by Starla Night
She swiped the tear away. Hadn’t she promised herself not to cry? And here was a big, stupid, gorgeous tribal warlord with sexy tattoos and muscles begging her to mother his children. She wanted to mother them. Please god, let her mother this hot male’s children! And now she had to go through the same denial and acceptance and grief all over again.
Lucy jabbed her index finger against his hard pectorals. “Stop trying to convince me that I didn’t go through all that, okay? We don’t always get our dreams. Get used to disappointment. It’s a fact of life.”
He closed gentle hands over her trembling ones. Sincerity burned in his gaze. “You are strong. Strong enough to overcome any challenges.”
“Not this one.”
His words, like his warmth, were a balm on her soul. But it would go away. Once he got it through his willfully thick skull that he needed to seek babies for his tribe elsewhere, then he would have no choice but to leave her cold and alone.
“I lost my savings, my house, my car, my job, my size, and my dreams. Blake gave up on me. I gave up on myself. But I’m here, and I’m trying to get back to the person I was before all this happened.”
“That is impossible.”
She choked on a sharp laugh. “Harsh! At least tell me I have a chance. I wasn’t always this weepy, or weak, or fat.”
Each adjective made him wince as though she had struck him with a dart. She shut her mouth. A pity party didn’t help.
“Are you finished injuring yourself?” he asked softly.
The lump in her throat squeezed. She cleared it. “I’m not sure.”
“Lucy. Your culture is very focused on a body’s size. Yes? A smaller size like Gracie’s is more desired.”
“Or Elyssa.”
“Or that one.” He held her in his warm hands and fixed his steady aquamarine eyes on hers. “Under the water, this body difference disappears. All women are radiant. Your soul sings and shines. It does not matter what you look like. Under the water, every woman is beautiful.”
She swallowed hard.
“Now, you are feeling the pain of your old injury.” He stroked her fingers with his, soothing and calming her with his touch. “But, Lucy, a bride who has drunk the elixir of the Life Tree has never failed to produce a young fry. In all the generations, there has never been a single failure.”
She sniffed. “Trust me to be the first.”
He stroked her cheek, palmed her head, and pressed her to his chest, drawing her into his embrace and rocking her softly. “These are the thoughts that dim your soul star.”
Yeah. She closed her eyes and accepted his kind comfort. Yeah, they probably did.
The tired thoughts, the negative thoughts, the powerless thoughts, the defeated thoughts. Maybe he was right. She had been battered for so long, it was impossible to recover on her own. She needed his helping hand, his undefeatable strength, to rise once more and become a bright, vibrant, determined woman.
She needed to reclaim her power.
“Believe in yourself,” he said softly, echoing her thoughts. “Believe you can overcome any obstacle.”
Of course, if she believed, the pain of slamming into that obstacle would hurt a hundred times worse. Skepticism was the thin shell that held her guts in place when she sobbed so hard she could barely breathe. It wasn’t much. But it was better than nothing.
“Believe,” he repeated firmly.
“Yeah. Okay.” She scrubbed her face and stepped back. “Sorry. I’ll drink your magic elixir and believe in myself tomorrow if that’s okay. Tonight is kind of a no-go.”
“Do not despair your old injury. You will understand when you meet the Life Tree and become healed by it.”
“Sure. Healed. Right.”
He raised his brows. “Is a secret race of mermen living beneath your ocean really more believable than a healing tree?”
“I already said I didn’t believe in you.”
“Your friend does.”
Elyssa.
Jealousy shot through Lucy.
“Sorry I can’t be more like her.” She turned away and gripped the railing to stare into the dark, star-spattered night.
He moved behind her. His presence was cool and soothing. When she did not move away, he stepped against her once more, his arms hemming her in against the railing, his hard body pressing against her soft derriere.
“You are tense.”
“Gee, I wonder why.”
He still didn’t get that she couldn’t have children, and she honestly didn’t want him to. She’d already promised to try his diluted elixir. That was one step away from being his bride. A truly good person would have told him firmly no. Giving into temptation, flirting with the dream, would only end in heartbreak. Hers. Also, just possibly, Torun’s.
And for that, she couldn’t forgive herself.
“I really am going to hell,” she murmured.
He rumbled a low laugh. “If you are going there, I will join you.”
“I believe you will.”
The long length of his masculinity brushed against her inner thigh and buttocks.
Her heart pounded and her body came to sudden awareness. His skillful fingers had been inside her minutes ago, bringing her right to the delicious edge of a hot orgasm. For a dying civilization of virgins, he had an excellent command of female desire.
Hey. Wait a minute.
“How come you are so good at getting me off?” she asked.
“Am I?” His deep voice purred with pride. “I listen.”
“Just listening?”
“And taste. I can see a color of your desire.”
Her desire had a color?
“It is easier to sense in the water, but I am getting familiar with this sensing in the air, also.”
His rough jaw brushed her cheek. It was a good sensation. A masculine, husband sensation.
An honest person would push him off and an angel would force him to find another bride.
Lucy tipped her head to the side, making room to fit him closer.
