by Elsa Jade
“Who else’s? It’s in you. Call it.”
The twists of the panic threatened to pull her under. “You showed me how to do the call, but I don’t know this.”
“You want me to show you?”
For a suspended heartbeat, the broken timbre of his voice was a refuge of hidden shadows where she might cling and hide. There might be dangers in those cracks, but for the moment… “Yes,” she whispered.
“As the Tritonyri used to say before they dropped ordinance—fire in the hole.”
Big hands wrapped around hers, with the guttering capsule between them, he leaned across the bare inches of distance between them, and crash landed his mouth on hers.
What…?
For another endless instant, her mind was as blank as the obsidian trap. His mouth on hers was hot and heavy and utterly unmoving, like the weight of a mountain compressing everything underneath. But under that… A volcano. Not breathing for her, but sinking her deeper. If that deep, hidden force found even the barest fault of weakness…
She parted her lips to steal a breath.
The glass around her mind shattered in concentric waves that left her shattered and exposed. She anchored one fist on his harness and yanked higher on his chest to slant her lips across his. His mouth opened in response.
So the impenetrable obsidian wall wasn’t unreachable after all.
She touched the tip of her tongue to his, and the kiss exploded.
As did everything else. The thunderous scrap of electrons, crystalline chime of shattering glass not in her mind…and suddenly her hands were empty.
Eyes flared wide, she glanced wildly around the computer room. He was gone. Sting had left her. Alone on an alien ship.
An airy whistle, like faint laughter, jerked her around again to face a gaping hole in the concave windows.
She ran forward, leaning out through the gap, cautious of the jagged edges of the not quite glasslike pane. From here, the central spire looked down down down to the segmented wheel below with its churning waves.
And bobbing like a big silver cork…
“Sting!”
Chapter 7
“Sting?” Small fists beat at his chest. “Sting! Wake up. Don’t die. Oh God…”
He opened his eyes to meet Lana’s frantic gaze. “I’m not dead. Yet.”
She was standing in the shallows where he floated, her hands hovering near, but not quite touching anymore.
Probably for the best, that.
She let out a shuddering breath. “I thought you had drowned.”
“I haven’t drowned,” he informed her, although he made no attempt to straighten. The waters of the Atlantyri were soothing on his gills. In some unexpected way, so was the concern on her face as she stood over him.
“You were making such a horrible noise.” Her fingers fluttered in distress. “I thought you were choking.”
“Not choking.” He pursed his lips, which felt somewhat numb. “I was laughing.”
She took a step back, the restless internal tide wavering around her. “Laughing?”
“Laughing underwater,” he clarified. “So maybe it sounded odd to you.”
Her brows crashed down like a mini landslide. “If laughing was odd right now it would be because I almost killed you. Again!”
“I told you, not yet.” Since her agitation was roiling the water around him anyway, he put his feet under him and stood, venting the water from his gills.
“And that’s funny to you? Getting electrocuted and being blown out a window and falling into this fake ocean?”
There was an edge to her question that made him narrow his eyes warily. “More amusing than actually dying.” He squinted a little more. “You sound like water boiling.”
“Because I’m—” She hunched her shoulders, still hissing. “I ran all the way down here thinking I’d killed you.” Despite the huddle of her body, she jutted her chin at him. “What did you think you were doing?”
He bit his lip as he’d seen her do so many times. Sensation was starting to come back, and his teeth were sharper than hers, so he wasn’t sure he appreciated the sensation. Perhaps he should lie to her. But he’d never been very good at it. “I was kissing you.”
She jerked her chin back in, rolling herself tight like her disbelief was a protective shell. “Kissing me?”
“Is that not the right word? According to my translator, it means—”
“I know what it means,” she interrupted. “Or at least… I know what the word means. Why were you kissing me?”
“You told me to show you how to relight the data gel.”
“What does that have to do with kissing?” With each word, the hiss in her voice boiled higher.
He looked down at her. “I have observed whenever the Earther females doubt themselves, Coriolis and Maelstrom kiss them.” He thought for a moment. “And when they are being difficult.”
Lana sputtered. “Doubting and difficult, huh?”
“Is that wrong?”
She opened her mouth, then closed it, then shook her head. “I suppose your observations were not wrong. And your friends are only half wrong to use it that way.”
He inclined his head. “I’m sorry for using the kiss the wrong way. I thought it would help you find your power.”
She made a noise not unlike his underwater laughing, a rather wet gurgle. “Well, I guess it sort of worked. Since my power only seems to cause damage.”
“Did it work?” When she lifted her troubled gaze to his, he gestured at the tight-clenched fist she’d banged into his chest. “Did your power reignite the gel?”
She blinked at him, as if she’d totally forgotten the capsule. Although that had been their mission, once again her worry for him gave him a sweet, warm jolt that had nothing to do with her electricity.
Slowly, she unfurled her fingers to reveal the capsule. Even through the translucent container, the reinvigorated gel shimmered bright enough to make him glad of the protective lenses over his own eyes.
Lana gaped at the canister and then raised the same wondering expression to him. “I did it? I did it!”
