by Elsa Jade
In the blaze of lightning and electron transfer, she lost sight of Sting. Had the outward swell of the wave carried him away?
He was strong, and of course he could breathe underwater, but she wished he was there. She didn’t need the crystal-clear light to finally know that he was what she wanted.
Higher the Abyssa crystal floated, and the whirlpool rose around it—an impossible bond.
Clinging with static electricity fingers, the whirlpool inverted over her in a conical point reaching for the stars. She found herself alone, balanced on the peak of the bell, the lightning-struck waters whirling around her. Disconnected from its power source in the geothermal vents connected to the heart of the planet, the Abyssa crystal would have only one shot—literally.
Through the narrowing aperture at the point of the spout, Lana sighted the Cretarni ship that held her stolen power. They could’ve taken that template for producing clean power and pure water and either joined the Tritonans or founded a new world of their own. But no, they wanted it to kill.
Righteous anger and infinite sorrow and reluctant empathy spun in her even faster than the whirlpool finger pointing at the enemy—all the mixed feelings of the Tritonesse in the Abyssa crystal, although Lana felt them all herself too.
It had come to this, here, now.
As the resident chorus of the lightning voices reached their apex, she pointed her finger to the targeted ship and said, “This ends now.”
For one heartbeat, the lightning and the chorus paused in pristine silence, and she caught a glimpse through the fire and water of Sting, looking small and far away in the furious sea, waiting.
The Abyssa crystal released its centuries of stored power in an ecstatic warrior cry, and the fiery comets blazed upward—
Just as the Cretarni ship fired.
Lethal plasma—scarlet as her blood, flames wrapped in an inferno sheathed in annihilation—arrowed down toward the point of the waterspout of violet and silver.
The Cretarni blast was even stronger than she’d feared, the fiery beam bright enough to eclipse the glow of her own lightning fire. If it reached the surface, it wouldn’t just burn the water, it could penetrate all the way to the Abyssa’s grotto, and if it followed the secret conduits of power, it might reach the center of the planet and split it in two, destabilizing every planet around the rising star.
The Cretarni were willing to destroy the solar system for their revenge.
In the face of that evil, the silver light faltered. Even after centuries of war, all the Tritonesse of the past had never imagined such a cataclysm, beyond even their own deaths.
“This is the fight,” she whispered. The fight had been impossible before, so did it matter that was more impossible now? “Give me the burning tide,” she commanded. “All of it. Give me this chance.”
But the Abyssa had been alone too long, hoarding their power but disconnected from what they’d wanted—to save Tritona. And in the face of such overwhelming opposition, there seemed no hope.
The lights in the bell guttered, the chime of voices falling silent one by one. The burning tide that had risen against the Cretarni began to recede, falling back toward the ocean waves that had begun to smoke from the sleeting energies.
Despair bit deeper than a boundary beast. At any moment, the crystal lightning would collapse, leaving them defenseless against the Cretarni’s weapon. How could they have come this far just to fail?
She stared up at descending point of fire aimed at her. At least she’d be the first to go? Because she’d never retreat.
With a cry of defiance, she called the last of her own power, from her physical body and from the mysterious energy of her soul. She would burn it all on this last chance—
As if her call had gone farther than she’d known, the one she wanted punched through the faltering wall of lightning, trailing pyrotechnics behind him in the turbulent air. She gasped; if the burning tide had been stronger it would have incinerated him. Why would he take that risk?
Sting landed beside her in a crouch, his head bowed. Sparklers danced along his spine, flaring in his skinshine, and when he raised his gaze to her, the pearl of his bared eyes was a dazzling rainbow.
“The Abyssa spoke to me of an omen,” he said. “That you might love me.”
She held her bruised hands out to him. “Does it need to be said?”
He threaded his fingers through hers, the webs wrapping her tightly but gently. “I feel it.”
Whether it was that passion or the rainbows in his eyes or the unfathomable energy of his big body when he rose to hold her against him, the power rose again.
His kiss was fire and water, his breath across her lips the very air she needed to live. And his touch was the spark she’d always wanted.
Even through her closed eyes, the surge of violet-silver lightning burned as it raged skyward. And this time the cry was pure ecstasy.
The Cretarni weapon never had a chance.
Its scarlet beam stuttered, its pulse disrupted. The pure white bolt fed back along its path, burning that blood-red course, gathering power in streaming crackles of energy, to the central ship. The ship went black as the lightning shot along the spokes to the other ships—and then farther yet. All the Cretarni ships had been yoked to the center, supplying the switch weapon. And now they were all winking out, one after another.
And starting to fall.
Oh, she knew that feeling too well. “Revive their data gels enough to glide them to the port and lock them down,” she urged the Abyssa. “This war has taken too much for too long.”
But the crystal was already dimming. One more throb—barely a whisper of sound—reverberated along the fading lightning to the smoke-obscured sky. No more lights, above or below.
But they’d fought to the end and now this—
An avalanche of dense Titanyri muscle pitched into her, crashing her to her knees. “Sting!”
Bruised hands screaming in agony, she caught him before he tumbled off the darkening bell. When she rolled him upright into her lap, his rainbow eyes were closed, his powerful body gone slack.
