NOO! She heard a scream and was unsure if it was her own hallucination of Jared or someone else. Something hard and rough grabbed her around the waist, and she was being propelled through the water faster than she had ever gone in her life, straight for the light. But Mina knew she wouldn’t make it. Her body went limp, and her eyes had closed on their own when something warm pressed against her lips.
She didn’t have the energy to fight, and was surprised when her mouth was forced open and life-saving oxygen passed into her mouth. She opened her eyes in surprise to find Nix’s lips pressed to hers, kissing her. No, breathing for her as he continued to swim upward. Her hands reached up to grab his face and hold it to her mouth hungrily as if her life depended on his kiss—which it did. His kiss fought off the darkness of death, and her mind began to function again. She was kissing a monster!
A few seconds later they broke through the water, and she pulled away from his lips to breathe on her own. Nix carefully held her and swam toward shore. Mina only had the strength to roll over on her back and let him pull her to safety. He had now saved her life three times.
Rocks brushed against her feet and she tried to stand up, only to fall to her knees in the rocky shallows. Nix held onto her arm and tried to support her weight. He desperately pulled her away from the water, and even though they were on the shore, he didn’t stop. He tried to coerce her to move, but she couldn’t. Mina collapsed on the ground.
She felt warm arms wrap around her, and then she was being lifted through the air. Nix had picked her up and continued to run away from the lake as far as he could. A short time later, he found a small clearing in which to stop, and he gently put her down. He was out of breath and collapsed on the ground, watching the path behind them, looking for a pursuer.
Mina rolled on the ground, her body shaking from the cold and the near asphyxiation, and stared at Nix’s muscled green back in utter confusion. She thought he had abandoned her to die, that he didn’t want anything to do with her or the Grimm curse. If so, why did he save her…again? But her thoughts continued to dance as she felt herself slipping into an exhausted sleep.
Mina awoke with a start and listened carefully to the sound of footsteps treading quietly past her. She tried to move her arm, but it was numb from her sleeping on it awkwardly. Instead, she played opossum and watched through lowered lashes as the sound came again and a shadow passed by her. Her heart skipped a beat when her vision was filled with a green silhouette. She immediately thought the sea witch had found her, but then she sighed when she realized that it was just Nix. He had found a stick and climbed one of the odd twisted trees.
His tall, nimble green body slithered up the tree, proving that he was just as agile on land as he was in water. Nix swung the stick with ease at the nearest branch, and two pieces of fruit fell to the ground and rolled along the grass. He dropped the stick and began his descent.
Mina touched her fingers to her lips as the memory of his life-saving kiss came flooding back to her. She was grateful that he couldn’t see her cheeks burning in embarrassment. Deciding that the immediate threat was over, she slowly sat up and stretched. Her whole body ached from head to toe, and she couldn’t help but feel like a ton of bricks had landed on her chest. Nix came over and handed a small piece of fruit to her. It was only slightly bruised from the fall.
“Here, eat this,” he commanded, before moving to sit across from her. His skin looked lighter under the morning sun, less green.
“I don’t think I’m supposed to eat the food in the Fae world,” she said.
“That’s true for most food here. It can be addicting to your kind, but as far as aftereffects go, this is the mildest fruit there is.”
Mina took the odd-looking purple fruit and sniffed it carefully before rolling it between her fingers. She was starving, but even the simplest temptation could endanger her whole reason for being here.
“What happened back there?” she asked, hoping he would know she was referring to the sea witch. “And why did you save me, when I thought you were leaving me to die?”
Nix looked at her carefully over his own piece of fruit before raising the fruit in the air like a toast and taking his own careful bite. “You had an unfortunate run-in with one of the oldest and strongest sea witches around…my mother.”
“Your mother? I thought that…well, I don’t know what I thought. I just figured that you and Raina were the only ones left.”
“We are, I mean…were, the only nixies left. The rest have all changed. So I try to stay out of their waterways as much as possible. But you, you trespassed right into her home. You’re lucky I came when I did, or you’d be dinner. But I’ve got to hand it to you. You’re either crazy stupid or crazy brave for what you attempted. You’d almost made it out.”
“It doesn’t matter. I was crazy either way, but I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t think I was going to die in that cave. You could have told me you were going to come back.” Mina paused in thought and then said in a softer, uncertain voice, “You were going to come back, right?”
His shoulders dropped, and Nix looked at the ground. “I needed time to think, to decide what I was going to do with my life. You killed the one person I loved.”
“But she was a monster. You said so yourself.”
“Yes, and I know no one has ever come back once turned. But after running into you, I knew that I would be pulled into whatever quest you’re currently embarking on. I, too, know of the book and the deal made with the Grimms. I also know of how the stories end for most of the nixies. Not good. So I had to decide if I was going to purposely turn, or join you on your quest and die sooner rather than later.”
Mina’s fingers dug into the purple fruit, and she stared at him in disbelief. “So you left because you couldn’t decide if you were going to kill me and join the monsters or help me. Talk about peer pressure,” she replied sarcastically. “So much for going out all noble.”
Nix stood up and began to pace back and forth. “No, you see, that’s what I thought at first. I thought living near Raina, even though she was a monster, would be enough for me, but now that she’s dead, I thought I should be the one to take revenge for her death, but I can’t. I told you before that we are gentle creatures until we turn. So I decided that if I can’t live with Raina, I don’t want to live without her.”
He stopped pacing and sat on the ground, eye to eye with Mina. His hands crumpled into tight fists. Mina could tell this was a difficult conversation for him.
His bright green eyes looked deeply into hers, pleading with her to understand. “I turned seventeen last month, and, like Raina did, I’ve lost my ability to hear the creatures of the water. And I can no longer control the currents. I can feel myself getting older, becoming weaker. It won’t be long now…I’m dying, Mina. ”
Mina stared at the passionate Nix with utter shock. She could tell from the way he spoke that he was serious.
He swallowed cautiously and didn’t stutter one word when he valiantly said, “I would rather die now helping you in whatever quest you’re on than to live as a monster without her.
She repeated his own words back to him. “You’re either crazy stupid, or crazy brave.”
“Either way, I’m just crazy.” He chuckled softly.