by Starla Night
And why did their brides have no powers? They had elixir in their cavern.
Strange.
The trail emerged into the sunlight and traveled along a headland that overlooked cliffs. The interior was dense with greenery, and a stone-lined path through grassy hills led to roofed structures at the top of a white sand beach.
They were permanent structures. The warriors had lived on land for some time.
One larger roof covered a work area. A second sheltered smaller tables and baskets. Yet a third one had a raised platform, and the young fry scrambled into it and sprawled.
Between near trees, hammocks stretched out, and lounge chairs made of curved wood were scattered around. The trainees helped Val onto a hammock and covered her with a sunshade.
In the center between the structures, closest to the work area, rested a plank. Bex rotated a crank. Woven ropes lifted the plank like a thick lid, revealing a smoky, blackened firepit.
“You guys rest here.” Meg showed them to two lounge chairs. “I’ll be right back with your drinks.”
Ciran took the seat beside Dannika. The wood was soft and frayed from wear.
Dannika closed her eyes. Dark shadows appeared underneath.
He rested his hand on her knee.
Her lips curved and her soul light twinkled.
She would be all right.
“Konomelu? Boys?” Angie lifted a woven grass loin skirt—a belt with thigh-length panels covering front and back, with the sides open.
Konomelu’s lips swerved to the side. The trainees and young fry made a collective “awwww” of disagreement.
“This is a formal occasion.” She pushed the skirt on her husband, then stalked the young fry. The older trainees dutifully donned theirs, and the younger ones raced away nude. Konomelu tightened his, grimacing against what was probably scratchy grass.
Meg returned with two wooden cups carved with chunky designs. “Here’s some plum liqueur. It will help with your bruising. Eventually.”
Dannika opened her eyes and took it with thanks.
Ciran swirled the liquid. It shimmered with elixir. “You drink this often?”
“Only when we need to feel refreshed.”
“But you have drunk it before?”
“Oh, yeah, everybody has.”
Ciran tasted the drink. It was sweet and a little acidic.
Everyone drank this…
“It’s good.” Dannika opened and closed her lips. “Is it loquat? It doesn’t taste alcoholic.”
“Yes and no. It is loquat, and it’s not alcoholic. Did you want the good stuff? We have it, but, you know, we save it for…oh. I guess this is a special occasion. Mom?”
Angie was still chasing the young fry at the far end of the beach.
“I’ll ask her when she gets back. The wine is less healing, though. You’re much more likely to regret it in the morning.” Meg looked over at the far hammock. “Hadali, would you make sure that Val’s cup never goes dry?”
“Sure.” The eager trainee checked around Val’s hammock. “But she’s still drinking her special water from the plane. Where did…Mom? You’re drinking Val’s special water.”
Bex choked and lowered the cup. “You poured her water into my cup?”
“Yours was closest. Didn’t you see? Her water is shinier than the spring water.”
“I can’t see the shine.”
“Oh. Yeah. Oops.”
Bex handed over what was left of the elixir and switched to a different cup.
“So. You know Bex’s ex-stepson.” Meg rested on the back of the chair. “Small world, am I right? Oh, you’re about done with your drink. Did you want another one, or did you want a shower?”
Dannika rubbed her sandy, damp forearms. “A shower, if that’s all right.”
“Absolutely. Right this way.”
Ciran stood. Dannika took a moment longer, but she also rose. He rested a hand on her elbow to guide her, and she leaned into his touch.
“Ciran.” Konomelu headed a group of the oldest trainees—cocky Nuno, solemn Tulu, and several others that were younger. Itime waited down by the seashore. “Our trainees invite you to watch their hunt. Witness the prowess of Sanctuary and consider how you would use them in a true battle.”
His heart thudded with conflicting desires. “Already? You invite me to…You honor me.”
Konomelu grinned because it was an honor.
“But my mate. Dannika, you—”
“I’ll be fine.” The smile stretching her lips clashed with the deep shadows beneath her eyes. “I’ll take it slow.”
