by Parker Foye
He did blush, but he also narrowed his gaze and pressed a hand over his heart dramatically. “Not in public, James. Set a good example.” He winked and turned to the coffee.
Jim let out a wistful breath, already looking forward to taking his man home and letting him run the show. Teddy would cope, and if he could be so brave to wade in with the dogs in spite of everything, Jim could sure as hell guide them. He’d claimed his perfect mate, and didn’t want to his pack mates to go without theirs any longer.
“All right,” he said, putting his elbows on the table and looking at each man in turn. “Tell me about your mate prospects. Let’s see what we can do to strengthen our pack.”
* * * * *
Dark Water
By K.L. White
Debut author K.L. White takes readers into the watery depths of the Celtic Otherworld in this male/male paranormal romance
The magnificent Kelpies who haunt the waters, shape-shifting from horse to human, are disappearing into legend. Their numbers are dwindling, and they must take a human sacrifice twice a year to survive. So when Rez, a Kelpie stallion and former navy officer, spots a desperate man about to offer himself to the waves, Rez marks him for sacrifice.
The most talented diver the navy had ever seen, Benjamin D’Arcy has always lived on the edge of death; he’s a crazy kind of brave. But now he’s blind and broken, his last sight that of his best friend, Rez, blown apart by shrapnel. All Benjamin wants is to join him in death.
Too late, Rez discovers that the man he so hastily marked is Benjamin—the man he loves, the man he’s crossed oceans to find. Overwhelming joy is tempered by the knowledge that their reunion must be short—the mark of sacrifice has set Benjamin’s path. Facing a near-impossible obstacle, Rez must find a way to overcome the mark’s power and prove to Benjamin that theirs is a love worth fighting—and living—for.
This book is approximately 28,000 words
One-click with confidence. This title is part of the Carina Press Romance Promise: all the romance you’re looking for with an HEA/HFN. It’s a promise!
Carina Press acknowledges the editorial services of Anne Scott
Dedication
Thank you to the men and women of the US military who give their lives, their hearts, their dreams and nightmares to the preservation of this democracy. Even the ones who survive conflict don’t always come home. It is our duty to help and protect them here.
Acknowledgments
Encouragement, constructive criticism and Dr. Pepper are perhaps the three most valuable things you can give an author. For these things, I thank critique and brainstorming partners Hilary, Sarah, Beckie, Sasha and Jolene. Though I blush at the idea of them reading this, I thank my mom, my brother and my sister for their unwavering support. I wish my dad were still alive to see my authorial debut, but I don’t think I’d let him read this one. Great music fuels dark fiction, so love to those who pour their hearts into their songs. Thanks to my amazing editor, Anne Scott, who has taught me so much.
About the Author
K.L. White writes. If not paranormal stories, then computer code or technical documentation. She studied creative writing, journalism and computer science at five different universities in Texas before taking a job in information technology.
When she’s not writing, she’s reading. Often that’s in the form of audiobooks playing in the cab of her big ol’ pickup truck. She lives on a small ranch in the Texas Hill Country and breeds and raises fine Norwegian Fjord horses, works to improve her riding through dressage, and is part of a local mounted archery group.
K.L. White is a member of RWA, the San Antonio Romance Authors chapter and the San Antonio Writers’ Guild.
[email protected]
klwhite.net
Facebook.com/writer.k.l.white
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter One
Benjamin’s pockets, weighted with the ballast from his hospital room and the nurses’ station, pulled his borrowed scrub pants low on his hips. The pants were too big on his withered frame, and he held them up with one hand while stumbling out of the taxi and onto the Assateague Island beach.
The pants didn’t have to stay on long. Would it be considered stealing when the stapler and the other pilfered items washed up on the shore?
“This the place you wanted?” The taxi driver’s voice, so near, startled him even though her voice was gentle and feminine. “This is the beach access road and the closest I can take you to the water. There’s nobody here. Do you want me to wait with you?” Her voice was beside him, and he hadn’t heard her move. Had she come around to open the car door for him before he’d lurched out? The world was going to be like that for him now. People offering to help him and hold doors for him.
The invalid. A blind man who would forever depend on others. A burden.
The salt tang, chill wind and rolling waves were as good as GPS coordinates, though the world was a wall of blackness. Just like it had been in the hospital room.
“No.” His clumsy hand collided with the driver’s, and Benjamin shoved a couple of crinkled bills at her.
“That’s a lot of money, sweetie. Are you sure you don’t need some help?”
He shook his head but couldn’t speak. He didn’t dare. With the sandblasting cold breeze and brine, the seaweed and odor of fishy decay all around, and the reminders of better times, his emotions were too fierce.
She might have said something else. The wind carried it away.
The car door smacked closed, wheels skittered on stones and found purchase on the road. After the sound of the taxi had grown faint and distant, he turned his attention to the sea.
The violent crash of the waves against the shore sent a shiver down his spine. How many times had he carelessly surfed these waters with Rez? Never again.
It wasn’t a great spot for surfing, compared to some of the sites up and down the coast, but it was close to where they’d been stationed. Rez’s family had a condo down the beach on the Virginia side, and Rez had loved this scrubby little barrier island with the constantly shifting shoreline and the scruffy wild ponies.
