by Joss Ware
Ana drew a deep breath and felt the rush of cool water flooding her crystalled lung. Her palms would have been damp if she were on land.
She was about to approach the mailbox when something moved in her periphery. She spun, sending tiny bubbles into a twist, and came face-to-face with Darian.
His expression nearly disarmed her: it was a combination of his familiar chiseled features and a look of shock and delight.
Ana! he mouthed, and reached for her.
She surged backward, holding her hand up to keep him at a distance.
He stopped in confusion, the pleasure fading from his handsome face. What’s wrong?
He used his hands to speak, for of course sound was lost in the water. Atlanteans relied on a complicated if stilted sign language, often punctuated by dolphinlike whistles and clicks.
I responded to your message but that does not mean I want to see you, she told him.
His dark hair floated around him in the water, and she could see the brilliance of his blue eyes. They were still as intense and bright as they’d been five years ago, and they matched his crystals perfectly in color. Darian’s crystal pattern was also one of the most attractive ones she’d seen: they formed several small triangles around his muscular torso . . . which, of course, was bare above a pair of close-fitting trousers.
I have been looking for you for years, Ana, he said.
Why? I told you I wanted never to see you again.
If you never wanted to see me again, why did you respond to my message?
Good question. How exactly did she answer that? Kaddick is dead.
His eyes widened. Dead? How do you know that?
Did you kill him?
Darian shook his head emphatically. No. What happened to him?
She allowed the skepticism to show in her face. I saw you yesterday. He was following you. And then he turns up dead on the beach. Looked like he was cut to ribbons.
He was following me?
Even in the wavering light, Ana could see the cold shock on his face. Either he didn’t know, or she was wrong. She knew Darian was the first Atlantean she’d seen yesterday . . . but she hadn’t gotten as good a look at the second one. Maybe she was wrong.
Maybe there had been three Atlanteans swimming around near Envy. I am not certain it was him. But I saw you. And someone was following you.
His head whipped around as if to spy someone lurking behind him. Someone was following me? When? Where?
She explained where they’d been when she saw them. Are you telling me you knew not it was Kaddick?
Once again he shook his head with vehemence. No. And now he is dead? I am a dead fish myself then.
Why would someone kill him?
Darian shrugged, his hands remaining still this time. But the uneasiness still lurked in his expression, and she could have sworn he was watching behind her in case someone or something burst onto the scene.
The thing about being in the water, though, was that everything that moved made some sort of ripple. The sea was never still, but one could sense a difference in its pattern when a creature was swimming or walking. It was very difficult to sneak up on someone in the water.
Therefore, as long as she paid attention to the current, waiting and watching, she would hardly be taken by surprise.
You are doing what around here? You left a message for me? Ana asked.
I told you: I have been looking for you for years.
She allowed the skepticism to show not only in her face, but in her hand gestures that followed. I don’t believe you. That’s drag. There is no reason for you to be looking for me at all, let alone for years.
Despite what you think, I loved you, Ana. When you refused to come back to Atlantis with me, I was hurt and devastated.
Her hands slapped her signed response so violently that the sounds rippled through the water. You mean when I refused to let you collect the reward for returning me to the Guild.
If I had only wanted you for the reward, why spend a year loving you? he asked, reaching for her again. I could have just taken you back at any time once we got together.
Ana had dodged him, and slipped the knife from its sheath. She wasn’t taking any chances again. Not going back there. Ever. I will cut my crystals out first.
Again he held up his hands to fend her off. All right, Ana. All right. I was not completely honest with you.
You? Not completely honest? How about not honest at all?
He grinned in chagrin, and for a moment he reminded her of Fence after he made a bad joke. Ana shoved away the resulting twinge of remorse and brandished her knife.
The truth is I really did love you. Yes, I was going to collect the reward—but that was only if you came back with me. If you did, I might take the money so I could build us a nice and private place to live. I was not trying to trick you.
Ana rolled her eyes. More drag. I know you have not been looking for me for years, but you were obviously looking for me now. Why?
I was looking for you . . . off and on, he confessed with a sharp click for emphasis. Where have you been?
She smiled, and the water seeped coolly into the inside of her mouth. Do you really think I am going to tell you?
Obviously near Envy.
I am just visiting. Sorry. I live far from here. You found me here anyway?
He twitched an arm lazily to keep himself from drifting away. I recognized Jag swimming outsea from Envy a few months back and knew you must not be too far away. Thinking you would actually see my message was like believing you would find a fish egg in the coral.
Ana was trying very hard to pull the truths from his stories and half-truths. And it was a challenge. So she figured she’d chased him around the coral long enough and went for what she needed to know. Something is happening. What is going on? What was Kaddick planning?
Darian’s eyes bugged out almost comically. You know this how? Yet there was no humor in his face. It held serious concern.
I know the sea just as well as you do. I can probably sense change better because I’m not in it all the time. I know something is happening.
The Guild is going to wash out Envy. They’re just waiting for the moon phase.
