by Jaymin Eve
We were still out very deep, and it was dark below me, so I didn’t notice the churning water until he was close. Damn. It.
He wasn’t going to leave it alone, that was very clear. The only question was: would I make it to land before he caught me? When the swirling water shot straight up, I tried to get out of the way. With a normal human I would have had no trouble, but he was too fast. It felt like steel bands wrapped around my body, holding my arms down against my sides. I kicked hard, but he was too strong.
The dolphins turned to come after us, but I sent out a last call, warning them away. I would not have them hurt because of me, and this Xander seemed desperate as he flew through the water, holding me tight against his chest. He wasn’t even using his arms and somehow still moved at rapid speed.
The boat came into view again; he aimed straight for it, shooting up out of the water just before we would have smashed into the side. I sucked air in as I flailed through the sky, before another pair of arms caught me, arms as strong but slightly-less muscled than Xander’s. My new captor had skin that was a deep, rich, stunning brown, a few shades darker than the kidnapping bastard under the water.
“Sorry about that,” a smooth, accented voice said. “Xander can be a bit of—”
“An asshole,” I spat.
I struggled in his hold, expecting to be dropped. Instead I found myself gently seated in one of the padded captain’s chairs. A familiar face pushed past the guy and stopped right in front of me. “I can’t believe we finally found you! The stone kept changing locations all morning. I thought it was faulty.”
Maya. She looked Asian, maybe half, with creamy brown skin and straight dark hair. Her eyes were blue, though, and she had a straight-up American preppy accent. I was just staring at her, not speaking. “Thank you for saving me,” she tried again. “Honestly, if you hadn’t been there, I would be dead now.”
The dude behind her made a deep rumbling sound—he must be Chase, her mate. He was clearly very upset by those words. His hand brushed across her arm and she tilted her head back to see him. I lifted my gaze to look at his face for the first time and I almost gasped. Holy sweet hotness, he was beautiful, all cheekbones and hard lines and perfect features. Together, as a couple … they were almost too pretty.
“Who the hell are you guys?”
I did briefly wonder if I’d asked the right question. Maybe it should have been “what” instead.
“I’m Maya, and this is my boyfriend, Chase,” she said, focusing on me.
“Boyfriend? Or mate?” I asked, because I couldn’t help myself.
Her eyes got really wide then. “You already know about us? How? Did your parents tell you? Where are they?”
She shot each question off rapidly, and before I got a chance to answer, the boat rocked. At first I thought it was wake from another vessel, but it was the Poseidon-looking asshole. As he pulled himself gracefully onto the fancy boat, I found myself lurching to my feet.
The water fell away from his lower half to reveal normal, well-muscled legs to match the rest of him. A very naked rest of him. Maya must have known, because she’d turned away as soon as he stood up. I, on the other hand, did not.
Well … he was definitely a normal male. Actually, normal didn’t quite fit. I’d seen my share of naked guys—you couldn’t surf or swim in Hawaii without seeing more than a few male goodies—but there had been none like Xander.
It was a real shame he was a fucking douche.
“You threw me into the boat,” I snarled, taking a step forward while he pulled on a pair of board shorts. Do not be distracted. Do not be distracted.
“You didn’t listen to me,” he shot back. “I told you we weren’t going to hurt you. I told you that you were in danger, and you still took off like an idiot ready to die.”
Excuse me? Was he actually for real right now?
“Well, I guess since you told me, I should be apologizing right now for doubting you, a complete stranger who can create air bubbles to talk under the water.” I shook my head while pasting on a broad, fake smile. Then I flipped him off.
Maya made a small squealing noise. “Air bubbles? I want to see that.”
Xander shot her a smile and his face softened slightly. “They’re called exprendo channels. They form a link, almost like an underwater cell phone.”
While they were distracted, I eyed the side of the boat. I was pretty sure I could dive over the edge from here.
“Don’t even think about it, human.” Xander’s warning slammed into me with force. “There is no way you can outswim me, even with a head start. I’ll just keep bringing you back, so you might as well hear us out.”
I spluttered. “Human? What in … did you just call me human? Like you’re not….” I trailed off as the implication of what I was about to say registered. Why would he call me human like that unless he was something other than a human?
“I’m human,” Maya jumped in, her voice higher than it had been before. I pulled my attention from the guys and turned it to her. “I’m exactly like you.”
I swallowed hard. “And these two?” I tilted my head toward the unnaturally beautiful and unnaturally tall and unnaturally perfect guys. They aren’t human. Somehow I knew they weren’t, but I needed to hear her say the words.
“They’re Daelighters.” She didn’t hesitate, but her voice was very soft, like she was trying not to spook me.
“Daelighters … what does that mean? Are they fish people?”
It was the only thing that made sense to me. Like mermaids. But I didn’t want to call them that in case it was offensive. No doubt movies had badly represented them.
“No.” Maya shook her head. “Only Xander is of the water. Chase is a forest guy. Trees are his thing.”
My head felt a little fuzzy, which might just be adrenaline, or it might be because I was trying to figure out how trees were his “thing.” What did that mean?
