Violet

Her screams did not come through the mind link.

It came out in choked gargles under water.

The sound ripped from her throat with a terror that momentarily surprised me.

Her fur sizzled. The water ate into her like acid, dissolving fur and skin simultaneously. Wherever the pink liquid touched, it left raw, blistering flesh that peeled away in strips.

She thrashed wildly, her massive body convulsing as she tried to claw her way back to the surface. Her back legs kicked, sending plumes of pink water spraying upward. Her head broke the surface for one frantic second and she gasped before I dragged her back down.

I was not letting her go off that easy!

I was never letting her go!

I wrapped both arms around her midsection from behind, locking my hands together against her chest. I squeezed with every ounce of strength I had.

"You’re not leaving!" I said in my mind, unsure whether she could still hear me. "You are never leaving!"

She could hear me.

"You filthy half-breed!" Her mental voice was ragged now, stripped of its silk with nothing left but raw hatred. "I will tear you apart! I will find every last trace of your wretched kind and erase you from existence! I will—"

She twisted violently, nearly breaking free. Her jaws snapped backward, trying to reach me, and her teeth caught my shoulder again, tearing into the same wound she had made earlier. Fresh agony exploded through my body and my grip slipped.

She surged upward.

I lunged after her, seizing both of her forelimbs as she kicked toward the surface.

Then I twisted.

The sound of tearing muscle and cracking bone filled the water around us. Palisa’s scream shattered through my mind so violently that my vision nearly twisted, but I didn’t stop. I wrenched her forelimbs in opposite directions, pulling, twisting, and feeling the joints separate. The tendons snapped and I heard the bones splinter after.

I eventually ripped off her limbs.

Blood erupted into the water, dark clouds billowing outward and turning the pink liquid a deep, ugly crimson. The severed limbs drifted away from us, already dissolving in the mineral-laden water.

Palisa was still thrashing. Still fighting. Even maimed, even burning, the centuries-old monster refused to die.

Insults and threats poured through the mind link, but they were growing incoherent. Fragments of rage and disbelief and something that might have been fear, real fear, for what might have been the first time in years for her.

We were sinking.

The weight of our struggle pulled us deeper, and the water grew darker around us. I could feel the pressure building in my ears. My lungs were also beginning to ache.

But I held on.

Palisa made one final, desperate lunge toward the surface. Her remaining limbs churned the water, her massive body twisting with a strength that should have been impossible given the damage she had sustained.

I let go of her midsection and seized her jaw.

I WAS NEVER LETTING HER GO!

Even if it meant we would both die in here.

I would rather die with her than let her live!

She lunged for me at the same moment, her mouth gaping open, and our trajectories collided. My hands closed around her lower and upper jaw, one on each, and I forced them apart.

Her eyes found mine through the murky, blood-stained water.

Genuine, primal, all-consuming fear stared back at me from those ancient eyes.

I could see the water pouring into her open mouth, flooding past her fangs and down her throat. The mineral-laden liquid began its work on the soft tissue inside, and she convulsed, a full-body spasm that nearly tore her free.

I held tighter.

I forced her jaws wider. The bones of her skull groaned, the joints straining beyond their limits. I could feel the cartilage stretching, tearing, the sickening give of flesh being pushed past its breaking point.

Something cracked.

Her lower jaw separated with a wet, grinding sound, and Palisa went limp.

But I didn’t stop.

Not yet. Not when she had survived centuries.

She must have something on her that could still survive this.

She did not deserve to live. I would give her no chance to recuperate.

Not when she had hunted my people to extinction all these years.

Not when she had killed Bei like that!

I released her slacked jaw and drove my hand into her chest.

The water made everything slippery, difficult, but my fingers found the space between her ribs and I forced them apart. Bone cracked and splintered under the pressure. I reached inside the cavity, into the hot, failing cavity of her body, and I tore.

Everything came free.

I ripped everything I could out.

Heart. Lungs. Whatever else my hands could close around. I ripped it all out, handful by handful. I kept hollowing her chest until there was nothing left but a dark, empty space where her life had been.

She was dead. She had to be dead.

But I still grabbed the base of her skull.

I twisted. Her head popped off and I started to tear the flesh from the neck. I was halfway through tearing her head from her body when my lungs finally screamed loud enough to drown out the rage.

I needed air.

Now.

I released her skull and kicked upward, my legs burning. My chest convulsed with the desperate need to breathe. The surface seemed impossibly far away. The water was dark with blood and the light above was a dim, wavering circle that grew closer with agonizing slowness.

My vision was narrowing. Black spots crowded the edges.

I kicked harder.

My hand broke the surface first, then my head, and I gasped so violently the sound tore at my raw throat. Water poured from my mouth and nose and I choked, coughed, retched. My body heaved as it expelled the liquid from my lungs.

It was excruciatingly painful.

My wounds still burned as I thrashed toward the edge of the pool, my hands finding the rough stone border. I dragged myself out, each movement sending fresh waves of agony through my shredded body.

I collapsed onto the sand.

For a long time, I just lay there at the edge. Breathing, bleeding, and shaking.

I was alive and she was dead.

When I finally lifted my head, and saw her, my heart seized.