She had suspected as much, but hearing—or rather, seeing it—and recognizing that, for once, the compulsive liar in front of her was actually being forthcoming, turned her cold. Which phase? What are they doing?
They are using the Goleths. Lining them up on a flash-row to make a surge-wave.
So it had to be a full moon—when that celestial body was at her full strength, pulling and tugging at everything watery on the earth.
You must come back to Atlantis with me, Ana.
She noticed he’d eased closer to her again, and she swiped down with her knife. It cut through the water, causing swarms of bubbles and a surge of current between them. Not going back there.
But you could talk them out of it. You could save the city. If you came back, they would listen to you.
No, they would just be glad to have me back under their control so they can study me. And get me to breed. She looked at him sharply. That is why you are here? To try and seduce me again?
No, Ana. Really. I came to try and find you because I think you’re the only one who could get them to stop.
You care about what happens to Envy?
He recoiled in surprise. Are you serious? You think I’d want to see a city of hundreds washed away? Especially after what they did before?
She nodded. All right, she did believe that. Darian might not be the most trustworthy man, but he did have a heart. Why are they going to do it anyway?
One of the Jarrid stones is missing, and they think a mortal has it in Envy. Aside from that, those sludges that call themselves Elites have lain the egg that Envy is getting too big, and too powerful. They think the land-livers will have ships and cars again soon, and that the people might find out about us. There was no hand or body sign for car in Atlantean, so Darian spelled it out wit
h letters. They are afraid the land-livers will begin to gather together and rise up.
So they are just going to destroy a whole city.
He nodded, sober now. Ana, please come back with me. You could talk to them.
They would listen to me? I’m just a demiblood.
But you’re the only demiblood. When she frowned and shook her head, Darian added, Frithia’s baby died a year after his crystals were implanted. And Swyllin hasn’t been able to conceive. They need you.
She shook her head and her hair followed, rippling outward in slow motion. I’m not going to go back and subject myself to their tests and studies and control.
If they don’t find the Mother crystal in the next year or so, we’re going to die out, Ana. It’s been fifty years, and its residual reserve is nearly gone. If they can’t find it, they need you to figure out how to stay alive.
Now she was frightened. And now she understood his motivations. She’d been right. It was all about him. You think if I came back I—we—could stop the surge-wave on Envy?
A light came into his eyes. I am almost certain of it.
They promised you what if you got me to come back?
He blanched slightly, but enough so she knew she’d hit the target. His shoulders moved as if he were taking a deep breath, and his crystals burned brighter. Truth . . . Ana, I am a member of the Guild now. I have enough votes to get them to stop the surge if you come back with me and let them study you.
Ana still held her knife and still watched Darian closely, but she’d also allowed herself to be carried a bit away by the current. The greater the distance between them, the safer she was. I cannot leave without talking to Dad. He has been sick. I have to say goodbye.
The naked hunger in his eyes flared then faded almost instantly—but it confirmed her suspicions. You will go?
Ana found it much easier to lie with her hands than her voice. Yes. I will meet you later tonight, or tomorrow. Watch for my sign. I will do anything to save Envy.
But only part of it was a lie.
And Darian had unwittingly told her exactly how to make it truth.
Chapter 15
“For sure, sugar, I’d be more than happy to take that off your hands,” Fence drawled.
The hot piece of tail across from him giggled and pouted. Too bad he couldn’t remember her name. “I think it might be too hard,” she replied provocatively. “Even for a guy like you.”
Not only did she possess a fine ass, she also had long blond hair that had been tucked up in a loose knot, with sexy little strands randomly falling down like she’d just been laid.
“Too hard? That phrase isn’t even in my vocabulary,” he said with a wink and his slide-into-a-hot-tub grin. “Neither is soft and floppy.” His mama always claimed that smile could charm a rosary from the hands of a nun—and she’d know, because she had two sisters who were nuns.
Anyway, he could always find out the blonde’s name later. He glanced over and cocked a hand at the waitress, signaling for another beer.
When Zoë made a disgusted sound next to him, Fence turned to her. “What? At least I’m not hiding a bun in my oven from the man I love to fight with so I can fuck him like a bunny afterward,” he said in an undertone. “Who happens to be the bun’s father.”
He managed to resist the compulsive urge to turn the statement into a long spiel about hot dogs and buns and how the latter got into female ovens via wieners and franks, only because he knew Zoë wouldn’t get the joke. They didn’t really have hot dogs since the Apocalypse. Although, they did have sausages . . .
Zoë rolled her eyes. “What you just said is so full of ass-crap bullshit that I’m not even going waste my damn time responding.” She glared at his beer as if daring it to jump into her hands and pour itself down her throat, then lifted her own glass of iced tea. “These are gonna be some long-ass nine months,” she muttered.
“What did you say about nine months, luv?” Quent asked, suddenly appearing behind them.
Fence felt Zoë jolt in her seat next to him, and he hid a grin behind his beer mug. Some big shit’s gonna come down pretty damn soon.
“I said I’ve had a great piece of ass in my hands for the last nine months,” Zoë replied.
