by Starla Night
No wonder he thought they had fought a war here. But the wrecks were from different eras. A steamboat, a small galleon, a paddleboat, a speedboat. Canoes. A fancy yacht with broken stained glass windows. A shallow hull.
“The disease that felled these humans could hurt you,” he repeated, his gaze boring holes into her cuts as though he were lasering any dangerous viruses away. “A single touch—a single mouthful of tainted water—and the disease awakens, spreading its deadly name once more.”
Subtle tremors afflicted the hands holding her wrists too tight.
He was terrified.
Her cuts throbbed, but Balim’s caring squeezed her heart. “This isn’t a battlefield, Balim. Storms rise suddenly on the Great Lakes, and this was a main port in the old days.”
“Then why are these vessels abandoned?” He jerked his chin.
Beneath the rusted wheel, an overturned coffee mug was still visible. Funny little artifacts of the fishermen who had piloted the vessels that had survived, intact and unmoved, despite whatever storm or failures had sunk these dreams.
“It’s more expensive to dredge the boats out than to leave them in their watery graves. You must have seen wrecks on the bottom of the ocean.”
“We avoid human wreckage. They crash in barren rock.”
“Disease didn’t kill these people,” she repeated, pulling him away from the dark memories. “This reminds you of something. What?”
“The Battle of Oannes Field.”
“I don’t know it.”
“No human would. It was a field where the coral grew into perfect uncured tridents. Two great cities, Atargatis and Derketo, claimed ownership. Warriors fought for a generation over the same ground. After too much blood had been spilled, the warriors sickened. A chain of interlocking blue rings emerged on their chests, arms, shoulders, and legs. It ravaged the field, spread to the cities, and killed both Life Trees.”
Balim swallowed and focused on her cut hands once more.
“To this day, any warrior who enters the field to honor the dead, study the disease, or pluck a trident will succumb before escaping the basin. No warrior contracts the curse and survives.”
She tried to soothe him. “That place is far away.”
“It is abandoned. The greatest tridents and daggers of the ages are lying out in that battlefield like these cups and plates, tempting any fool to take them.”
“This is more of a too-many-sandbars or inexperience-meets-stormy-weather cursed lake. Nobody died from anything here besides drowning.”
He loosened his grip on her wrists as though coming back to himself, but fears continued to battle. “There are…other illnesses even in fresh water.”
She tried to meet his eye and soften his fears with a smile. “You won’t let anything happen to me.”
“It is not always my choice.”
“Mitch said you’d never lost a patient.”
“I have never lost one.” His emphasis was strange, and his gaze diverted from hers.
Wait a minute…
“One incurable disease decimated two kingdoms. To this day, the abandoned field seethes with death.”
He inspected her small cuts, unrolled the tools he’d taken from his jacket pocket, and administered medicine. “Reject me and reject Atlantis, but never reject caution. I cannot save you if I am not there.”
Balim released her and, still avoiding her gaze, rotated, casting his wary gaze over the wrecks.
She gathered her thoughts. “What are you looking for?”
“I do not know this area,” he said. “It is a large body of water. Do mer colonize it?”
“I have no idea.”
“What animals live here? Lotar is better at evaluation. He is in Atlantis.”
Cold seeped into her once more.
He felt it before she did and pulled up. “Bella?”
“Let’s go back to the car.”
He blinked in surprise and then collected her and flew across the lake to their exit point.
Just before he reached the rocky beach nearest her jump and clambered out, she stopped him. “When you said before that you’d never lost a patient…”
His expression turned taut.
She pushed through the fear. It was important to know him. He’d stripped her bare and yet he’d cloaked a shocking secret. “Did you mean you lost someone who wasn’t your patient, or you deliberately killed one of your patients?”
His dark gaze told her the answer before his chest vibrated the truth. Both. But his actual words skirted her question. “I am not a human saint, Bella.”
“You save lives every day. Every life, in fact.” Except one.
“By choice. The mer follow no code like your Hippocratic oath.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your doctors vow to heal. Always. The mer do not.”
“You always try.”
“I must atone.”
He had killed someone. And not saved someone. Both. “Is this why you don’t mind that I never go to Atlantis?”
“It is not surprising that your soul has sensed my darkness.”
“But I’m not rejecting you.”
He nodded as if she twisted the knife, rejection dulling his gaze.
It made her heart hurt. “Not because of you as a person. Because of you as a mer. I can’t leave Jonah. So, it’s because of me.”
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t.” She grabbed his cheeks. “Why aren’t you disgusted with me? I’m trying to push you away, not hurt you. I’ve told you time and again I’m betraying you.”
“With the metal and the cameras.”
“Not—well, in a way, but not the one you think. Why don’t you give up on me?”
“My soul is blacker than yours.”
“I’m sure it was a mistake. An accident. Not in cold blood.”
“I planned his death for a long time.” He held her gaze so she could not dismiss his confession. “My blood and my mind were cool.”
“But you’re not speaking straight. You didn’t murder someone for no reason.”
“No.”
“My victim could not be injured by ordinary means. It took all my ingenuity to effect his death.”