She was dishonest. Hellward bound. And she was dragging Torun with her.
He murmured an order against her sensitive neck. “Come with me into the water.”
“Right now?”
It would feel great to slip into the ocean depths with him. Naked, their slippery bodies pressed together, with nothing between them.
“Now, while the others are sleeping below.”
She could forget about her problems, forget that Torun’s embrace was temporary, forget that she would wake up tomorrow still the same broke, fat woman that no one believed in. “So long as that’s all you’re asking.”
He wrapped one powerful forearm around her waist and tightened, pressing her against his mounting arousal. His lips nibbled sizzling imprints on her trembling earlobes.
“We will swim to the deep cave, and you will drink the temporary elixir, and become mine.”
Chapter Thirteen
Lucy’s soul light darkened. “Can we forget the serious stuff for one night?”
No. This was the most important thing. She was so close to coming with him. How could he make her see? “Join with me and reclaim what you have lost.”
“Fine. Sure. Sex will make me a size eight to ten, depending on the brand name. Okay.”
He squeezed her closer. Why did she continue to injure herself like this? “Now, Lucy.”
“I’m sorry.” She patted his forearm. “Let’s talk about it tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow is too late.”
Every hour that passed, his Council armored the citizens of Sireno against him. She thought up new reasons to deny him and new ways to hurt herself. The only way to stop her self-injuries was to make her see her own beauty. Make her accept his claim. Make her take back her own power. And to do that, he needed to bring her to the cave now.
“This delay is senseless.”
“Senseless?” She pulled back. Her anger flared. “You want me to get out my scuba gear right now? Do underwate
r spelunking in an uncharted cave system, at night, without telling anyone, where you don’t even have scuba gear?” The ludicrousness of his demand made her laugh. “You’re crazy.”
“I will keep you safe. Trust in me.”
Lucy raised her brows. She didn’t believe him.
“The water is not dangerous.”
“Oh sure, the water’s not dangerous. Forgetting a turn in the dark, running out of oxygen, and dying is the problem.” She walked away from him.
“I will be there with you.” He walked with her, holding the ropes and maps and mugs she picked up, giving them to her to secure in their proper places. “You will not lose your way.”
“I definitely won’t lose my way because we’re going in the daylight like normal people.”
“The sooner we reach the Life Tree, the sooner you can experience its healing.”
She ignored him, pattering down to the galley.
Cash’s light was out and he faced away in the lower bunk. Gracie lay on her upper bunk watching a flat screen.
“You are afraid of the water,” he repeated, latching onto the one barrier he understood. “Do not fear.”
“Of course I’m not afraid of the water.”
“You are.”
“I’m not afraid of the sky either, but you don’t see me jumping out of a plane without a parachute.”
He opened his mouth to argue.
She stopped him with a kiss.
Demanding and giving, yielding and strong. She yanked his attention from the delay and focused it entirely on her.
What was this sensation? Her soul light did not change intensity, but his did. It seemed to swell in his chest with her kiss. New thoughts slammed into him as his body reacted to Lucy’s attention and poured heat into his throbbing cock.
Lucy chose him. Over and over again, she chose him. She pulled him from the water, she introduced him to her friends, she defended him to the interns. She kissed him. All those actions turned his craving for her body into his craving for something more.
He didn’t know what it was, exactly. He would figure it out later. Once she became his bride, he would have all the time he needed.
She pulled back. Her cheeks reddened and her lips darkened to a prettier shade of rouge.
“I’m trusting you enough to go into the water with you tomorrow as my dive partner.” She licked her lips. “My last partner horribly betrayed me.”
He tightened. “I am different.”
“I know you are.” Her gaze dropped to his broad chest and traced the honorable markings of his house and rank, and lower, to the still-loosened rim of his shorts. “That’s why you’re here. Don’t push your luck.”
When she spoke with such confidence, a brilliant, shining aura filled her. His anxiety eased.
The Council’s fears were ancient misconceptions. Lucy was strong enough to overcome all challenges. Together, they would prove his grandfather wrong and save his tribe.
Lucy ducked into her own cabin, closing the door with finality, and he passed the night on piled deck cushions.
Splash! Torun twitched and jerked upright. What was that? … Nothing. He lay back and stared at the vast, starry sky. Now Lucy committed to the water, and he suddenly wondered about their risk.
Jolan and Malem must have returned to Sireno. Jolan might have needed healing, so the Council would dispatch different, possibly more numerous, warriors to recapture him.
They could easily trace his disappearance to this region. Perhaps these warriors even knew he was aboard this vessel. Although it had left, any listener for a hundred miles heard its return.
They might even be blocking the atoll cave...
No. The cave guardian was loyal to its duty. After a war party approached the entrance, all Torun and Lucy would find would be bone and blood.
Lucy would pass by the cave guardian unmolested with his Sea Opal. Then, she would drink the elixir, journey with him to the Life Tree, and unite her soul to its brilliance. Of course she would bear his young fry. Together, they would prove the Council wrong.
That was the only possible outcome.
