by Kristen Day
“He’s been circling my chamber for as long as I’ve been down here,” Finn explained as he entered the room behind me. “He seems to think I need to be protected.”
“That’s kind of sweet.” I placed my palm to the glass as the great white shark swam right past us. His cold eyes landed on me and I sensed him relax. He disappeared back into the depths as quickly as he appeared, leaving just Finn and I to gaze upon the darkening sea all around us.
“Nothing about a shark is sweet,” he defended his animal affinity, and I squealed as he swept me up in his arms and carried me away. “Hungry?”
“You have no idea.” I sighed and my stomach rumbled from hunger, right on cue.
As I devoured a bowl of soup and a grilled cheese sandwich a la Finn, I unloaded my frustrations about what had played out at the Declaration of Council.
“I don’t understand why I had to spend so many sleepless nights deciding who to choose, when the sea was just going to butt in and decide for me anyway!” I complained between mouthfuls of delicious, ooey gooey cheese.
“I have a feeling the sea knows things you might not,” Finn replied calmly. Unfortunately his cool tone only proved helpful in fueling my grievances.
“I’d appreciate it if it would let me in on the secrets before making me look ridiculous in front of the entire Tyde Order!” I shook my head in frustration and stood to rinse my dirty dishes in the sink.
“Ridiculous?” Finn raised his eyebrows in surprise. He walked over and took my hands, an annoyingly smug look on his face. I averted my gaze in embarrassment, but that didn’t stop him. “Pasha, you were brilliant! No one could so much as turn their heads for fear that they might miss something. I know you were slightly incapacitated, but the comments from the audience I heard were full of nothing but admiration. Most Tydes have never seen anything like that. Whether or not you meant to doesn’t matter.”
“It did to Willow,” I whispered; feeling tears burning behind my eyes at the memory of her disparaging face.
“I can’t pretend to know the reasoning for what happened, but I do know that if you can trust anyone or anything at all, it’s going to be that from which you came. The sea only has your best interests at heart, even if it doesn’t seem like it at first.”
“I just don’t understand, Finn.” I sighed. “I need her on the Council! I’ve never even met that Avery girl! Could I just tell Avery that it was all a big mistake, and that way she could go back to her life and Willow could just pop back into her spot?”
Finn fell into a laughing fit that took several minutes and three punches in the arm for me to remedy. He fell onto the couch to catch his breath while I stood over him with my hands on my hips.
“It wasn’t supposed to be funny!” I scolded him. “I was serious.”
“That’s not how it works, Pasha,” he informed me. With a light tug, he pulled me down next to him on the plush couch and wrapped an arm around me. “When the water left you, it poured over the six people who were appointed and marked them.”
Something about the word ‘marked’ sparked a memory, but I couldn’t remember what. Who had said something about being marked? Olivia?
“Marked in what way?” I asked grudgingly. I pictured a herd of cattle branded with an iron in the shape of my initials.
“You’ll see,” he smirked. I was beginning to think he was enjoying my ignorance. “It’s kind of like a trace, just not as noticeable. My mother still has her mark from being on your mother’s Council. I think it’s beautiful.”
His words began to soothe me, and I fought to calm my nerves by concentrating instead on his overpowering darkness as it swirled around us and mingled with my own cool essence. After an hour of holding me and talking me down from the proverbial ledge, he led me to the bedroom and pulled back the covers for me. I replaced my clothes with one of his t-shirts as he turned out the lights and climbed in beside me. Once my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I realized that not only were two of the walls of the bedroom made of glass, but the floor was as well. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get to sleep with that kind of view to admire. It was truly magnificent.
“How do you get any sleep?” I whispered, still staring out at the endless expanse of water beyond.
“The promise of seeing you the next day usually gets me through.” He pulled me close and pressed his lips to my neck gently.
“You think you can just smooth talk your way into my heart, don’t you?” I chided him with a light push.
“Is it working?” he purred, and pulled me to him once more with a mischievous grin.
“Not at all,” I declared defiantly.
“You’re such a horrible liar,” he breathed, and rolled over on top of me; pinning me to the sheets beneath. With a slowness that tore me apart, he lowered all his weight onto me, yet his mouth hovered just out of reach as he licked his lips - a temptation that threatened to undo me completely. With a painful need I had absolutely no control over, I lifted my head off the pillow and met his lips where they paused just above. Refusing to release his willing mouth, I brought his lips down with me as they began to move against mine with a rawness that was echoed throughout my own body.
The thin line between reality and fantasy blurred as I lost myself in his touch, his smell, the urgency of his movements and the feel of his skin against my own. The feeling of being completely isolated beneath the surface of the ocean, along with the irreversible binding of our souls, bent the rules of reality and opened the door to a universe we had never imagined existed. Every sensation, every emotion was magnified as our feelings intertwined and pulsed as one.
Just when I thought I couldn’t take it anymore, his hands found the glass wall behind us, he closed his eyes, and a low moan escaped his throat. I held on to him with utter desperation as the fire between us peaked and consumed every cell in my body; leaving me a melted version of my former self. With the walls fogged up with steam and my breath still coming in labored pants, I lay without moving while Finn gently kissed the tender skin from my collarbone all the way up to my earlobe.
