by Hotter Edge
He tightened his arm behind her. “And did I fulfill your fantasies?”
“I did not fantasize about seducing a—”
He notched his grasp tighter yet in warning. “Watch what you say next.”
Her jaw flexed. “A virgin. A young virgin.”
“Ah. Well, we cannot all have your oceans-vast experience. Not at first anyway.”
She scowled. “Not so vast as that.”
He lowered his lashes. “Then we will have to be more adventurous.”
“Icere, I did not intend for this to—”
“Don’t. You may stroke my hair all you like, but if you pat me on the head, I will bite you.”
She tangled her fist in his locks and gave him a fierce look. “Do not interrupt me again.”
“I will interrupt you whenever you need it.”
She tugged his head back. “I do not need—”
He took advantage of her momentum to pull her in for a kiss. She tried to brace herself against his chest, but her palm slid around him instead.
With a groan that he thought was half frustration and three-quarters pleasure, she let him hold her while he kissed her thoroughly.
Finally, he let her slip down his chest. Not too far, though. “You were saying?”
“Never mind.”
He laughed softly, bouncing her in the water.
She laid her head on his shoulder. “We have to get back to the barge.”
Slicking his hand down to the small of her back, he anchored her against him. “But the storm…”
“Passed. The waters are calm.”
He didn’t ask how she knew. Of course she’d know. But he remembered Luac’s jibe about the island with no boat. “How exactly will we be returning?”
“The same way we came.”
“I was unconscious for that part.”
“I’d noticed. But I assume you’ll swim better when you aren’t comatose. It’s not far.”
“Any distance is too far to swim when you have stone laced through your flesh.”
She traced her finger over his chest, following the lines of the qva’avaq that curved into a tight spiral around his nipple. The lines flared where her touch ignited the crystal. He caught his breath and her wandering hand. Too late.
She raised her head to grin up at him. “Parts of you are very stony indeed.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I would gladly sink into you. I am less keen on sinking to the bottom of your ocean.”
Shaking free of his grasp, she reached for a handful of the pebbles that ringed the pool. She flattened her palm, displaying the tiny stones.
He lifted one brow in question.
When she lowered her hand into the water, the stones followed her down.
He grunted. “My point exactly.”
A few of the pebbles floated back to the surface.
She swirled her fingers, drawing the tiny gray stones into a whirlpool but they did not submerge. “Another of my great-grandfather’s favorite symbols. Pumice is the perfect alchemy of stone and fire, air and water. The molten lava captures air bubbles that make the stone buoyant.” When she released the whirlpool, the pebbles bobbled on the waves from the waterfall’s splashing. “Not every rock sinks.”
Icere watched the pebbles drift. The restless water eventually carried them back toward the rim of the pool, where they would await—what?—to be tossed adrift again? Born of all the elements and now forever apart. What a lesson for her despot ancestor to impart to a lonely child, as harsh as the pumice’s abrasive composition.
Abruptly, he rolled, pulling Rynn beneath him. With an easy toss, he beached her on the pool’s pebbled rim and centered himself between her legs. Her pale eyes widened to catch the guttering candlelight in a flash of silver and gold.
“You may teach me to swim,” he said. “But first I will teach you to fly.”
***
Icere was delighted to find that Rynn didn’t expect him to swim all the way back to the barge under his own power. They emerged from the cave to find the night silent except for the dripping aftermath of the storm, though the low clouds still swirled ominously. She led him back to the hut on the beach where she revealed a one-man underwater tow unit. The small, fan blades, encased in a plasteel housing with hand grips, would drag him through the water much faster than he could push himself, she’d explained.
For a moment, jealousy ate at his gut, worse than the bite of the malac liqueur, as they carried the tow down to the shoreline. Who else had she brought to her island retreat?
She stood in the gentle waves, lit only by the violet shimmer of the water and the colder glow of the stars peeking between the shredded clouds. Her shift hung in damp folds around her, emphasizing her curves and shadows. Darker shadows hid her eyes. “I’ve missed this place,” she mused. “Luac and Ky loved it here when they were small. The diver tow was their toy. But we stopped coming after their father was…” She let out a slow breath.
Abashed at his angrily selfish thoughts, Icere plucked at the short tunic she’d found for him in the hut. The aged fabric was almost as filmy as her shift. Had it belonged to her last lover, dead now at her hand? Literally at her blue-ringed hand.
The man had threatened her world, and she had acted. Icere supposed he should be glad to have such a force of nature on his side.
And he was glad. With luck, the raiders had tipped their hand when they sabotaged the malac harvest. Trapped by their need for the aphrodisiac, they could not escape. They would be found and stopped, just as he intended when he arrived on this watery world.
So why, as he and Rynn slipped into the night-dark ocean, did he feel he was leaving something behind?
Chapter Ten
Through the dark water, Rynn homed in on the electrical signal of the distant barge. The artificial ping on her genetically enhanced senses was an annoyance she’d learned to mostly ignore, but she understood better than most how important their low-tech lifestyle was for the rare, valuable creatures of the deeps. Even the small, solar-powered diver tow beside her felt out of place. If the malac had not been somnolent from their first round of mating, the mechanical intrusion would certainly have roused their aggression and brought them charging in.