And no steady beat resounded from his broad chest under her palm. He’d helped her channel her power, held her through the burn, and it had taken him down, down farther than even his great strength could save him.
One last pulse, soft as a ghost, unfurled in her mind’s eye as he sent his love—i kharea nul’ah.
“Oh no, you are not leaving me behind!” Slamming her fist into the crystal beneath her, she cried, “Abyssa, give me another jolt. I need…”
But the bell was silent and dark. And sinking.
The inescapable waves licked like a boundary beast’s tongue. She would not lose him, not now. She’d only zapped him on accident twice, and the third time was the charm. That power was still hers.
But she’d only destroyed an armada in near space, never jumpstarted a heart. From too big to too small…
Fumbling at her breast pocket, she found the tiny seashell he’d given her. As the sun peeked over the horizon, the light shone on the delicate spiral of the shell. So small… She settled her hand over his still chest, the shell between them. With a rhythm that held all her love, she called to his heart—a spark across the distance between them, smaller than atoms, as far-flung as stars.
“I love you, i shah-lan. My Sting.”
The sun rose as the Abyssa sank, and blackness closed over her head.
***
“A hie kharea-wy, my Lana.”
The sigh of a breath across her lips roused her, but she didn’t open her eyes. She didn’t want to see waves about to swamp her, even if they were sweet morning currents.
Especially if she was floating alone…
But that whisper was just rough enough to be delicious, kind of like the unexpected scent drifting to her now.
“I need you to wake, i kharea nul’ah. It’s been nights and days, and I need to know you are still with me.”
“Sting?” she whispere
d back. More of a croak, actually. Gah, she sounded like him.
As she struggled to open her eyes, a strong arm at her shoulders lifted her from the softness around her, not as soft as water…
Letting out a cautious ping, she realized she was in a bed, with Sting.
Her eyes flew open. “You’re alive!”
Flinging her arms around him rocked them both. Because it was a waterbed. The bed was tucked into an airy nook carved into a rocky cliff. Beyond, the sea glinted blue-green and silver under a brilliant sky turning to fire with the sunset: a merman on a mountaintop.
She couldn’t let him go, just snuggled closer. “You’re so alive.”
He caught her hand against his chest, bare even of his skimpy battle skin, where his heart pounded. “Not a date recommended in the Intergalactic Dating Agency handbook. But matched to yours.”
Steady, strong, hers.
Under her fingertips on his armored skin, a tiny spiral of iridescence burned: the silhouetted edges of the shell he’d given her, flash-burned into his flesh. She gazed up at him, tears biting like very tiny boundary beasts. “What happened?”
“You brought me to life, fire-witch. So I made you silken chocolate pudding.” He reached behind him and palmed a small cup. “You need the energy after what you did.”
That was the delicious smell: chocolate and merman.
He wouldn’t let her hold the blown-glass bowl or the conch-like shell carved into a spoon as he fed her tiny sips of pudding.
Maybe there were times where she didn’t need strength after all.
When the pudding was gone, she kissed him. And kept kissing him until they both tasted of chocolate and tears.
She might not have stopped, ever, until both their hearts gave out again, except he told her she needed to replenish her water too. This cup he handed her, though it looked empty. When she gave him a questioning look, he said, “So pure it’s almost air.” He sprinkled the water with electrolytes and the shimmer of minerals looked like stars. “You need your strength back before the unveiling.”
She blinked. “Unveiling of what?”
“The memorial site of the last battle on Tritona.” He retrieved his wrist datpad from a nook beside the waterbed.
The official message was brief. Tritona’s first immigrant and newest Tritonesse-ra, Marisol Wavercrest, would be presenting the unveiling alongside the intergalactic council representative who was approving the planet’s official status as an open world. The memorial, which would only be open to those who could swim and dive, or who had someone willing to take them there, was a floating reef constructed from the remains of a unique data crystal that had already spawned several species thought to be extinct…
Lana glanced up. “Do your people know what the crystal was?”
He nodded. “In its last breath, the Abyssa’s song reached every Tritonan in the waters.” His brow furrowed. “And every Cretarni above.” He pulled her close. “You saved them too, most of them. Coriolis found their locked ships in port and remanded them to the council rep. The Tritonesse agreed not to seek reparations from the Cretarni if they leave forever, and now Tritona is protected by intergalactic law.”
She swallowed hard. “So it’s over, finally.”
“Not over. We must explore the Abyssa’s grotto for remaining treasures. Synthesize the fire-switch elements to restore our world and share with others. Finish the IDA matching tests…”
She peered up at him suspiciously. “What tests?”
“To find all the Wavercrest brides who might want a Tritonyri mate. Your mother sent word that Evens is ready to reopen the Sunset Falls IDA outpost.”
With a low growl, she rolled herself atop his chest and pointed her finger right into the delicate tattoo of the shell she’d burned into him. “You’re already matched.”
“I’m Titanyri.” He grabbed her finger and gave it a nip. “The fire-witch and the Phantom are perfect for each other.”
She curled her hand around his and dipped her head to kiss him.
