by Jade, Elsa
“Not cold, but I wanted to be prepared to help you move to the ship so we can leave.” He tugged at the lightweight, fitted clothes that he’d found in the ship’s stores, most like what he’d seen on her earlier. The flat black material, meant to insulate air-breathing species, was rough under his fingertips. “You are much smaller, but I think we could rig up a battle skin to fit you. I think you’d like it.” He clamped his mouth shut before he said anything incriminating about how she’d look in the fitted cornices and straps of the Tritonyri battle skin, rocketing through Tritona’s seas.
She shook her head. “Marisol can’t leave here until she figures out her water allergy,” she reminded him. “That’s why we’re here.”
“If the IDA said she is compatible with my commander, I’m sure we can synthesize a replacement for whatever molecule she needs from here.”
Curling her arms inward so that she hid the cover of her book against her chest, Miss Blake glanced away from him. “No dive skin is going to make me less afraid of the water.”
The failure she’d told him about had made her afraid? Hating the almost imperceptible hitch in her voice, he closed the distance between them. Maybe his mistakes had made him fearful too, but he hadn’t been able to say that aloud, not with the war still raging. Respect for her brutal honesty swelled in him.
He didn’t touch her but he let his proximity draw them together like the cohesive force between two beads of water. “We’ll figure you out too,” he said, although he had no right to make that promise.
She stared up at him, her gray eyes unwavering. “I’ll do anything.”
He was suddenly glad of the confining, unfamiliar clothes that kept her from noticing just how much cohesive force he was suffering right now.
Easing backward one judicious step, he put empty air between them. “Take me to Marisol Wavercrest. We’ll explain to my commander that she isn’t well enough to travel yet and we must find a solution here. As for you”—the hunting pheromone glands behind his back teeth, even more primitive than his sonar, sent a flood of sweetness over his tongue—“there’s a way back to the water for you. And we’ll find it.”
***
Ridley stared at the big man in front of her. She’d grown up racing bigger boys for room on the best waves breaking beyond the pier at Imperial Beach and then she’d moved on to elbowing for her place in the Navy. She’d never been afraid of standing up to someone who got in her way, and she wasn’t going to back down now.
Except this last year of losing out to the nebulous fears in her own head had left her questioning everything she thought about herself. Which was why she hadn’t been able to sleep in the beautiful guest room that Marisol had showed her before walking Lana down the hall. In the darkness, the unfamiliar soft mattress and softer sheets had felt like they were trying to drown her.
After tossing and turning and utterly messing up the pretty bed, she’d retraced her steps to the library, hoping to find a book to lure her back to sleep. Or at least distract her until the sun rose and the InterGenetic Data Agency researchers arrived to start their poking and prodding. Among the shelves of hardcover, gilt-embossed tomes, she’d seen more than a few bright paperback covers.
Yes, a good romance novel was just what she was looking for. She’d selected one at random, and while the corsair and concubine clinch didn’t seem realistic—pirates were an actual problem for the Navy—she was willing to give the author a chance to make her believe in true love.
And now there was this former fleet captain standing right in front of her.
He’d traded the bizarre dive skin for an unremarkable cowl-neck henley and some sort of black track pants. Somehow, despite the chin-to-toe covering, she could still imagine all that bronze skin exposed. She cleared her throat and hastily stuffed her chosen book back with its companions. Nobody needed to know what she’d been looking at.
“It’s late and everyone else is asleep,” she told him. “I don’t think we should bother Marisol when she wasn’t looking so good. Not to mention, if Thomas finds out you sneaked in here, he might shoot you just on principle. I think you should leave and come back tomorrow through the front door like a normal person.”
The corner of his mouth curled in a bemused, not-quite smile. “Are any of us normal people? Would we even be here if we were?”
She wrinkled her nose at him, refusing to be charmed by that accent she still couldn’t place, although Marisol said she’d looked all over the world for people like them. “Speak for yourself. I was doing fine until…” Abruptly, she turned her head to focus on the aquarium. Though the lighting had been lowered for the night, its soothing jewel tones banished the memory of darkness closing over her head. She sucked in a shuddering breath, inhaling a hint of odd sweetness, and realized he was standing much too close again. “Until I wasn’t,” she finished lamely.
“I don’t know anything about water allergies,” he said. “But I do know fear. Tell me of this riptide that took you down.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Obviously it does. You can’t sleep, can you? Not without nightmares.” Refracting the glow from the tank, his pale eyes flashed a blue-green silver, like the curling top of the perfect wave she’d never again catch.
Even as she scoffed, her gaze drifted toward the minibar. Where the rest of the tequila and the other bottles waited. “I can sleep anytime I want.”
“But always by yourself,” he murmured in that intriguing accent that wasn’t like anything she’d heard before.
She stiffened at the tingle of awareness that they were alone together in the quiet room, far enough away from the other inhabitants that no one would hear her if she cried out.
She refused to contemplate what kind of noises she might be making.
Anyway, she’d always taken care of herself in situations like this, and now was no different. He was just another big dude who thought he could say things that would make her feel smaller.
She glared at him. “How did you disappear into the fountain anyway?”
