by Starla Night
She kicked harder. Her fingers closed on the ragged strap.
The boxy computer bounced off something in the water and tugged the strap from her fingers.
Huh?
Two layers of water moved against each other. The computer skipped across the top layer like a stone across the surface of a lake.
Just a little bit closer. She strained.
Soren grabbed her ankle.
Her fingers closed on nothing. The computer bounced just out of reach. Argh. She kicked and writhed. “Let me go!”
“No! Aya—”
The computer dipped below the surface and sucked away as if it had been caught in a jet engine. It was suddenly hundreds of feet down the cliff.
The shimmering layer approached her face.
Soren grunted. He was trying to yank her away.
Oh. It must be dangerous.
Her fingers skimmed along the top. It felt strangely gummy. The surface tension between the two layers made it cloudy.
“Do not touch the riptide!”
Riptide? Riptides usually flowed in the opposite direction. A wave crashing onto the shore would have a riptide that dragged unsuspecting waders out into the middle of the bay. But the dive computer was going the same direction-ish. Just a lot faster, and down into the trench.
She lifted her hands to keep them out of the riptide but that motion just brought her face closer. She arched her back. Her breasts skimmed along the top. Uh oh.
With a growl, Soren forced them both up and away from the cloudy layer.
Whew.
He dragged her against him. He was hard as iron. His mouth set in a thin, kissable line. His thick palm dragged her head to his shoulder and he curled his body around her. “Hold on.”
The water they were in vibrated.
Huh?
“Use your power to keep us together. Do not let go.”
The vibrations grew harder. She clamped her teeth together. They were going to shake loose her fillings. A deep groan grew into a roar like a waterfall. They were falling over the top!
“Use your power!”
How? How did she use her power?
Pressure crushed her in its fist and wrenched her and Soren apart.
“Aya!”
She tumbled over and over in the water. Terror lodged her heart in her throat. There he was! He cried and strained for her. She willed him to catch up.
Invisible claws raked her.
She fought to reach Soren and cartwheeled. A moment of stillness popped her up almost within arm’s reach of him.
She reached out.
He shouted. Behind her? She looked over her shoulder. He was behind her, struggling free of invisible manacles. So what was she reaching out for? She looked forward again. It was some strange reflection. The two layers of water made a mirror. Her fingers penetrated. His reflection disappeared.
Something gripped her hard enough to dislocate her fingers and yanked her in.
She couldn’t scream.
The water crushed her and squeezed away her breath.
The trench cliff loomed. At the top, tiny crabs and squids grew to a huge size as she rushed toward them. One mammoth tarantula-crab poked her layer with its claw. The layer resisted and Aya flew over the Lexus-sized crustacean.
Her wet suit had snagged on the cliff’s edge. It hung horizontal like a shadow, stretched taut by the current. She grabbed for it. Her fingers snagged the arm. Yes!
It tore like thin paper.
She tumbled over the edge of the cliff and into the black trench. Soren hurtled behind her.
They fell as fast as skydiving from an airplane without a parachute. She scrambled for the rocky ledges, for the normal water. Everything slicked away from her fingers like scrabbling against glass.
Someone grabbed her ankle.
Soren!
He dragged her against his chest with one arm. “Hold!”
She clung with all her might.
Ledges flew past. Far ahead, her dive computer twisted. It was still in one piece. She could reach it if she let go of Soren and—
What was that at the bottom? A roiling bubble like a pot left on the stove. She clenched Soren tighter. Her dive computer disappeared into the boil.
Pieces of twisted metal floated up like dust from a grave. The pieces were sucked back in.
RIP dive computer.
“Hold on!”
She clung.
Soren shifted his fins to human feet and kicked off the wall. He smashed them against the side of the current. Its wall warped to hold them in like a skin.
No!
They broke through.
The roar quieted. They floated sideways across the cliff on a swift, but much slower, current than before. The walls were bathed in dim purple.
She gasped for breath — or, her lungs moved and sweet energy revitalized her as if she were taking a real breath.
Soren also struggled. He clenched her hard. His muscles shuddered.
The distant lip of the trench beckoned.
She extended her legs to kick. He must be exhausted. She was also shaky, but she would try to help him.
He tightened.
Oh. “I’m not trying to get away.”
He ignored her words and held her hard.
Warmth wrapped around her for the first time since she’d entered the ocean at the dive platform. She nestled in his sheltering arms. This embrace wasn’t where she belonged, but she would take the temporary shelter as if it were hers.
The thin tattoos covering his skin were so intricate. Dots and swirls passed over the mountains and valleys of his thick muscles. Scars crossed them, a basket-weave of battles and decorations. She wanted to kiss the scars better. Or maybe she just wanted to lick the hard muscle and taste the male who had, once again, saved her life.
He had a subtle flavor, like black licorice, and she could almost smell him —except her nose was filled with seawater, so it wasn’t smell. More like a flavor on the back of her tongue. She wanted to give him a good bite, listen to him growl, and lose herself in anise-flavored passion.