“And I’ll hang out with you.” Meg held out her elbow for Dannika. “We’ll get in a little girl time while the big strong men do their guy stuff.”
Ciran closed his hand over Dannika’s. “Are you sure?”
Her soul glimmered, calm, and she nodded. “Have fun.”
Very well. He released her and watched as she strolled slowly up the path with a kindly attentive Meg.
Perhaps Meg would benefit from close contact with a queen. Dannika could learn why she didn’t enter the water. He turned and followed the group of warriors down the beach.
They all dropped their coverings at the edge. Ciran left his damp shorts and shirt there as well.
Angie, who’d been walking back with Meg’s smallest young fry squirming in her arms, dropped the excited youth and threw up her hands. “Are you kidding? Nuno. Konomelu. Boys!”
“C’mon, Mom,” Nuno said. “It’s not like we’re not nude all the rest of the time.”
“We cannot wear our coverings under the water,” Konomelu said. “And we are showing the Undine—I mean, Atlantean—how our trainees hunt.”
She crossed her arms and her soul light dimmed. “Don’t go too far.”
“We will not need to.” Konomelu stamped her lips with a kiss, and her soul brightened. She put her hands on her hips instead and watched them stride into the water.
“Here.” Itime handed Ciran a stubby coral dagger. “Have you used one before?”
He carried it in his hand because he had no sheath. “In training.”
“Now, it gets a more extensive test.” Itime’s expression and tone did not change to reflect his dry words. “You should not need it. But…”
They both looked over the young warriors. Itime and Konomelu were showing him their resources because they were serious about invading Lusca.
Very well.
Ciran clenched the dagger and dove.
Perhaps three warriors, one queen, and a handful of trainees could be enough.
Meg led Dannika up delightfully terraced steps into a lush, broadleaf forest with multiple trails leading in mysterious directions. Colorful birds chirruped in the fragrant grasses and shrubs.
Had this day really started at sunrise in Bermuda with the sound of peacocks? So much had happened, it felt like a week, and the day wasn’t over yet.
Meg peered over her shoulder at the retreating beach. “I hate it when they go hunting. Do you ever feel like when they go in the water and disappear, they might never come out?”
Prickling apprehension needled Dannika’s spine. She twitched. “Ciran’s just watching.”
“Yeah.” Meg sighed. “Well, what can you do? Here’s the shower.”
They descended along a small riverbank and then down a terraced, rocky pathway below the river into a pleasant grotto. A folding screen shielded them from any passers-by. Little seashells dangled with a pleasant clinking.
Dannika stepped onto a small platform of dry, slatted wood.
“Pull this lever by your head and divert the stream.” Meg demonstrated. The river above poured down a spout and showered the slatted wood. “Natural shower.”
The cool water soothed her hot, salty skin. Dannika rubbed her hands together under the stream and dampened her sleeves again. “This is wonderful on a hot day.”
“It’s wonderful every day. Bex is a wizard. She made a tub once, and we used it all the time, but a
tropical storm blew it away. Now we always rescue the shower.”
A woven basket nearby held an assortment of brushes and sea sponges.
Meg squeezed one. “Natural loofah.”
“Ooh, luxury.”
“My mom tries to bring a little sophistication to island life.” Meg hiked to the screen, then paused. “Hey. Do you really have, you know, superpowers? Like they said? To make a shield to protect yourself?”
“I made a little one.” Somehow. “Other women have impressive abilities. They can shield entire armies, deflect underwater gunfire, push away sharks. Anything.”
“Wow. Just imagine raising your hands and poof, bye-bye hurricane.”
“Oh, it only works underwater.”
“Aw. Well, that’s still amazing though.” Meg wrinkled her nose. “Changing back is so awful. Isn’t it?”
“It’s pretty bad.”
The woman brightened. “Isn’t it? That’s the one thing I don’t miss. It feels like you’re suffocating and drowning at the same time.”