With a shrug of one massive shoulder, he made clear he knew she was ignoring his comment. “There’s a recirculating pump, but the intake is fed via a well refreshed by a honeycomb limestone aquifer that connects to Sunset Lake. I came in that way, I went out that way.”
“The fountain is not that deep.” Was it? Oh God, and she’d been standing right next to it, all oblivious and shit.
His reproving look told her he was sincere. “If your guardsman didn’t know about it, then we definitely need to have a talk about security around here.”
She nibbled at her lower lip. “You didn’t have an oxygen tank, or was one stashed away where I didn’t see it?”
“I don’t require supplemental oxygen for such a short distance,” he said with a sniff.
Her mind whirled. “I drove past the turnoff for Sunset Lake on the way here. That’s too far to swim with the temperatures tonight, not in that getup you had.”
“That getup is a battle skin that can take me much further than the distance to the lake, at the surface or underwater, any temperature.”
“Impossible,” she sputtered. “I don’t believe it.”
“I’ll show you,” he tossed back. “Come to the fountain with me.”
The empty mouth of the mermaid’s white urn, the enigmatic black reflection of the pool, and now knowing that underneath was some submerged death trap? Ugh. Through gritted teeth, she said, “I’ll stick with a good book and better booze.”
The icy blue of his eyes glinted at her. “You’ll never overcome your fears by avoiding them.”
“Who the hell do you think you are?” Outrage stiffened her spine, but just as quickly, suspicion made her tuck her chin, like waiting for a hit. “Are you one of the IDA shrinks?” How like a head doc to spring on her when she was weak.
“Shrink? I’m much bigger than you are and that’s not likely to change. But as I told all my fighters, large or small, you face your fears
or they’ll be forever nipping at your fins.”
“You told me you lost your last battle,” she snarled. “Where are those fears now?”
He flinched. In such a big man, the recoil wasn’t hard to see. She might not have made him smaller, but she’d definitely struck him where it hurt.
The realization churned sourly in her stomach. But she wasn’t going to let some guy who’d showed up in half a spandex leotard tell her to walk it off when a year-plus of therapy, drugs (some prescribed), and judgmental tsking hadn’t gotten her in the water.
“My mistake,” he said stiffly. “I thought you were here because you wanted the IDA’s help in overcoming your problem.”
She did, but… Why was every instinct telling her he was more of a problem?
And how much did she trust her instincts now?
She’d been so sure she could fix herself, force herself to be…better. She knew how to push herself, she’d proven that, over and over. Like if she could just hold her own head underwater long enough…
But she couldn’t. And with every attempt she’d ended up further and further away from what she’d sworn she’d make of herself, losing job and house, drifting away from friends, coming to fear the only dream she’d ever had, until even on bone-dry land she was sinking hopelessly.
She let out a slow hiss, the kind that would’ve been alarming from an airtight suit, though she tried to temper her tone. “Look, I’m sure you think you’re trying to do the right thing here, but the Navy invested serious time and money in me and they couldn’t get my head on straight. Hell, even my parents must’ve decided I wasn’t worth the effort because…” She clicked her teeth together. “I’m just saying don’t waste your inspirational posters on me.”
His icy gaze hardened to a diamond edge. “So all these others haven’t gotten you where you want to go? Of course it must be their fault. Maybe the IDA will be the one to finally turn the tide for you.” He arched one dark eyebrow in challenge.
She’d never been tempted to use a bang stick on a living creature, not even the sharks that came nosing around, but she’d consider making an exception for him. “You think you can swim-shame me into forgetting my phobias? Even I know psychobabble doesn’t work like that.”
“It’s not babble that’ll save you, but bubbles.” He smirked at her, obviously pleased with his own cleverness.
She wanted a bang stick topped with C4.
“What if I swore to you I could get you into that fountain outside, no more talking, just a little bit of tongue?” He stepped closer, not actually crowding, but he was too big to not loom over her.
And as much as she hated being crowded, she longed for that closeness. Because when he stood right there, the pulsing heat of that big body pushed back the surge of cold fear at just the thought of the bottomless pool lurking under the mermaid. A shudder went down her spine, weakening her knees so she sagged toward him. And for one seething breath, she hated him so much, for seeing her fear, for dangling an antidote just beyond her reach, for promising the one thing she wanted most of all.
Helpless with fear and yearning, her knees buckling, she found herself held up only by his long fingers wrapped around her biceps, her hands braced on his chest.
Under her palms, his pecs were hard—as she’d known they’d be after seeing him mostly naked earlier—and smooth with a layer of thick padding. He wasn’t some pretty-boy beefcake, flexing for appreciative eyes. He was a workhorse, a massive beast capable of pulling plows to break up the flat plains around here that had once been a rich, shallow sea. Dammit, she could never really get away from the water, could she, even though the inland sea had dried up tens of millions of years ago. Maybe it would get worse for her, as it was for Marisol and Lana, or maybe it would just get worse because she’d always know the deeps were out there, waiting for her, and she didn’t have the courage to jump in.
“You can’t promise me that,” she said through gritted teeth. “It’s cold out there, and the dark is deep, all the things that have become my personal hell.”
