Madeleine held back a sigh and found herself gazing at Emma and Ava. They stood by one of the standing stones in conversation, heads bent together and shoulders touching. Madeleine’s scarf tossed around Ava’s neck in the wind.

The little voice whispered again. Beware, beware.

Madeleine bit her lower lip and looked up at the clouds. It looked as if there was about to be a break in them.

Heaven grant that the sun shine down on them all today.

CHAPTER TWO

The surface might be forbidden to most Each-uisge, but rules proved their worth by how easy they were to break. Besides, there was no other practical way to find a human to drown and eat, even if they were fishing on a boat in the middle of the water. The ones underwater always wore rubbery coverings and traveled in groups. Hæra had only dared to swim near the land a few times, close enough to overhear humans’ voices, and she had yet to see a suitable candidate there.

She couldn’t just kill any old sack of flesh wandering about the place. Hæra needed someone deserving. Someone strong, clever, and brave. Only the consumption of such a human would give her the power that would make her worthy to become a Stormhorse.

She’d been looking for so many turns and countless tides, but her movements were hampered. The herd lingered around the islands of the North Sea, where there were fewer people relative to other human settlements—or so Hæra had heard. Her father, Alban, had told her about flying over larger groups of humans, what he had called “cities,” raining fury from his wings.

“There can be much to admire when it comes to the best of them,” he’d told Hæra and Asgall once. “My human was a sea captain who guided his ship through our waters fearlessly. His ship survived one of our greatest storms, and the Sire returned and said he’d found me a suitable challenge.”

“What happened?” Asgall asked. “How did you take him?”

“Because he was intelligent, he was curious. It didn’t take much to lure him into the water late one night. He lowered himself into one of their little boats and rowed out toward the sound of my voice—and he brought a knife with him. When I overturned his boat…ah, that was a fight to remember. I still have the scar on my chest.”

Hæra had often wondered how her father came by the scar. “Were you afraid?”

“In that moment, I feared nothing. I felt I was finally becoming myself as we struggled—I knew it was my destiny. You can never simply reach out and seize them, you know,” he’d added to Asgall in a lecturing tone. “You have to lure them. They must desire to come to you, and then the battle begins. Remember, eat everything but the liver.”