Read Blue Abyss: Timewalker Chronicles, Book 3 (The Timewalker Chronicles) for Free Online

optimist.
    “To the ship.” Whose, she didn’t know. Surely they had a ship somewhere? And she hadn’t tried this line before in any of her dream world confrontations with them.
    The one moving behind her chilled her spine. “We were not informed of this, Timewalker.”
    They’d never called her that in any of her dreams before. Raiden gasped somewhere behind her. What the heck was a Timewalker and why did they think she was one?
    “Silence.” The other moved forward until he towered above her. She forced her head way, way back, trying to make out a face. She couldn’t see beyond the shadows of his hood and cloak. If she hadn’t seen these creatures hundreds of times, had variations of this stupid conversation hundreds of times, she’d have been mindlessly screaming. Even with her knowledge, her practice, she barely held herself together.
    “He would never send a free human to us, nor a Timewalker.”
    The hair on the back of her neck buzzed to life as the cold, unknown energy of the one behind her got close enough to sniff her neck like a dog.
    “He did send me. I am taking the prisoner to him personally.” Mari turned but the nasty behind her was fast, lightning fast. His black, clawed hands closed over her arms, sent a jolt of cold pain through her limbs like an electric current, one that held her in place, locked in the circuit of the creature’s cold stare.
    “Why are you really here? How did you find us?” The thing in front of her moved closer and she struggled against the iron bands that secured her arms so she couldn’t raise her weapon and get off a shot.
    A pinpoint of bright light appeared to her left, but the creatures didn’t seem to notice it. Instead, the one facing her raised his clawed fist above her as if to strike. His flesh darker than the creature who held her immobile, he looked made from obsidian. So black. So very hard.
    “Release her!” Raiden came out of nowhere and grappled with the monster behind her. Her dive partner fired a steel dart into both creatures and threw his knife, imbedding it to the hilt in one of their backs. The creature let go of her arms and she fell to her knees on the cold stone floor.
    Faster than her eyes could track, her dive partner was launched halfway across the room to collide with the cave walls. As he slid down she noticed that his neck was torqued at a weird angle and there was no life in his eyes. He was dead.
    She heard her nightmare happen, heard Raiden’s battle cry as he attacked the beings again. There was no need to look when she knew the horror she’d see if she did…the monster nothing but ash and Raiden writhing on the ground in an agony of silence as his flesh turned black.
    She’d failed. Just like last time, and what felt like a hundred times before that. He would turn into a monster, she would die in her sleep and wake gasping on her small bunk. She’d shiver and cry, and do it all again tomorrow night. And the next. And the freaking next.
    If the thing in front of her had been blessed with a human face, she would’ve sworn he smiled right before he shoved his clawed appendage deep into her chest. The weapon shredded her flesh, cracked her ribs like toothpicks and pierced her still beating heart with black stone fingers as sharp as razor blades.
    So cold.
    She screamed. The blinding anguish paralyzed her and an oddly detached part of her brain painted the mental image of her dangling in midair with the creature’s hand buried in her chest. Human shish kabob. Numbness spread from the black ice inside her, a shard of deepest cold stealing all warmth, all hope. All life. She wrapped her fingers around his wrist and stared up into the sightless mask of the monster towering over her as a heated balm spread over the skin of her chest and slid down inside her dive suit. Blood. More of her blood. Not much left now, but it was warm.
    So warm...
    Anger warred with apathy as she spied Raiden on the floor, thrashing like a wild animal as