With a grunt, he herded her toward the edge of the pool. “That’s what I said.” He was fortunate that his abrupt exodus from the spire had ended with him in one of the filled pools and not on the exposed seawall between the susurrating chambers. As tough as he was, if he’d hit the modified plasteel, more than his lips would be numb.
Unresisting, she moved toward the nearest step and clambered out. “But how? How did you know that my zaps, my power could be used for this, for good?”
He boosted himself up beside her, grimacing at the twinge in his muscles. Though he’d plunged farther before and under worse circumstances, it had never been while losing consciousness—and still distracted by the feel of her mouth under his. If he hadn’t taken a lungful of her breath before she blasted him an out of the spire, he might indeed have drowned at the end of the fall.
And some part of him still seemed inexplicably shocked and breathless. Maybe her power had damaged some part of him that even the unplanned fall hadn’t.
He shook his head. No sense worrying about that now. “Electrons are electrons,” he told her. “You are just giving them a boost, on purpose or not.” When she just stared at him, he added, “Like all the waters are eventually connected. Your zaps are either a battery you control—or a storm that you don’t.”
She’d been slowly nodding, but after that last, she froze. “But I didn’t have much control, did I? When you….” She turned her face away. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”
“At least you burned off the worst pulse on me, not the gel.” He gave her an approving nod. “Some part of you remembered what mattered.”
Her dark gaze shot back to him, unaccountably angry again. “Your life matters more than some synthetic synapses.”
“Not for this mission,” he reminded her. “Although either way, you’re getting rid of me.”
She threw up her hand
s in exasperation, lobbing him the capsule in the same gesture. He caught it easily. “Take it. Get out of here. Leave before I kill you—on accident or on purpose.”
The part of him that was still shocked let out another laugh. “Let’s go then. We still have a few components to find.”
But as he led her through the Atlantyri, collecting what he needed, and resetting the alarms to keep watch for the unknown intruder into Sunset Falls space, the part of him that had been stunned and unconscious slowly came back to life—maybe for the first time—with a honed edge that was almost exquisitely painful. The gel in its capsule pulsed with a strength that distracted his senses even though it was tucked away in a compartment of his battle skin.
Whatever she’d done to it—and to him—was more than exciting a few electrons. Maybe the Tritonesse weren’t wrong about the little nul’ah-wys either.
The powerful burst must’ve exhausted her since she was quiet through the rest of their search. Though used to silence, he found himself missing her, so he kept up a commentary on the ship’s systems and some of its history when the exodus ship had fled Tritona in the midst of their war with the Cretarni when their defeat had seemed inevitable. Though she asked a few questions, she still seemed subdued when they returned to the corridor that would lead them back to the waterways out to the world.
He took a long step in front of her and pivoted to face her, making her halt. “Were you injured by the blast?” he demanded. A terrible thought made him stiffen. “Did my kiss damage you?”
She flinched. “No!” Taking a shuddering breath, she repeated more calmly, “No. You didn’t hurt me by kissing me. But…it’s not something you should just…do to someone when you don’t have that kind of connection yet.”
“Because they might blow me out the nearest window.”
The corner of her lip twitched. “Maybe. If they can. But what if I hadn’t wanted you to kiss me at all but I didn’t have the strength to blow you out the nearest window?”
He considered. “That wouldn’t be right. Like taking a fish from a youngling who can’t fight back.”
“Uh… Sort of, yeah. You should use your greater strength for good.”
“That wasn’t why the Tritonesse made me.”
“Maybe not. But it’s your strength now so you can do whatever you want.”
He nodded slowly. No one had ever told him his power belonged to him; they’d only ever used him, but now it was his responsibility. “Just because I wanted to kiss you, that wasn’t enough. You had to want to kiss me too.”
When she curled her lower lip between her teeth again, his hunting instincts kicked in. Though he’d already had her scent and her silhouette fixed in his Titanyri senses so that he could track her across any waters in the universe, now that his mouth had been on hers, he knew what she tasted like. And she tasted even better than she looked and smelled.
“You…wanted to kiss me?” Her gaze jumped past him, then around him, then over him, as if he wasn’t standing right in front of her. “I thought you were just trying to focus my power.”
He took a half step closer to her, since she seemed to be having so much trouble focusing on him at the moment. “It’s your strength now so you can do whatever you want.” At his repetition of her words, her glance popped up to meet his. “I wanted to kiss you.”
With her chin tilted upward, the frantic thrum of her pulse in her throat tempted him, and even without the conducting element of water between them, he tasted her again when he licked his lips.
Her gaze dropped to his mouth. “But…you’re leaving Earth soon.”
“Not quite yet,” he reminded her.
When she didn’t respond, he held out one arm to her. “Back to the Diatom?”
With an awkward jerk of her head, she sidled over the last step separating them and tucked herself under his shoulder, fisting his harness while he affixed the tow rope. With no space left between them, she stared up at him. Even through her protective e-suit, even through his own thickened skin, the heat of her soothed him like the geyser outside his prison cell on Tritona.
And whispered of a more profound heat simmering below.
