Page 62 of Fated to the Wicked King

Water surged to my knees.

Shoot.

I met the king’s gaze.

“What?” His eyebrow rose.

I raised my shoulders. “No snarky comment? I thought you would have jumped at the chance to remark that Prince Charming didn’t turn out so charming after all.”

His deep blue eyes were fully sober. “Allie. My powers are sapped. I used too much of it. And whatever that godforsaken machine was, it doesn’t affect me well.” He cast a glance upward as if to spot the sky. “The mystic tide is still hours away.”

His ominous words settled hollow in my stomach.

He was right. We were trapped in this underground steel compartment. We were going to drown—that was, if we didn’t freeze to death first.

His jaw clenched. “How much time do you think we have before this fills up with water?”

Looking around, I tried to do the math in my head against the rate of the water rising. I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “Not hours, that’s for damn sure.”

The chamber groaned again. Above us, beams shifted. Below, the water climbed up to my thighs. The king waded across the rushing water, catching hold of a hanging chain. Another shudder rocked the chamber.

He swore softly. His eyes darted around for a moment. He turned to the wall where a massive pressure wheel sat half-submerged behind a mesh of pipes. He braced both hands on the wheel and shoved.

Nothing.

The muscles in his jaw clenched. Fresh blood ran from his wounded arm into the freezing water.

He shoved again, harder this time. The wheel shrieked a fraction of an inch. He shot me a wide-eyed look.

He didn’t have to say anything more. I splashed across the water toward him, and together we strained against the rusted mechanism while the chamber filled around us.

It moved.

A little.

The lights overhead flickered.

The gears lining the walls turned.

Slowly.

The water hit my waist.

“Get up there.” He waved me away toward a jutting gear assembly that rose several feet above the flood. “I’ll finish this myself.”

“No chance in hell.” Grunting, I braced my grip on the wheel to push harder.

Then my hands flickered.

For one sickening second, I saw the water through my fingers.

He noticed instantly. “Allie.”

A dizzy wave swept through me, my vision dimming at the edges. Everything dulled into a distant, muffled haze, as though the world was submerged deep beneath the ice water. My strength bled from my body, dragging me toward heavy darkness⁠—

“Allie!” Terror sharpened his voice.

Sudden clarity snapped through me, and I jolted back to awareness in his arms. My consciousness, even my physical form itself, was still slipping in and out of reality, caused by the lingering effects of the maelstrom.