to the side, and slammed with a loud crunch into the shore. Hudson and Jordan flew from the boat onto the pebbled sand.

The rocks rushed up at her as her wave continued to carry her to the same shore. She did not want to toss herself with the same force to the sand, but she had no idea how to control water to that degree!

“Simply stop the water,”
Carmen’s voice screeched.
“You are making me queasy!”

“Stop it!” Celeste cringed. Her words did not work.

“Nordic! Holdt.”

“Holdt!”

The water crested on the shore in an elegant sweep. She wavered but simply stepped forward onto the beach. Goodness! Her knees trembled, and she dropped, but not before she had stepped onto the shore. The shore! She had not died. She gripped a fistful of pebbles as her head spun, then closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.

Why did the Nordic tongue hold such power over the sea?

“The brothers are all Nordic born,”
Carmen’s voice stated.
“You will need to learn the language.”

Celeste turned in the other direction. Jordan had Hudson dangling like a string of dead fish over his shoulder. Completely naked, Jordan’s skin slowly transitioned back to pale creamy pink with a hint of blue iridescence when his muscles moved, beautiful in a mad way. The white stripe of his hair hung in ringlets covering his face, and determination filled his blue eyes. Her heart pounded with each breath. My stars, how he impressed her.

“Is he well?” Celeste stepped toward them and forced her sight to Hudson.

“I am certain that is up for debate, but he lives.”

“What happened to him?” Celeste picked up Hudson’s clammy hand.

“A hasty jab to the jaw.”

“Jordan.”

“Celeste. He smashed me with the anchor and threatened our lives. I am not going to lay idle and let him do as he wishes.” He tilted his head to the side, then walked past her and toward a trail that led into the trees. “The house is this way.” His creamy backside flexed with each step he took away from her.

She would stare at that the entire walk to the house. A smile curved her lips, and she scurried to follow him.

Then she stopped and spun back. She stared at the sea in wonder. Her throat tightened. She hadn’t drowned. In fact, she’d triumphed over the fear that had plagued her all her life. If Jordan had not found her and if she had not trusted his words, she never would have accomplished that. She hastened her steps and caught up to him.

Celeste followed Jordan up the well-worn dirt path to a clearing at the top of a small hill. “There it is.”

She looked around. The top of the hill was flat and distant, with a view of the sky like she had never seen. “What am I looking for?”

“The house. Concentrate; you will see it.”

She sucked in a startled breath. The edges of the house shimmered out of the clouds. The outer wall was made of a whitish-gray stone that reflected the sun. It was not the sky, as she first thought. If one didn’t concentrate, the building disappeared. They continued to walk toward the outside wall. The closer they got, the more the architecture exposed itself to sight.

The house, as he had called it, was an enormous estate that rivaled Hudson’s. There was an outer wall and an inner, taller one. In the center, forming a perfect circle, lofty spires towered to the sky. The mansion’s image imposed but was beautiful.

“How long have you lived here?” She rushed to keep up with his elongated strides.

“I have lived here a little more than a hundred years.”

Celeste stopped in her tracks. “Pardon?”

“I will tell you more once we are inside and I can set Hudson down. I never would have thought such a short man would be so heavy.”

A hundred years. A hundred years. Impossible. A nervous laugh caught in her throat again. She had to have misheard him.

Jordan pulled on an iron-looped chain on the outside of a large, arched wooden door. The metal chain scraped against the wood, creating an eerie sound.

A small window opened, and a young woman with straight black hair and teacup-saucer-size eyes peeked through the opening.

“Open, Astrid.” Jordan shuffled Hudson on his shoulder.

Astrid immediately shut the window, and the black, dragon-shaped hinges creaked as the arched door swung outward.

They stepped inside. Celeste’s footfalls echoed on the floor. She glanced around. Jordan continued down a narrow corridor made completely of stone. Astrid had vanished. Which was a good thing, she supposed. Jordan was still completely naked. Then again, maybe she was accustomed to seeing the brothers that way.

Celeste ran to catch up. About halfway down the hall, three arches set fifteen paces apart cut through the stone to the outside. The sea air blew through the opening as they passed. She shivered straight down her spine to her toes, and her wet clothing stiffened against her skin. A fire would feel lovely.

Celeste sat on a square, tufted pillow before the fire in the bedroom Jordan had led her to so she could bathe. Her damp hair hung down her back, making the large white shirt that someone—presumably Astrid—had left for her cling to her skin. The flames danced red and yellow behind the fire screen as she stared unseeing at the embers.