Not that she saw any reason to tell Icere that. He had troubles enough with her beloved oceans.
She wanted to be amused at his dislike of the water, but instead she found herself wanting him to see the pleasures to be found. In the weak headlight of the tow, she pointed out the school of squid-like ni-malac that flitted by, intent on their own bacchanalia in the lingering aftereffects of their larger cousins’ lust.
The viscous threads of their excrescence congealed in the salt water. Along the ropy threads, jellied eggs were strung like glistening thumb-sized beads. The ni-malac danced gracefully through the dimensional webs. With each undulation of their pale green mantles, they released clouds of sperm in scintillating bursts.
“Unlike the malac, the ni-malac are simultaneously hermaphroditic.” She spoke normally, knowing the comm-links she’d found in the hut for both of them would pick up her words. “They all lay their eggs and then they all fertilize them. As a group, they will defend the nest until the young hatch. Much gentler and more communal than the malac.”
He studied the floating sexual construct. “Shall we swim around it?”
She grinned at him. “I thought you wanted to be more adventurous.”
“It’s too beautiful to break. It looks like suns hanging in a nebula cloud. Also, I’m not sharing you with squid spunk.” Even through the slightly tinny reverberation of the scrubber over his mouth, he sounded appalled.
When she laughed, the flow of water down her throat and over her gills felt like giddiness liquefied. Just the remnants of the malac essence, she told herself, too diluted to be troublesome.
Of course, the night’s romp with a handsome l’auralyo might have something to do with her bliss.
Too bad the night was coming to an end.
The comparison leached away some of her giddy bliss.
Icere, who was ahead of her, twisted in the water, shining the tow headlamp back at her with his hand over the lens to dim the glare. The neutral buoyancy of the tow counteracted his tendency to sink. “What’s wrong?”
She realized she’d stopped, hanging as unmoving in the water as the malac. As if her body had made up its own mind about whether she should return. “What’s wrong? There are invaders on my planet. Who almost killed the heir. While trying to steal my aphrodisiac. To subjugate the sheerways. And I just fucked a boy younger than my son.”
He lifted one brow when she said fuck. “Long night.”
She scowled. “You have no idea.”
“Actually, I do. I was there for the whole thing—or the highlights, anyway. If you’ll recall.”
For a wild moment—as unpredictable and dangerous as wyvern fire—she wanted to grab his hand and race away in the opposite direction from the barge. Back to her atoll. No, farther yet. Someplace completely out of touch. Out of reach of anyone except each other.
But she had executed her last lover for disregarding the inescapable truth that each wave caressing their world’s many shores was connected to the wave ahead and the wave behind. Ahawe-aulu. The wind blows in a circle. As Saya, she could never forget or run away.
So she settled for giving him a reproachful glance. “I recall.”
“I thought you might be trying to dismiss me. And I’m not going away.”
Not yet. But after the raiders were identified and dispatched…
And she would be left, not able to forget or run after him.
He held out his hand. “Let’s go.”
When she reached out to tangle her fingers with his, he hauled her through the water with more power than she would have expected considering he had no leverage beyond his body. She supposed his body was enough.
Together, they slipped through the defensive measures designed to keep marauding malac at bay, and she led the way to the deck outside her quarters. They broke the surface under skies purpling toward dawn.
Icere heaved himself up onto the platform and pulled the scrubber off his face. “I suppose the front door was too obvious.” He reached down to haul her up beside him.
“I’d rather no one know we’re back quite yet.”
He eyed her, clearly contemplating whether to be annoyed.
She waggled her fingers dismissively. “Oh, they’ll all guess what we were doing, but I’d rather at least some of them thought I was still distracted.” She rose and padded into the apartment, pausing only long enough to grab a towel from the cabinet beside the door. She tossed a second towel behind her without looking back.
Her quarters were dark and silent as she led Icere through an interior hall to a second set of rooms. She pushed open the door to reveal a suite larger than the rooms in the guest corridor but seemingly smaller with Kylara’s frantic pacing.
Her daughter spun on her heel. “Maméh! Where have you—?” Her gaze arrowed to Icere entering the room, and her jaw snapped closed. “We have a problem.”
Rynn glanced over her shoulder where Icere took up position near but not too near; he had the instincts of a lover and a warrior. The old tunic she had given him was nearly transparent from wear and water, revealing the broad expanse of his chest, although he’d managed to keep his modesty with the towel slung low around his hips. No problem there.
With a regretful unvoiced sigh, she faced her daughter. “How is Luac?”
“Fine,” Ky snapped. “But we—”
“Tell me about your brother first.”
Ky let out a very loud sigh. “Really, Mother, he is fine. He regained consciousness almost immediately, and his lungs are clear. The dive reflex prevented any hypoxic damage.” She grimaced. “Besides whatever brain damage he comes by naturally.”
Rynn did not scold her. Such a comment might undermine a future leader, but from a worried sister in private, the accusation was fair enough. “He’s sleeping now?”