“You’re confusing her.” Xander’s deep voice sent a shiver down my spine. I wanted to say it was disgust, and part of it was, but another part went deeper than that. Something I was determined to ignore. “You need to explain from the beginning, so that she—” He cut off, eyes drilling into mine. “What is your name? I don’t want to keep calling you she and her.”
“Avalon,” I replied, without thought. “Ava.” I should have said Mind your own business, fish face, but I really didn’t want to insult the fish. They were amazing. “Ava Shortlin. Although, since my parents all but abandoned me, I guess I don’t really have much of a family to go with the family name.”
Maya gasped before reaching out to touch my arm. She was the only one I’d let get close enough to do that, but I still flinched back before she could make contact. “Sorry,” she said, retracting her arm. “I just hate that I’m the only one of the four who managed to make it to this point with parents intact.”
“The four?”
Did I really want to know what that was? Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut.
“We’ll tell you everything,” Maya assured me. “But we need to move back toward land. Is that okay?”
“Because I’m in danger?” I asked, dubious.
Chase nodded. “You and Maya both. The Daelighter and humans who attacked you yesterday are actively searching, and we don’t want to just sit around and wait for them to find us.”
Half of me was screaming no, but the part wanting to learn more about these people was slightly stronger. “I will stick around,” I decided. “As long as you don’t try anything weird.”
“We promise,” Chase and Maya said together. Xander didn’t answer, and since I was choosing not to look at him any more than was necessary, I was cool with that.
Chase stepped forward to the other captain’s chair and pressed a button. Powerful engines roared to life. I hadn’t seen an anchor when I’d been below, but somehow the boat hadn’t moved at all since it stopped here. Probably Xander’s doing; he apparently controlled water. Daelighter. Excitement bubb
led low in my stomach and I had no idea why. This situation should be scaring me. I had been dropped into a completely new world where I knew none of the rules. Instead, I felt like maybe, for the first time in a long time, I was not quite so alone. There were others like me.
Chapter 3
At first there was only the noise of the ocean to keep us company, and I relaxed because this was my favorite tune. But, while I wished I could just remain in my cocoon of comforting water sounds, I needed answers, and that required me to ask questions.
Turning in my seat, I focused on Maya. She was the one I felt most comfortable with. “I’m going to need you to tell me everything, in detail. Don’t beat around the bush, just get to the point. What are Daelighters? How am I involved? What are the four?”
That covered the most pertinent points at this time.
Maya smiled, looking happier than I’d seen since I’d been shot into the boat. “You’re already so much cooler than I expected. I love honest, straight-up people.” I did also, so it was nice to know we had that in common. “Okay,” she started, “Daelighters are aliens. Pretty much.”
What in the…. Well, I definitely had not seen that one coming. I’d thought mutants. Aliens just seemed so much more … out of this world.
I managed to keep my expression neutral while images of little green creatures and ray guns ran through my head. I mean, clearly Xander and Chase were not even remotely little … or green, but maybe these were like human suits they wore or something.
Maya cracked up then. “If you’re anything like me, you’re trying to work out how they aren’t bulbous-headed mutants. The planet they’re from is called Overworld, and they actually have a lot in common with humans. This is what they look like, no disguises. They need the same basic fundamentals as us to survive. Water, oxygen, and the rest.”
We might have a little in common with these aliens, but I’d seen Xander in the water—there were also a ton of differences. And since I had a small amount of their abilities, that meant…
“Am I half alien? Is that why I can swim in the water the way I do?”
I didn’t mean to sound so horrified, and judging by the way Xander leveled his narrowed eyes on me, he wasn’t very impressed with my tone of voice.
“You’d be lucky to be half-Daelighter,” he said bluntly. “We are superior to humans in a lot of ways.”
“Especially your ego,” I shot back before I dismissed him completely, turning back to Maya.
She wore a soft look on her face. I was really hoping it wasn’t pity. “You’re not half-Daelighter,” she said. “You’re the same as me. We’re humans who were born in their land. Some of their energy infiltrated into ours. This is why you have a semblance of the Royale abilities.”
If I wasn’t sitting down, I might have fallen over at those words. “I wasn’t born on Earth?”
There was no way…. They were wrong. This was some weird, messed-up joke.
I half-lurched out of my chair. I needed to swim. I needed to forget everything I’d just learned. Xander got to me so fast that I barely even had a chance to step forward.
“No, wait.” He held me tight and I struggled against him, hating that I felt so out of control. “Listen to me,” he demanded, his arms like steel bands that I was uselessly smashing against. “You are important to both worlds. Without your help, millions, if not billions, of people and Daelighters will die.”
A sob choked from me before I could pull it back, but I stopped struggling because it was futile. “I have nothing,” I said to him. “No family. No future. And now you’re all telling me that I don’t even have my past, that everything I believed about myself is wrong, a lie told by my parents, who bailed as soon as they got me to the age of eighteen.”
No wonder they bailed on me. Their human freak of a child.
A familiar feeling of despair washed through me. Some days I just felt like nothing. I knew my self-worth shouldn’t be tied to anyone else, to their actions, but I believed that humans needed a tribe. And I didn’t have one. I was adrift in this world, trying to find my tide pool.