She’d made it worse. Trying to dismiss Balim’s crime, which darkened his heart and still tore him up inside, had hurt him more than facing it headlong. Bella tried to fix it.
“What do you mean, your victim was untouchable? If he committed a crime—”
“He did.”
“See? So—”
“He committed a crime against me.” Fury snarled his face. He slammed a fist into his chest. “A crime against my city. A crime against the mer. But no one would make him pay that debt, so I assumed responsibility. And I had to be clever. No one must blame me. If they did, I would be exiled from Atlantis and hunted for the unforgivable crime.”
He’d murdered someone beyond the law. He sounded like he’d assassinated a president. But the mer didn’t have presidents. They had kings.
“Who did you try to kill?” she asked slowly.
“My king.” He confessed as if he no longer had any stakes, as if he were even freer than she was. As if he was trying to push her away.
That was it. He was trying to push her away.
“But nobody’s beyond the law, right? Not even a king.”
“A king is the law. And I did not try.” He pressed a hard hand to his chest. “I succeeded.”
Chapter Fifteen
Balim sat on the foot of the bed at the rental while the shower ran in the other room, washing the icy lake water off his bride’s chilled body.
His confession froze his heart.
He rested the towel on his wet shoulders. The dark water bunched up his shirt and pants. They’d risen from the lake, she’d pulled on her clothes, and they’d gone to this rental house. Bella had barely looked at him.
The shower shut off. Minutes passed. She did not emerge from the bathroom.
H
e rested his palms on the edge of the bed.
This reaction he expected from a human.
No warrior could accept such horrifying disloyalty to a king, not even the rebels who’d escaped their own cities. He was the only one who’d escaped with a king’s blood on his hands.
He should have committed suicide.
But he had lived. He’d stood before the vent into the blacknight sea and offered himself to the darkness. The sea beneath the sea where the bodies of dead warriors were flung, with songs of honor, to hunt the bodiless denizens of eternal darkness. A reverse current had pushed him back like the hand of his father on his chest. A voice had whispered in his ear.
No. You must live.
And the deathly box had been prised from his fingers by that same current and dragged into the vent.
He could not return to his city, Undine, so he had carried on in search of a new allegiance. Soren had been gathering warriors to storm the All-Council prison to release King Kadir. Balim had been by his side from the moment they’d rolled the rock away from the entrance and discovered Kadir on the brink of death, mere bones and skin, kept alive only by his vision for a healthy, thriving mer race united with modern women. Balim had nursed him back to health.
He had killed a king, and he had healed a king.
But he could never atone.
The bathroom door opened. A puff of steam danced on the ceiling as Bella emerged. Her skin was pink and clean; her rounded shoulders peeked from the thick towel. Her shapely legs and bare feet padded across the carpet. Her curls dampened to red ringlets against her freckle-dotted shoulders.
His body reacted as he gazed on her. She was any male’s dream, warrior or human.
The last thing he expected was for her to plop beside him on the foot of the bed. Still avoiding his gaze, she curled her toes. “You’ve probably seen many people naked, being a doctor.”
He bobbed his head because he had.
“No big deal, then.” She brushed her hair off her shoulders. “The freckles go all the way down. That surprises some people. Not you, though.”
He didn’t know how to answer.
She also didn’t seem to know how to talk normally. “The shower’s free.”
Balim rose and toed off his damp loafers.
“Balim.” She hooked her fingers around his wrist, stopping him. She’d just emerged from a hot shower and was still radiating heat, yet her fingertips were cool on his skin. “I’m not angry about what you told me. And you live in a strict hierarchy. Isn’t it dangerous to admit you killed your king?”
“A death sentence.”
She nailed his gaze with hers. “Why do you trust me? You know the person I am. If I could use you to save Jonah, I would.”
She coldly and honestly announced how she would betray him. He had to stifle his laugh. “Perhaps I am beyond caring. Perhaps I am the tired one. Perhaps, knowing you will never be mine, I simply fantasize that these hours are different and outside the rest of time. Stolen, never to repeat, and thus with no consequences. Or, perhaps, this is how I wish for my death.”
Her chest flickered with lights. She released his hand as though it burned and covered her mouth. “Go take a shower.”
He obeyed, leaving her on the bed looking shaken while he scrubbed off the water of the lake and replaced it with the strange oils and lotions preferred by the land-dwelling humans. When he returned, she was in the same place, her chest bright and a strange resolve on her face.
She rose. “This night is outside of time.”
“Bella. Do not dwell on my words.”
She dropped her towel, revealing her shapely body to his hot, hungry gaze. His cock hardened and thickened with readiness. There was no doubt of her meaning. Not in her eyes, her actions, or in the glow of her soul.
Bella crossed the carpet, arms out, and unfastened his towel at his waist to reveal the full glory of his body. He was not as massive as some warriors, but he was still a warlord of the sea. Ropes of muscle bound his biceps, pectorals, lats, and quadriceps. Her hungry gaze traced them all.
She pressed the tattoo at his hip. The scar of the injury was long gone, but the two sides had cinched together off-center. “What’s this?”
