Rue choked on air heavy with water.
The sound of the ocean seemed wrong now. Too close, too steady, too damn fabricated; it was as if someone had built the sound itself. And humidity settled upon her shoulders like a stone, squeezed tight until it felt like her heart was struggling to break free.
Panic.
Anxiety.
It sank its fingers around her throat, clawing at her lungs.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
No one was going to help her now. Rue was just a sitting duck on a stupid little island. And there was no breeze to blow it all away, no wind to provide her sweet relief. Like a sticky weight on her body, she struggled to breathe now, muscles taut, sweat beading, lips bloodied. The name lingered, throbbing in her head.
Cetus. Cetus. Cetus.
Her only other companion on this forsaken planet.
Why the fuck would she need to know its goddamn name? But it pulsed in her head like a fever, throbbed in her goddamn skull. And for a moment, she did not know whether to believe dream Valentino. Dream Valentino, who could and should have just been a manifestation of her subconscious terror.
His voice had been too calm, too machine-like, stripped of emotions like a broken doll. Eyes so glassy and too goddamn blue. It left a bad taste in her mouth, like vinegar and salt. And this dream had been odd. Filled with ghostly static and anxiety. It tasted fabricated, puddling in her brain like soup forced down her throat.
It wasn't like Valentino.
Funny, horny, stupid fucking Valentino.
Her breath caught in her throat now, a wave of longing pitching within her so sharp it brought forth a burn of tears at the back of her throat. Her Valentino. The buffoon on another day would have flamboyantly arrived on the brightest ship in all the galaxy. He would have charted a twenty-course meal to save her malnourished ass, and then flooded the goddamn island with rose petals just to make her smile.
He wasn't the type to give up.
Normal Valentino would not give up.
That thought calmed her.
It didn't seem like him to even think about giving up. He was a spoilt brat, a monstrous tiger to others, but a horny kitten begging for pets in her hands. There was usually no in-between. And he was the type of spoiled brat to demand things from others. Council or not. Her Valentino would set palaces on fire for her with too expensive sunglasses perched on his nose.
He was not a quitter.
None of them were.
Maybe just Dante.
Perhaps it was merely some fucked up hallucination created by the Council to break her spirit? That thought steadied her for a moment, a heartbeat of safety, of knowing that Valentino would never forsake her. And then it curdled.
Yeah fuck no. Because the dream did seem like it was from him. Some part of her believed it was real, believed that it was him despite all the goddamn warning signs, the things she told herself to make her feel better. And a part of her, her Omega, had not one doubt in her head that it was their mate.
It was him.
Her heart sank.
She knew that just from the taste of his soul.
Him, but with fucked up dream powers. Him, but with a broken Alpha bond. Him, but as mindless as the men who smoked pipes on the docks back home. The Omega within her seemed to wail. Pain rupturing from within. She didn't know what to think.
His voice echoed in her head now. Too icy, too calm, not the husky, horribly attractive velvet she was used to. This version of Valentino did not laugh. This one told her, flat and cold: Eat the trees. Dig for the roots. Roast them. There's fish in the water. Try to look under the island.
Ghost Valentino, she decided to call him, was expecting too much from her. Rue wasn't some survival fanatic. She didn't come from nature. She was a girl of civilisation, of shitty water from taps and a flush system for her toilets, of oily city air and tile floors. She hated to say this, but Rue had been pretty much living in luxury back at 69.
And that horrified her.
"Am I a survival specialist?" she shouted a curse into the fog. She expected the silence, but still she waited like an idiot for answers.
How could she even start a fire? Two sticks? She didn't have lightning now to blast apart the wood, and maybe that was what the Council wanted, to see if she could even explode the trees with Dante's strength. And fishing? How? Rue groaned. The Council was watching, and so she glared at the night sky.
"Fuck you!"
But it made her feel fucking stupid. And there was nothing else she could do with anxiety thrumming through her system. She began to pace, already making plans, already rationalising her situation. The seven might contact her again eventually, so for now, all she had to do was wait and survive.
That was also literally the only thing she could do.