Fence cast her a sidewise look that said Nice save, but she didn’t notice. He was pretty sure she was too busy swallowing her heart back into place.
“Has it been that long?” Quent said, pulling up a chair behind them. “I hadn’t realized. I thought it was only six months. Hell, we could have had a baby by now.”
Since Quent was right—it had been only six months since they’d arrived in Envy—Fence buried his face in his beer glass again, this time to hide an expression of “Fuckin’-a, Zoë’s sunk,” and realized he’d forgotten all about the hot piece of ass across from him. Now what were we saying?
It was a sad state when a guy like him got distracted by a foul-mouthed prego instead of a bed-headed blonde.
He never heard Zoë’s response to Quent’s possibly innocent comment, nor did he remember what he was trying to say to the bed-headed blonde, because the doorway he’d been watching obsessively was suddenly filled by a sun goddess.
She was scanning the room, and even from where he sat he could see that her hair was still wet from her hours-long swim.
Yeah, he knew exactly how long she’d been gone, because, damn him to a blazing hell, even though he knew better, even though he’d talked himself out of the hassle of this shit, he’d gone back to the beach after he got his pussy-assed self under control and waited until Ana strode back out of the water.
Three hours later.
Good God. He’d sat on a beach and waited for her for three hours . . . and then made sure she didn’t even know it.
She hadn’t seen him, for he’d been situated behind a ragged pile of grassed-over concrete. He was relieved to notice that she retrieved at least her tank top while he was off puking his guts, before she’d gone for her swim. But those three hours were much too long. More than once he’d walked down to the edge of the water and thought about going in.
“Thought” being the operative word.
He got as far as his ankles at one point, then gave it up when he broke out in a cold sweat and his sore stomach started churning again.
Good God. If anyone ever found out about this, he’d be done. Stick a fork in him. Cooked.
He then proceeded to talk himself out of the need to worry about Ana anyway, because she was half Atlantean. She was a fish. She was as comfortable and safe in the ocean as he was in the wilderness.
It was too fucking bad they couldn’t be comfortable in the same damn place.
And aside from all that, for God’s sake, what had possessed her to try and force him to go into the water? He’d told her he didn’t want to swim. And then she pulled a stunt like that, trying to trick him into the ocean. Not cool.
But now as he looked across the room, even though he was still pissed his insides gave a long, slow shift—as if making a decision and then settling into it. He felt an unusual, uncomfortable hollowness in his middle and wasn’t quite sure why it left him warm and jittery. Shame, perhaps. Guilt. Even annoyance.
No, definitely annoyance. She was out of line, trying to lure him.
But he did know that he’d rather be looking at—and consequently thinking about—Ana than the blond bed-head across from him. His sun goddess lived up to her name, with her golden-brown skin beneath a loose white tunic that bared her sleek, toned arms and showed a deep vee of cleavage. Her hair flowed in light and dark ripples over her shoulders.
Jesus. His pounding heart was pretty much out of control.
Ana had been looking around the room and when her attention came to the table where he sat with Zoë and Quent, she started to make her way toward them.
Fence was aware of a tightening in his chest as she approached, looking not at him but at Quent. He watched how she moved with that little hitch, realizing that her gait was closer to a crab-
walk than he’d realized. How easily he’d forgotten her imperfections, and how fixated she seemed to be on them.
No wonder she wanted to spend as much time in the ocean as she could.
But she needed to leave him the fuck out of it.
At the reminder of their confrontation, he felt even more miserable. Kind of empty. His hands were goddamn shaking.
I’m such a fool.
“Could I talk to you? Privately?”
Fence’s heart skittered. Or leapt. Or did something acrobatic, and he turned to face Ana, suddenly ready to move in. Maybe even take a big bite of humble—
But she was leaning toward Quent, speaking to him . . . not to Fence. True, her hand was on the back of Fence’s chair—awfully close—but her body was angled away from him. Pointedly angled away from him.
Great.
Not that it would stop him from following them. Since it was Quent she wanted to speak with, it had to do with the crystal. Maybe she’d found something in the water when she was on her three-fucking-hour swim.
Quent had already risen and was pulling Zoë’s chair out so she could slip free, so Fence scraped his seat away from the table as well.
“Gotta run,” he said briefly to the bed-headed blonde, who was looking at the four of them in mild confusion. He didn’t even try to make a promise that he’d return. He wasn’t thinking about that right now.
He wasn’t thinking about anyone but Ana, damn it.
If Ana noticed or had a problem with him following them out of the pub uninvited, she didn’t show it. However, other than a brief, impersonal glance, she didn’t acknowledge him before leaving with Quent. That left Zoë and him to follow.
“So how the hell did you fuck that up so quickly?” Zoë asked, making no effort to keep her voice down.
“Did you say something about opportunity knocking you up?” he asked, just loud enough for her to get the message—but not enough for Quent to hear.
“Shut your trap,” she hissed.
“Talk about fucking things up . . . what do you think is going to happen when he finds out you’ve been keeping that from him? Or does he know?”