He reached up to her mouth…and tucked the gill between her teeth. The frill of oxygen-exchanging filaments should’ve hidden her lips, but he didn’t need his eyes to know the outline of her mouth. He’d never forget the feel. Snugging his arm tight around her, he dove.
This time, he didn’t pause at any of the alcoves. She’d proven she was strong enough to not need the break.
And since the chill of the Earther waters wasn’t enough to soothe the need rising from his own depths, he couldn’t be sure he had the strength to not kiss her again.
Bypassing the Diatom, he took them directly to the shore where they’d left their belongings, and when they were close enough, he immediately released her.
She slogged through the shallows beside him, her lips tinged from the cold.
The predator he was knew he could bring that hottest blood back to the surface in one rush…
Instead he stood unmoving as she quickly layered her Earther clothing over the snug fit of her e-suit. Each stratum of fabric felt like a blockade against his senses, erasing the moments he’d held her against his body, and an annoyed rumble reverberated from his chest.
Lana glanced back at him, brow furrowed, before holding out the clothing items she’d given him before. He averted his face. “No. It itches.”
She tucked her chin. “It’s not itchy. All my things are soft and silky. Plus, you have armored skin.”
“Sensitive armored skin.” Although she was right that all of her was soft and silky, at least all the parts of her he’d touched. Especially her mouth…
Shifting from foot to foot, he rumbled under his breath. He was definitely itchy now.
With a little snort, she stuffed everything into the satchel. “Fine. Since we’re just going back to the estate, you can be mostly naked. But if we get pulled over by highway patrol, how am I supposed to explain an alien merman?”
“I don’t need anyone else to believe in me.”
“Just don’t… You know what, never mind. It’s fine. This is fine.” She clutched the strap of the satchel like she was imagining his neck between her fingers. “We have what we need, so let’s just go.”
He didn’t have what he needed.
Not yet.
It was getting dark by the time they approached the small enclave of Sunset Falls. He didn’t need the artificial lights of the vehicle, but Lana informed him it was mandatory. No wonder Earthers had so many troubles; they had no protective covering for their eyes and yet most of the time they couldn’t see where they were going anyway.
His datpad chimed with an incoming message and he triggered the volume.
“Lana? Are you there?” The guardsman from the Wavercrest abode spoke in careful tones.
Lana leaned toward Sting’s wrist, although that was not necessary. “Yes, Thomas. I’m here. What’s up?”
“I tried to call your phone privately, but there was no answer.”
“I fried it again.” She grimaced. “Is everything okay?”
“We had a call from Mister Evens. The query system you set up through his shop had a contact.”
Lana straightened again. “Oh, that’s wonderful. I’m so glad to know my idea is working. At least some people are finding us.” She hesitated. When he didn’t respond immediately. “Or are you saying this is another crackpot? We knew not everyone who saw the Wavercrest syndrome symptoms would be more long-lost Tritonans. There are a lot of people out there looking for answers to their problems, and voluntary alien abduction won’t always be the right answer.”
“No,” Thomas said slowly. “I believe this contact may be legitimate. In fact, she was so convinced that our listing was important to her that she came to Sunset Falls without waiting for a response. She’s staying downtown. But for some reason, Mister Evens requested that you meet with him first.”
&n
bsp; Lana frowned down at the datpad. “I wonder why he’s being so mysterious?”
Thomas let out a short laugh. “I believe mysteries are one of his specialties along with everything else in his shop.”
Lana let out a similar sound, more tired than amused, Sting decided.
When the guardsman disconnected, Lana directed Sting to take a different route in return. “We’re going to stop in town,” she informed him. “And you need to stay in the car. No one can see you like…this.”
He gave her a steady look. “You are worn from our mission. We should go back so you can rest.”
She flicked one finger dismissively. “This is important. About the time Marisol realized no specialist was going to be able to identify her strange malady—other than to name it Wavercrest syndrome after her—she started seeking others who might be suffering the same. Now, of course, we know that we are all descendants from the Atlantyri exiles. But only Ridley and I actually responded to her message and followed through, but I’m sure there are more of us out there that she couldn’t reach.” Lana gazed out the vehicle window. “Not everyone has access to the medical services that Marisol worked with, and even those that did might have been turned away by doctors who didn’t know what they were seeing and had no answers. So I had an idea for finding other people who might carry enough Tritonan genetics to be messed up, like us.”
She directed him through the small village. At this hour, there were lights in some of the buildings but few Earthers on the streets. The Intergalactic Dating Agency always sited its outposts where alien mates could find each other without oblivious closed-worlders finding out they weren’t alone in the universe, but the quiet, secluded Sunset Falls seemed to pride itself on its isolation.
Lana pointed him down one of the darker alleys. “Mister Evens runs a curiosity shop—the kind of place that offers a little of this, a little of that, and a lot of nothing. It seems like there’s one in every little town, a place people go when a crystal or a sachet of herbs is the only thing that makes sense. I suggested to Thomas that along with Marisol’s official contacts, we set up a back channel where we might catch people who fall through the usual nets.”