“It really does.” Dannika splashed water up to her chest. So soothing and fresh, surrounded by the lush garden and peaceful, wet scents. “Are you saying it doesn’t get any easier? I’ve been banking on it getting easier.”
“I don’t know. I had to give it up a while ago.”
“Your kids shift so well.”
“Well.” Meg rolled her eyes. “My kids have slapping contests to see who can stand the hardest hit. They’re not the highest standard for how much something sucks.”
Ah, children.
“But, anyway, I’ll let you get your shower.” Meg climbed to the other side of the screen. “Toss your clothes over and I’ll put them in the sun to dry.”
Dannika rinsed her caftan and underclothes, tossed them over the screen, and then stood under the pleasant falling water. It pulsed gently over her bruised and battered body.
“Ooh, underwear.” Meg’s voice wasn’t quiet, but it also was self-directed, like she was used to talking to herself and not having anyone around her to respond. “I remember wearing underwear. Oh my God, a bra. So, people still wear bras.”
Rustling sounds emerged from the other side of the screen.
Then, Meg called out, “I’m right here. Say something if you need me.”
“Okay, thanks.”
The birdsong, flower blossoms scattered at her feet, and the cheery tinkle of the shells reminded her of the outdoor showers she’d enjoyed in years past in Bali.
The ordeal was over. The terror begun on the plane had finished. She could relax.
She wet the sponge and scrubbed. Its rough-soft texture made her skin tingle. The healing elixir had closed the few cuts, and the bruises had faded to a light purple already.
Dannika prodded the bruises.
She was not the same woman who’d awoken today.
Eliot’s ring was gone.
A pang of loss flooded her nose, her mouth, her eyes with prickly grief.
She sucked in a deep, trembling breath. Then she clenched her empty hands to her chest and cried.
Like the water washing away the sticky salt from her cheeks, the tears cleared the passages in her heart.
She sobbed for the husband she’d barely had, the life she’d never lived, the memories she’d already forgotten. She grieved for the girl who’d held big dreams and lost all.
A new life awaited her. One she’d already taken a big step into. And that step had loosened the stitches in her neatly tied-up emotions, unbundling hopes and fears, and exposing her raw vulnerabilities for the first time in two decades. She was ready, but the process still hurt.
And then she rinsed her face, streaming away the last of her sticky salt.
To the future.
She closed up the shower and called for Meg, who passed over her clothes. “It dries fast in the sun.”
They smelled like the sweet grass, empty and ready for her. She pulled on her undergarments and tied the caftan’s belt. The strings were stiff but pliable.
Dannika faced the beach.
She had to be stronger now. Ciran needed a powerful woman. He deserved her showing up, at full force, being her most amazing self.
And so did she.
Chapter Fourteen
Dannika’s soul glowed much brighter as she strode down the twilit path to the beach, even though her eyes were as dark from exhaustion as before, and she looked refreshed. “You’re done already?”
“The hunt was faster than I had expected.” Ciran gestured at the feast preparations, Bex and the others lowering their prey into the pit behind him. “I was—”
“Oh, no.” Dannika snatched the hand that he’d used to gesture and traced the red, stinging cuts. “I thought you were just watching.”
“The fish did not receive the same instructions.”
“Gosh.” Her soul light dipped. “What happened?”
He recounted his experience.
Itime had led the group over the shallow reef. The Luscan patrol had moved out to sea. They were just visible from the coral lattice, and so the younger trainees had raced and frolicked with the reef creatures to cause a distraction. Konomelu, Nuno, and Ciran had slipped away, slinking down a secret chute to an exit deep beneath the island.
In the shadows had lurked a deadly striped fish with razor teeth.
Ciran had paused when he’d seen it, and Konomelu had given a slight sign, but Nuno had been looking the other direction and passed right by.
The fish had suddenly darted out, snapping at Nuno’s fins.
Ciran had jetted forward and attacked. The fish had swerved to bite him, and coral knife had broken off in its jaws. It had him pinned to a rock. He’d worked his fist into the gills to trap it. Nuno had returned and buried his knife in its brain.
