by Starla Night
Soren’s anger was like a flash-bang, only growlier.
“He feels bad about what happened. But he has to get used to it. I’m going to make stupid mistakes. If you wanted a queen who’s smart all the time, you should have chosen Aya. Soren had better learn to cope after disaster’s struck.”
As she spoke, Soren changed from a tiny speck to a dropping well within earshot. Could he sense her anger the way the other warriors did? Hopefully, it smarted.
“You also communicated with the cave guardian,” Ciran continued. “We have never seen one respond to a command.”
“Octopi are smart.” They regularly escaped out of their tanks and feasted on unfortunate fish in nearby aquariums. They were the Houdinis of the marine world. “Octopus Kong probably picked up English at your weekly lessons.”
The mer exchanged thoughtful glances.
“I’m just kidding,” she said.
Although honestly, who knew the limit of octopus intelligence? She was no marine biologist.
She started mowing down Iyen. He glanced behind him and focused on his speed. His fins brushed the slack sling cables and threatened to tangle.
“I’m feeling pretty good about my fins. Please can I get out of the sling?” she asked.
Iyen and Ciran both looked at Soren.
“On the return journey,” he finally growled. “Rest now.”
Fine. She stopped kicking and slacked. But it seriously felt like Iyen must be dragging her like a wall through the water.
As they neared their destination, Soren allowed her out of the sling after all and then began issuing orders. “Iyen, point. Lotar, scout. Ciran, stay with me until Elyssa is on the platform. I will provide security from the humans.”
Security? From Aya? “I don’t need security.”
“We are not bringing the second payment.”
“I’ll explain everything,” Elyssa promised. “Aya’s in charge. She’ll understand.”
Soren growled. “My promise is to Kadir.”
“Didn’t you say you don’t honor any promises?”
He blackened. “I honor what I want.”
She rolled her eyes. “Okay. Whatever. Secure me. But just out of curiosity, what are you so afraid my cousin’s going to do? Last I checked, I’m still an American. It’s the land of the free.”
Ciran spoke up. “We are not going to American land. We are going to a platform on the sea.”
“Which I can’t exactly leave.”
“Except by their underwater platform, helicopters to the mainland, and a submersible,” Soren snapped.
“Except that,” she said. “But I’m not going to. Wait. They have an underwater platform with a submersible? Since when?”
“A short time.” His face brooked no disagreement. “I will secure you in the air.”
What he was really saying was that he wanted to make sure she came back. They all did. And she was. So she shut up and stopped fighting.
They reached the surface platform. In the last hundred feet to the surface, the water changed texture. Looking up, the 3-D, holographic ocean flattened to a grainy photograph. Gravity lightened to moon-gravity. She could break right out of the ocean like a humpback whale and go flying off into the sky.
She surfaced with a mouthful of salt water. Ugh, not only her mouth but also her throat. The waves slapped and tossed her. Horizons tilted like crazy. She choked.
Descend!
She escaped to the cool, calm ocean.
Soren grabbed her wrist.
Right. No, she was supposed to surface. She had to ask Aya to stop the demand for Sea Opals. Aya had to understand.
Elyssa kicked to the surface again. Chaos. Waves bounced her up and down, the worst ever water park ride. Soren and the others tried to help her to the stairs leading up to the platform.
It was bigger than she’d envisioned, like the deck of a large ferry boat, and its glassed-in shelter top bristled with antennae and satellite dishes. Was it a scientific platform, then? The stairs heaved up and down, making their own waves, and splashing her away. Finally, a small aluminum dinghy descended from the platform, and the warriors brought her to it.
She grabbed the lip and heaved herself onto the hard metal. The sky rotated. Seawater sloshed in her lungs. Ugh. She leaned over the side and puked her guts out.
A motor whirred above and the boat lifted from the water.
She gasped her first ragged breath of air in a month.
And coughed it out again. Air stabbed her throat in a hundred places. Each breath seared and she coughed raggedly like the water was full of broken glass.