The kiss sparked something hotter and deeper. Not just tongue and breath, not just curling fingers and a more intimate joining, this went all the way to the beating of their hearts.
She pulsed a sonogram at him, raw and wicked, and the throb of his heart—and his mermanly bits—quickened, her own desire rising in time.
“I want you,” she told him. “I love you.”
“I feel it, like a burning tide.” He lifted her in his strong arms and spun her under him, so she was flying and diving at once. “You will always be the light I seek.”
And when he kissed her this time, he took her breath away and gave her the stars.
The Fall 2020 season of the Intergalactic Dating Agency brings a Beast Battalion to Earth to protect the clandestine reopening of the Big Sky IDA outpost in Sunset Fall, Montana. With such a strong and protective team of powerful warriors, no doubt the reopening will go off as smooth as the arc of a shooting star across the night sky, right?
[Editor’s note: Actually it will go off more like a shaken bottle of Sunset Springs carbonated water.]
Chapter 1
So this was the place?
Mr. Evens’ Odds & Ends Shop was exactly as Tyler Lang had imagined it. And she’d been forced to imagine it because it didn’t show up anywhere online. No social media presence, no search engine optimization, no digital footprint at all. Like, did it even exist if it didn’t have an email address?
Which was exactly what she wanted right now.
Tilting back her denim baseball hat, she studied the quaint storefront across the street with its old wavy-glassed windows framing piles of used books, second-hand furniture, knickknacks, and an antique steamer trunk—brass buttons gleaming—labeled “Mystery! Box! 100! Dollars!”
Ugh, mysteries. Who would pay good money for uncertainty and likely disappointment?
Life provided plenty of that for free.
Squinting against the gleam of the low September sun across her glasses, she lifted her gaze to the trio of narrow windows on the second floor. The windows were just slightly opened, no screens, the scalloped hems of white curtains peeking out. What century was this? But the eponymous Mr. Evens had promised on-site lodging along with the job, and the idea of not having to go anywhere or encounter anyone wasn’t just what she wanted, it was what she needed.
Yeah, this was the place, all right.
Reaching back into her rented Jetta, she grabbed her computer bag. She locked the door behind her. Locking up probably wasn’t necessary in Sunset Falls, Montana—hence the open windows—but since almost everything she owned was in the car, she wasn’t taking any chances.
She didn’t like chances any more than mysteries.
Glancing both ways before crossing the street (probably also not necessary here) she strode up to the shop. The gilt-like paint of the name on the door had flaked in a few places. Yeah, she knew how that felt, but if Evens wasn’t bothering to touch up the paint and had to trick someone into spending a hundred bucks on a rotting old trunk, how could he need—or afford—ground-up enterprise data systems architecture? She grabbed her phone from her back pocket to triple-check that the first installment payment really had cleared.
“No signal?” Uuuugh, the only thing worse than a mystery.
The front door opened with the cheery clang of a cowbell.
“No signal!” came an equally cheery voice.
With a resigned sigh, she tilted her hat up again. “I swear I just had a couple bars.”
“You might’ve. It comes and goes. Like a lot of things in Sunset Falls.” The man—tallish, lean, maybe a decade older than her twenty-seven although he had the sort of face where it was hard to tell—smiled. “Ms. Lang, I presume? I’m Evens. And I’m thrilled you’re here. How was the drive from San Francisco?”
“Long, but pretty most of the way.” She dredged up a return smile since those zeroes had been in her account last she checked, which made him her boss. “And Tyler is fine. L
ess fine, though, if I can’t get a reliable connection here. The ‘most amazing opportunity to create the most unique algorithmic database structure in the world’”—she quoted his effusive initial email back to him—“won’t mean much if no one can access it.”
“Universe,” Even said.
She blinked at him. “Sorry?”
“I said it will be most unique algorithm in the universe.”
Oh man, now she really needed to confirm that payment had gone through. “Yeah, the universe.”
“You’ll believe it—the universe, I mean—when it gets dark. The stars here in Sunset Falls are beyond anything you’ve ever seen.”
“Since I try not to go outside too much, I’ll just take your word for it.”
He laughed. “I suppose a world-class data wrangler like you is focused on other things.”
“Universe.” She forced herself to keep her gaze steady, even as the humiliating memory of raucous laughter flushed through her. “I’m a universe-class data wrangler.”
Evens just nodded once. “Which is why I hired you.”
She let out a short, relieved breath. “Is this where you finally tell me why, exactly?”
“Indeed.” He stepped back into the shop. “Come inside.”
For just a heartbeat, she hesitated. Something about crossing that threshold suddenly felt…ominous. Or maybe that wasn’t quite right. Portentous, maybe? Feeling some sorta way. She’d always preferred numbers for exactly this reason. Numbers had a value, constant and coherent. Feelings were messy, changeable. Feeeeeelings might be catalogued and squished into a box…only to leak out at the worst times like the horrible monsters from Alien or The Thing, morphing and murdering.
But Evens had paid for her data expertise, not her dating experience. And it wasn’t like she had anywhere else to be.
Pushing her glasses higher on her nose, she stepped inside.
