by S. K. Ryder
His gaze swerved around, seeking the animals who had done this to her. One, the shorter man who had hit her, had freed himself from the cacti and stood hunched in the glow of the Rover’s interior as he picked at the spiny needles protruding from all over his body. Tomás, the brute with the broken nose, now held a rag to his face and leaned against the hood, moaning like a wounded beast with every breath. Neither so much as glanced at Dominic and his sister.
The third man, the one Dominic had pulled off her—he didn’t move at all.
Ana continued to sob. Dominic continued to hold her, to murmur, to remain vigilant for threats. Had these brutes really given up the fight already?
And where was that strange smell coming from? It was the same smoky scent he had caught on the wind earlier, or maybe it had never left. He saw no trace of a fire, but the smoke intensified, overpowering the aromas of sea and desert, blood and fear. Thick and sweetly pungent, it was unlike anything Dominic had ever smelled on this island or, for that matter, anywhere. A heavy, timeless quality clung to it. Something…
Alien.
The hairs all over his body rose in alarm. The night grew dense, weighed on him, pressed into him. For a moment, his vision narrowed as if he were about to pass out. When he could draw a full breath again, the darkness released its hold on him. The smoke dissipated, but the sense of another presence lingered.
His head felt light as air when he craned his neck to peer into the shadows splashed against the night sky.
Only the cacti gazed back.
2
Smoke Whispers
The assault on Anastasie Marchant sent shockwaves through the tight-knit island community. Nothing like it had happened in more years than anyone could remember, and the local police and National Gendarmerie scrambled into action the moment Dominic finally remembered to call for help.
He and Anastasie were barely past their first shock when they gave their statements late the following day at the Gendarmerie Operational Center in Gustavia.
Ana answered questions in monosyllables—yes, she had gotten stranded; no, she didn’t recognize her assailants; no, she couldn’t talk about the details. She sat, hugging herself as she stared into a corner, her beautiful face—so happy and full of life only the evening before—pale, drawn, and marred by a bandage across her cheek. A decorative scarf didn’t quite cover the hand-shaped bruise on her neck.
The inspector—who had arrived from France only an hour before to handle their case—was gentle with Ana. He expected more, however, from her brother. But Dominic found his memories of the incident muddled and disjointed.
There were three of them. They were raping his sister. He reacted.
Did he mean to kill one of them?
He hadn’t even known he had. How would he have done that?
“You have extensive martial arts training, do you not? You are a…” The inspector checked his notes. “…shodan? First-degree black belt?”
Dominic nodded. But had he used that training? He wasn’t sure. It was all a blur. He said as much. He remembered anger. He remembered the darkness.
He remembered the bizarre smell of sweet smoke.
The inspector closed his notebook. Turned off the recording equipment. The long look he gave Dominic was full of compassion. “I have seen many cases like this in Paris. Usually, no one comes to help the girl. In that sense, your sister was incredibly lucky.”
“Lucky?” Dominic said incredulously.
“Yes. She’s still alive.” The inspector paused to let Dominic absorb the words. They didn’t help. “You were the right man at the right time to save her, Monsieur Marchant. A hero.”
“A hero would have plugged in his fucking car,” Dominic snapped under his breath.
The situation only devolved from there. Ana’s attackers had been more than drunken tourists taking advantage of a stranded motorist. They were high-ranking affiliates of a major Colombian drug cartel notorious for making people disappear. There was no doubt both he and Ana would be dead if Dominic hadn’t been able to defend them. Instead, he found himself charged with assault and murder.
One way or another, the men who had attacked Ana were out for blood.
Dominic was dumbstruck, his family appalled. They told Ana none of this. She had become a ghost of her former self, frightened to leave the house, even more terrified to be alone.
The family gathered around her in a tight defensive formation. Their oldest sister Genevie and her husband took over the day-to-day management of Maison, while their parents focused all their energies on their traumatized younger children. Ana left her flat in Gustavia to stay in her old room, which was right next to the room Dominic still occupied while he learned the restaurant business.
