by Elsa Jade
Everything they’d shared had been so long ago. Lana’s throat tightened. “It was good. And even when it wasn’t… It was us.”
After all her hard work on the contrary curls, her mother petted her like it didn’t matter. “I never stopped looking for you. You know that, don’t you?”
Lana tilted her head into her mother’s knee in a nod. “I know. I knew.” She swallowed hard against the lump in her throat. “I think I stayed lost, because… What if you weren’t looking?”
“Honey—”
“No.” Lana pivoted to peer up at her mother. “I knew I had problems. I knew I’d made things worse, that I’d hurt people, and broken things, maybe forever. I guess part of me thought that if I changed everything, I’d change myself too.” She shook her head, making her curls dance, and she gave her mother a wry grin. “I even changed galaxies. But that didn’t do the trick either.”
Her mother tipped her head up with a firm hand under her jaw. “There’s nothing about you that needs to change, Lana,” she said fiercely. “Nothing.”
A mother’s lie, as sweet and fleeting as a meltaway candy. “If only you were on the Tritonesse council,” Lana mused. “Marisol is basically royalty on her world but she’s only one voice against their anger and suspicion.”
Her mother scowled. “They sound awful. Why would you even fight for them?”
“They call Earth a closed world, but in some ways they are too. They fought for so long, so focused, that they see everything as a threat.” She grimaced. “I mean, I am a threat, so they’re not wrong about that.”
“Not on purpose, you weren’t,” her mother objected. “You never meant to do any of it.”
That was the problem, wasn’t it? As Sting had said, with no control over her zaps, she was just a bomb waiting to go off. And for a world struggling to find its way in a new time of peace, a reminder of danger could never be wanted or welcome.
“Please don’t think the worst of them,” she told her mother. “When you see Tritona, you’ll understand why they fought so hard. It’s like…like the aquarium in the library, except even more beautiful and wild and all around you.”
“Kind of like your Sting?”
“I call them my zaps, actually,” Lana said.
Her mother chuckled. “You know I mean that beautiful, wild, always-around alien.”
“He’s not always around. I sent him away.” Heat burned in her cheeks—a memory of flames…and Sting’s touch. “Anyway, he’s not my anything.”
“Does he know that?”
“We’re just…” She thought for a moment. “Friends, I guess. And partners, in some ways. And we’d both been on our own so long that I think it made us a little…weird.”
Her mother smiled. “It’s good to find someone whose weird matches yours.”
Lana scoffed. “I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.”
Her mother’s searching look seemed unconvinced. “Well, you do need to be clear what you want, at least in your own mind.”
Lana gave a wobbly nod of sorta agreement. If there was one thing her trip to Tritona had given her, it was certainty in her own mind. For so long, because of Wavercrest syndrome, she’d thought she might be going crazy, but meeting alien mermen had set that fear aside.
No, it wasn’t her mind she worried about when it came to claiming her Tritona heritage. Her night with Sting loomed in her mind. Yeah, she wasn’t sure she could trust her body.
Definitely not that wicked, wayward throbbing at her core: her heart.
“Well, don’t just lurk there in the shadows,” her mother said, a teasing lilt in her voice. “What do you want now?”
Hadn’t that always been her question, though? What could she dare to want when everything had always seemed beyond her reach?
Then she realized her mother was looking toward the doorway.
She swiveled around and scrambled to her feet. Of course, it was Sting. Now it wasn’t just her cheeks hot, it was her whole head.
And maybe some other parts of her too.
He was holding a tray and standing so still he might’ve been frozen. His eyes were more blankly reflective than the perfectly polished tray—like he’d turned to ice.
“Come on in, Sting,” her mother said, a little more gently. “We were just talking about you.”
As Lana cut a sidelong glance at her mother, Sting said, “So I heard.”
A jolt went through her, as if she’d accidentally zapped herself. She bit back a groan when he went on, “I am your weird, worst enemy.” His unblinking stare felt accusing, like a mirror held up to her failings.
