He did his best thinking underwater in second form. He had tried to meditate at home that night and failed. It was a practice he’d learned from his academy mentor, Declan—certainly not something the other academics would ever condone. He closed his eyes to the world and felt nothing but water sifting through his cluttered, overstuffed mind.
He sensed movement. A dart of darkness in the brooding depths. He wasn’t alone anymore. An intelligent being was watching, feeding off his thoughts, his peace. And he knew what kind it would be. The worse kind. The leeches of the leagues were always lurking about, waiting to strike those who took solace in the waters.
Cameron was prepared to handle the situation if the beast decided to get closer. It wouldn’t be his first time fending one off. But when he opened his eyes, he rethought his strategy.
They swayed in the water, dozens of them—their enormous, round eyes a shining blue, their skin a luminescent white as they watched. Their hair splayed out in a twisting mess of purple strands, and the clothes they’d stolen from fallen fisherman hanged off their limbs like sea weed adrift in the vast ocean.
Too many. That was all Cameron could think. Never had he seen so many merfolk in one place.
One at a time, and then all together, the merfolk opened their gaping mouths. The wailing pushed through the water, attempting to pierce the hearts of any listener with its song of sorrow.
And then they began to dance. Circling around him in slow, languid moves, serenading their enemy.
The attack was swift. They jetted forward, their sea fangs barred in needle points, their mertails propelling them through the water with spiraled shrieks.
But Cameron was at his mental peak. The water made it so much easier for him to use all his mind, and he shot upward, making a hole for himself among the swirling merfolk. The fins along his forearm weren’t for swimming alone. He sliced. Thrusting and pulling his arms, connecting with throats and severing vocal chords. He opened his mouth and asked the water from his core to freeze over. The icicles shot out, catching the sirens in their tracheas. He fought every one, until the shrieking ceased.
Looking around him, Cameron saw the devastation he’d caused. The bodies of the merfolk floated, suspended in the deep, their heads lolling this way and that, their purple blood unfurling into the sea.
On another night, he would have harvested their blood to use for his experiments. But he didn’t feel like being resourceful. So he took a deep breath, filled his lungs with fresh saltwater, and let out release. The bodies fell to the ocean floor, where they would rest together. Maybe they would find some peace there.
***
“Oh my god, Myra, why are you still in bed?” Onna clopped over with her six inch blood red spiked stilettos and yanked the cover off her sister. “It’s eleven o’clock, and we’re supposed to be at the Cave already.” She stared at Myra as if there were slugs in her hair. “You look terrible. I’ve never seen you look this terrible. Are you dying?”
Myra peeled her eyes open and shot puffy, red-rimmed daggers in her direction. “I’m not going.”
Onna scoffed. “You have to go. We told everyone we’d be there.”
“I think…I think maybe I’m dying.” She shut her eyes again and let them sting. Keeping still helped. Keeping very, very still.
“Oh,” Onna pushed her sister’s graphic novel sheets out of the way and perched on the edge of the bed. “It’s a boy, isn’t it?”
“No.”
Onna put a warm hand on her sister’s back. “You put yourself out there and he doesn’t like you back.”
“No.”
“And now you want to lie here and never have to brush your hair or talk to another living person ever again.”
Myra sniffled a little. “Maybe. But just the last part.”
“My, let me give you some sisterly advice…Forget him.” She smacked Myra on the butt. “Now get dressed, put on way too much makeup, and come dance with me like you promised.”
An hour later and Onna was writhing around the dance floor, some dragon in her arms, the lights flashing a vomit-inducing red and gray. The music was a mix of everything—latin beats, punk guitar, and the winding melodies of red dragon song.
It sounded like noise to Myra. Everything was too loud, everyone was too happy. And then the claps on the shoulder and the passing out of free drinks that meant the Anders brothers had arrived.
Onna abandoned her rather dedicated dance partner faster than he could take a breath and jumped into Cale’s arms. He smiled, hugged her, kissed her cheek. And that was it. Myra could see the simultaneous disappointment and elation in the way Onna stared at him. She should take her own advice.
“Hey Myra,” Cale said. He looked like he might have wanted to give her a hug too, but he hesitated, as if he thought she might bite him.
“I like your shoes.”
She glanced down at them. They were one of her favorite pairs. Silver and black, way too high. With those, her skinny jeans, and her slinky top, she looked like she could fit in perfectly. She was gorgeous after all, every bit the red dragon. Her blonde hair was tousled just a bit, her fingernails a fiery red.
She didn’t bother answering Cale. She knew he’d go about his usual business—dancing, drinking, starting a fight or two. And he wouldn’t care that she hadn’t struck up a conversation. Not because he was cold-hearted, but because hers wasn’t quite warm enough.
She walked out, not bothering to be sneaky because she knew no one would follow. She’d walk home if her heels weren’t ridiculous. Instead, she settled for sitting on the steps outside the abandoned bar that cloaked the red dragon hangout.
And then she noticed him. Sitting in the front of Rory’s beaten down red pickup. Maybe he was reading. She couldn’t tell. But she knew he was deep in thought by how still he was.