She dragged herself to the trees, found the edges where sand collapsed and formed dunes at the roots. She went on her knees, digging frosty sand until her hands met soil, clawing until her nails filled with grit and the bed of her fingertips stung. But the work took her mind off her fear, muscles burning, sweat slick down her spine.
The bulbous tubers that she finally pulled free were swollen and purple, slick with veins. She sniffed at it, dug a sliver with her nail until the flesh was exposed. It smelled sharp, ripe, a little tart. Uncooked.
It needed fire.
Fire that she did not have.
The air was still muggy and thick.
She tried the tubers raw. The taste bit at her tongue, awful flavour. She sighed, sat back onto her ass with her eyes on the sea. The view was all fogged up, mist settling upon the waves. But when the light swept over the sea, a deeper, darker shadow seemed to move. Her breath hitched, a rush of fear running up her spine.
The monster.
"Cetus," she whispered. The word scraped at her throat. It had to be some kind of fish. A big one. Anything else was too much to think about. Her pulse spiked as she rose to her feet, tubers in her hand brandished like a weapon.
She hated that her starved brain was now painting shapes in the dark. But the more she watched, the more she became certain that the shadows moved when she did. She stepped back. The shadow sank. She leaned forward. It rose. Her heart skipped a beat. The fog seemed to thicken around her. It was retreating when she moved away, inching forward when she leaned closer.
It was following her, mirroring her steps. Unease crawled up her spine.
She squinted.
A horrible sensation rushed through her. Her guts knotting sickeningly, her gaze darting. There was a moment she thought she saw eyes. A darkness flickering. A black cloud vanishing. Her mind was playing tricks on her.
There were shadows everywhere. Adrenaline streaked through her veins. It was only the beam of the lighthouse that calmed her spinning to the rhythm of her pulse. It was just a fish, she reminded herself. A fish for capturing and killing Elder Gods. She swallowed thickly. They still needed her. She began to feel stupid. She was used to shadows.
Levi was literally a shadow.
But the shadows here were cold and icy.
"It's just a big fat fish," she told herself, voice too thick. "Just a stupid fish."
She went back to the tubers, sank her teeth into their disgusting, ashy flesh. Her gut complained, grumbling. But she swallowed. She would kill for Seraphim's stews, even Halcyon's too-sweet protein shakes. Fuck. She'd even eat one of her aunt's dirty intestine-flavoured soups. When she finished her meal, she felt a little better. The paranoia was ebbing away.
She was just a caged rat in space.
Everything here was controlled, an experiment, merely a test of her mind.
They were always watching.
They were waiting for her to do something.
Her eyes slid to the cliffs on her left, to the water lapping against the rock. She knew that there was some kind of ledge just a few meters across, a small lip of stone that seemed to look like the opening of a cave. She'd inspected it briefly from above, but it had been too steep to climb down, too sharp to use for descent. She would have to try to circle the cliffs, maybe even swim around the jagged protrusion to check.
Try to look under the island.
A sudden beam of insanity twisted through her. She couldn't go too far with the circle of light on her ankle, but what were the limits between her and the island? She eyed the water then, the dark oily waves like a thick soup of lichen and algae. Would it let her swim? Would they let her swim?
It made sense to experiment just to see where her boundaries were. She needed to catch fish after all, and Valentino had wanted her to go under the island. And the only way under it was around it. She'd check enough times to know for sure that there was no other way down. If there was, she'd have discovered it hours ago while trying to find food and water.
A part of her was curious too, the thought thumping in her head. Wonder grew within her. She also wanted to see Cetus, wanted to see what it looked like. Was it an alien? A machine? Her pulse sped up.
It was odd that she itched for the unknown, odd that she was anxious to complete all of her tasks right then and there. And Rue knew she could settle back like a good girl, huddle in the lighthouse, and rub her stick for hours until fire rose from the wood. She could wait until she was ready. But right now, braving curiosity seemed to be the better option.
Her fingers itched.
When would she ever be ready?
She could get it over with now.
Her pack created the food and water for her on this island.
There must be more under it, hidden away from the Council, but only if she could find it. Maybe there would be supplies. Maybe there would be information. Maybe she could talk to them there.
