Fatal Sight (Harbingers Of Death Book 2) by LeAnn Mason (book club reads .TXT) 📕

a gasp. Only a single bubble escaped, floating up in front of my face to obscure my vision for a moment. Once it buoyed the direction I wanted to go — the smart direction — I stared at the submarine.

Bubbles streamed from one spot on the underbelly of the sub where there must have been a puncture. The kelpie and mermaid were hovering by the hatch of the huge oblong structure, which was listing in the water column.

The supes watched from out of sight as it opened and several humans escaped, kicking for the surface. Those men and women were alive, so they weren’t our target.

Having already shifted into massive dog form, Stone towed me toward the sinking vessel with a strong bite on my jacket sleeve. Dude was doggy paddling, and I lost another ounce of air on an involuntary snort.

I slipped out of my jacket and kicked off my shoes, wishing I had worn appropriate swimwear — not a bikini for Stone to ogle in these frigid temperatures, but scuba gear would have been nice. My clothes were causing drag, so I lost most of them, letting them sink to the ocean floor below while Stone watched.

I crossed my eyes at him with a sneer, my snarky comment about his pathetic dog paddle trapped in my mind. If only he could mind read instead of lip read.

Kicking a swirl of bubbles into his face, I swam toward the sub against my better inclinations, which were urging me to focus on breathing as the most important goal for survival. But I knew Stone would just drag my ass back, probably pulling my underwear off in the effort. I planned to just point out the dying person, hoping there was only one, and then get the hell out of dodge and never look back.

It seemed the urge to flee the Harbingers of Death would never leave me. I’d thought it had for a few precious months, but no. Onward and upward… especially in this case.

When we arrived at the submarine, Sena gestured for me to enter first with a smile that had bite.

Why the hostility? We’d barely met. I paused, noting her teeth were shockingly similar to Jessica’s. Did she know about Jessica? I was unclear on the difference between mermaids and sirens and how small the supernatural world really was.

Stone gave me a helpful shove down the hatch. So chivalrous.

These supes were crazy; I needed air, unlike the horse and mermaid. Didn’t Stone get that, at least? I had zero clue how the giant dog was so calm underwater.

The sinking vessel was solidly inundated now, so I swam down corridors, shoving aside flotsam, my lungs growing tighter. The urge to take a lungful of detrimental water was becoming harder and harder to resist, my panic escalating. I found no bodies and started to get frantic. But around a bend, I passed into a room that had a small pocket of air trapped at the top.

Breaking the surface, I took a hearty and grateful gasp, treading water. My respite was to be short-lived though. The damn water level was rising quickly, steadily shrinking the precious pocket of life-giving gas.

My eyes met the dilated and panicked ones of a man who hadn’t yet escaped the sub. Blood gushed from a wound on his forehead to mix with the water rising in a threat to overtake him.

“Oh, thank god, a rescue crew,” he gasped in heavily accented English, shivering and blinking slowly, clearly dazed. “You received our distress signal?”

A familiar sensation crawled up my throat as our heads bobbed closer to the ceiling, closer to going under.

Target acquired.

This sub would be the sailor’s watery grave. I was guessing I’d have to help lug this guy back to the boat so Charon could help his soul cross over. It was going to be tricky maneuvering his body as well as mine through the narrow maze-like interior. I bit my lip ring as my chin tipped up to suck down final breaths of oxygen.

Never bring more than you require. Any excess, particularly material objects but also emotional baggage, will weigh you down, perhaps even drag you down with the ship, so to speak.

A lesson Seke had told me when I got too heated fighting Raven after she’d played a particularly venomous hazing prank was eerily relevant right now.

Where is the rest of the team?

When I decided to leave this unit, I didn’t mean for Davy Jones’s locker. As the scream worked its way up my throat and my mouth opened, ice-cold water rushed in, and the room filled to the brim.

My throat felt like it had been rubbed raw with sandpaper. Blinking at a ceiling, I swallowed, cringing at the fiery burn that the action caused in my esophagus. I wasn’t sure which was worse: falling from thousands of feet or drowning.

Cross off the water unit.

I was quickly discerning my preferred element: earth. Water and air were out. What was next, fire? What supes would that introduce me to? More arrogant hellhounds since they seemed to be everywhere?

“Ah, Ms. Howler, you’re awake.” A nurse was just closing the door, smiling softly as she approached where I lay. She expertly checked my vitals, comparing them to the data recorded on a clipboard plucked from the end of my bed. “I’m afraid the dashing man who brought you in had to leave.”

Stone. Should have known with the name she’d called me.

“But he left a note,” she said, fishing a folded piece of paper out of her pocket and extending it as if it were a flower left by a doting boyfriend. “It was handy he was there to pull you from the water when you fainted while out sailing. You’re a lucky girl to have a guy so interested in you like that.” Her focus went distant and her expression wistful.

Interested? Obsessed more like.

“Yeah,” I deadpanned hoarsely, staring at the note as if it were a cockroach.I took the missive with reluctance.

“I’ll leave