“That’s not what I said—” she started indignantly.
Her mother tsked. “If you’re going to sneak around, sometimes you’re going to hear things not meant for you.”
“I know that,” he said. “During the war, one of my missions was sneaking around to find out who wanted to kill us. Like our enemies.” His stare wasn’t just accusing, it was downright furious. So much for his invincible feelings.
“You’re not at war anymore,” Lana reminded him.
“So I thought.” Taking three long strides into the room, he deposited the tray on top of the grand piano with a clank that made her wince in sympathy for the pristine black lacquer. “I wasn’t practicing subterfuge, which I mastered long ago. I only wanted to be sure not to spill this.”
“Ooh, dessert!” exclaimed her mother, who had sidled over to peer at the tray. “But pudding doesn’t spill.”
Sting stiffened. “So I’ve discovered. I will know that next time I make it.”
Lana blinked. “You made this?”
After a moment, he lifted one shoulder in the most awkward shrug ever. “I only watched Thomas. But I recorded the ingredients and his instructions on my datpad so I might re-create silken chocolate pudding cups whenever I choose.” His jaw worked for a moment. “Although I do not know if I will be able to exactly match the cocoa or the milk or the sugar or the egg on Tritona.”
Her mother plucked one of the crystal dessert bowls and a spoon from the tray. “Things like this aren’t easy to get right on the first try. Sometimes it takes a few attempts. But sometimes when you don’t have all the exact same ingredients, that just makes it your very own special…pudding.” She slanted a glance at Lana as she silenced herself with a spoon full of pudding.
Lana narrowed her eyes at her mother—who’d identified as a “casserole queen” for most of her childhood—as if it wasn’t patently obvious that her mother was referring to more than a dessert.
Sting crossed his arms over his chest. “I was produced and programmed to kill but Thomas tells me that baking lessons should be easier.”
Though her mother coughed in amusement around her spoon, Lana focused on Sting’s broad chest. Or actually, the fitted shirt covering his chest. “Where did you get those clothes?”
“Thomas printed them for me from the supplies that Maelstrom left here.” He tugged at first one sleeve then the other, even though the shirt fit him flawlessly, as if bespoke. It was made for him, of course, since it was printed specifically to his size, along with trousers and boots, all of it in matte gray threaded with paler gray lines. Although the ensemble would not have looked out of place on a city sidewalk in some upscale downtown, it seemed like too much fashion for quiet Sunset Falls—and far too much coverage for the usually half-naked Titanyri.
“It looks good on you, Sting,” her mother said. “The silver piping brings out your eyes. By the way, this pudding is to die for.”
“No one will die,” he corrected. “I already told you, Thomas said that baking would be easier than killing.”
“Of course. Lana, you have to try this.” Her mother nudged the tray toward Sting. “Pass her one, will you?”
He did, and Lana wondered how much of his willingness to stay near her was just taking orders from an older woman, as he’d always done with the Tritonesse. She couldn’t bring herself to meet his gaze as he wordlessly held
out the cup and spoon, so tiny in his palm.
“Thank you,” she muttered, then added, “I’m sure it’s amazing,” while staring at his Olympic swimmer’s pecs and abs, exactingly detailed by the pale threads outlining his muscles.
Those pecs and abs were amazing; she could swear to it because she’d seen them bare. She’d actually touched them, licked them, as if even chocolate could make her forget last night.
But he just stood there, so she had to take a bite.
“This is amazing,” she blurted.
“So even weird, worst enemies make good pudding.” He lifted his chin, as if expecting a hit.
And he was, she realized. He was expecting punishment and pain, just as he’d always known. The night of pleasure they’d shared had ended awkwardly, and then she’d hidden from him. Of course he expected something bad.
She set the spoon in the etched crystal cup with a softer click than he’d set down the tray, cushioned by the pudding she hadn’t eaten—yet—but still he flinched. Just a few molecules of air displaced, imperceptible to anyone who didn’t know him.