Her gaze slid to the water. Her mind drifted to her ankle, still raw from its previous encounter with her chains. She felt overstimulated, desperate for distraction, for something fucking crazy. She could do it now. She could try to swim across, check if there was a cave. And then she'd swim back. It would be easy, she knew how to swim. If the anklet started glowing, she'd take a quick step back. It should stop if she stopped. Her eyes darted back and forth, lighthouse to cliff, lighthouse to cliff—
Would Valentino come back if she got hurt?
Her chest tightened.
Yes. Normal Valentino would.
Fuck it.
She stood. The air was thick on her, hot and heavy. The water looked cool, icy.
She was going in.
Her first step into the water was cold. The silt was silky beneath her toes. She waited for the glow on her ankles. A second foot, and the water seemed to curl around her, a thick, soupy-like substance, too viscous to be normal, jelly-like in texture. There was no way she could use it for a bath. She began heading towards the cliff.
One step. And then she'd wait a second. Another step. Another second of anticipation. The world had gone quiet, a strange stillness settling, and oddly, the hair on her body began to rise. Fuck, her breath caught, she wanted to run, and she steeled herself with another deep breath.
It was just a big fat fish, that was all. If it ate her, it was totally the Council's fault. They'd resuscitate her. They were always watching her. Right now, she was just testing their limits. She was just facing the unknown. Right now, she just wanted to see if they'd talk to her if she did stupid things. Right now, she wanted to see her boundaries.
And Valentino wanted her under the island.
Right.
She nodded to herself.
She needed to get around the island to find a way under it.
Four steps.
Five.
Her brows furrowed.
How many steps did she take before the chains had seized her?
It seemed a little further today. Fear began to climb within her. Was this a test? Were they watching?
Another step.
Her eyes were trained on the shadow, or at least where she thought it was, now that the fog had swiftly concealed the darkness. The lighthouse's beam was rounding another corner. There was no moon on this planet, Rue realised quickly. No stars. No other source of light. And that made uncertainty grow within her.
But the beam arrived, slicing into the ocean, and the shadow rose, like a lung expanding, like a growing tsunami. Her breath quickened, hands raised, sweat pricking her upper lip. Then it vanished right as the ray of light focused on the spot before her. It was gone. There was nothing before her, the waters still.
Had it all been a hallucination?
Rue laughed, feeling fucking stupid.
What the fuck was she doing? And why the fuck was she doing this? If there was anything special under the island, the fucking Council would snatch it away once she found it. Why was she listening to dream Valentino? She must be addled by sleep and adrenaline. She must be losing her fucking mind. Why was she trying to look for danger when she could be safe on shore? She turned back then, wading towards the beach.
Fuck it, she'd do it when the sun was back up—
But something seized her ankle.
And then it pulled.
She screamed, falling to her knees, splashing into the water. Sticky saltwater flooded her mouth. The fucking chain. The fucking Council! She struggled; it was yanking her into the sea now, pulling her through, dragging her deep under as it squirmed up her legs. She was going further out into the ocean. The water was thick; it was hard to move in it, hard to swim. She choked, inhaled a desperate breath of fresh air.
It was pulling her under.
It refused to let go.
Was it fucking malfunctioning?
She kicked then, trying to get a good grip, fingers digging into the sand, spluttering in confusion as she struggled to stand. Her knees scraped at reefs, thumped against stone. She choked on the water, hands reaching for whatever the fuck was hurtling her straight towards death.
And then something snapped, pulled her backwards, a whip that propelled her straight onto shore. She hit the ground hard once again, breath knocked out, water and rust spilling from her throat. She gasped, tears stinging hot in her eyes.
Fuck!
She fucked up.
It wasn't even her first fucking time.
She turned to look at her ankle now, anger and terror rising within her. Her right ankle blazed with light. But her left was now red, torn, swelling fast, and beading with blood. She stared at the wound. It wasn't from the chain of light. It was from something else.
She went cold. Fear rose from within her.
Cetus.
She exhaled. The sea was silent again, perfectly still. And for a moment, she was deadly aware of something beneath the surface of the water, the thrum of it echoing from deep within the waves. The anklet pulsed its light was fading.
She shivered then.
The anklet was protecting her from Cetus.
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