Don’t disturb him. Don’t be an idiot. Don’t be one of those girls.
So she thought about going back inside, back to the noise of it all. She wanted to talk to him. She wanted to have him talk to her. But no. Just sit here until it’s time to go. He won’t notice. He won’t notice.
He noticed.
His eyes flicked up to the rear view mirror and she saw him see her. She just sat there, her arms wrapped around her knees like the idiot she was trying so hard not to be. They stared at each other through the connection in the mirror until Myra felt stupid for not going over there.
She wondered if he noticed how she walked, how she’d done her hair, how she’d changed her nail polish. She leaned on the passenger door, trying to be casual as she talked through the window.
“Hey Cam.”
He stared at her. Stared some more, thinking. “You can come in if you want. I won’t touch you.”
Myra winced a little at that as she opened the car door. She slid inside, wishing she had her lucky sweatshirt with its worn pockets and its convenient hood.
Then she caught a good look at him. “God, Cameron, what happened to you?”
She moved closer to him, took his face in her hands, her eyes wide. “Who did this?”
The stitches ran just beneath his left eye. The bruises were at odd angles on his face, stained a shallow gray. She took his hand in hers. Strange, long gashes ran up and down his fingers, his arms.
“Oh, I forgot. A siren problem.”
“Sirens did this to you?”
“Merfolk. I should have expected it. It’s not advised to swim alone so far from the rest of the blue dragon population. They come in larger numbers. But it’s not my choice to live in Miami. There are more of us in Europe, near the academy.”
“You fought merfolk?”
“Of course. That’s part of my job.”
“Cameron, even I don’t fight sirens by myself. You could have gotten yourself killed.”
He took his hand back. “I don’t have another option.”
“I’ll fight with you.”
He studied her. He was always studying her. “You would be too slow under water.
They’d tear your limbs off.”
“I’m never too slow.”
“I would believe you if physics were on your side.”
She tapped her fingers on her knee, played with the volume knob on the radio even though the car was turned off.
“Cameron…about the beach….”
“No, you shouldn’t apologize. You did what your emotional navigation told you to do.”
“What?”
He gazed out the window, thinking as he spoke. “You did what you felt. It’s instinct. Every dragon has instinct. There’s no fault in that.”
“You’re wrong.”
He whipped his head around. “Excuse me?”
Myra hadn’t realized how much of an insult those words were. She shook her head, trying to clear the slate, trying to ignore the severity in his glare.
“I….” She cleared her throat. “I like you.”
Cameron scoffed. “You don’t have to lie, Myra.”
“I’m not.” She tucked her hair behind her ears, her bangs still in her eyes. I…you were….”
Cam turned to face her. “May I ask you a question?”
She wanted to say no. God she wanted to say no. Because she knew whatever he wanted to ask would hurt. “Okay.”
He chewed on his lip before speaking. “Am I repulsive to you?”
She blinked, backing away from him a bit. “I don’t even understand what you mean.”
“I—I overestimated your affection for me. I must be much less desirable to you than you are to me. I might even be repulsive. It’s just…I’ve thought and thought, but I can’t come to any other conclusion. And I am very, very good at thinking—”
“Cameron stop.”
“—Perhaps you were compelled to pity me. Perhaps you were too kind to leave me to myself. But I don’t think so. I think the most logical, the most probable conclusion is that—”
And Myra leaned forward and put her lips to his. She pulled back to look at him, and he turned back around in the driver’s seat, both hands on the wheel, his brows creased.
“I am…confused.” He closed his eyes. “I don’t like being confused.”
“Should I let you think?” she asked.
“Ummm….” he closed his eyes. “I don’t—I don’t know.”
“I would like to kiss you more now, if that eases the confusion.”
He glanced at her. “I would say that adds to it.”
But she didn’t care. She climbed up onto her knees in the seat and leaned into him, pressing her mouth to his.
He tasted her right back.
His hands on her legs, he shifted, pulling her onto his lap, letting his hands push against her back, her hips.
She ran her lips down his neck, the same way he’d done to her at the beach, and felt him clutch her shirt in his fists.
“So confused,” he whispered, probably to himself. “My, I don’t—”
But he interrupted himself, found her lips again. Everything in him wanted to do what instinct told him was supposed to come next. His mind hurried through the steps. First, remove clothes. Second…
But he knew he couldn’t do that. Not with a red dragon. Something like that could ruin Myra’s life. She’d never be able to have children. Never be able to make a family. Not unless she married first.
And Cameron…he was never going to have those things anyway. He’d always be alone.
It was he who pulled away this time. He slid her off his lap, breathless, still close enough to feel her body heat. “I need to get out.”
“Don’t.”
He fumbled for the door, needing the coolness of the air to bring him down. But Myra tugged at his shirt, pulled herself even closer to him, so there was no space between them. “Don’t,” she said.
“I need to go.” There was an urgency. As if his legs were compelling him to move, to escape, to preserve himself. She didn’t understand. She didn’t understand how hard it was. She doesn’t want to know. She doesn’t want me.