“My citizen mark for Undine.” He curled his hands around her slim fingers and brought the cool digits to his lips.
Arousal washed over her face.
He kissed her fingers, nibbling the soft pads and the sharp nails, teasing and testing her will. Would she reject him? He tried to shore his heart against it, even knowing it was coming.
She stepped into his arms. Her full breasts that had already nursed a child displayed proud pink nipples. Her wide belly that had already carried a human child to term was rounded and ready.
Bella opened a small square packet.
He watched with curiosity as she unrolled it. “What is this device?”
“A condom.” She touched the tip to his cock head. “It prevents pregnancy.”
Her confession drew pain because she did not wish to bear his young fry. Her clever fingers drew pleasure from rolling the plastic over his hard cock.
Amusement won out. “Only humans would invent this device.”
She looked up. “When you have ten kids, I doubt you’ll complain.”
“Ten young fry? I would not tax my female’s precious body with more than one.”
Her lips quirked, and pure laughter gleamed behind her twitching expression. “Mmm. Glad to hear you won’t fight me on it.”
“Fight! Never.”
“Good.” She rose and placed his hands on her hips. She was warm and soft and smooth, feminine, and touching her made his body clench with hungry wishes.
Knowing the battle that raged within, she cupped his cheek and nuzzled his lips. “Only tonight. Understand?”
He understood. Even though the welling of powerful need filled him with heat and hunger and denied her words. He would only hunger to claim her again. Better never to taste than to crave the flavor which could never be his.
Despite that, he lowered his head to her tipped-up lips and gave in.
Bella hadn’t intended for this to happen. She’d been with a few men since Chaz. Some might have developed into relationships.
No beautiful, wounded males like Balim.
She opened to his delicious flavor, and again the unstoppable feelings mesmerized her. He settled her soft vee against his firm, thick cock, and then his hands lifted, united on her breasts, rubbed the pearly nipples. Desire streaked to her center, and hot liquid slicked her feminine channel. He lifted his head, his lips damp with her flavors and his gaze wild. He kissed down her chest to her breasts and wet her nipples, worshipping first one with his mouth and then the other. Another wave of hot need crashed through her. She clung to his shoulders and moaned.
Balim walked her back onto the bed, kneed between her thighs, and kissed to her belly. He was careful of his cock, never touching the condom to her body, at the ready.
Sweet need thrilled her as his hands cupped her mons, parted her sex lips, and his skillful fingers entered her with authority.
She rested her heels on the edge of the bed, opening to his expert exploration. “You’ve studied female anatomy.”
He lifted his head. “You are my first subject.”
“Oh? Well—mmm.”
He focused his mouth, tongue, and fingers on her throbbing clit.
The same way he knew to pleasure her breasts, he moved over her body, bringing her to the peak of need and then letting her float, bringing her almost to the peak a second time, and releasing her tension, and then starting on a third until she was so mindless with want for him, she needed sex, now, with him and no other. Thank goodness she’d already put on the condom or else it would never have happened.
And only then, as if reading her mind, did he release his hold on her hot pussy and turn his attention to the other parts of her body begging for his claims.
She let go of her fears, her schemes, her ident
ity. Just as she’d promised him this one night stood outside of time. She was female, a crusader, and he was male, a warrior.
She gripped his hips and dragged his smooth rubber-clad cock to her wet entrance, begging him to take her and finish. Some men never approached a peak. None lasted to three. And if he took her now, they would share something she’d never experienced: Patient, masterful, satiating sex with a male who knew her mind.
Because he did. They were linked. Mind and, as much as she fought against it, soul.
His cock arrested at her entrance. Heat burned his gaze as he held hers. “You are mine, Bella. My bride.”
Yes. But no. She wasn’t doing this now. Tonight was outside of time.
“Please,” she begged. Not to make her lie. Not now. Not like this.
He kissed her savagely, mixing his hard spice with her own taste, and his rubber-clad cock plunged into her channel, filling her. She gasped, and her body spasmed like when she’d dropped into the freezing water. But it was not freezing now. He was hotter than the sun, and she needed him in the depths of her core.
He ground his cock into her, finding her pleasure and chasing it, watching her with the savage need of a warrior who healed and who also hunted. Tonight, she was both patient and prey for him.
“Yes,” she murmured, arching into his thrusts, reaching for the ultimate peak with every pounding wish he fulfilled.
The orgasm shook her to her core.
Her channel clenched around his cock, spasming with helpless wonder, releasing her from her worries and her fears and herself. It purified her like a confession. It cleansed her soul and remade her into the woman she wished to be again.
He dropped his forehead to her shoulder and shuddered his own release. His cock pressed against her pleasure spot for one final hit of wonder. Then, they lay together for a long moment before he eased out.
She helped him remove the condom and dispose of it, and then they finished getting ready for a sleepy bedtime. He put back on his shirt and boxers, and she wore her long nightshirt. In bed, with only the bathroom nightlight for illumination, she nestled against his side.
Too bad Balim hadn’t been her first husband instead of Chaz. But she had been so selfish then. She wouldn’t have appreciated him.
