by Jade Kerrion
“Perhaps a walk would do you good.” Varun’s voice intruded on her thoughts. Ashe glanced over her shoulder to see Varun standing close to Ondine, his arm wrapped around her back. “You’ve been cooped up for too long. You need fresh air.” He escorted her onto a path that led toward the beach. Ondine leaned against him, her head nestled against his chest, as they walked.
Ashe gritted her teeth and tried not to glower at Varun’s back.
Jackson leaned over the rail of the Veritas and offered a straight-faced suggestion. “Maybe we can maroon them both?”
She chuckled. Jinn squawked, “Technically, this isn’t a deserted island.”
“There are lots of deserted islands out here in the Aegean,” Jackson said. “If you really wanted to maroon them, we wouldn’t have to look too hard for an island.” He winked at Ashe, then his tone sobered. “I spoke to Varun when he came back on board the ship. He said his investigation was done. He did not need to do any more diving, and that he had all the information he needed.”
Ashe suppressed a snarl. She slid her hand into her pocket to grip Varun’s notebook. I just bet he does.
“Should I prep the ship and the crew for a run back to Bar Harbor?” Jackson asked. “Shouldn’t take more than a week if the weather holds.”
She mulled over Jackson’s question. If Varun’s investigation was done, then technically, the Veritas had accomplished the assignment for which it had set out—to uncover the reason behind the burgeoning dead spots in the ocean. The charter, requested by Ondine Laurent’s father, was officially complete and her only remaining task was to return the Veritas to Bar Harbor, its home port in the northern seaboard of the United States.
Ashe had a great deal more to do, but none of it required a ship. Daughters of Air were not so limited as to require human transportation.
On the other hand, Varun had proved himself useful. She could not have won her titanic battle against Zamir and his elite warriors if not for Varun. But if Varun were to come along, she could not simply carry him on a breath of wind. It would trigger all kinds of publicity she was not prepared to deal with.
It made human transportation necessary, and where she was going, a ship could get around far more easily than could a plane. Did she want Varun coming along?
Did she need him?
Ashe scowled. She was tired of questions without answers. What could Varun do that she—an air sylph who also commanded the waves—couldn’t do?
Nothing, right?
Varun’s voice rang suddenly, like a sharp bell through her mind. Ashe! The Beltiamatu!
Chapter 5
The walk and fresh air was just what Ondine needed, Varun reflected. Her hand felt small, but warm and familiar in his, and in that moment, despite the fact that they had been growing apart for months, he found himself remembering when he and Ondine had been close, when they hadn’t been at odds over the captain of the Veritas, among other things.
When Varun glanced down at Ondine, she managed a wan smile. “I’m sorry I was such a wimp.” She sighed. “I didn’t think water would panic me as badly as it still does.”
“Hey, hey.” Varun’s voice was gentle. “You don’t have to apologize. Anyone who almost drowned has a right to be worried around water.”
“I was only a child. I don’t even really remember it.”
“Sometimes, those are the memories that reach deepest—the ones we pretend to forget in order to function.”
Ondine paused and stared out at the tossing sea. “The sea has always felt like a lie. You never know how deep it goes or what hides beneath the surface.”
Varun loved the sea; even so, he agreed with Ondine’s fear-driven assessment. He never knew how deep the water went or what lay beneath the surface. He knew only that it was a world whose wonder exceeded his imagination. And that was before he discovered the existence of the Beltiamatu—the merfolk of legend.
Waves crashed on the beach, white-capped minnows compared to the monsters that had wracked the shoreline forty-eight hours earlier. Hard to imagine that two days ago, he had almost died fighting alongside a Daughter of Air.
His mind still reeled with shock over the loss of Shulim, the Beltiamatu capital city. It flaunted none of the pastel-colored coral and sea shell towers that graced Disney movies. Instead, the underwater city possessed a dark, sleek alien grace straight out of a science fiction epic.
How much had been lost in that explosion?
He would never know.
Varun wondered if Ashe thought of Shulim with the same sense of loss he did. She was once a mermaid, but that was three hundred years in the past.
