Oceanborn

by Amalie Howard

  Lo sprawls out on one of the chaises, grinning. “I could get used to this.”

  “Nerissa?” Aldon says. “Do you want to take her out?”

  “Sure.”

  Navigating the tight marina is tough, but I manage to exit the slip without too much hassle. Out on the open ocean, the air is warm with a tinge of coldness brewing off the tops of the waves. Echlios and the rest of the guard aren’t in sight, but I can sense them following in our wake beneath the surface. Glancing at Lo, seated between Dr. Aldon and Soren in the bow, I swallow hard. His sandy hair blows into his face, the wind whipping into his bronze cheeks. He looks so healthy and normal on the outside with no sign of the poison eating away at him on the inside. My fingers clutch the wheel so hard that the boat yanks right.

  “My bad,” I shout out as four heads swivel my way. “Sorry.”

  “What’s up?” Jenna asks, climbing up to the bridge and propping herself on the white seat next to me. “You seem really distracted.”

  I stare at my best friend and let my rigid self-control ease for a second. “Worried.”

  “Why?”

  “Never tried this before. Could go bad.” I force a smile. “Can you imagine a rogue Aquarathi on the loose? The damage? The chaos?”

  “That won’t happen, Riss. You’ll reach him. It’ll work.”

  “How do you know?”

  Jenna’s blue eyes light up. “Because you’re Nerissa and Lo, the queen and king of the sea. You’re meant to be together. You’ve bonded—he’s yours and you’re his. And that’s all there is to it. If anyone can do this, it’s you, Riss.”

  Unexpected tears sting my eyelids. “Thanks.”

  I reach out to squeeze her hand just as the looming shape of an island creeps out of the horizon—San Nicolas, one of California’s channel islands, and controlled by the U.S. Navy. We’re almost to our destination. Steering the boat to the west of San Nicolas, I hold our speed steady at sixty knots just as the sun takes its final plunge to its rest.

  “Where are we going?” Jenna says, peering out onto the horizon. “There’s nothing out here.”

  “Exactly,” I say, lowering the throttle. It’s too deep to drop anchor, so I just turn off the engine and nod for Jenna to follow me down to the stern’s open deck, where the others are already waiting. The huge yacht barely rocks on the almost flat ocean. “Remember, stay out of sight if things get out of hand. Do not intervene unless I call you, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  We both watch as Aldon starts the hypnotherapy. My entire body tenses up. Jenna leans forward, her voice a whisper against my ear. “What’s wrong?”

  “Not that I know much about anything, but does hypnosis on humans actually work?” I should have researched it online myself, but looking it up would have made it more real than it already is. Jenna would know. She’d have made it her business to know everything about it inside out.

  “Sometimes. For depression, reducing anxiety, things like that. For dissociative conditions like Lo’s, it’s a little more iffy.” She pauses. “There’s a lot of research behind the whole mind-body connection, and getting people into an altered state of consciousness to retrieve memories, but those memories may be false. What you’re going to do is a little more involved than that.”

  What Jenna says is true. Lo’s Aquarathi side won’t be affected by clinical hypnosis, and if the human part of him goes into a temporary trancelike state, we hope that we can reach the other part of him.

  Aldon nods for me to approach. “He’s ready.”

  “Be careful,” Jenna whispers to me. I squeeze her hand and swallow.

  Aldon is escorted into the cabin by one of Echlios’s men for his own safety. The rest of the guards form a semicircle around me. For a second I study the shimmery surface of the ocean stretching out behind us like a carpet of ebony glass. Not a whisper of wind disturbs its surface. It’s so eerily quiet that a shiver races over my back.

  The calm before the storm.

  Taking Aldon’s vacated seat, I stare at Lo. His face is relaxed, his mouth curved in a half smile. Silvery blond streaks of hair fall across his forehead and onto closed eyelids. My fingers ache to brush them away and I give in to the urge. The strands are like silk against my skin.

  Lo’s eyes flutter open, such an unearthly limpid shade of blue, and I lick dry lips before grasping his hands in mine. “Hi, Lo,” I say.

  “Hi, Riss.”

