Filed To Story: The Saltwater Curse Book PDF Free
Angry, frightened, hot tears spring from my eyes and trickle onto fingers muffling my cries for help. My reality turns bleaker with every tree we pass, descending deeper into the island.
No one’s coming to save me. No one ever does. Not anymore.
Vasz is barking and nipping at Ordus, but what can a shark-dog do? He can’t get me out of here or keep me fed. He won’t be able to fend off a kraken at least quadruple his size.
Kristy died a long time ago. I should’ve begun digging Cindi’s grave the moment I stepped foot in Indonesia.
Ordus is going to kill me the same way Tommy did, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
The cave entrance glimmers under Ordus’ command. He lunges for it. Vasz sprints back toward the shack to get to the tunnels. His hand leaves my mouth, and I suck in a breath. A chorus of “no, please,”
and “don’t”
fall from me. My cries and pleas echo through the dark tunnel. I angle my head toward the light, reaching for it. It’ll be last time I see the sun.
I’m being taken into the basement again. This time, I won’t be let out.
No one will check on me. There will be no escape, no solace, nothing but a monster who will take his pound of flesh.
“Please, Cindi,” Ordus rasps, rubbing his hand all over my back and arms in a move that’s too reassuring for the fate I’m about to endure. “Please.”
I whip my head side to side. “You can’t. I won’t let you. Please, don’t do it.”
We make it out the bottom of the tunnel faster than we ever have. Panic shreds me to pieces, frozen and scorching. My vision is blurry from the tears, voice raw from screaming.
I got out. I was free. I was surviving.
Ordus turns me to face him, cupping my cheeks in his big hands. “Listen to me.”
Black hair morphs to blond, brown skin to white. It’s Tommy, back from the dead to haunt me, lips twisted into a crooked smile—the type that promises a world of pain.
Logic and reason escapes me. I can’t summon the image of Tommy lying dead on the floor, because he’s here right in front of me, touching me.
“Please. I will not hurt you.”
Tommy can’t purr. He doesn’t have tentacles. He doesn’t live in a cave with bioluminescent algae. He doesn’t give reassurances or promises not to cause me harm. But it doesn’t matter how loud I scream it in my head—I can’t escape.
I choke on the memories. The feel of the silk sheets against my cheeks as Tommy pushes me down and yanks my skirt up around my waist. Tommy’s rough, calloused palms that grate against my cheek followed by the smack.
The man before me grabs my hand and places it over his heart. I struggle against him. I don’t want to touch him, but there’s no getting away.
The rumbling in his chest grows louder than the blood roaring in my ears. His pulse is erratic beneath my hand, and I’m only vaguely aware of the suckers pulsing hard against my flesh. I screw my eyes shut, trying to push everything out of my mind and focus on the feeling, on the vibrations coming from him, because tentacles don’t hurt. They never hurt.
“Kristy,” he begs, tentacles holding my thrashing arms still. “You are safe.”
“That’s not my name.” I gasp for breath. It’s not. She’s dead. She doesn’t exist anymore.
Tommy—
Ordus tips my face up, coaxing me to open my eyes. I shake my head. If I look at him, I’ll see Tommy.
“Listen to me, Cindi.”
Cindi, not Kristy.
Cindi, Cindi, Cindi. Tommy doesn’t know that name. This isn’t
Tommy.
His eyes waver between green and blue, hair flickering between long and short.
Yes, that’s right. My name is Cindi. Kristy is dead.
Tommy is dead.
I try to stabilize my breathing, focus on pulling oxygen into my lungs. When I was younger, there was a cove Dad would take me to after school if I got a really good grade on a test. He’d take the afternoon off and get us a snow cone and a hot dog, and we’d sit and watch the seagulls swoop and squawk. Sometimes, a seal would bark at us, and I’d squeal, insisting Dad let me pet it. If the weather was good, he’d let me swim there.
When I breathe in Ordus’ ocean breeze scent, filling my lungs until I’m completely consumed, I can almost feel the love and safety I felt hanging out with Dad. It’s that irreplaceable, childlike trust in someone. I know I can throw myself over the edge and there will be someone there to catch me.
I inhale deeply. There’s no hint of cheap cologne or the lemony cleaning products I used to clean the mansion’s marble kitchen, only Ordus and the musty cavern air.
When only the occasional shudder racks my body, I brave peeling my eyes open, and I shiver once I do. Before me stands a man with worry lines all over his face, concern in every divot and fold of his spotted tan-and-brown skin. The intensity would’ve knocked me off my feet if he weren’t holding me upright.
“Please, Cindi,” Ordus says like it’s a question. He’s asking if I’ll give him a chance to explain. “Listen to me. I promise you, I will not harm you. I swear it on the Goddess and my family’s honor.”
My fingers shake against his chest. If he wanted to force himself on me or make me marry him, he wouldn’t have waited for me to get a hold of myself.
If those krakens planned on killing me today, there would be more dead bodies on the beach.
“Why were they here?” My voice is hoarse, like it was whenever Tommy choked me.
Ordus’ gaze drops to my hand on his chest, working his jaw. “The Curse.”
“They want to kill me.” It was clear in the way they watched me. My anxiety spikes, flashing back to dinners with the Gallaghers, men with guns who’d leered at any woman who walked into a room or spoke without being spoken to.
His purr shifts into a displeased rumble. “I will not let them.”
“You can’t stop them.”
A haunted expression casts over his face. “I can. I am their king,” he says with conviction not even he believes.
“It didn’t look like that mattered to them, Ordus.”
New Book: Returned To Make Them Pay
On her wedding anniversary, Alicia is drugged and stumbles into the wrong room—straight into the arms of the powerful Caden Ward, a man rumored never to touch women. Their night of passion shocks even him, especially when he discovers she’s still a virgin after two years of marriage to Joshua Yates.