Had time lessened her sense of loss?
He did not think so. Not after seeing the devastation in her eyes when she wrenched the trident from her son.
Ashe loved Zamir.
Despite everything Zamir had done to destroy the oceans in search of his soul, she loved him with all the love mothers bore for their children.
Which made it a greater wonder why Ashe had not struck with the dagger and stolen Varun’s soul for Zamir.
Reality, however, burst his inflated bubble of self-perception.
Probably because she didn’t think you were good enough. Just as your great-whatever-grandfather wasn’t good enough. She said so herself.
White sea foam bubbled between his toes and Ondine’s as they walked along the beach. The storm had hurled up all sorts of things from the bottom of the ocean, but the waves during the intervening hours had also cleared the beach of the flotsam and jetsam. Varun personally suspected Ashe had a hand in it. Left to its own devices, nature usually took a little longer to clean up after itself.
The beach was almost perfectly restored to its most beautiful state.
It was as if the storm and the resulting destruction had never happened.
Until, of course, he looked up and saw the steam still rising over where Shulim had once been.
“Varun!” Ondine’s alarm yanked his attention back to the beach. His eyes narrowed as he studied the incoming waves. Were there faces in the water?
He grabbed Ondine’s wrist and pulled her away from the shore. “Get back.”
Sunlight glinted off something in the waves. Varun was almost certain they were the platinum spears wielded by the Beltiamatu. The merfolk who hurled their spears in water would find their trajectories vastly different in air, but Varun was not willing to bet on them having bad aim or being slow learners.
“What is that?” Ondine’s voice warbled on the edge of hysteria. She yanked her hand from his and ran inland. The path however curved and swung back out to another stretch of the beach. Ondine stumbled to a stop and pressed her hands over her mouth. Her eyes widened with speechless terror as a large wave crashed on the beach in front of Varun and Ondine. The water rolled back into the sea, leaving behind five fish-tailed Beltiamatu warriors sprawled on the sand. Their skin was gray instead of bluish-green, and the talons wrapped around their platinum spears were black.
Diseased.
Panic knotted in Varun’s chest. He flung his thoughts out. Ashe! The Beltiamatu!
Ondine’s breath was scarcely a wheeze. “What are those things? Varun—” She clutched at his arm. “What are they?”
He shoved her behind him. “Just get up the hill. They can’t follow us.”
The sun shimmered upon the mermen’s scale-covered tails, and for several moments, they blurred. Varun’s jaw dropped as the haze scattered to reveal well-formed legs.
The merman staggered upright. A second wave surged toward the shore—and there were more faces in the water.
“Varun! Look! Behind us!” Ondine shrieked.
Varun glanced over his shoulder. The Beltiamatu from the first beach landing strode toward Ondine and Varun, their gait steadier and stronger with every step. The black-tipped spears glinted in the sun.
Air whooshed overhead.
Varun ducked instinctively as gray wings swooped past him. Jinn launched himself at one of the
Beltiamatu; the parrot’s claws tore at the warrior’s eyes.
Without warning, the light sea breeze punched up into a howling wind. Varun recognized Ashe’s power and presence before she leaped off the cliff to land on the beach. She rolled forward into a battle crouch. A spear-wielding Beltiamatu lunged at her, but she grabbed the spear shaft and twisted sharply.
The merman went flying even though he was taller and stronger than she. The helpful wind swirling around Ashe probably had a great deal to do with it.
Ashe flung Varun her spear. He snatched it out of the air.
Go for their ankles. Her voice rang through his mind. And don’t spill their blood. They’re infected.
Varun grimaced. Easier said than done.
He used his spear to parry a Beltiamatu’s attack, then slammed the shaft against the warrior’s ankles.
The merman’s face contorted with pain, and he went down instantly.
Ashe was right. They had weak ankles.
She probably knew from personal experience.
Wielding the spear like a pole, he brought the shaft down on the side of the merman’s head. His eyes glazed and he crumpled, unconscious, on the sand.
