Chapter 6: Iron Fever

I got the second cuff off with the bolt cutters at nine that night.

It took three tries and two more pairs of gloves.

When the band split and fell into the tub, Soren arched off the iron with a sound I wouldn't forget.

"It's off," I said. "It's off. Look at me."

He wasn't looking at anything.

His eyes were wide and glassy, and his skin was so hot the water around him had stopped being cold.

I ran to Gus's bait shop, three doors down, and banged on the door until he came down in his socks.

"Ice," I said. "All you have."

He didn't ask.

We dumped four bags into the tub, and I climbed in up to my knees with my jeans on and packed it around his chest and arms.

Gus stood at the end with his cap in his hands.

"Anything else?"

"Stay close," I said. "Please."

"I'll be on the slip, kid. Holler."

By midnight the ice had melted.

By one the fever hadn't broken.

His hair was soaked dark against his forehead, and he was talking, low and broken, in a language that sounded like water moving over stones.

I put a cold cloth on his face.

He turned his cheek into my hand.

"Stay," he said, in English this time.

"I'm here."

"Do not leave me chained."

"You're not chained," I said. "I cut them off. They're gone."

"It is dark."

"I know."

"Minnie."

"Yes."

"Your hands are very warm."

I didn't say anything.

I brushed the wet hair off his face, and my fingers went along the edge of his ear, up to the point.

It was thin and velvety and hot.

Soren shuddered from his shoulders to the end of his tail.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Claimed by the Mer-Shifter Prince I Made Cry from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.