SIGNED - Harbinger (Darkblade #11)

Jaia is…gone.

The thought flitted through the Hunter’s brain but slipped away a moment later. Almost as if his mind refused to believe the evidence of his eyes. He stared in mute horror at the empty deck where Jaia had been only a moment ago.

She’d been right there, just three paces away from him, on her knees with her hand outstretched. Reaching toward him, asking for his help to rise and find safety.

And then, in the next instant, that immense, sucker-tipped kraken arm had crashed into her side. The force had lifted her into the air and hurled her overboard. She was gone. Gone! Lost in the dark, icy waters of the Frozen Sea.

Piss on that!

The Hunter was running before he realized it. His booted feet pounded on the deck, skidded in a puddle of blood leaking from a crushed sailor, carried him in a mad dash toward the starboard side of The Baleen Chaser. His powerful leg muscles coiled and propelled him up and over the railing. Suddenly, he was falling—no, diving, headfirst and hands outstretched.

The inky blackness of the ocean rushed up to meet him. The force slapped him full in the face, set his head spinning. The biting chill froze the breath in his lungs and caused his chest to convulse. Yet he had been braced for the cold shock and impact. Even before his head ceased its ringing, he struck out at the water with his arms and legs. Swimming up, up, up.

He broke the surface with a gasp. Sucked in a few drops of saltwater that set him to coughing, but failed to keep him from drawing breath. He treaded water for the few seconds—precious seconds—he needed to get his bearing and regain control of his senses. He had to keep his head. Jaia was counting on him!

In the moment he’d hung in the air at the top of his leap, just before falling into his dive, he’d scanned the ocean for any sign of his daughter. He’d had an idea of which direction she’d been sent flying, but could only begin to guess how far the kraken’s might had flung her. Nevertheless, fear had set his thoughts racing. His odds of spotting her were infinitesimally small.

To his immense relief, seconds before he struck the water, he’d caught sight of churned-up water thirty paces off the ship’s side.

He struck out in that direction now, with great strokes of his arms and powerful kicks of his legs. His entire world narrowed to a single point of focus. If either the kraken’s impact with her body or her collision with the water had rendered her unconscious, she could even now be sinking into the ocean’s icy embrace.

Not a bloody chance I’m letting that happen!

The Hunter sliced through the water with all the speed he could demand of his body. In seconds, he reached the spot where he’d guessed Jaia had gone under. At least, he thought he did. The water had already settled, the last trace of white faded to murky blackness.

The ocean’s cold rendered breathing difficult, yet now he felt as if his lungs froze, or a fist of iron squeezed his chest. He’d leaped overboard with only the faintest hope of finding Jaia, but if she’d already gone under—

Hope surged within the Hunter when a bubble broke the surface directly in front of him, followed by two more. The tension gripping his torso loosened enough he could draw a single long breath. The instant his lungs were full, he dove beneath the surface and swam straight down.

He had no idea if the bubbles were Jaia’s—air escaping her lungs as the weight of her burgundy leather vest and broadsword dragged her under—but he’d be damned if he let her drown without trying everything in his power to save her. Determination and a father’s fear fueled his muscles as he propelled himself deeper into the murky depths.

There was no light to see. The moon’s pale glow seemed barely a speck high in the heavens, the stars no longer visible through the dark waters. The lanterns burning aboard The Baleen Chaser were much too far away to cast any illumination into the depths. Even the Hunter’s keen instincts could do him no good here. The roaring of his blood in his ears drowned out any sound, and filling his nostrils would only drown him. He had only desperate hope to cling to now. But cling to it, he did, with every shred of his innate Bucelarii stubbornness. He had to get to Jaia. Had to save her. Had to keep the promise he’d made to her mother.