Page 44 of Broken Hearted
Drawing on my power, I started to raise my hands, targeting one of the pirates closest to me.
“Look out!” Adrien shouted, and I spun around just as I felt a small prick in my back. Then it was like a heavy blanket had been placed over me, and all of a sudden, my powers were drained from my body.
A dampener rune.
No. I killed him.
I turned, and my gaze went to a tall female fae with burgundy hair and a feral snarl. She held a wand and was wearing a bowler hat of her own. The resemblance between her and the man I killed was uncanny. Perhaps his sister? And clearly the magic ran in the family because now I was in the exact same boat as Adrien. Powerless.
My mother had a dampener rune put on me once as a lesson, so I would know what it felt like. This was exactly how I remembered feeling. Helpless, empty, awful.
“Abandon ship!” Adrien cried out and was met with roars from his men.
One by one Adrien’s men rushed to the edge of the boat andjumped overboard. I gasped but had no time to dwell on the fact that they were all abandoning ship.
I looked up just in time to see a sword coming down right on top of my head. And then Adrien pushed me overboard.
With a scream, I tipped to the side, flailing, and cracked my head on one of the cannons as I fell toward the sea. Pain exploded behind my eyes and the second I hit the frigid water everything went black.
Chapter Fifteen
Sunlight hit my face and I awoke with a splitting headache.
“Mmm,” I moaned.
“Isolde? Are you okay?” Adrien’s panicked voice brought everything back. My eyes snapped open. We were floating. Everyone was treading water to stay afloat. I craned my neck to take in more of my surroundings and a spike of fear rushed through me.
We were in the middle of the ocean with no lifeboat, no land in sight, and treading water for …
“How long has it been?” I asked.
Adrien looked relieved that I was speaking, and I just now realized he was holding me afloat in his arms, in my white nightgown, soaking wet.
I scrambled out of his arms, but he kept his hands firmly on my biceps as I began to kick with my legs to keep from sinking. Since I wasn’t the best swimmer, I let him assist me.
There were only eight men with us. Did that mean the rest were …?
A lump formed in my throat.
“We’ve been in the water for about four hours,” Adrien said,and I noticed the men looked exhausted. Some were still bleeding from open gashes on their faces and necks.
“I’m so sorry I couldn’t save everyone. There were too many. If I had my powers I could make a boat of ice,” I told them. Even now I could feel the restrictive blanket over my power and a slight burn of the rune between my shoulders.
“Milady, ye saved our lives,” one of the men said.
“We’re grateful, even if we’ll still drown,” another said.
Drown?
My gaze flew to Adrien and the green rune on his chest, and he sighed. “We will eventually tire of treading water,” he admitted.
No.
“Let’s swim. Maybe there’s land nearby,” I offered.
Adrien shook his head. “There isn’t and you’ll tire faster swimming. We’ve been alternating between floating and treading water, but we will eventually need fresh water to drink. And when night comes …”
“No,” I said stubbornly as I shook my head. This wasn’t happening.
