By the time they staggered to their feet, facing each other, they were both cut and bleeding from over a dozen places. Marcus was pretty sure one of his ribs was cracked from a flying kick the other man had managed to get in, and the ornate silver knife clutched in the Selkie’s hand cut just as well as Marcus’s more utilitarian model.
“You cannot win,” the Selkie panted, holding his knife out in front of him as he edged even closer to the sea. Tiny waves lapped at their feet, their soothing murmur a sharp counterpoint to the sounds of vicious struggle. “No matter what you do, Beka will die. Already she lies bleeding on the sand. You have lost, Human. Let me go, and perhaps you will still have time to save her. Unless of course she is dead already.”
Marcus didn’t dare turn away from his quarry, as much as his heart yelled out at him to check on Beka, to make sure that Kesh lied. He couldn’t hear anything over the thudding of his pulse and his own harsh breathing.
“If she dies,” Marcus said grimly, “so do you. Count on it.” He took one step forward, and something in his face finally chased away the look of smug superiority on Kesh’s.
“You cannot kill me,” Kesh said with certainty, his back foot ankle-deep in salt water. “I am a Selkie prince.”
Marcus pivoted on one heel, ignoring the stab of his rib as he spun around and kicked Kesh squarely in the stomach. The Selkie doubled over, and Marcus took one more step in, grabbed him by the hair, and smashed his fist into the other man’s face with all of his might. The Selkie dropped like a stone, waves foaming whitely around his crumpled body.
“You might be a Selkie prince,” Marcus said, gritting his teeth. “But no one, not even a Selkie prince, takes out a Marine.”
And he hauled the unconscious man out of the surf and went to find his woman.
TWENTY-SIX
THE WORLD CAME back to Kesh in a blurry haze, half eclipsed by an eye that was rapidly swelling shut. He tried to move, but his arms and legs seemed to have cleaved to each other, and the best he could manage was an abbreviated wiggle, like a newborn pup just birthed into the sea.
A face swam into view, familiar save for the fierce grin that adorned its battered surface; an expression he had never seen before, and one that he would be happier not to be seeing now. Who knew the insecure little witch had it in her? She had been full of surprises from the beginning—not at all what Brenna had said, or what he had expected.
This final surprise was most particularly unpleasant. As was the shiny silver blade she held about an inch from his one working eye. Most insulting of all—the knife was his own. This had not gone at all as he had planned.
“Hello, Kesh,” the Baba Yaga said calmly, as if she didn’t have blood slowly trickling from a cut above her brow. “So nice to see you again. Sorry about the duct tape.” White teeth showed in a smile that held nothing of apology.
“Ah, he’s awake,” a deeper voice said, and the Human mate she had chosen over him appeared to gaze down at Kesh over her shoulder. Kesh took some satisfaction from the battered look of the man. He would have taken more had their positions been reversed.
“Should we kill him quickly, or carve off one piece at a time?” the man called Marcus asked, not seeming to have a preference either way. “I’m still kind of pissed about the way he poisoned you with those fancy picnics. I say we kill him slowly. I learned some stuff in Afghanistan you wouldn’t believe. I can make it last for weeks.”
Kesh swiveled his head toward Beka in alarm. Surely she would not allow this barbarian to harm him. They had been friends, after all. And she had always had a soft heart.
Beka reached out and patted him gently on the cheek with the hand not holding the knife. “I really don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said.
There. He knew she would not allow him to be killed. Now he just had to find a way to speak to her alone, and surely he could persuade her to let him go.
She grinned at Marcus, wincing a little when the motion made a crack in her bottom lip open up again. “It would take way too much time and trouble to torture him, and we still need to figure out where he hid the Water of Life and Death. I say we just slice a few more holes in him and set him out where the sharks will find him.”
Kesh’s eye opened wide and he could feel his mouth gaping and closing like a fish out of water. “But . . . but . . . you can’t do that!”
Beka raised one eyebrow. “Why not? You tried to kill a Baba Yaga, not to mention your own people. I don’t think anyone is going to get too upset if we take justice into our own hands.” She tossed the knife into the air and then caught it a mere inch above his nose, making him twitch.
“But Beka, darling—”
Marcus’s face loomed close. “Call her darling one more time and I will rip out your tongue and feed it to the fish while you watch, you sonofabitch.” Kesh tried to edge away from him on the sand.