  “Do you trust me?”

  “Yes.”

  My eyes meet Echlios’s and then Soren’s. Just because Lo is in such a serene, accessible state doesn’t mean things can’t go from calm to chaos in the blink of an eye. I take a slow, steadying breath as I close my eyes, summoning the water in my body. The glimmer forms almost immediately in my core, more powerful than anything I’ve ever created. I know it’s in response to the bond between Lo and me, but it’s also because of our proximity to the sea. And the fact that I’m a queen.

  Instantly I feel the visceral response from the other Aquarathi around me. Gathering the glimmer, I push it toward Lo to connect with the water in his body. A raw memory of the time I stole his energy just before I fought his mother rips through me, but then we’re connected and all I can feel is a surge that makes my back ramrod straight and every cell in my body come alive.

  Lo’s eyes are lucid, but his fingers grip mine harder than before, and I know he feels it, too—the bond between us, savage and pure. I swallow hard, watching the green-and-gold lights ripple along my arms. The navy swirls—Lo’s bonding marks—writhe upon my skin, twining down my wrists to my fingers to meet the greenish-gold swirls coming alive on his.

  Lo’s eyes hold mine, something intense flowering in their depths. In response, a hot spiral unfurls in my stomach, desire making my blood rush and my pulse throb. The air turns electric, connected by the mad currents in our bodies. Every Aquarathi drop of water in him is responding fully to me. Lo pulls against me, sucking me into him, and unguarded, I let him. He hasn’t forgotten. It’s been so long since I’ve felt so whole. All I want to do is push myself deeper into him until I can’t feel anything but us...intertwine my body with his and forget everything.

  Focus.

  The soft click is from Soren. Grateful for the needed encouragement, I exhale and strengthen against Lo’s demands. Following the thread of the glimmer connecting us, I breach Lo’s mind, past all the human defenses and into the dark alien part of him. The part I know. The glimmer thrums with instant recognition.

  Lo?

  Lo’s human eyes widen as his fingers twitch against mine. Nerissa?

  I almost collapse. There’s only one person who can say my name the way he does, like it’s a liquid, delicious shape. I shiver. Where have you been?

  Here, he says. Trapped. How are you doing this?

  I’m inside you, I say. It was the only way I could reach you.

  Nerissa— The worry in his voice is evident. He, too, knows the risks of what I’m doing.

  I know, Lo. I don’t know how much time I have, so I blurt out my thoughts. You’ve been poisoned. It’s some kind of biotoxin that’s inhibiting your Aquarathi side from healing your human DNA. You’ve had amnesia for months. My voice breaks. You don’t know me. You don’t remember us.

  That’s impossible. I know you.

  This Aquarathi part of you does. Not your human side.

  What do I do? he asks.

  You have to force yourself to remember to heal the broken pieces. Let me help you.

  He frowns. What if it doesn’t work?

  It has to work.

  Lo leans forward, sandy scales shimmering to life in a ripple along his cheeks, and brushes warm human lips against mine. It’s a kiss magnified a thousandfold by the tidal wave of energy crashing between us. My breath stalls. In case I haven’t tol
d you lately, I love you.

  Eyes stinging, I can only nod as he pulls away. Let me in, Lo.

  He agrees, and without hesitation, I breach the human part of him—the part that won’t understand what I am—the part that will see me only as a monster. But I have to try. I have to make him remember—and accept—all that he is. I open myself to him completely, mindful of Echlios’s warning, showing him everything that happened in the past year...letting him see himself through my eyes, letting him feel everything through me...letting him see the Aquarathi.

  Lo’s fingers tighten like vises onto mine, the crack of bone sharp in the silence. One of the guards jerks forward, but he’s immediately restrained by Echlios. The pain of my broken fingers is nothing compared to the agony tearing through Lo at the onslaught of memories, the toxin reacting like a mad virus against them...fighting against me, fighting against him.

  “No!” Lo screams aloud, shoving away from me. “Get away from me! All of you. You’re a monster.” He eyes me with wild, crazed eyes. The connection between us splinters to a thread as he staggers back, his palms in front of him as if warding off something horrific. Then he clutches at his body, screaming.