Varun’s heart thudded; the roar of panic in his mind was a babble of white noise. As long as he avoided their spears, he could probably topple them without too much trouble. He dodged to evade another merman’s clumsy attack—fighting on land instead of water was probably throwing off their usually graceful moves—then tackled it.
The Beltiamatu looked shocked, his fear exceeding his fury.
Up-close-and-personal street brawling did not work well underwater, but on land, it was hugely satisfying. Varun slammed his fist into the merman’s jaw. The crunching sound of bone resonated through him, adding fuel to his anger. “You polluted the sea and now you want to come up on land?” He hurled his fist into the other side of the merman’s face. “You stay the hell away. You hear me?”
“Varun!” Ondine screamed. “Watch out!”
Varun twisted around as Ondine lunged at a Beltiamatu lumbering up behind Varun. Ondine and the merman tumbled down in a tangle of limbs. She screamed, curling up in pain against the spear that had pierced her thigh.
“No!” Varun yanked the Beltiamatu off Ondine and pummeled him unconscious. Blood leaked out of the merman’s mouth. Black and viscous, it sizzled against the sand, then inched across the beach toward the natural boundary between sand and soil, toward grasses and trees. “Damn it!” Varun glanced up. Ashe was fighting off four Beltiamatu at once, and she was cheating, the wind darting around her lending strength to her attack. Unlike the merfolk, she was as graceful on land as she was in water—experience, perhaps, or simply because she was a Daughter of Air.
Ondine’s low moans yanked him back to the crisis at hand. Varun scrambled to her side. Sweat beaded on Ondine’s forehead, and her hands were cold. “It hurts…so bad,” she whimpered.
“It’s all right,” he murmured, although panic raged within him, clawing to escape. The head of the spear was embedded in Ondine’s thigh. “I’ve got you. Just hold on.” He gripped the spear by its shaft, and yanked it out.
Ondine screamed and wilted into a faint.
Varun’s heart clenched. The tip of the spear was stained with a black, viscous liquid, and Ondine’s wound was not the healthy red of exposed flesh. Color had leeched out of it, as if life were draining out of her. Varun’s thoughts raced back to the mermaid he and Ashe had captured and eventually killed in the marine holding tanks. Her tainted blood had killed the fish in the tank, turning their gills and flesh black.
Now Ondine was poisoned too.
He ripped his shirt and used it to tie two tourniquets, one above and the other below the wound. His priority was to contain the damage. Then, he would have to extract the poison.
Out of the corner of his eye, the black spill of blood spread, like an inky octopus, closer to the tree line.
Ashe snarled a word into his mind—nothing he recognized—but her tone pegged it for a curse word. Probably the Beltiamatu equivalent of “go back to hell.” The wind swirling around him kicked up so much sand that he had to shield his eyes. He squinted through the sandstorm as the wind picked up the four mermen Ashe had been fighting and hurled them toward the ocean.
The wind did not deposit them gently. Neither did it deposit them just above the water. The wind carried them to great heights, then vanished into dead calm. The Beltiamatu warriors flailed, falling. Varun did not hear their screams, but the splashes guaranteed broken bones.
Then Ashe was beside him. Her blue-green eyes that changed with the ocean’s moods took in everything at a glance. She waved her hand, and the helpful breeze stiffened into a wall of air to corral the spread of polluted sand.
Ashe then turned her attention back to Ondine. Uncertainty flickered across her face.
“Can you help her?” Varun asked.
Jinn fluttered overhead, but the parrot did not speak. Instead, Ashe’s voice sounded in Varun’s mind. I can try.
Ashe touched two spots on Ondine’s leg, both above and below the wound. Her brow furrowed with concentration.
Ondine flinched, as if pricked.
Ashe stared at Ondine’s leg, a fierce scowl on her face. Use a cloth. Even her mental voice sounded tight. Absorb the blood as it comes up. Don’t let it touch you.
“What do you mean ‘as it comes up’?” Varun stared as black blood bubbled up from Ondine’s wound. Hastily, he shrugged off his shirt and used it to absorb the blood, wiping it away until it finally came up crimson. He stared at the wound as the pale, black-veined flesh slowly regained its healthy, red hue, then raised his gaze to meet Ashe’s eyes. “You healed her.”