“I love you,” he whispered in my thoughts.
“And I love you,” I answered back with a smile. My eyes became heavy with sleep, and I curled up in his arms to drift off to sleep on a cloud of delirium.
Chapter 7
Stasia
The sound of crashing waves lightly stirred me from my sleep and I stretched my arms over my head with a happy yawn. I shook out my hair and scratched an itchy spot on my cheek lazily. Just as I was about to peek out of my eyelids to see why waves were crashing into Finn’s underwater chamber, I realized I wasn’t lying on his bed anymore.
Something prickly snagged against my left thigh and my eyes flew open. The first thing they focused in on was the silver moon above. The second thing they found was the light fog rolling in off the ocean that stretched out before me. The last thing they noticed was my very naked body with the exception of a thin strip of silk I liked to call underwear. I quickly scurried into a sitting position in an attempt to cover myself with my legs and arms. The grass beneath me was poking up through a thick mass of heavy sand and swaying gently in the breeze coming off the water. When I leaned forward onto the balls of my feet I began to fall forward, so in an attempt to correct my balance, I overcompensated and tumbled backwards instead. Even though my arms shot back to catch me like my reflexes had intended, the rugged white cliff behind me did the job instead. I cringed as several fresh scrapes were etched into my bare skin.
I really had to remember to wear pajama pants to bed. And a bra. And a shirt. The only thing worse than waking up half-naked on the beach at Lorelei, was waking up half-naked in a reverie in the middle of nowhere. There were no convenient cottages or dorm rooms with extra clothes for me to shrug on. I was stranded.
My only reprieve was the knowledge that if anyone happened upon me, the chances of them being able to see me were slim to none. That ability was reserved for a select few individuals who were related to me, lik
e my father, or those I had a close connection with, like Finn. And considering I was lying in bed with Finn and most of my family was already dead, I considered myself relatively safe.
A chiming, melodic crooning stole my attention away from my bare skin to a spot farther down on the beach near the crashing waves. She was perched on the wet sand with her back to me; both legs curled beneath her. Long, thick waves of pale blonde hair cascaded down her back and brushed across the sand below as she swayed back and forth as if in a trance. Her essence settled over me like a fresh ocean mist of dewy hibiscus and sparkling water lilies.
With the grace of a wounded elephant, I crept closer to get a better view of the mystery girl. Making my way toward the surf, the soft sand I’d woken up on abruptly switched over to small cobblestones that stuck to my feet and poked into my heel. Where was I? Each step took a great deal of concentration, because the last thing I needed was a twisted ankle. I glanced up at the moon that still hung high in the sky and guessed it was early morning.
The pale moonlight gave my surroundings a black and white photo appearance, altering any colors to various shades of silver. The waves beyond danced black and gray as the moon rays reflected over its rolling surface. The sparkling white stones at my feet shone a bright sterling, and created a direct contrast with my skin that now appeared more tungsten than tan. The sky above was black as coal with blinking platinum stars.
Amidst the dark and light contrasts, the girl’s presence shimmered and brightened with each note she sang. I became enchanted by the lustrous light that danced across her skin and gave her body a ghostly, transparent quality. My heart began to pound in my chest and I felt an unsettling dread wash over me. I’d had my fill of ghosts, and I wasn’t looking for any other dead spirits to make friends with.
The breeze from the ocean ruffled the white sundress she wore and tousled her already messy hair. I could just make out her mouth moving ever so slightly, however the enchanting song wafting over the beach didn’t match up. I watched her and listened in an effort to reconcile the two, but to no avail. She couldn’t be singing. The other oddity was that the language of the unearthly song was completely foreign to me. I didn’t understand. We were completely alone from what I could tell, so I began to wonder if maybe the singing was only in my head. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Giving up on the mystery song, I crept even closer; curiosity getting the better of me. I carefully rounded the spot where she sat; keeping my eyes on her and deciding to kneel in the surf where I would have a direct line of sight. Unfortunately, my mind refused to accept what my eyes were seeing.
Her heart-shaped face, thin lips and high cheekbones gave away her youth, and I guesstimated that she was about my age, if not a year or two younger. Her most stunning feature had to be her eyes. Their severe tilt gave them a feline quality that matched her keen movements, but it was their light purple color that took my breath away and seemed to transcend this world. I didn’t know if angels existed, but I remember thinking that if they did she would definitely be one. The ethereal glow she exuded complemented the stars above, and her essence calmed my nerves like a midsummer night’s dream. Her slight hands waved slowly in front of her; diffusing what looked like a white puff of smoke.
A delighted grin lit up her already glowing features and she rested her hands on the cobblestones, palm up. She slowly closed her eyes and titled her face toward the sky. When she reopened them moments later, I gasped and nearly fell backwards. They now blazed a breathtaking violet hue that illuminated her face, and reminded me of the Auras Selene had brought with her to the beach that fateful night only a few months ago. The only difference was that their eyes had gleamed a bright silver, not violet. But the damage they had done was unforgettable. My defenses immediately went up and I crouched down with suspicion.