Chapter Fourteen
In the bright, mid-morning sun, Lucy tightened her dive weights around her trunk, shouldered her tank, inflated her BCU vest, and rolled backward into the water.
Turquoise ocean closed over her head.
She clamped the regulator with her teeth and held her mask in place with the palm of one hand. Her breathing whooshed in her ears, an astronaut entering a new world. Bubbles escaped to the shimmering surface.
Cash appeared over the end of the boat. He waved. Gracie stood behind him. She held the Sea Opal, looking not at Lucy’s departure, but staring, mesmerized, into the gemstone’s white depths.
A pang of separation affected Lucy.
Cash had convinced her that the risk of losing the Sea Opal beneath the waves overpowered her irrational need to keep it close to her heart. He was right. She’d immediately turned it over to Gracie for safe-keeping. Now that it was gone, though, she desperately wished it back.
Lucy rolled over. Somewhere in the depths below she expected to find Torun…
There he was, hanging out upside down and watching her.
She kicked. Her big plastic fins propelled her through the water. Keeping one eye on her altimeter and the other on her oxygen gauge, she swam down to his level.
The cocky warrior was grinning at her.
He seemed completely unaffected by the water, as though he had a secret, invisible oxygen tank.
Torun’s dark hair waved around his upside-down head. He swam naked. He’d shucked his Bermuda shorts and shirt on the deck before slipping beneath the waves and disappearing, causing them all consternation.
She flipped over, easily matching his position. She couldn’t duplicate his smile, though. If her lips curled, she’d lose the seal around her mask and regulator, and spring a leak.
He floated closer.
The dappled shadows made patterns on his face and body. Had parts of his body hardened into ridges, like fins?
Was he really a merman?
No. There had to be a trick. The world freediving record was seventeen minutes. Or was it more high tech? Tankless rebreathers that drew oxygen from the water were the stuff of science fiction, but LASIK had been sci-fi once too. There had to be a logical explanation.
She really should have taken him to get examined by a doctor.
He made a purring noise in his chest and gestured to the deep. Despite the lack of words, he seemed to ask if she was ready.
She grabbed her grease pencil and wrote on her wrist-sized white slate. “Let’s go.”
He kissed the patch of skin on her cheek, exposed between the rim of her mask and the edge of the regulator, and darted away.
Fast! Holy moly, he was like a missile.
She struggled to keep him in sight, pumping her fins hard and cursing her terrible shape. The guys she used to dive with would never have let her live this down. She gasped, using up her oxygen way too fast, and pushed herself harder.
Torun stopped, a dot in the distance, and returned to her side. He thrummed in apology and swam beside her.
This close, what could she see? He claimed to have gills on his back, but only tattoos and rippling muscles maneuvered him powerfully through the water. So what augmentation allowed him to swim so careless and free?
He kicked long, flat fins like her. Hers were magenta plastic, and his were the same bluish gold as his skin. His arms hung loosely at his sides, just like hers. He navigated with his head like she did. His muscles flexed like a taut rubber band, making him both compact and efficient.
She, on the other hand, flexed like her muscles needed to get reacquainted, making her uncoordinated and not so good.
His brows rose and he made a questioning purr.
She wrote on her tablet, “Feeling fine. You?”
He purred again, more decisive, and darted lower.
Shadows filtered through
the blue depths, darkening as they descended, and bending shafts of sunlight in familiar refraction patterns. ROY G. BIV, the color spectrum, lost red and orange and yellow close to the surface, faded out green deeper down, and then only blue, indigo, and finally violet before the light disappeared completely into the black depths.
The mouth of the cave yawned in the laser-blue layer.
She recorded short videos. This deep, her phone couldn’t connect to a signal. They would post as soon as she ascended and her phone reacquired a signal.
How was her oxygen? Lucy checked her gauge. Probably she could only afford a few minutes inside the cave. Descending was the easy part. She had to save enough air to ascend safely. Pausing extra minutes to breathe out the nitrogen pooled in her joints avoided the bends.
The last thing she needed was to rise too fast to the surface. Popping a lung, or worse, as depth-compressed air suddenly super-expanded, would cost thousands for an emergency evacuation to a hyperbaric chamber. It could even cost her life.
She respected the water, as she told Torun. The same way a skydiver respected his parachute, a pilot respected his jet, a jockey respected his horse.
Lucy descended toward the cave entrance.
A strange bubble rose from the depths. It appeared gray, then violet, and now blue.
Torun paused.
The object rose past the cave entrance and kept rising. Its size grew massive as it closed on them. Eight legs uncurled and stretched taut. Two gigantic eyes rotated around its central, ball-shaped head.
It was a mammoth octopus.
Awe suffused her. Watching the gentle giant move was like seeing the sun rise for the first time. Its sheer girth was a mountain vista so gorgeous they made it into desktop wallpaper.
She fumbled for her cell phone and started recording.
It floated directly in front of them. Its eyes traveled around and around its head. Curious? It seemed to be waiting for something.
Torun tapped his heart.
Yes, she was so thrilled her heart was about to explode. Lucy took one hand off the camera and tapped her chest. Her heart was beating a thousand per minute.