First, he had to reach the water. It took some work, moving from the asphalt to an unpaved area, to island grasses, then to the sand. He couldn’t see, and his equilibrium was for shit. Benjamin only had the sound of the ocean to guide him.
Benjamin hadn’t worn any shoes. He wanted the crush of sand between his toes. Job one, remove the hospital socks with their grippy patterns on the bottom. They’d done their duty and kept him from falling on his ass getting out of bed, but he didn’t need them anymore. When he bent to slide the sock off, his balance disappeared. He tottered a step or two to the side, and he hit the beach. Or the beach rushed up and slapped him. Awkward. Like an upside-down sea turtle. Damn, he was so fucking tired of being half, maybe less, of what he once was.
Rolling to a sitting position, he managed to get the goddamn socks off. The chill bit into him through his thin scrubs, and his teeth chattered. The sifting of tiny grains around and over his feet tickled, but the sand was claylike and cold. He scooped up handfuls of the wet sand, with lumps of shells or pebbles breaking up the texture, and shoved them into his pockets.
He left his wallet lying on the sand because he couldn’t tell which card was his driver’s license or military ID. Plus, he didn’t need the money. Or the identity. He’d used it all up.
Benjamin D’Arcy died on a ship in the Persian Gulf. They’d flown his broken, blinded body home, but not the essential part of his soul. Some of his Navy
buddies said he looked just the same. He bore few outward scars and none above his collar. He’d heard his nurses’ laughter about him in the hall. “I wouldn’t mind taking him out, even blind. I’d never have to tell him my eyes were up here.” He imagined the woman gesturing to her breasts, her face. They all laughed.
If his outside was anything like his inside, with his wrecked mind and PTSD, he was a hideous and terrifying monster. He couldn’t tell for sure. This brooding post-traumatic shit was old. This beach, the last connection he had to his best friend, was the best thing he’d experienced in a long time. It dredged up some memories that still resonated, so he sat and let the last of his lingering body heat seep into the sand.
Getting to his feet was going to be awful, awkward, embarrassing, even though he seemed to have this stretch of December beach to himself. Balance depended on vision, which was ridiculous and something taken for granted until he couldn’t see the horizon to steady himself.
Once the world had stretched out before him. Then the Navy took him to dark corners of the globe that wrecked his soul as much as his body, yet he’d loved the military. His purpose, his creed, was wrapped in the American flag and his dangerous job. Saving the world. That’s what it felt like for the first few weeks. It became a slow crawl of months on guard, brief adrenaline rushes, watching friends and foes and civilians die, and sometimes even doing the killing.
His only constant in the Navy had been Rez, his best friend, his commanding officer, the best diver Benjamin had ever met.
Some things you can’t unsee, he’d told Rez. It wasn’t true. Benjamin was beginning to unsee everything. Memories became more visceral, less visual. His brain was going blind in sympathy with his damn useless eyes.
He’d been wrong, and so young, and so stupid. And he couldn’t see the path ahead. So he was going to join, or pay tribute to, Rez, who’d died a long way from home and had slipped into the dark, deep water.
* * *
Rez smelled despair when his hooves touched the sand. Desperation and guilt drew him in a way no other bait could. It smelled of panic sweat, fear, pain, failure. A cautious society, mired in warnings about strangers and unknown animals, ruined much of the ancient ploy of the kelpies, but perhaps this man was ready enough to die that he would come, regardless.
People didn’t try to ride strange horses that appeared out of the water anymore. It made obtaining prey for his small band much harder.
The desperate man would make his trip much more productive; Rez now had a dual purpose for being here. He’d been patrolling these shores for a week, and venturing inland to search for information on his friend. He was in the Bethesda National Navy Hospital. Rez couldn’t go into the hospital, but hoped to find out when Benjamin would be discharged.
However, it was dawn, two days before the solstice and Rez was running out of time to capture prey for his band. Twice a year, according to the pact, the kelpies took a human as a sacrifice. If they failed to snare one, the kelpies would either vanish into legend, as so many other mythical creatures had, or they would be forced to resume their predation on humans year-round. Neither option was acceptable.
All the oceans and lakes of the world belonged to the One Water, so even though his family was in the Caribbean this time of the year, he could deliver a victim to them without much effort.
Rez focused on the suicidal man again. He’d help him end his pain, then he’d find Benjamin D’Arcy.
He galloped out of the waves and along the shore. The figure on the beach was hunched on the ground, hands dug into the sand, and his whole posture showed life had defeated him. The guy didn’t look up, though. This level of preoccupation baffled Rez. No one had ever ignored him before.
He moved in closer, circling his oblivious prey.
What would his victim see? A pearlescent white stallion emerging from the surf, proud-necked and fiery. In his mane and tail, strands of exotic metallic sea grasses glinted like ribbons. Even in a culture unfamiliar with horses or folklore, a kelpie in his physical prime was impossible to ignore.