He found her sitting on his bed one evening, staring at the daisho set hanging on his wall. The two exquisitely fashioned Samurai swords had been a gift from Jérôme on reaching the rank of shodan only a few months before. They were antiques that had been used in battle centuries ago. Both had likely ended more than a few lives. Though they were purely decorative now, Ana seemed to imagine using them again on two specific individuals.
“I’m glad you killed at least one of them,” she whispered, and Dominic pulled her into his arms.
“Me too,” he said just as softly.
Her arms tightened around him.
Over the days that followed, Ana rarely left his side. By rescuing her from the unimaginable, Dominic had become the safest harbor in her storm-tossed world. Which was ironic considering how unbalanced he felt himself. Day to day, his energy leaked away faster than his car’s battery. Each morning, it was harder to leave his bed. Random dizzy spells dogged him. While he often felt chilled in the mornings, he was always too warm by evening.
He did his best to hide his condition from his family, especially Ana. She needed him to be strong. He couldn’t afford to be laid low by a virus. It would run its course soon enough.
Being unable to sleep didn’t help. He lay awake during most of the interminable nights. When he did slip into unconsciousness, dreams haunted him, murky flashbacks that made his heart race with first rage and then fear. Fear that there was something—someone—he had missed that night. Someone still stalking him. He never saw a face. Only darkness.
Darkness that came for him again and again.
Darkness that was made of sweet smoke.
Often, after waking in a fevered sweat, he thought he could still smell it in the soaked sheets.
After a week of living under this cloud of worry and fear, he’d had enough. He and Ana were turning into potted plants on the living room sofa, staring into a TV and not caring what was on, just so they didn’t have to think. Outside, the sun shone like he had never seen it before. The light was alive with a sparkly brilliance. The shrubby hillside behind the house was lit up neon green with all the fresh growth that had exploded after a morning downpour. And the blue of the sky wasn’t just deep. It was freakishly intense. It glowed. Like something in a dream.
A good dream.
Smiling, he opened the door and stepped onto the back deck. Off to the side, the Caribbean gleamed in the distance, lapping at Lorient Beach’s peaceful shore. The water was bluer as well—downright electric—as though it were alive. Closing his eyes, he inhaled deeply of tangy ocean, dusty desert, and fragrant vegetation.
Somewhere deep in his chest, a knot loosened ever so slightly. How thrilling it was to be alive.
“What are you doing, Nicky?” Ana sounded uncertain as she poked her head out the door.
“It’s a beautiful day, don’t you think?”
She crossed her arms over the baggy T-shirt she wore. “I suppose.”
“It’s a most beautiful day,” their mother agreed as she opened the door wider. Her ruby-red-patterned dress fluttered in the breeze when she carried out a tray laden with plates, glasses, and utensils. The first smile he had seen on her in days curved her mouth. She set her load on the outdoor dinette table. “And we shall ce
lebrate it by enjoying our lunch outside. Dominic, why don’t you set the table? The food is almost ready.”
“Oui, Maman,” he murmured, moving to do as she asked. Francesca was a force of nature. Unlike his father, the kitchen tyrant of Maison who transformed into a teddy bear at home, his mother was never a pushover and rarely brooked argument. She ran the family with a firm hand Dominic hadn’t recognized for the profound love it was until he was well into his twenties.
Ana was less agreeable about being forced outdoors. She acted like a deer at the edge of a forest, eyeing a clearing for danger. She might have bolted into the house’s shaded interior if not for Jean-Paul appearing at her side and placing a tender arm around her shoulders. He spoke to his daughter in tones too low for Dominic to hear, but she soon ventured out to join her brother on the deck, blinking in the brilliant sunlight.
As they ate the meal Jean-Paul had prepared, Francesca did most of the talking, trying to draw out her troubled offspring. Her husband provided support with a good cheer that fell well short of concealing the worry and anger in his eyes. There seemed a tacit agreement between them that, for the moment at least, the events of that night were to be relegated to the basement of their lives. The simple pleasure of a family meal in the warmth of the sun took priority.
