Salt In An Open Wound
Salted Series: Book 5
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Life isn't better under the sea. It's worse in the Abyss.
Kellen Winstel welcomed his death. Enslaved by Selkies and forced to fight for his life, he never expected to swim or breathe again after being crippled and left to drown.
*Life isn’t better under the sea. It’s worse in the Abyss.* His saviors had other plans. An ancient race long feared and shrouded in mystery, the Sancul rescued Kellen and took him into their deep domain. They believe Kellen is one of their own and that he’s returned to lead them in the ascent to reclaim their former glory throughout the Salt. Kellen knows he is not the savior the Sancul think him to be, but he also once swore that prophecies and mermaids weren’t real either. Everything is different now. The only thing Kellen can be truly certain of is that he must play along and convince the mystical Sancul to heal him…or else he’ll be condemned to the Abyss forever. Buy Now On
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EXCERPT
**WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW***
KELLEN
Drink…an ancient voice cooed, its face cloaked in the shadows of the deep.
Kellen fought the need to obey, pinching his nostrils shut with his free hand. Drink…or breathe? His mind swirled with the question, his body convulsing with the need to answer. Are they one and the same now?
A cold, thick tentacle slithered around Kellen’s wrist, encircling it like a bracelet, then tugged his hand away from his nose with unrelenting power. Drink, favored one, the ancient voice urged again. And allow the Salt to nourish you.
Kellen’s eyes searched the darkness, much as he knew what lay hidden there; the demon from his night terrors, the one whose call he first heard while wasting away in the slave cells of Orphan Knoll. Or had he heard its call all his life? Kellen could not say. Most memories seemed foreign to him now, and he wondered if those ill recollections too had come to him in a previous life.
It did not matter now.
Memories, thoughts, voices – all ran blurry in his mind, yet stitched together with a common thread of unending pain coursing through his every waking moment.
Kellen winced as another agonizing wave shot through him, beginning in his new limbs. They were legs, once... His mind swirled again with a memory he could not forget or bury. A memory of a different demon’s teeth rending his weak, human flesh before leaving him to drown amidst Salt and blood and darkness.
That much Kellen did remember.
Drink…the ancient voice reminded from the shadows.
No. Kellen fought to keep his mouth closed, despite the certainty of failure and the blackness of unconsciousness threatening to take hold of him once more. His agony sped faster, shooting up his torso, burrowing deep in his chest as if it were the pain’s true home. K-Kill me…Kellen begged the demon. Please.
The demon refused. Drink…it commanded, its tentacled hold on Kellen tightening, forcing him to wince. …and be nourished.
Kellen obliged, unable to withstand the demon’s strength and the need to breathe, gagging as he choked down mouthful after mouthful of the deep salt water.
Drowning! His mind screamed with every swallow. Find the surface! Air!
Kellen tried. His eyes blindly searched the depths for a trace of light, a clue as to which direction the surface and oxygen existed. And, as all the times before, he found no answers.
Panic took hold, wrapping Kellen in its icy embrace, all while he clawed for air.
And yet…no matter how much water he swallowed, no matter his struggle, he remained conscious…held, by the demon in the deep.
Not drowning. Kellen’s throat relaxed, drinking in the Salt as he once had with air in the life before. I am drowned already…
Several more of his captor’s tentacles emerged from the darkness, stretching across the watery distance between them like giant, fleshy ropes. The demon’s free tentacles wrapped their ends around the smooth, stone table, holding Kellen hostage. Like fingers, they latched on, the fleshy limbs turning taut when their owner slunk free of the darkness to draw nearer.
Like the Merrows, Nomads, and Orcs that Kellen had encountered, the demon of the deep also appeared human from the waist up. At first, Kellen thought the demon an old man; one with a domed and balding head, save for a few wisped and translucent, stringy hairs. Wrinkles and countless scars interweaved across the demon’s withered bare-chest and torso, its skin sagging and folded over upon itself as if the ancient creature had once been bloated and since sapped of its strength. Yet for all the demon’s seeming physical weakness in its human torso, Kellen needed only to look into its lidless black eyes to know such thoughts for falsehoods.
Not a man... Kellen trembled at the sight of his captor, following the vein-like, scarlet trails leading to the creature’s lower body. A squid-man…a demon in the deep.
Where a pair of human legs might have been, instead the creature bore eight gargantuan tentacles, endlessly coiling and unfurling as the creature sent each of them out to pick at unseen crevices and leverage itself nearer to Kellen.