Then, her nose clogged with mucus and her throat coated with it too, and she coughed like a normal person with asthma and bronchitis and pneumonia all at once.
The chaos of the surface eased into a soothing, gentle roll of the open ocean. Her little dingy reached the top and the winch stopped.
Aya stood on the platform. She held out a towel.
Had it already been a month? She made her red jumpsuit and tennis shoes look businesswoman-sharp.
Her welcoming gaze passed over Elyssa and hit Soren. Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open.
Elyssa stepped onto the corrugated metal and grabbed for the towel.
It dropped out of Aya’s limp hand.
Elyssa continued to reach for it. Her legs felt weird and shaky like she wasn’t used to walking. Her bare feet slipped. She slammed face-first into the metal mesh.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Her cousin cried. “Elyssa!”
Elyssa’s face throbbed like she’d been punched. God, how long had it been? It was impossible to trip underwater. She pushed up to her knees and touched her face. No nosebleed. “I’m fine.”
“Come here.” Aya helped her up, covered her with a huge towel, and squeezed her with a worried hug. “Welcome back. You’re a day late.”
“I’m slow.” She released Aya and adjusted her blanket-sized towel more securely.
Soren hulked across the deck completely naked.
Aya’s eyes followed his huge form. “What are you doing here? Where are the rest of the Sea Opals?”
He growled. “I do not answer to you.”
Aya stiffened.
Elyssa defused the tension with a calming hand on Aya’s arm. “I’ll explain.”
Aya glared at Soren and turned away. “Fine.”
Funny how Elyssa had been naked for a month and felt perfectly normal, and she’d been out of the water two seconds and felt all exposed. “How are you? Are you okay?”
“Of course I am. What about you? Come get dressed and let’s talk.”
Aya led her inside to a dining galley. Elyssa pulled on a matching jumpsuit and chowed down on the foods she had requested that last night at her parent’s house — a peanut butter sandwich, jumbo Dr Pepper, and buttery, gooey squares of her step mom’s rice crisp treats. Her dad had put in a postcard from their homeowner’s association, in case she forgot what the gated community looked like, and scrawled, “The morning crossword seems quieter without you. Hope you’re having a great time.”
Tears sprang to her eyes. She swallowed hard and placed the card on top of the lovingly plastic-wrapped treats.
Aya had put on her reading glasses. She sat across from Elyssa in the private booth and arranged a mini satellite, recording equipment, and lights around her laptop.
“We’re just about ready. Do a test. Tell me one interesting thing you saw yesterday.”
“I saw Moby Dick,” Elyssa said. “That was amazing. Oh, actually the same day, I saw a giant octopus. Kadir got hurt saving me from needlefish, which is why he’s not here. Oh, tell Lucy I can make my fins go! But only when I stop thinking about them.”
“Great.” Aya adjusted some dials, totally focused on the screen. “Give me one more minute.”
Heh. She was the same old Aya after all. Everything had to be scientific, in its place, and done properly. No last-minute interruptions, forgetting something at home,
or unwelcome surprises.
“While we’re waiting, fill out the questionnaire.” Aya pushed a five-inch-thick stack of papers at her.
Elyssa flipped through the stack.
“We’ll also take your vital signs and tissue samples. You said you could make your feet into fins? We’ll get a sample of that tissue too.”
Elyssa picked up the pen. “It’s not going to hurt, is it?”
Aya stared at her blankly. “The sample?” Something flashed on her computer screen and she looked away. “I’ll spike your Dr. Pepper.”
“Aya!”
She snorted.
Oh. Ha ha, funny joke.
“No, it shouldn’t hurt at all. We’re taking a swab. I’m expecting dead skin cells from the top layer, or,” she wiggled her brows, “scales.”
“I don’t have scales,” Elyssa promised, tapping the pen against the paper stack, “but I’ll do whatever I can to help you uncover the mysteries of the mer.”
They spent until dark with Aya interviewing and recording. It was obvious when Soren hulked in the background. Aya’s gaze wandered and she forgot her question.