Her heart, so recently slowed to calm, started to beat faster in her chest.
He kicked for the rim of the trench. “Do not disobey me again.”
Her irritated snap almost surfaced. He hadn’t told her what was dangerous, only that something was. How was she supposed to know what he meant?
But she was in his domain now. Only an idiot would ignore her guide. Which meant she was the idiot.
“I apologize. I’ll be more careful in the future.”
He stiffened to a board. “Do not dim your soul light. It lessens your power and makes this harder.”
“I apologize,” she mouthed again.
He growled.
No, she really was sorry. She focused on being honest. “Please warn me what, precisely, the dangers are. I don’t usually act with incomplete information. Some specificity would make me a more useful partner.”
“The open ocean is dangerous.”
“Yes, but, the riptide was the real danger. You didn’t tell me about that.”
He didn’t say anything.
She wanted to huff in irritation, but she deliberately did not. “We aren’t in any special danger. Are we?”
“We are.”
A twinge of coldness flushed through her. “What do you mean?”
“Be quiet for now.”
Incomplete information drove her crazy. She wanted to shout at him. But he might have a good reason for not speaking, and she didn’t want to be an idiot again. She shut up.
It took a long time to kick up from the trench. The open ocean was like a mouth and they moved up the gullet past strange, bubbling fissures and hissing holes.
Soren remained silent.
She tried to relax. But the longer it took, the more irritated she grew.
Normally it was easy to turn her attention to a new distraction. Work was crushing. There was always something to do. But right now she had not
hing to do but be pressed up against Soren. Feel his muscles clench and release rhythmically. His chest move out and in, flushing oxygenated water through his gills. She focused on it and relaxed.
He labored.
She whispered, “I relaxed. Why are we going so slow?”
He made a choking noise. “You did not use your power.”
So he was angry.
Should she apologize again? “I told you. I don’t know how.”
“How can you not know how?” He gritted his teeth. “You feel your power and you use it. But you would not. You want to get away from me so badly you nearly caused our deaths.”
Ah. He had a point. She did want to get away from him.
It would be far better to split up now, as soon as possible. Before she trusted in the kind things he said. Before she craved his strong thighs between hers. Before she began to believe he really did want her as his queen.
“I don’t know what feeling you’re talking about. Can you be more specific? How do you feel it?”
“I do not ‘feel’ it,” he said. “Only queens can use the power of the Life Tree.”
She was losing her patience. “Then I’m not a queen. Or the Life Tree’s dead, like you said. Either way, arguing about this isn’t helping us. It’s not personal, Soren. I don’t feel this power you speak of.”
“Very well. When we return to Atlantis, you will join with another male. Then, you will feel the power.”
See, he did want to get rid of her. His offer to have her as his queen was a lie. She knew it.
“Relax,” he growled. “Now you are the one slowing us.”
She concentrated on relaxing, even though what she most wanted to do was work her fingers around his thick neck and strangle him. First he begged her to like him. Then he pushed her to go with some other guy. He said whatever he felt like, without thinking it through at all.
Whereas she thought through everything before opening her mouth. It caused people to call her cold. Well, it was one of the many things.
Liking someone was a weakness. Telling them gave them power over her. Silent contemplation was safe.
Feelings — giving voice to her feelings—was the most dangerous of all.
But what if Soren was right? What if verbalizing her feelings was the thing she needed to do to use the power Soren described? Lucy and Elyssa had powers. It stood to reason Aya did too.
Well, she’d just get right in touch with those feelings. She’d spout them off like the most sensitive woman who ever lived. She’d be a speak-and-spell of emotions. She’d be an emotional whirlwind.
Making this plan calmed her. She knew the relaxation worked because Soren kicked harder, propelling them toward the exit of the trench. It was good. The trench was creepy.
“The trench is creepy,” she said, giving voice to her feelings.
He grunted. “The currents are misleading and the tight enclosure interferes with our senses. It hides caves and cloaks deadly predators.”
Yikes. She did not feel any more powerful and, in fact, she only felt more creeped out. Was this really the way to unlock her power? She was sorry she’d said anything.
Aya scanned the trench wall for hidden caves and invisible predators.
Something glowed in a crevasse.
Glowed?
Hey. “Something’s glowing down there.”
“Where?” Soren pivoted, twirling to scan below them. The trench disappeared into infinite blackness. It was almost plausible it was a mouth to hell and could lead to another ocean beneath the known one. “Was it moving?”
“No. You can’t see it from this angle. It was behind a rock.”
“I see only smooth wall.”
She did too from this angle. “Back up.”
He hesitated. “The longer we linger, the more we are a target of rim-dwelling predators like trench fish.”
Over his shoulder, on the cliff, something caught her eye. What was it? Blurred shadows?
“What are trench fish?” she asked.
“They are large, wedge-shaped fish with oversized lower jaws and a small, dangling piece in front that glows.”
“We call those angler fish,” she said.