In one hand, the demon raised a lantern of sorts, its light pale and green, glooming from a scraped-together ball of bioluminescence. The dim glow illuminated its mottled crimson and white skin as it glided across the expanse and descended upon Kellen.
Wh-What are you? He forced himself stare into the demon’s eyes, and, as the demon stared back at him, Kellen knew that he was in hell. A vague memory that hell was supposed to be hot, burning eternal with fire and ash, the only clue to speak otherwise. But in the quiet, darkened depths of his captor’s domain, a place not even sunlight could pierce, Kellen felt only the cold.
And the cold promised that he would never be warm again.
Kellen fought the need to obey, pinching his nostrils shut with his free hand. Drink…or breathe? His mind swirled with the question, his body convulsing with the need to answer. Are they one and the same now?
A cold, thick tentacle slithered around Kellen’s wrist, encircling it like a bracelet, then tugged his hand away from his nose with unrelenting power. Drink, favored one, the ancient voice urged again. And allow the Salt to nourish you.
Kellen’s eyes searched the darkness, much as he knew what lay hidden there; the demon from his night terrors, the one whose call he first heard while wasting away in the slave cells of Orphan Knoll. Or had he heard its call all his life? Kellen could not say. Most memories seemed foreign to him now, and he wondered if those ill recollections too had come to him in a previous life.
It did not matter now.
Memories, thoughts, voices – all ran blurry in his mind, yet stitched together with a common thread of unending pain coursing through his every waking moment.
Kellen winced as another agonizing wave shot through him, beginning in his new limbs. They were legs, once... His mind swirled again with a memory he could not forget or bury. A memory of a different demon’s teeth rending his weak, human flesh before leaving him to drown amidst Salt and blood and darkness.
That much Kellen did remember.
Drink…the ancient voice reminded from the shadows.
No. Kellen fought to keep his mouth closed, despite the certainty of failure and the blackness of unconsciousness threatening to take hold of him once more. His agony sped faster, shooting up his torso, burrowing deep in his chest as if it were the pain’s true home. K-Kill me…Kellen begged the demon. Please.
The demon refused. Drink…it commanded, its tentacled hold on Kellen tightening, forcing him to wince. …and be nourished.
Kellen obliged, unable to withstand the demon’s strength and the need to breathe, gagging as he choked down mouthful after mouthful of the deep salt water.
Drowning! His mind screamed with every swallow. Find the surface! Air!
Kellen tried. His eyes blindly searched the depths for a trace of light, a clue as to which direction the surface and oxygen existed. And, as all the times before, he found no answers.
Panic took hold, wrapping Kellen in its icy embrace, all while he clawed for air.
And yet…no matter how much water he swallowed, no matter his struggle, he remained conscious…held, by the demon in the deep.
Not drowning. Kellen’s throat relaxed, drinking in the Salt as he once had with air in the life before. I am drowned already…
Several more of his captor’s tentacles emerged from the darkness, stretching across the watery distance between them like giant, fleshy ropes. The demon’s free tentacles wrapped their ends around the smooth, stone table, holding Kellen hostage. Like fingers, they latched on, the fleshy limbs turning taut when their owner slunk free of the darkness to draw nearer.
Like the Merrows, Nomads, and Orcs that Kellen had encountered, the demon of the deep also appeared human from the waist up. At first, Kellen thought the demon an old man; one with a domed and balding head, save for a few wisped and translucent, stringy hairs. Wrinkles and countless scars interweaved across the demon’s withered bare-chest and torso, its skin sagging and folded over upon itself as if the ancient creature had once been bloated and since sapped of its strength. Yet for all the demon’s seeming physical weakness in its human torso, Kellen needed only to look into its lidless black eyes to know such thoughts for falsehoods.
Not a man... Kellen trembled at the sight of his captor, following the vein-like, scarlet trails leading to the creature’s lower body. A squid-man…a demon in the deep.
Where a pair of human legs might have been, instead the creature bore eight gargantuan tentacles, endlessly coiling and unfurling as the creature sent each of them out to pick at unseen crevices and leverage itself nearer to Kellen.
In one hand, the demon raised a lantern of sorts, its light pale and green, glooming from a scraped-together ball of bioluminescence. The dim glow illuminated its mottled crimson and white skin as it glided across the expanse and descended upon Kellen.
Wh-What are you? He forced himself stare into the demon’s eyes, and, as the demon stared back at him, Kellen knew that he was in hell. A vague memory that hell was supposed to be hot, burning eternal with fire and ash, the only clue to speak otherwise. But in the quiet, darkened depths of his captor’s domain, a place not even sunlight could pierce, Kellen felt only the cold.
And the cold promised that he would never be warm again.