Myra yanked the door closed and pulled Cameron back. Then she wrapped her arms around him, pressed her face into his neck, and held him to her. “You don’t have to. You don’t have to go.”
But Cameron felt like he couldn’t breathe, like ice was forming in his tormented lungs, but Myra was so warm, too warm. “I can’t do this.” He shut his eyes.
“If you run, I’m going to come find you, Cam. No matter what.”
He felt like he would throw up as if tears were burning the back of his eyes. She doesn’t mean it. No one would mean that.
He felt the warmth that meant she was crying against his skin. “Hug me back, please,” she whispered.
And he put both his arms around her. It wasn’t a red dragon custom. Wasn’t blue either. It was something every living creature knew. How to hold someone.
He took a shallow breath. “I think…you scare me.”
She laughed as she pulled away. “I know you scare me.”
“And that’s okay?”
“Out of anyone in the whole world, if you walked passed me without seeing me, I’d just…end. That’s the scary part.”
He touched his hand to her chin, rubbed his thumb against her lips. “I’ve been looking my whole life, My, for someone to notice I was looking. I promise I’ll see you.”
“You can’t change your mind.”
“You’re right. I can’t.”
She smiled, the weight that had been growing inside her disappearing. “Can we make out now?”
“You won’t run?”
“I won’t if you won’t.”
And his lips, cool as ice, took her captive. She wished there was more room in the cab of the truck as he maneuvered around the gear, resting her back against the passenger door.
“I’m not hurting you?” she mumbled against his mouth, remembering the bruises he wore from his siren fight.
But he ignored her, trailing his kisses to her neck, her chest. And then he slowed down, put gentle hands on her face, his thumbs against the hair that swirled over her temples. He kissed her forehead, his lips lingering, his breath cold. And then her mouth again, slow and deliberate, drinking her, enjoying her.
She wouldn’t let him pull away, arched her back to keep her with him, keep him wanting her. But he sat up a little, his face inches from her, his breathing ragged.
“Don’t stop,” she said. And she meant it.
He met her eyes, trying to understand her. “You don’t mean that,” he whispered, still breathless.
This again? She tugged at his shirt, pulling his body closer. “I would not say it if I didn’t mean it.”
But he put a finger to her lips, rested his forehead against her. “Don’t say it again, Myra, or I will. And I don’t want to.”
Her eyes flashed with doubt. “You don’t?”
He sat all the way up. “And ruin your life? You won’t be able to have any children.”
“Cameron,” she sat up too, “You are not the first guy I’ve been with. That ship left the harbor a while ago. Besides, I’m never getting married.”
“You’re…not?”
“Never. Are you?”
“I truly never intend to.”
She grinned at him. “So you’ll stop being so chivalrous?”
The click of the door opening. Myra shrieked a little as Rory huffed into the driver’s seat, nudging Cameron over. She wrestled with her shirt, yanking it back down to where it was supposed to be, smoothed her hair. Cameron ran his hand across his mouth—both blushing, no one caring.
“Have you just been sitting out here by yourself all night, My?” Onna asked, belching up her last drink.
Myra narrowed her eyes at her sister. Can she really not see Cameron sitting right here?
“I’ll move to the back,” she said instead of arguing.
Cameron followed her in silence.
“You didn’t have to wait here for us, Cam,” Cale said, frowning into the rear of the truck. “Weren’t you bored?”
Cale always tried. Cameron couldn’t argue that. “I had good company,” he said.
Cale nodded as he climbed in beside Onna and closed the door. He leaned out the window. “Oh, you mean your book? Nice one, Cam.”
And as the truck took off, going way to fast, the Miami streetlights blurred, and Myra and Cameron lay down together, unafraid of what people might think, because they knew no one would bother looking their way.
Six
Walls
“I’m glad we’re having this talk.”
It was a lie. Cameron knew it because of the awkward way Mac perched on the bench, his arms bent mechanically, his neck so stiff it made his chin jut out.
“No, you’re not.”
Mac sighed so hard he blew the napkins off the backyard picnic table. “Let’s not start off with an attitude, Cameron.”
Attitude? He was simply stating an observation. I thought that’s what conversations were supposed to be. Observations and theories stated out loud so another person could hear them.
Mac scratched at the stubble his sandy beard had left behind. “Your mother and I have been worried about you going out on your own, especially since you got into trouble with those merfolk.”
Cameron kept quiet, afraid that whatever he chose to say would be the wrong thing.
Mac waited for a response. He stammered a bit when he realized he was not going to get one. “We’d rather you not wander off, to avoid getting into these types of situations.”
“And how do you plan to ensure my wanderings come to a stop?”
“Umm….” Mac scratched his chin again. “Well, your mother thinks that a more…how did she put it…‘regimented’ schedule, might be the best thing for you.”
Cameron balled his hands up into fists. “Regimented? So you mean to say I am perpetually grounded.”
“Well, you don’t have to think of it like that.”
“By regimented, you mean I have to stay here all day and work. And when I do leave, I must state clearly where I am going and why and for how long and with whom. Like a prisoner.”
Sole: A Blue Novella (The Core Series Book 2) Page 5
