Page 84 of In Violent Waves

“I won’t carry you. But take my hand,” Wilder bade her.

She stared at it for a heartbeat before looking up into his eyes. When her fingers clasped his, her eyes widened. A slight shock went through him, like the energy in a budding storm.

Lyra focused on where their hands touched and swallowed. He didn’t know what that meant, but he had the strangest feeling fate had tied them together.

Whether he liked it or not, his future was inexplicably tied to hers.

He had been kind, in a strange, domineering kind of way. Lyra didn’t know what to make of it. He pushed her to strengthen her not only mentally, but also physically.

No one had ever tried to make her better. Not even the teachers who instructed her growing up. Every lesson was wrought with feminine fragility or the repetitive rhetoric that knowledge was wasted on her.

It was exhausting constantly trying to prove her worth, so she eventually stopped and became the helpless, useless mermaid they always said she was. But with a dash of violence. Because sometimes you just need to remind them you have teeth.

Wilder knew she had teeth, and he was trying to sharpen them.

Each step was agonizing, a ripping and burning lashing up her thighs and down her calves. The sound of clashing swords and grunts grew louder than her heaving breaths.

Lyra stared in awe as Maelys sparred with Ridge. She moved like light through the water, quickly and with a twinkling rhythm. It was beautiful.

“How?” Lyra breathed.

Wilder followed her line of sight and smirked.

“Years and years of training.”

She would never be that good or powerful. Not even if she had a lifetime of training.

“I could never.”

Wilder was gruff with his answer. “You will.”

Lyra glanced sidelong at him. There was a stiff sort of resolution to his jaw, and a line was carved between his brows. He really thought he could make her into something like that. He believed she was capable.

What a strange place this was. A king who took advice from his queen, and females as warriors.

The table still felt far away, even after a few more struggling steps. And Lyra swallowed down a cry.

“It’ll be dinner by the time we make it there,” Wilder said under his breath.

“You weren’t training this hard as a newborn,” Lyra snapped back. “I’m essentially a week old.”

He reeled back at her words and then shook his head. In one swift motion, he had thrown her over his shoulder and strode towards the table.

“We carry our babies here.”

Lyra snorted, and the power within her gleamed. It was dull because of her exhaustion, but his humor had surprised her. Shecringed away from it. This hadn’t happened so often before. She could count on one hand the number of times her power had flared before she came to land, and now it happened twice.

Wilder placed her on her feet and held onto her elbow, ensuring she wouldn’t crumple to the ground. He placed water in one of her hands and an apple in the other.

“Drink and eat. Then we need to approach your magic,” he said.

Lyra stared at the food and drink in her hand. He had no idea how disappointed he was about to become. She wasn’t ready to touch her magic, but he didn’t have to know that.

She nodded and sipped at her water before biting into the apple. It was delicious. Juice dribbled down her chin, and she wiped it away with the back of her hand.

“I need to make sure Otto and the guards are ready. I’ll be right back,” Wilder said as he walked away.

His footsteps were silent on the dirt, and the blood pounding in her ears muted any other noise. He walked with all the grace and menace of a great white shark. He was fearsome. It had her steeling her spine.