  “Aldon!” I yell, holding on to the glimmer with everything I have. “Sedative!”

  “It’s too late. He’s already shifting,” Soren shouts, just as Lo swipes at Aldon’s outstretched hand and breaks the syringe into pieces. The next blow is to Aldon’s temple, knocking him out cold.

  I focus on Lo. Sure enough, his human form is elongating and bulking outward, his skin hardening into burnished silvery-gold scales. The rear of the yacht sinks into the water at the weight. Lo’s tail smashes into anchored stools along the stern’s deck, ripping them from their anchors. Nova and Nell attempt to restrain him, but their human bodies go flying as the next casualties of Lo’s strength. Three more of the guards follow suit. Tethered to me, he’s stronger than all of them put together, but I can’t let go. Not now.

  Lo, I beg. It’s me, Nerissa.

  He flinches at my voice, tearing at his scalp with taloned half-human fingers. “I see you! You’re all monsters,” Lo screams gutturally. His skittish eyes meet his reflection in the open glass doors to the cabin. “I’m a—”

  I approach him cautiously. Lo. You have to control yourself. Trust me. You have to trust me.

  His gaze falls on me, his body quieting, and for a second I think I have him, just before a heavily muscled, scaled forearm smashes into my side. The pain rockets through me and I’m airborne, landing fifty feet away into the arms of the ocean with a splash, my body transforming to Aquarathi form almost instantly. The scene on the boat is like one out of the Jaws movie, with handrails hanging drunkenly off their hinges and pieces of furniture floating beside the boat.

  But that isn’t what makes the breath die a slow death in my throat.

  It’s the sight of a slim auburn-haired girl squaring off against a beast thirty times her size...and one that has just scented prey on the wind.

  13

  The Rules of the Game

  “Jenna, no!” My terrified shriek makes every Aquarathi around me leap into motion, and then I’m whipping through the water toward the boat. When I resurface a few feet away from the busted stern, my heart lodges in my throat. It’s like the finale scene out of a horror movie...the scene where someone gets ripped to bloody shreds.

  Lo has Jenna cornered against the side, his body driven by a basic need to survive. Soren is standing motionless near him, still in human form, and the others along with Echlios are in the water, awaiting my command. I hesitate. If Soren attacks, Jenna will be in Lo’s direct path. Frustrated, I grind my teeth. Why didn’t she just stay hidden, as I’d told her? There’s no part of Lo that’s human right now, and all she is to him is a target. Jenna isn’t just some casualty—she’s my friend and I can’t let her die, not even if it’s a choice between the two of them.

  I shift back into human form, treading water with my arms. “Jenna,” I say in a careful voice. “Try to move away toward the water. Slowly.”

  She complies, but before she can even take one step, Lo opens his fearsome jaws and screams, making her freeze in her tracks. The color drains from her face. Jenna has seen me in human form, but seeing an Aquarathi who wants to be seen and one whose sole purpose is to hunt are two totally different things. Bringing her here was a bad idea, even though it seemed like a convincing one at the time. I should have known that Lo’s Aquarathi side would view her as foe, not friend.

  “Lo,” I say in my language, changing tactics and drawing his attention away from Jenna as I climb onto the lower deck. His slitted, jeweled eyes focus on me. I keep my voice carefully modulated. “It’s okay. Just calm down. Jenna is your friend. We are all your friends.”

  Lo’s neck arches, his eyes rolling back in his skull as if he’s fighting the biotoxin inside his brain. I know what he’s struggling against—the human side of him that’s making him think he’s crazy, that all of this isn’t really happening. We’re still connected by the glimmer, albeit thinly. I take a breath and push it forward despite my own waning strength.

  “Lo, you know me. You know all of us. You understand what I’m saying to you now. This is all real.”

  “What am I?” he growls out, and then claws at his head. “So much pain.”

  “I know,” I say, my voice still low. “We’re going to fix it, I promise. But first, you need to shift back to human form, Lo.”