“You don’t have nothing,” Xander told me firmly, loosening his grip just enough to lean back. “You have a destiny far greater than you could have imagined. You have a family you don’t even know about, and if you bail on us now, you’ll never know about them.”
He released me completely, and I lifted my hands to wipe away the stray tears that had escaped. I was an emotional crier. The last time I’d shed tears was when I woke up to the note from my parents. In this moment, my chest hurt almost as much, and I couldn’t quite figure out why.
Maya pushed Xander to the side, shooting him a glare. “Stop manhandling her, you big jerk. This is a huge shock. I remember how it felt and I had my parents—who I trusted—tell me about it.”
Xander just crossed his arms, leaning back against the side of the boat railing, not at all off-balance even though we were still flying through the water. Maya returned her focus to me.
“I’m sorry, Ava. I really wish there was an easier way to tell you it all.”
I waved my hand at her, clearing my throat. “No, I told you to just hit me with it. I’m standing by that. I … I won’t run until you’ve finished.”
She moved, almost like she was going to hug me, but stopped at the last moment. I was both grateful and kinda sad that she did.
“Okay, so Daelighters and humans have a treaty,” she continued. “This is the reason you were born in Overworld. You’re part of the treaty.”
I managed not to comment on this, wanting her to finish.
“Basically, there are four houses in Overworld: Darken, Imperial, Leights, and Royale. These four houses have a wormhole transporter thing set up between Earth and Overworld. It’s permanent and the government knows about it. In exchange for this transporter—which helps to power the land of Overworld—the humans got a stone. Starslight stone, to be exact. Which is very powerful and was buried somewhere near the equator to stop an out-of-control series of storms that was rocking Earth.”
This was insane, but it would certainly make a great sci-fi television show. Reality, not so fun.
“How do I come into this?” I murmured.
She shot me a wry grin. “Well, the stone is so powerful that it’s hidden from everyone except for one Daelighter and four humans. The four humans are like a map. Together they lead to the stone if the need ever arises to find it. They’re called the secret keepers.”
“And I’m one of them,” I guessed.
Maya nodded. “You are number four, actually. The final one who can lead us to the stone.”
“You were born in Overworld, in the House of Royale.” Xander spoke up, his voice low and dangerously rumbly. “My house.”
His assertion felt right; not believing would only be pure stubbornness at this stage. Maybe if I hadn’t spent most of my life under the water, with abilities far beyond a human’s, I would be more skeptical. But truth be told, the story made sense. Especially with the evidence of Xander right in front of me.
Land came into sight then and this spurred Maya on. She hurriedly explained the rest to me. She told me about the four overlord minors—Xander and Chase were apparently royalty in their land, which explained the arrogance. And she went into a little more detail about the four secret keepers, and then finally about Laous.
The one creating all the drama in both worlds.
This Laous was a Daelighter who wanted to find the stone, wanted the power, and would stop at nothing to get it. He’d hurt and killed and kidnapped his way through the first three keepers. All that was left was me. It had been his people who’d shot at us yesterday. I rubbed my arm. The bandage was long gone now, just a thin line of stitches from Doc’s handiwork remaining.
“What happened to your arm?” Xander’s question was abrupt. I wasn’t sure why he’d bothered to ask when he clearly didn’t give a shit.
Not wanting to look at him, but not able to be that rude, I gave him a qu
ick glance and said, “Just a scrape from yesterday. A bullet grazed me.”
Before I could avert my eyes, I noticed his darkened from blue to something that resembled a sky about to rain bloody hell down on earth, dark and stormy.
Swallowing hard, I turned away and hurried to say, “I have no idea at all where this stone is … like, not a freakin’ clue. If I’m the final, and I’m the one who is supposed to hold the knowledge of this location, then shouldn’t I … know?”
Chase turned, hands still on the wheel holding us steady in the ocean. “I have a theory about that, actually. We can talk more about it when we get back to our home.”
“Secret lair,” Maya cut in, shooting her mate a cheeky grin. “Home would be a little … homier.”
Ugh, they were just too darn cute. Couldn’t they take that somewhere else so us lonely people didn’t have to hate them through envy? Deciding it would be easier if I just turned away, I swiveled around again to face forward. Xander stayed on the side, just in the periphery of my vision. Annoying squid.
We were closing in fast on land now, and I was somewhat excited by the prospect of meeting the others. I’d heard a bit about Emma and Callie, the first and second of the secret keepers. Apparently the four of us had a special sort of bond. They’d been waiting for me to see if we would feel a stronger connection together.
Someone had been waiting for me. Pretty sure that was a first.
Chase took the boat around familiar headland. We were no longer on Lanai but I knew a lot of these islands well. He slowed and docked on a private mooring. “The others are still out searching for you,” Maya explained as we moved to get off. “You were moving around so much every time we tried to track you using the crystal.”
The crystal part was a little extra weird. Apparently when dipped in the blood of the previous keeper, it would track the next one. Daelighters really needed to come up with a better system for hiding their things.
“I was moving across the island last night,” I confirmed. “Walking to reach my friend. He’s a doctor. He patched me up. And then this morning I was swimming all over.”
