can’t stop staring at those ocean eyes.
Sabal’s insides lurched when it became so glaringly obvious who was responsible. The sinking feeling in her stomach didn’t send the kelpie into a fit of sadness though. No. Sabal descended right into a pit of poorly controlled rage. Not at Mazikeen directly. At Gale. At the whole fucked up situation. The fire flickered behind her ocean eyes as the puzzle pieces finally came together and she fucking hated the image staring back at her.
She tore her gaze from her friend and frantically searched the surroundings for a smudge of iridescent blue. “Where is that bastard?!” she seethed, through clenched kelpie teeth. She wanted blood – she wanted the kelpie justice that has now been denied from her twice. But when she saw no hint of the blue stallion her wild gaze returned to her friend, softening only slightly at the mention of what had transpired in Tephra.
What she hated more is that even without Gale she knew that Mazikeen had the ability to force her out. Because while Sabal had all of the abilities of a Kelpie, she inherited none of the magic of her mother’s lineage aside from the looks. She had no magic to counter the fire that burned in Mazikeen’s veins. Nor did she have anything aside from teeth and tail and sheer stubbornness to take on whatever Gale had become. That familiar feeling of being useless – of being unworthy – crawled through her veins like ice. It was enough to calm the firestorm of rage that threatened to consume her. She inhaled sharply, forcing her breath to return to a somewhat normal rhythm.
“You think that forcing me out is going to solve things. That it won’t hurt me? Or you? Or my son who’s still asleep in the fucking lake? Am I correct in assuming that I’m not permitted to go back at tell him what’s going on?” It was a low blow, but she didn’t care. Physical pain wasn’t the only thing that left terrible, lifelong scars. Sabal struggled to contain her composure knowing that this was an impossible situation but hating that this is what it had come to.
She slammed her eyes shut and sucked in a breath between her teeth – trying to calm herself enough not to make the situation even fucking worse than it already was. They were trapped. Again, the Curse had outwitted them. And Sabal knew that if she made one wrong move that blood would again flow in Hyaline – and she needed to be careful to protect both Mazikeen and her son. Chasm, she knew, was now a pawn in this horrific game that the Curse was playing.
“I hate this, Maze. I don’t for one second think that he’ll stop hurting people – hurting you. He’s isolating you from the people who care about you, don’t you see that! He will never stop – the torture, the manipulation, the hurt. He won’t stop. Why would he?” She knows Mazikeen feels backed into a corner, feels like this is her only option – but Sabal needs her to understand this before she is forced away. Mazikeen is beautifully stubborn and fierce and full of fire and Sabal loves that about her, but she needs her to take this moment to reflect and see reason before she is lost to her own flames.
The implications of having to leave haven’t even really hit her yet. Nothing seems real. The only thing real is the sound of her heart pounding in her ears and the frustration and pain threatening to tear her apart from the inside.
s a b a l . |