They’d offered him and the other guards food while they were waiting, but Soren snapped that it wasn’t necessary, and the other guards did not surface for Elyssa to ask herself.
By dark, Elyssa felt tired and wired. Probably it was the rice crisp-and-marshmallow sugar high after a month on the sushi-and-seaweed diet.
“Your transmitters went out,” Aya told her when they were reaching the end. “We lost them at a thousand feet. Here are replacements that go deeper.”
Elyssa took off the broken transmitter earrings and put in the new ones, screwing on the backs to make sure they stayed in. “Do these make a high-pitched squeal too?”
“I don’t hear anything.”
Hmm. Elyssa didn’t either. Maybe she sensed the whine with her mermaid powers. She’d find out in the water.
Aya picked up the old ones and studied them with her reading glasses. “Okay, let’s drill deeper into this conundrum. If we know more about how the Life Trees grow, perhaps we can grow our own. How deep are you?”
“Forever deep.”
“Are you in the Sunlit Zone or the Twilight Zone? Or is it the Midnight Zone?”
“I really don’t know.”
“Is it bright out, or does everything have bioluminescence and it’s dark?”
“I don’t know,” Elyssa repeated patiently. Aya sometimes got so focused on a problem she didn’t actually hear the answer. “Everything’s bright underwater. It’s like being in a football stadium, except you can see about a million miles in every direction, including down.”
Aya raised a brow. “A million miles? Elyssa, this is for science.”
“It’s crazy. You can see forever. Way farther than on land.”
A chime sounded on Aya’s laptop.
She sucked in a breath, straightened, and tapped the keyboard. “That’s time.”
“Today went by so fast.” And Elyssa still hadn’t gotten the chance to ask Aya about the Sea Opals. She shifted on the hard plastic bench.
“Maybe we can move the platform.” Aya hummed as she studied the maps and reviewed Elyssa’s directions. “Which direction is the current?”
“I can tell you when I’m in the water again.”
“Oh, of course. We’ll track it on your transmitter.” She closed the laptop, removed her glasses, and smiled. “We need the Sea Opals by the next meeting. It’s the last time I can put it off. Make sure King Kadir provides.”
And that was it.
Aya took a deep breath and started to rise.
“Um.” Wow, how to ask this? There was no way to sugar-coat Elyssa’s counter-request. “I’m actually hoping for an advance on more brides.”
Her smile flattened. “What?”
“Well, a lot of mermen really deserve a chance to start their own families. The earlier the better.”
“Kadir hasn’t even paid off you!”
“And I also don’t think it’s fair to ask for so many Sea Opals just for one person.”
“Yes. It is.”
“Van Cartier Cosmetics already owns the world market.”
“Do you know how much it cost to put this together?” Aya gestured at the laptop, the platform, the rice treats. “Do you know how much these military-grade transmitters are worth? Two sets of them?”
“But it wouldn’t cost much more to support a second or third bride.”
“Impossible. The legal fees alone—”
“Don’t you want to be a mermaid?” Elyssa pushed. “Wouldn’t you do it for free?”
Aya stared over Elyssa’s shoulder. The night was dark now and the windows only reflected their image inward. She looked back at Elyssa, made her lips into a flat line, and shook her head. “I could never be a bride. Not for all the Sea Opals in the world.”
That was what Aya had said on the shore, on the dock the day Elyssa left. Even now, it sounded crazy. “I don’t believe you.”
“I’ve thought about this a lot since the bride pageant.” Aya toyed with her manicured nails. When they were kids, she used to bite them down to the quick. Now, the acrylics were smooth and beautiful. “Why I wasn’t chosen. The reason is that I don’t have the ability to love.”
What the heck? What had Chastity Angel been telling her while Elyssa was gone? “Yes, you do.”
“I’ve never even had a pet. I couldn’t give my love to a child. Especially when things went bad and I was forced to give my child up.”
“You’d never have to give your child up!”