“I got it!” Nuno had vibrated and swooped around the fish’s corpse. “I killed it myself! See, Dad? I am ready to join you on the open ocean!”
Konomelu had smiled with tight lips, vibrating subdued congratulations to his son, while he’d yanked the fish off Ciran’s fist.
This was a task for a much younger trainee, and as Konomelu had vibrated to Ciran on the return trip while Nuno surfaced with the kill, “They rarely hide so close. They prefer the other side of the island where we have no chutes to reach them. The previous lieutenant guarding us, Lieutenant Figuara, patrolled different areas on a set schedule. He let our sons train. But Orike does nothing so generous.”
He’d called the other trainees in, and they’d paddled past Ciran to the shore. Out beyond the tangle of dead coral separating the sheltered cove from the open ocean, Lieutenant Orike had watched. Even from the vast distance, it had seemed as though his eyes had narrowed.
Ciran finished his story for Dannika. “I think that lieutenant is reaching the end of his good judgment. I would not want to face him with only a coral blade.”
She squeezed his hand. Her soul light remained dimmed. “Meg said she hated the hunting, but I thought you’d be safe.”
“This is an ordinary wound.”
“If these were on your throat, you could have been killed.”
“It is a risk the mer take when we hunt. But dying is rare, and mer heal quickly.” He scratched the skin around the deep cuts. “These will scab over soon.”
Her breathing hitched, and her soul dipped even darker. “I was so dumb.”
Tears pooled in her eyes.
“Dannika.” He pulled her into his embrace. “Do not injure yourself by dwelling on pasts that have not come true.”
“No, I know.” She sniffled and hugged him, squeezing his torso and palpitating his shoulder blades, spine, and lower back as though to convince herself he was whole. “I had a bit of a cry in the shower and I thought it was moving the emotions through me, but it also brings them closer to the surface.”
“You cried in the shower?”
“Yeah. It was nothing. Just the stress of today.”
He stroked her fluffy black hair. Her soft breas
ts and hips rubbed against his hard planes, and her soul brightened in his embrace. As it should. He pressed a soft kiss to her forehead. “Meg did not comfort you?”
“I didn’t want to bother her. We just met, and she’s too lovely a woman to burden with my breakdown.”
“I should not have left you.”
“You didn’t know.” Dannika nuzzled his cheek. “What was that you were saying? Don’t hurt yourself by dwelling on could-haves or should-haves?”
“Yes.” He tucked a lock of windblown hair behind her ear. “Then, please remember you can come to me. I will hold you while you release your stresses. You no longer have to cry alone.”
Her soul shone. Her chin wrinkled, and she rubbed it with one hand while sniffling again. “It was a little bit about Eliot though.”
“I have no competition with the dead.”
“That’s generous of you.”
“He was an honored male. Your chosen one. Because he was worthy for you, he is also worthy for me. And any time you wish to revisit your sadness at his absence, I will hold and comfort you.”
She squeezed her eyes tight and buried her face in his shoulder. “Ah, you will really make me cry again.”
He held her, steady as his promise, until her wave of sadness passed. If he could take this pain away from her, he would do so, but even the most powerful queens and talented healers hadn’t discovered a way to erase grief.
She sucked a shuddering breath and then lifted her face and brushed his jaw with her lips. “Thank you.”
He had done nothing worthy of her thanks, but he understood. This was Dannika’s generosity of spirit. He sought her lips for a brief comforting kiss.
She melted to him. Her mouth opened and she moaned in sweet welcome.
Heat flooded his veins and pulsed into his cock. He had only meant to comfort her, but he stroked her crevices, possessing every inch of her mouth, and his cock hardened against her upper thigh. He needed her now, all of her, completely. Entwined with his body, sobbing his name, in ecstasy from his thrusting cock.
“All right, guys,” Meg called out cheerfully behind them. “Ciran? Dannika? Appetizers are ready.”