She knew him, at least enough to see it and recognize it.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “For the dessert. For taking me to see the Atlantyri where I came from and to Evens’ shop to get my mom. Thank you for coming back to Earth to make sure I was all right.”
“I came here to abduct you,” he corrected.
“Thank you for not abducting me when I told you why I can’t go back with you.” She took a step forward, closing the distance between them. “I can’t—won’t—go where I’m not wanted, not anymore.”
Though his shielded eyes meant she couldn’t track his focus, she felt the hot weight of his intense focus. “And if I said I wanted you”—he let out a slow breath, much longer than any Titanyri would waste unwarranted—“I want you to return to Tritona?”
Now his eyes seemed to her not to blank or chromed steel or even ice, but glass crystal, beautiful and breakable.
“You’d ask me that even after everything they asked of you?” She shook her head slowly. “I’m not as strong as you, Sting. I can’t stand against my erratic power and against the Tritonesse and against the council rep the Tritona needs so badly to impress. I’m not the fighter you are. Not now, maybe not ever.”
After an endless moment, his shoulders sagged. “Then I’ve failed my mission. Failed Tritona.”
“No.” Lana’s mother forward. “You two set up the messages that brought me here. Others will follow who recognize the call of their forgotten ancestry.”
He glanced at her. “But not you either.”
“I’m not leaving my daughter again, as much as I’d like to see my ancestors’ homeworld someday.” She smiled at him. “Your mission wasn’t a failure. It just changed.”
When he stayed silent and still, seemingly incapable of absorbing that change, Lana’s heart ached for him. Maybe he was more than what the Tritonesse weapons conclave had intended, but even for someone who wanted to change, flexing those unused muscles hurt. She took the third pudding cup and handed it to him. “Eat your pudding,” she said kindly. “Maybe the mission went sideways, but you really nailed dessert.”
“Desserts always mark the end,” he mused. “And I don’t think pudding would be improved by the addition of nails.” He cradled the cup in his palm and took a taste. “It is small. But delicious.” Putting aside the spoon, he swept his long tongue around the cup in one lascivious stroke.
Choking on a giggle, Lana’s mom clutched the tray to her chest and announced, “I’m, uh, just going to take these dirty things back to Thomas. You two can just, um, stay here. Good night!”
Before Lana could roll her eyes at her mom, she and Sting were alone. While she finished her chocolate in lingering bites, he prowled around the room. When Thomas had suggested the music room for the mother/daughter reunion-fest, she’d complained she hadn’t even known there was a music room.
“Doesn’t every grand old estate have a music room?” The quirk of his smile faded. “But it feels lonely to me. A music room needs people to play and listen, and there’ve never been enough Wavercrests in residence to do it justice.”
In addition to the fancy jukebox and the beautiful grand piano, a huge floor harp of the kind Lana had only seen in movies stood in one corner. Three guitars—one of them electric and one bass—hung on the wall along with a variety of other stringed instruments, some of which she didn’t recognize, plus a violin, which for some reason made her agree with Thomas’s comment about loneliness. An epic drum set took up the other corner by the huge floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking what seemed like half of Montana, and Lana imagined teenage Marisol pounding out her teenage angst, sequestered in this place.
She finished her dessert, watching as Sting assessed the drums. With stiff steps, he circled closer, until he brushed against the hi-hat cymbals. The delicately balanced bronze rattled a discordant warning, and Sting jumped back. He cut a glance at her giggle and moved in again. This time his touch was so delicate that even the tiny space between the two halves of the cymbals didn’t close.
Her urge to laugh faded. She knew how delicate those big hands could be…
He gave it a more vigorous push, and the finally hammered bronze chimed, as if it too approved of his touch.
His face brightened in a way she’d never seen before, and he clanged the array of cymbals with more enthusiasm. His grunt of delight pinged in her chest. Behind her on the wall the finely spooled strings of the ancient-looking violin, wood worn thin—a Stradivarius perhaps?—thrummed in answer.