Not for the first time, Dominic marveled at how his parents worked together so well. At first glance, they were an odd couple, the tall, elegant French woman from Bordeaux and the portly islander of Spanish descent, but as soon as they met at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, their disparate backgrounds and personalities meshed in all the ways that mattered. They’d fallen in love and hadn’t been separated for more than a day since.
What his parents had was special. A love based entirely on mutual trust, respect, and common goals. It wasn’t what Dominic could ever hope to have with Jeovana Sebastini—not even close—but it was, he realized, what he wanted. What he needed.
“That is your third helping of beef bourguignon. You’ll ruin your girlish figure,” Ana said, pulling him out of his reverie. There was a hint of rueful humor in his sister’s voice that warmed his heart. His long bones and lean muscles were a frequent point of contention with Ana, whose own body favored their father’s more portly physique.
“Let it be ruined,” he declared as he scraped the bottom of the pot. “This has never tasted so good. You have outdone yourself, Papa.” Out of nowhere, his eyes filled and he sat back, stunned.
“What’s wrong, mon gars?” his mother asked, placing a gentle hand on his forearm.
Dominic blinked through the tears and swallowed to clear the sudden constriction in his throat. “It’s so wonderful to be alive. And—” He took in each of them. “I love you.”
A watery smile wobbled on Francesca’s mouth as she squeezed his arm. Jean-Paul swiped at his nose, battling emotion. Ana leaned into Dominic and put her head on his shoulder.
He closed his eyes. Not all that many years ago, he had made a solid attempt to escape this island and the family business he was expected to take up. Sitting here now, surrounded by love and hope amidst tragedy, he knew what a fool he’d been. This was where he belonged. This was home.
“Let’s go sailing,” he said, seized by a fierce need to embrace every last moment of this glorious day. Nowhere did he feel more alive than on the water. “What do you say, Ana?”
Ana would have preferred not to, that much was obvious. The prospect of being separated from him for any amount of time appealed even less, however. After some cajoling, she agreed to go with him.
Dominic took advantage of their brother-in-law’s standing offer to borrow his sailboat any time they wanted. The six-meter boat was large enough to be comfortable, but still easy for him to handle on his own while his sister acted as a lookout.
As they navigated on engine power through the vessels anchored outside Gustavia harbor, he noticed the black mystery he had last spotted the night he rescued Ana. The night he had killed a man. Her name and registry glinted in ornate gold script on her stern—Apokryphos, Greece. The yacht, all fifty or sixty-odd massive meters of her, hung suspended in the gin-clear depths like a black missile in flight.
An inexplicable chill threatened to cloud his mood when he spotted a solitary crewman—also dressed in black—on deck, washing deposits off acres of black-tinted windows.
“Ahoy, friend,” Dominic called.
The crewman glanced at them briefly before returning to his task. Not a hint of reaction showed on his face.
“It must suck having to work on a day like this,” Ana said, rubbing her arms as though she, too, felt the unease.
“It must,” Dominic agreed, deciding to put the yacht out of his thoughts. Whatever her business with St. Barth, he hoped it would be concluded soon.
Once outside the harbor and under sail, Dominic pulled off his shirt and tied back his hair. He relished the bite of the sun against his already nut-brown shoulders and arms, and he felt light enough to blow away in the blasting wind. The open ocean swells triggered a moment of vertigo. Or maybe he was just hypnotized by the glow of their blue-green fire and the sunlight that rippled across their flanks like cascading avalanches of diamond dust. Setting the sails, he let them bulge and push them across the aquamarine shadows of reefs and shallows around the emerald hills of his island home.
When a pair of playful dolphins surfaced nearby, Ana pointed and ventured a smile. Dominic grinned from ear to ear, his heart filled with raw joy. Was it because of the darkness encroaching on his life that the colors of this day threatened to burn his eyes while the salt in the air stung his tongue? Was it the darkness that caused him to hear the sun hiss on the water and the wind sing in the sky?