Ky’s grimace deepened. “Like he hasn’t a care in the world. Which isn’t true for the rest of us.”
Rynn inclined her head. “So what is this problem?”
Ky bit her lip. “The malac sachet was taken.”
“What?” Icere jolted straight. “When? By whom?”
Rynn held up one hand. “You did as I asked after I gave you the sachet, Ky?”
Her daughter nodded, her head ducked miserably between her shoulders. “I’m so sorry, Saya. I knew you were preoccupied with…” Her gaze shuttled to Icere. “I should have followed our established practices and immediately secured the essence in the vault until it could be processed. But everything was in an uproar because of the accident. Luac was with the medics, along with the other divers, and there’s the one in lockdown. And then you disappeared.” She shot another accusing glance toward Icere. “And the sachet disappeared too.”
“Good.” Rynn crossed the room to the tablet that Ky had left.
“Good?” Icere hurried after her, his wet feet squelching on the floor. “This is a disaster.”
“A disaster for the thieves, I hope.” Rynn activated the tablet and linked to the barge’s security systems.
Icere loomed at her shoulder. “What did you do?” His voice rumbled through her with a warning like distant thunder.
“Gave someone the opportunity to steal the liqueur. I thought they might be tempted. Since I was so distracted.” She glanced at her daughter. “The sachet I gave you was a decoy, an empty sachet refilled with a chemical cocktail to hopefully keep the thieves baffled. Unless they’ve tried the Purple Passion Pacifier, in which case they might recognize the flavor.”
Ky sagged. “I didn’t lose the liqueur?”
Rynn kept her expression bland, though her heart pounded painfully. “Did you mean to?”
“No! Of course not. Maméh… Saya, no. I did as you asked.”
As Ky stood straight, unblinking, Rynn held her daughter’s gaze. Surely she had sacrificed enough for her world; she didn’t want to think her children could be working with the raiders. But Luac had been involved in the large shipment of the ni-malac balm, and Kylara had numerous offworld contacts as well as access to all Saya-Terce’s biological secrets. Their father had merely jeopardized the sanctuary of their oceans while the raiders threatened much, much worse.
Icere touched Rynn’s elbow. “She’s telling the truth.”
With her arms wrapped around herself, Ky slumped into the nearest chair. “I am. But why would she believe you?”
Though Rynn didn’t look at him, the warmth of his hand dispelled her chills. A l’auralyo, trained in all the machinations of love and war and endowed with the exquisite sensitivities of the qva’avaq, was convinced of her daughter’s innocence. That was enough for her.
“Ky, I’ll explain what I can, but I need you to wake your brother and bring him here.” She waited until Ky hauled herself to her feet, looking a little wobbly, and left the room. Then she returned her attention to the tablet. “Normally we lock up the sachets as they are harvested. We’ve had attempted thefts before, just rambunctious tourists, but we like to keep the raw essence out of inexperienced hands since the undiluted liqueur can be intense. As you’ve discovered.”
Icere snorted softly. “And what can experienced hands do with it?”
She slanted a glance at him. “Maybe someday I’ll show you.”
He met her gaze with a smoldering intensity that almost steamed the moisture from her skin. If only they had another moment of privacy.
Instead, she angled the screen so he could see. “Meanwhile, her
e is our thief.”
The vid showed a dark-clad figure, far too heavily swathed for a tropical world, standing at an elaborately carved double door.
“That’s the festival museum room.” Rynn accelerated the playback. On the screen, the figure jiggled the door handle then jerked back. “The handle was rigged with a jagged edge. I’m hoping we caught some bio markers.” The door opened and the figure slipped inside. Rynn switched the view to the room interior, where the figure went to a central pedestal, opened the plasteel case, and removed the sachet displayed there.
As the figure tucked away the goods and hurried from the room, Rynn skipped the vid through several angles, tracking a path to one of the barge’s large halls packed with party-goers, dancers and drinkers. In the low lights and shifting bodies, the figure vanished.
Icere let out a low oath. “He—or she—must have lost that dark cloak. Is this the best your security system can do?”
Rynn sighed. “We’re a vacation world. We use the vids to keep an eye on drunkards so we can reunite them with their own beds when they stagger too far off course. We’ve never needed it to hunt intergalactic criminals before.”
Icere paced away from her, muttering. She couldn’t help but notice with the towel wrapped around his waist, the muscles of his chest straining the damp fabric of his tunic, he looked like some ancient island king. And the intense fury on his face would have made her great-grandfather proud.
He swung back to her. “You’ve already had the museum room swept for any additional evidence that could identify the thief.”
It wasn’t a question, but she inclined her head in assent. “While we were on the island. The skin sample from the door handle should be processed in a few hours.” She held up one hand when he took a breath. “Our labs may not be as sophisticated as some, but they’ll find any answers available to find. More importantly, there’s an isotope embedded in the sachet. The raiders won’t be able to detect it until they break into the sachet to collect the liqueur. If they open it anywhere near water vapor—which is inevitable on a water world like this—the isotope will become detectable to our trackers.”