She glanced back skyward as several individual moon rays lit the area where she sat and appeared to empower the orb dangling from her neck. It began to pulse the same violet of her eyes, and that was when I witnessed something I would never forget. She began mouthing words I couldn’t hear and the moon rays that shone down on her split down the middle and detached from the moon. As I looked on in sheer disbelief, the two strips of light descended from the sky like two silk ribbons cut from a spool. After gathering into her upturned palms, they melted into two gleaming puddles of swirling moonlight.
Apparently satisfied with the moonlight’s reaction to her silent request, she began flipping and clapping her hands together over and over, as if patting a piece of dough into a ball. The malleable moonlight easily rolled into a compact ball, and she held it up at eye level for further inspection. Her mouth began to move once more as she pinched the top of the ball. In one slow, deliberate exercise, her pinched fingers rose higher and higher with steady concentration. A single strand of light was pulled upwards; lighting the smile on her lips. Without warning, the hand holding the ball retracted and the orb unraveled like a ball of yarn onto the stones in front of her.
With renewed concentration, she picked up the ribbon of light at both ends and pulled in opposite directions; stretching it taut. She snapped the fingers of both hands, and the ribbon burst into hundreds of twinkling lights that flickered momentarily before flitting back up toward the moon and leaving me spellbound.
She wiped her hands on something I couldn’t see, glanced around with what resembled mild paranoia, and produced a sparkling ring from her pocket. She carefully slid it on to the middle finger of her left hand and ran a loving finger over its stone. From where I crouched, it was difficult to tell exactly what kind of stone it was, but I could tell it was clear, oblong in shape, and at least three inches in length. The moonlight shone off its surface like the sun glinting off metal, and the longer it remained on her finger, the brighter it became. Her violet eyes began searching for something on the beach and I followed her line of sight, which now rested on a small ghost crab several yards away.
She resumed her silent speaking and the crab actually began to scurry towards her. I felt his excitement at being noticed. She held out her left hand and it eagerly crawled up into her palm and sat down obediently. With apprehension, I watched as she stroked its shell with a single finger and then lifted it into the air. A flash of light knocked me off balance and I fell into the water with a splash. Once I regained my composure, I gasped when I noticed that not only was the crab gone, but the ring was glowing an eerie, bright purple. Unfortunately, her now-predatory violet eyes were fixed on me.
As uncertainty and fear crept up my spine, I closed my eyes and imagined the feel of Finn’s arms, along with the soft sheets we were laying between and I felt a shift.
When I opened my eyes again, I let out an exasperated sigh of relief and fell back onto my pillow in a cloud of nerves. A slight warming sensation on the back of my neck caught my attention and I jumped up to inspect it in the bathroom mirror. I pulled up my hair and had to squint multiple times before I convinced myself it was really there. There was no denying what it was. My heart raced with a mixture of fear and confusion at my newest trace. One that I knew would induce mass chaos among the Tydes. Directly below my hairline lay a single, violet crescent moon.
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I pushed my way through the haze of early morning thoughts to overhear Finn sitting up and yawning. He chuckled under his breath and leaned over me to make sure I was awake before he spoke.
“It looks like I’ll have to purchase some curtains,” he indicated with a crooked grin. “I didn’t realize we’d have to worry about the paparazzi down here.”
“What in the world are you-” My words were abruptly cut off as I glanced to my left and lost my train of thought. I turned back to Finn with alarm and tugged the sheets higher. “Well this is awkward.”
“I might have to start charging admission…” Finn murmured as we reluctantly faced our captive audience. My dumbfounded eyes scanned the glass walls of the bedroom with awe. Hundreds of sea turtles, jellyfish, sharks, fish, and several creature
s I’d never before laid eyes upon were all watching us intently, and the ocean beyond was blocked completely by the mass of animals pressed against the glass. I painstakingly raised my arm in an attempt to do something, but Finn clamped down on my wrist.
“Do. Not. Make. Direct. Eye. Contact,” he instructed mechanically; freezing in place. “I’m not sure my chamber can withstand the pressure wave that would result from even a simple gesture to your adoring fans.”
“This isn’t Jurassic Park!” I hissed out of the side of my mouth and tried not to laugh. “Their eyesight doesn’t depend on movement.”
“I’m not going to be the one to find out and get eaten by a water-bound T-Rex,” he argued stubbornly.
“Maybe I’ll just toss you out there with them!” I pushed him lightly and didn’t miss the feel of taut muscles beneath the skin of his chest. “They look like they could use a snack.”
“Now you’ve done it,” he warned slowly; eyes still glued to the mass of animals clamoring outside. An all-out frenzy had ensued at our harmless banter, and they all became hysterical from my animated display of affection.
“I have an idea,” I whispered to Finn and slid out from under the safety of the covers.
“Famous last words,” Finn muttered and coughed to cover up his laugh. I ignored him and stood in front of the glass with what I hoped looked like authority. I drove my essence outward in acknowledgement, and silently asked them to give us some privacy. Disappointment and heartbreak slowed their movements, but one by one they sent their energy in my direction out of respect and swam away looking defeated. I turned to Finn with pride beaming from my face.