“Read your contract. If you can’t remain in the relationship, you give up all rights to your baby. It’s the same as their old covenant. You’re no more than a merman’s surrogate.”
Elyssa sat back in the cold plastic seat. This was what Aya had wanted to tell her. She knew that Elyssa would have agreed anyway because Elyssa was born from a surrogate.
Elyssa’s biological mom had viable eggs but no womb. Aya knew that in the worst case, if everything between her and Kadir was destroyed, she would never deny him their baby.
The thought made a dull pain in her heart.
If Kadir blamed her for the accident at the ruin like Soren, if she failed to earn the respect of the warriors, if she caused another problem with the Life Tree…
She rubbed her chest. “I still see Helen off and on.”
“Your family isn’t normal. When a relationship dies, there are usually no survivors.”
She couldn’t think this way. “It will work.”
“How will you handle visitation? Do you really think you can cross two separate worlds? You’ll be left with nothing but memories, just like all the other brides.”
Her fear was natural. After Aya’s parents split, her father wouldn’t even cross Miami to see her. Elyssa never met him once, not at a single birthday or swim meet or graduation.
The mer were different.
“Kadir went every year to the surface to see his mother, even though he never went to the shore.”
“Isn’t that more evidence of how impossible it is to sustain a relationship? You’re too different.”
“Aya.” Elyssa put her hands on Aya’s cool fingers, stopping her stream of fears. “I love Kadir.”
The feeling of love swelled in her chest. She did love Kadir. That was how she knew everything would be okay.
Aya’s brows drew together. “But does he love you?”
Oh. Wow.
Aya had a point. It was one thing for Elyssa to love him. He was intense and honorable and loving. When he pressed her against a wall, she felt the power of his devotion. But was devotion the same as love? She wanted to say yes. But what if she was wrong?
She didn’t know what to say. “It hasn’t come up.”
Aya nodded slowly, distractedly. The project notes spread out across their table. She pulled her hands free of Elyssa’s and studied graphs, charts, tables. “I want this program to be success
ful. I knew the instant you came up without Kadir that there would be no Sea Opals today. I just don’t see how we can support more participants.”
Right. Back to things that she did know. “The brides of the past asked for only a single Sea Opal.”
“And theirs are starting to show up on the market too.” Aya tidied the files. “We’re holding the interest of investors now, but we won’t be able to start clinical trials for another six months. The regenerative properties are just amazing. We’re talking ‘cure cancer, regrow your dead liver’ amazing. Sea Opals have the potential to be not just a pretty face cream, but an actual fountain of youth. If you have the right response. You know.” She trailed off.
She still felt awkward about the incident the last time they’d worked together. The one where Elyssa’s parents got bought off and Elyssa gave up all credit for the discovery because she would never do anything important.
“Resonance?” Elyssa supplied.
Aya pushed past the sudden awkwardness. “Yes. Resonance. People who are resonant…the sky’s the limit.”
So, maybe the Life Tree could heal Kadir’s punctured heart without surgery.
“But we’ll need the supply for mass production,” Aya said. “The Life Tree of Sireno overflowed with Sea Opals the size of boulders. A hundred is nothing.”
Okay. Time for a hard truth.
“That’s because the Sireno Life Tree was much older. The Atlantis tree is a wee little baby. Its Sea Opals are like seed beads.”
Aya frowned. “Kadir already supplied us with thirty reasonably sized Sea Opals.”
“They came from the other cities, the older Life Trees. We don’t have any more.”
Aya’s chin dropped. “What?”
“Kadir was injured trying to find more in the old city wreckage.”
Aya rested her forehead in her hand. “You’re kidding.”
“No.” But Aya was devastated. Elyssa touched her forearm. “What’s wrong?”
Aya laughed painfully and rubbed her forehead. “Agh. I was supposed to ask if you could give us an advance on the next bride’s allotment. Like, in addition to the rest of your own. I’m not kidding. We need these Sea Opals now to draw in big investors while the public interest is still hot.”