“You wouldn’t be able to do this,” he agreed, “not without me, not the way you are now. But if you follow me, I’ll get you farther than you’ve ever been before, even before this fear.”
He was too tempting. No, not him. His promise. But what did she have to lose?
She’d lost it all already.
She stared up at him, her heart slamming around her chest like a sunfish caught on a line. Though his icy eyes were uncanny, catching the lights from the aquarium with the same silver gleam as the underside of the water, there were no shadows there. Somehow, that freaked her out more. Yeah, there was turbulence in his gaze, a vast, churning energy threatening to roll her over. But she’d never been afraid of the monster waves, not even now. It was only the depths that made her freeze in terror.
She just needed to stay in the shallows, keep her head above water, so to speak, then she’d be fine.
Slowly, she fisted her hands in the black folds of his shirt. She had to lick her lips to unseal them from the frantic urge to deny everything he’d said, and her voice was huskier then she’d intended when she said, “Fine then. Show me the way back to the water.”
His fingers flexed almost imperceptibly on her arms. Then he ran one hand down her bare skin to tangle his fingers with hers. “This way.”
Was his deep voice a little rough too?
Before she could respond, he was tugging her toward the front door. She didn’t put on the brakes—probably wouldn’t have helped anyway, considering his forward momentum—but she protested, “Let me get my shoes and my coat.”
“Do you usually wear your coat and shoes when you dive?”
She grimaced. “With these temps, I’d wear a full dry suit.”
“You won’t need one, not with me.”
Which was an arrogant not to mention ridiculous thing to say. He couldn’t just change her bodily needs. Except…with his big hand engulfing hers, her personal temp was much higher than it should be.
And no dry suit could keep her safe from the needy, wet quiver between her legs.
It wasn’t because he was muscly or forceful or take-charge. She’d had all that before. But when a man offered a woman everything she wanted?
Yeah, that was tempting as hell.
She tried to weasel one last time as he reached for the doorknob. “We’re going to set off the alarms.”
He glanced back at her with a wicked grin. “I didn’t last time, did I?”
Oh, he was definitely wrong about that. All her alarm bells were going off.
He flung open the door. Outside, the Montana night was so cold and dark, the earlier fog washing in so thick, she might as well have been diving into the midnight ocean. But with his hot hand around hers and the pull of his bulk rocketing her forward, for the first time in a long time she didn’t freeze. In a few stuttering heartbeats and even faster steps—ooh, the cobblestones were icy under her bare feet—they were standing beside the marble basin. The fog had swallowed any hint of starlight, but the marble mermaid glowed like a fallen moon.
Except for that tiny black hole of the empty urn…
Ridley averted her gaze. Not that the sheen of night on the fountain’s waters was any less unnerving. Standing over what she knew was a well into nothingness, her giddy breaths quickened. If she’d been on canned air, she’d be going through her store at double speed. Even out here in the open air, it felt as if she’d suck all the oxygen out of this Big Sky Country.
A tug on her hand spun her around to face her tempter. But her eyed stayed locked on the pool. She just couldn’t drag her focus off the still, menacing water.
“Miss Blake. Look at me.” His hand under her chin gently levered her face up to his.
“Ridley,” she muttered. “My name is Ridley.”
“Call me Maelstrom.”
Seemed appropriate.
She wrapped her arms around herself, and while she’d been clocking extra hours at the gym since
she wasn’t in the water, her arms still weren’t anywhere near as enveloping as his would be. “Maelstrom,” she repeated slowly, wondering again at his not-quite-familiar accent. “Is that some kind of call sign? Or was your mother a poet or a singer or something?”
“My mother was very old when I was spawned. It was late in the war, and she’d gone deep to stay safe from the battles. So I never met her.” He closed his eyes for a long moment. “I was raised with hundreds of others from that spawning season, and of those who survived the war, still none of us are big enough to risk the dive to find the mothers.”
She blinked at him, momentarily distracted from her queasy unease. “Spawned? You mean born? I’m not sure I’m following you.” Something was obviously being lost in translation. But the pain in his voice was clear enough.
He shook his head, flicking back the long, beach-blown locks of his dark hair. “It doesn’t matter now. She didn’t mean the name to be a song, I’m sure, but a call to battle. My brothers call me Mael.”
Ridley wasn’t naïve; she’d joined the military out of high school after all. But her own fears suddenly seemed pathetically small compared to some woman who named her child not in hope but in war. And she knew hotspots raged around the globe where mothers lost their children to war. Hearing that he was estranged from his own family as much as she was, made her excuses sound thin even to herself.
She let out a slow, steadying breath that added to the fog in the air. Although the taste on the back of her tongue was saltwater. “All right, Maelstrom. Just tell me you’re not going to try some sink or swim bullshit where you toss me into the deep end.”
His blue-green eyes glinted at her. “Maybe next time,” he mock-threatened in a low voice. “But for now, you need someone to lift you up, not hold you down.”
A shiver went through her, mostly from the cold, but also from some deeper, illicit thrill. She’d never been into the rough stuff—she’d gotten enough bruises in her childhood to last a lifetime—but she had to admit, the idea of his weight rocking her like a rowboat held an impossible appeal.