“Angler fish are small cousins,” he said. “Trench fish are as large as your SUV.”
A massive, round, tooth-filled mouth emerged from the smooth cliff face behind him.
She pointed. “Like that one?”
He jerked to look. The shadow of the mouth closed over his shoulder. He dove.
The teeth snapped inches from her nose.
Her heart froze in her throat.
Soren scrambled across the cliff.
A giant, gray, wedge-shaped fish flew after them. Its triangular mouth dropped open like a trapped door. The teeth glistened, massive carpenter’s nails, to impale and drag them in.
Another fish darted faster than the first. Its teeth snapped shut on the tips of his fins.
He gritted his teeth. “Use your powers!”
She couldn’t catch her breath. Her hands felt greasy with fear. “How?”
Soren thumped against a jutting rock, shifted to human feet, and kicked off the cliff wall. They flew into the center of the trench.
Three fish flew after them.
“Now!” He dragged her down, barrel-rolled, and flew up again. One missed, the other swerved, and two more dove after them. “Aya!”
“I don’t know how!” she screamed.
Soren kicked up the vertical curve of the cliff.
Another shadow appeared in a hidden cave.
Her scream of fear lodged in her throat.
Soren dove. He sprang across ledges. The fish bumped into each other and grew distracted fighting among themselves. Soren reached the trench’s mouth.
The fish refocused on their escaping prey and flew after them. They gained.
Soren popped out of the trench, into open water.
At the edge, a gigantic crab waved a serrated cleaver-like claw in warning. Kraken-sized squids entangled Soren with thick, ropy arms. An arm slammed across Aya’s back and suckers squeezed with sharp nips.
She arched her back and gasped in cold water.
Soren grabbed the suckers and ripped them off.
Trench fish flew above the edge after them.
The crab hunched flat like a rock against the ground. The squid released her and Soren and scattered. Soren darted sideways, hugging the ground.
The trench fish abandoned them and chased the squid. Cartilage crunched.
Soren pumped hard, kicking them to open water where the currents were visible and she could see predators miles away with plenty of warning.
The ocean was open and clear.
They had survived.
Aya’s hands shook. Her stomach rolled. She collapsed on Soren, closed her eyes, and focused on not being ill.
Soren kicked across the ocean floor. The trench turned into a distant line. The giant, wedge-shaped trench fish shrank to the size of their angler fish cousins.
She raised her head. “Where are we going?”
“Atlantis.”
“What about the glow I saw?”
“I will return with warriors who know the dangers without questioning me.”
Ugh.
Unlike when an investor meeting went sideways, a mistake underwater had nearly cost her life. Again. She gripped onto Soren’s powerful, unyielding arms. He had saved her. Again.
And what she done in return?
Nothing.
She was out of her element, unable to help in any way. Dead weight.
Fine. Let him dump her in Atlantis. She would not argue or scheme. She would obey like he asked. Until he wasn’t there anymore. Then, she would leave.
The sooner she got to the surface, the better off they’d all be.
Chapter Seven
Aya grew heavier and more despondent the longer he kicked. And the way over-land was already taxing. The current pushed against him. Not as hard as the Est-Atalica, but eve
ry stroke counted.
He growled. “Do not dim your light. It makes you heavier.”
“Sorry.”
His admonishment had the opposite effect of his wish. Her soul light faded even darker.
“Aya. Stop.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You are dim.”
She snorted. A brief flare of her soul light gave him a matching burst of energy. “It’s been a few years since anyone’s accused me of that.”
She ought to be happy that they were finally heading in the direction to get away from him. She did not want him and refused to be his queen. She ought to be happy to go to Atlantis and choose another warrior.
He kicked viciously.
She would, of course, choose a worthy warrior. Such a warrior would always increase her light, never dim it as Soren did. And she would activate her power for that warrior. Not argue and question and try to escape him.
Her light faded again, causing Soren to work extra hard to cover the same distance. Cramps ghosted down his legs. His old injuries from the battle to save Atlantis throbbed with pain.
“Someone accused you of being dim?” he said, just to press her to speak.
She lightened again. It was the correct choice. “My final year at Harvard. I was dim actually. I took a dead language class, completely unnecessary for my major, because I had a crush on the teacher’s assistant. It wrecked my GPA and I lost the chance to be valedictorian.”
“That is an important honor?”
“The most important.”
She traced the scrollwork across his left pectoral. Swirls recognized his performance at the Battle of Swordfish Cliffs, when he had rescued six warriors from cannibalistic raiders.
“The professor hated me. He called me a distraction in the class. There was nothing technically wrong with my translations, but he gave me a B because he said there was no way the heir to a lipstick company would ever do anything important in the field.”
“What field?”
“The field of ancient world languages. Actually, this is small comfort, but he was wrong.” She brightened. “The fragments of the mer language we’ve brought up appear to be based on Phoenician. They have similar enough markings I could follow most of the guest lecture I attended last month. So who knows. This lipstick company executive might yet do something important in the field.”