Well, if so, he’d take it. The darkness could go fuck itself.
A push of the tiller and a pull on the main sheet, and a powerful gust hit the sails like a freight train. The boat heeled hard to port. Squealing, Ana wrapped her fingers into the handholds. Her cry was a sound of surprised delight, though, not fear. Her ebony ponytail whipped around her head, and her face flushed with excitement. She might have been her old self again if not for the bandage on her cheek—or the haunted expression he knew still dwelled in her eyes beneath those oversized sunglasses.
“I think I want to go to work tonight,” he told her after he had secured the boat into its berth two hours later. “After a day like this, I don’t think I can sit at home and watch Maman hover. Do you think you’re up to it?”
Ana seemed unsure about resuming her hostessing duties, but she gave him a resigned smile. “Well, if you put it that way, how can I say no?”
Dominic kissed her forehead. “We need to fight, ma petite. Otherwise, those bastards will destroy the rest of our lives, too.”
Flattening her mouth against a surge of emotion he watched wash over her face, she nodded. “I know.”
Along with their mother, the establishment’s office manager, they appeared at Maison de la Mer half an hour before opening. The staff of fifteen expressed their delight at seeing them again. Everyone was polite enough not to make direct mention of Ana’s attack and Dominic’s deadly defense of her even though Ana’s makeup job could not hide all the damage to her face.
Only Jérôme was brutally honest with Dominic once they settled to their work in the kitchen. “You look worse than your sister.”
“It’s been hectic,” Dominic allowed, unable to put up an honest argument. His energy had evaporated along with the afternoon’s adrenaline rush. But his determination to carry on remained.
“I’m serious. You shouldn’t be here. You look…like shit.”
“Spoken with all due love and affection, I’m sure,” Dominic countered, laying into the vegetables he was chopping with more vigor. He was fine. This bug would not bring him down. He wouldn’t let it.
“Of course,” Jérôme muttered. “And watch what you’re doing. Fingers are not on the menu tonight.”
Two hours later, the kitchen ran at full tilt. Dominic was glad to be
done wielding knives for the evening. The way he felt, fingers could well have become part of the menu. His head, already aching with the intense aromas of cooking food, was increasingly light on his shoulders, and then, suddenly, it wasn’t there at all. His vision narrowed, his stomach lurching. An engine started whining in his ears. The floor rushed up to meet him. Next thing he knew, he lay sprawled on the rubber mat and stared up at a cluster of worried faces, including his parents and sisters.
“Mon Dieu, is he ill? Why is he so pale?” Genevie asked.
Dominic wondered who she was talking about. He hadn’t been ‘pale’ in years, especially not after four hours on a boat with the sun beating on him. But he did feel ill. That was true. No point denying it any longer. The moment he tried to sit up, his head lulled on his shoulders again. Jérôme and Jean-Paul caught him in their arms.
Medics were summoned, and they decided he should be seen to in hospital. Genevie, Ana, and their mother followed, hovering over him as the emergency room staff plugged a bag of saline solution into one arm and took blood samples from the other. The verdict arrived within the hour.
“You’re severely dehydrated, Monsieur Marchant,” the doctor told him. “And you’re anemic.”
Uncomprehending, Dominic blinked and opened his mouth, but his mother spoke first. “How can my son be anemic?” she snapped. “He has always been in excellent health.”
The doctor glanced between Francesca and Dominic. “Well, not at this moment, he isn’t. We will need to run some tests.”
They waited. For hours. Ana refused to leave his side, as did Genevie, who kept him supplied with apple juice.
“I’ll be fine,” he promised her. “You really don’t need to stay. Papa needs you at Maison…”
“Of course I do,” his regal older sister said without missing a beat. “How many migraines have you nursed me through? You never deserted me, favorite brother. I won’t desert you.”
Dominic relented. “You know you only have one brother, right?”
“Right,” she said straight-faced. “And he’s my favorite.”