Though this island hosted herds of feral ponies, there was no comparison between the native equine residents and the magical kelpies. In fact, one of his brethren, Kjell, was down the coastline with some of the Chincoteague ponies and a few miniature horses that he’d rescued. The magic of a second kelpie would be helpful for the binding.
The suicidal man dug his toes into the sand, and his hands clutched the beach. His head was down, and his military hairstyle was longer than regulation. He also had on hospital scrubs and the unwell look of a patient—not a medic.
By this time his prey should’ve looked up. Why wouldn’t he look up? If nothing else, the hoofbeats of horses had been the drums of war for centuries. If he’d been a patient at the naval hospital, he’d be a soldier or sailor, alert to danger, awake to the nuances of intent.
Whoever he was, death had come at his request. The man wouldn’t even have to climb onto Rez’s back. Now that Rez had initiated the spell, he had only to touch the water of his own will.
* * *
Benjamin had thought the beach would be deserted. It was off-season, and too damn cold for tourists or surfers. Apparently, some idiot was riding their horse along the beach. He heard and felt the hoofbeats.
No problem. Benjamin would sit a little longer until he was alone again. No sense in risking some do-gooder trying to save him and instead drowning themselves or getting churned under by hooves.
Benjamin didn’t get along with horses—never had. They were majestic and shit, but he didn’t want to be anywhere around them. After a swift kick when he was a kid, he’d had a horseshoe-shaped bruise on his chest for a month. The horse must’ve been forgiving because that kick could’ve killed Benjamin.
And he’d have missed all the ridiculousness between then and now. Seriously.
Closer. The tattoo upon the sand felt closer as the horse circled him. Benjamin wanted to look up to see what the rider was playing at but had to keep reminding himself he wasn’t closing his eyes on purpose. He couldn’t fucking see, and he couldn’t make the adjustment.
Before the military, Benjamin had apprenticed as a carpenter, learning his father’s trade and turning wood into beautiful furniture, intricately carved decoration and handcrafted boats and surfboards.
Measure twice, cut once meant jack-shit when he couldn’t see. Their talk of retraining him for a new job—outside the military, outside his skill set—made him crazy.
Benjamin refused to sit around and collect money to do nothing, but he couldn’t dive, he couldn’t be a carpenter and he wasn’t good at anything else. Hell, he couldn’t escape into video games or mindless television. What was a guy supposed to do?
He was too broken to reacquaint himself with himself. Even if he’d ever believed he would go blind from jacking off, that threat was null and void. Benjamin didn’t miss having a girlfriend. The idea of sex didn’t appeal. Apparently, sex really was about the visual for men. A lot of the things that used to arouse him had just...disappeared.
Benjamin didn’t want sympathy. He wanted an end.
He could still hear the horse galloping. Would the person riding in a fucking cheap aftershave commercial on the beach go away? Maybe it wasn’t aftershave, perhaps some cheesy romance flick or a “Visit Maryland” tourist promo. Whatever. Time to move on, asshole.
The hoofbeats slowed as the horse moved in, closing the circle. The movement echoed in the ground, the bits of sand thrown, the smell of salt and musky wet animal.
The horse stopped right in front of Benjamin. Puffs of breath warmed his knees. Why was the rider allowing the horse to investigate him? He scuttled backward like an awkward crab. The horse moved forward. Again, there were exploratory breaths and a soft muzzle brushed his exposed forearm.
The horse seemed gentle enough, but then it whiffled at his h
air, his ears, his face hidden beneath his arms.
Benjamin screamed.
* * *
The smell of the man was tantalizing, but not in the way of prey. He was known, though different. Rez wanted to see the man’s face and couldn’t help but investigate.
The prey wouldn’t look up. He was waiting for Rez to leave, but that wasn’t happening. If the man wanted to die, Rez was down with that. He’d help the man. Sacrifice to the kelpies wasn’t a bad way to go. The spell would ensure his last thoughts would be of a glorious adventure and sleep would claim him before he drowned.
If Rez had to choose a way to die, other than in battle—which he’d already tried—sacrificial drowning would work very well. The body gave to the band; the band gave to the body. There was no waste. The sacrifice preserved the lives of other humans and the higher mammals along the shores of the world.
Kelpies were natural predators, but also protectors. After the pact, the band only took what was required twice a year to maintain the magic. The sacrifices were hunted—criminals or the hopeless who walked into the water to die. The rest of the time, the band patrolled the shores and protected humans from rip tides and shark attacks. Several of the mares made saving drowning children their mission.
His smell reminded Rez of someone. Cinnamon, panic sweat and nuanced scents from the sand he sat on, the salt, the winter air. There was something else that was irresistible.
Rez nuzzled around the man’s hair. It was an investigatory gesture, but the man screamed. The hurt and terror in that voice!
Benjamin D’Arcy! Rez knew him well, though he’d never heard that sound in his voice or smelled the desperation all over him.
The moment the man on the beach looked up from his knees, he turned his sea-glass green eyes to Rez but wasn’t seeing anything. Benjamin’s eyes were wide, his dark brows were raised, and his expression was mixed. As if he wasn’t getting the visual input he required to form the correct expression.