She grimaced. We have to keep a close eye on her.
“What do you mean?”
I pushed air through her blood vessels to force the infected blood out. I think I got all the air bubbles out, but I couldn’t say for certain.
“You mean there could still be air bubbles in her arteries and veins…that could block the vessels and give her a heart attack?”
Apology was apparently not Ashe’s style. Flat statements were. Like I said, we have to keep a close eye on her.
Varun closed his eyes briefly and held back the curse on the tip of his tongue. Whatever Ashe’s techniques, she had saved Ondine’s life—for now. “We need to take her to a doctor. Someone’s got to clean that wound. How long before we know she’s in the clear?”
Do I look like I know anything about human anatomy?
Varun choked back his snide retort. Ashe was lots of things—mostly amazing things—but “human” was not on that shortlist. He held his bloodstained shirt carefully between two fingers. “What should we do with this?”
Don’t you have those little bags you’re always carrying around?
“Specimen bags? They’re in my back pocket.”
Her fingers brushed against his lower hip, just above the pocket of his jeans. Varun found himself stifling a groan and stiffening against the unexpected swirl of lust in the pit of his stomach. There was nothing sexual about Ashe’s actions. He had to keep reminding himself of it every time his libido and imagination got the better of him.
Ashe tugged two specimen bags from his pocket and held one open so that he could drop in his ruined shirt. The helpful breeze scooped up the black, bloodstained sand and deposited the clumps into the second bag.
Ashe sealed the bags and stared at them with distaste. Oh, the irony. Her upper lip curled in the hint of a smile. Saved by plastic.
Chapter 6
Varun fought down a chuckle as he turned to look at her. Bad move, his mind shrieked at him. Ashe was backlit by sunlight, and in that instant, beyond radiant. Her blue and green hair gleamed with the inner radiance of sapphires and emeralds, the shades blending like the seamless rise and fall of waves. Her eyes were gold-flecked, like sunlight glittering over the ocean. So much of her physical form was stamped with her enduring bond to the sea. If no
thing else, she and Varun had that in common—an undying love for the vast, eternal ocean. That connection between them—
Guilt coiled into a sour knot in the pit of his stomach. He had no business thinking about Ashe in that way.
Scowling, he kicked at the sand. Something small and flat skimmed the air and landed at Ashe’s feet. She picked it up, and a furrow formed between her eyebrows. Her lips moved, as if she were about to say something, but Jackson and Corey appeared over a sand dune and hurried toward Varun and Ashe.
Jackson and Corey’s jaws dropped when they caught sight of the bodies strewn across the beach. Corey looked like he wanted to ask a host of questions, but Jackson glared the medic into a subdued silence. Corey examined Ondine, and after several moments, settled for a noncommittal grunt. “Decent work on the tourniquet. We should get her back to the Veritas. I can keep a better eye on her there.”
Jackson nodded, then glanced at Ashe, who stood staring out at the sea, her fist tightly clenched around whatever it was she had picked up from the beach. “Need help cleaning up?” he asked quietly.
She shook her head. Jinn, who was perched on Ashe’s shoulder, stopped preening long enough to squawk, “Take Ondine back to the ship. I’ll join you there shortly.”
Carrying the unconscious Ondine back to the Veritas was easy work with three men. Corey, alone, was bold enough to voice the question on everyone’s mind. “How do you think the captain’s planning on cleaning up that mess?”
Jackson shook his head. “Sometimes, with women, it’s just better not to know. Best to not even ask.”
“But—”
Corey subsided when Jackson scowled at him. “We know what we signed up for, Corey. Eyes open. Mouths shut. And always have her back.”
What had Ashe done to earn such loyalty? Varun wondered. He was left alone to mull over that question after Ondine was comfortably settled in the infirmary under Corey’s care, and Jackson had returned to the bridge. The crew’s mess hall felt too stifling, so he paced the deck instead. What he had not expected to see was Ashe traipsing along less than ten minutes later, looking for all the world as if she were taking a casual stroll on the beach.