  He eyes me, but then his head swings back toward Jenna in desperate hunger. I swallow. I don’t want to hurt Lo, but I’ll do it if I have to. Lo’s entire body tenses, his tail fin undulating like that of a rattlesnake on the verge of attacking. It’s now or never. Gathering my strength, I slam the glimmer into him with brute force. It spreads outward and through him as I hold him in place. Wild, furious eyes meet mine. Lo fights my glimmer with everything inside him. The faint thought that my mother was right flits through my brain—he is strong, stronger than I’d ever thought. I squeeze harder, my glimmer overcoming his will, even as his pain flicks back toward me through the bond.

  “My queen,” an urgent voice says from behind me. Echlios’s brow is furrowed with worry. “You’re going to kill him.”

  Gasping, I relent slightly. It’s a mistake. Acid-blue eyes fixate on me and blue lights flicker to life along Lo’s deep gold body as if sensing a momentary advantage. I brace, but the weight of his glimmer slams into me like a freight train, and then he’s draining me—doing exactly what Echlios had feared—taking every drop of energy that is his for the taking. And there’s nothing I can do to stop him.

  Suddenly Lo rips away, leaving me feeling as if a layer of my skin has been singed off. Sinking to my knees, I crumple against Echlios, gasping for breath. Echlios’s fingers tighten against me before he leaps forward. Lo snarls and shrugs him off easily. Of course he does. He’s full of my strength...my water. None of them will be any match for him, not now. Lo dispatches one of Echlios’s men, disemboweling him with his barbed tail. Two others rush him, only to meet the same fate. The air is thick with the smell of fury and blood.

  This is my fault. Stupidly, I opened myself up to him, thinking I’d be strong enough to withstand him. But I wasn’t. The bond makes us strong, but it makes us weak, too—weak to each other. And I’m powerless against him.

  Nell clutches a broken arm, her brother standing beside her covered in his own blood. They both step forward, uncaring of their own well-being, loyal to the end.

  “Stop,” I say weakly, staring at the iridescent Aquarathi blood spilling across the deck. “Don’t attack him. He’s too strong.” I pause, propping myself up against a bench that’s still intact. “This is my doing, and I’m the only one who can stop him.”

  “My lady,” Soren says. “You’re not strong enough.”

  “I’ll have to be.”

 
“Then take my water.” She’s made the offer before, but never like this where taking it could mean her death. I lick dry lips and nod.

  “Mine, too,” Echlios says.

  With a trembling breath, I prepare to do just that, but to my surprise, Jenna steps forward until she’s within Lo’s reach and the billowing courage seeps of out my sails. If Lo wants, he can snap her neck off her head in half a breath. I hold mine, transfixed, as Jenna spreads her palms slow and wide in a nonthreatening gesture. Astonishingly, she leans closer.

  “Jenna—” I begin in warning but she ignores me.

  “Lo,” she says in a low voice. “It’s Jenna. I know you know who I am. And I know you’re still somewhere in there. You’re strong. You have to control it.” Her voice is hypnotic. “Find something that you know is true and hold on to it. You know what’s real, and you know who you are. Don’t let go of that one thing.”

  Lo’s body goes preternaturally still as I exhale an incredulous breath. He’s actually listening to her. Somehow she’s reaching him. My eyes flick to Soren. She looks as I imagine I do, wide-eyed and disbelieving.

  “Listen to my voice, Lo,” Jenna is saying. “You know who you are. You know. Now change back, make yourself human again. Hold on to that one thing—the one part of what makes you, you. Only you know what that is, and let it bring you back.”

  Time slows for an endless minute, our heartbeats like distant echoes of thunder. And then I feel it before I see it, radiating back along his flanks. He’s transforming. In seconds, the bulk of his body melts into the slender shape of human bones, scales shifting into skin, fins flowing into fingers, until he’s a pale shivering form on the floor of the deck. Echlios moves forward, but I raise a hand as Jenna places a towel around Lo’s hunched shoulders.

  “You all right?” she asks him softly.

  “Kind of a loaded question, don’t you think?” he murmurs with a half smile. I breathe a sigh of relief at the nonchalant answer.

  “I guess it is.”