Sting spun around to stare at the wall of strings. His eyes narrowed, and the pulse he sent this time rattled her bones—and all the strings at once. His eyes widened with enchantment at the cacophony, and he strode toward her, though his gaze was on the wall behind her.
“They sing,” he whispered, so softly. He curled his hand inward to his chest, fist clenched tight, as if he was afraid to reach out and break them.
“They’re musical instruments,” she told him and rattled off the names of the ones she knew. “Don’t you have instruments? Although I suppose they’d have to be waterproof…” She frowned. “Except now that I think about it, I never saw anything about music on Tritona when I was reading up on you.”
“We used to sing, or so the old stories say.” The rough rasp of his voice failed to stir the strings this time. “During the mating storms, the Tritonyri songs would turn the waves white with sound, and the Tritonesse answers made auroras of rainbow bubbles in the deeps. Our night song made stars in the darkness, and the mothers’ morning chants were so irresistible that krill would swim into the open mouth of the spawnling just to give thanks for the song.”
She swallowed hard at the note of sorrow in his voice. “Used to?”
“Music was irresistible to Tritonans, and we filled the sea with music. But the Cretarni learned to use it against us. They would lure us with false songs of summons and cravings. Too many were drawn to their doom, to dry mountaintops and death. The Abyssa outlawed all music, so we would know that any songs we heard were lies of the Cretarni.”
Her throat tightened, as if her own vocal cords had been throttled. “It’s terrible what the Cretarni took from you.”
“Worse. What we gave up of ourselves just to survive.”
She bit her lip. “No enemies here tonight. If you want to sing.”
Though it seemed to cost him to look away from the quietly humming instruments, he twisted his head to look down at her. “I can’t sing. The songs are forgotten. Even if they weren’t, my voice…” His fist unfurled against his throat, the webbing between his fingers pulsing as he swallowed hard, and she wondered if he was remembering the sonics crushing him.
She gestured at the wall. “Those are your voice.”
Even before she knew anything about Wavercrest syndrome, she’d read in science magazines how dolphins could stun with sound and how crocodiles could make the water dance w
ith the ultralow vibrations of their calls. But though she’d stood in the path of his pings before, even tried a few herself, she hadn’t realized just how powerful and nuanced his pulsing could be.
His sonic pulse washed through her like a wave of caressing fingers, all her nerve endings tingling. And on the wall behind her, the guitar and the violin chimed, a glissando from the harp answering. The sounds were like nothing she’d ever heard from any instrument.
Unearthly. And arousing. Her nipples tingled, and she had to clamp her knees together to stay upright…and ease the sharper ache between her thighs as his invisible sound swept over her again, raising a sweep of sound from all the instruments. Focused, delicate strikes struck individual notes from the strings and metal—and from her most intimate nerve endings. She swayed to the music and his invisible touch. Her own voice was gone, lost in the wash of music and sensation. He seemed equally swept away, his eyes half closed, only the crescent moon sparkle of bared eyes telling her what this meant to him.
She ached with lust and longing, seeing him undone by the power of his own song. She wanted to reach for him, but she would never take this sacred moment just for her own needs.
The design of the room took the sounds, concentrating and refining and echoing back at them so that she knew this song would be emblazoned in her deepest memory even though there were no words, not even a true melody—just pure sound that held all the raw longing from what was lost like a shell held the endless power and lament of the sea.
When she came, she did so silently, in a scalding rush. All the breath washed from her like an outgoing tide, leaving her spent and adrift, but her body still vibrated in the aftermath.
Sting swayed too, as if the solo recital had sapped even his great strength. She tottered over to him and wrapped her arms tight around him, her head on his chest. He dipped his head over hers, his cheek pressed to her crown. His breath whispered down past her ear, as if she were the shell still echoing his song.
They leaned together, for how long she didn’t count.
If anything his ruined voice was even rougher when he finally whispered, “You let me sing.”
