The Collector 4: Eight Arms to Hold You

by Ally Blue

  “This is amazing,” Austin murmured. “I can’t believe it. It’s insane.”

  “Yes. But it’s true.” Pulling Austin close, Luke kissed him again. This time, when Luke’s tongue slid into his mouth, Austin felt the echo of Luke’s excitement in his mind. “Don’t think too hard about it, Austin. Just let it happen.”

  Austin cupped Luke’s head in his hand and sucked his bottom lip like a piece of candy. “Why is this happening to us, you think? Is it because of you being a shapeshifter?”

  “I believe so. I think my people had some sort of psychic connection to each other. I remember things sometime ... Luke trailed off, brow furrowing. He shook his head. “We don’t have time to worry about that right now. Let’s get the idol and get back to the mainland. We’ll figure it all out later. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Putting the provocative questions of how and why to the back of his mind, Austin kissed Luke once more and reluctantly let him go.

  With Luke helping him, it didn’t take Austin long to get the rest of his gear on. Within minutes, he was standing at the dive ladder, watching Luke skin out of his clothes. He knew he should be getting in the water, but he couldn’t resist the chance to bask in the sight of Luke’s nude body. The clouds that had shrouded the sky all day were breaking, and Luke’s bare skin shone pearlescent in the shifting moonlight.

  “You’re beautiful,” Austin said as Luke slipped off his underwear and stuffed it in the locker.

  Luke let out a soft laugh. He shut the locker, walked over and kissed Austin’s forehead. “So are you.” Picking up the little bag of tools sitting on the deck, he handed it to Austin. “Go on and get in the water. I’ll follow you.”

  “Okay.” Austin grabbed the back of Luke’s neck and pulled him into a hard, deep kiss. “I love you,” he whispered when they broke apart.

  Luke smiled against his mouth, fingers tracing the line of his jaw through the drysuit hood. “I love you too. Go.”

  Letting go of Luke, Austin climbed awkwardly down the ladder. He had clamped the mouthpiece of his regulator between his teeth and was just about to drop into the water when he heard a sound that made his blood run cold.

  “Luke,” Carson Cordova’s voice floated down from the dive platform. “I have been searching everywhere for you. Come with me.”

  Oh God, no. No. Austin grabbed the rungs of the ladder hard, pressing himself close to the side of the ship.

  “I was just about to shift and dive, Father.” Luke sounded admirably calm. “I’m very close to finding the idol.”

  “So you keep assuring me. You may dive later. I need to speak with you for a moment.”

  Silence fell. Austin stared up at the opening in the rail a few feet above him. He could just make out Luke’s profile. Moving as slowly and silently as he could, Austin laid a hand on the buckle of his BCD. He would ditch the equipment, he decided, and run up the ladder to Luke’s rescue. No way was he letting that bastard hurt Luke ever again.

  Luke’s eyes cut sideways, his gaze locked with Austin’s for a searing second, and Austin froze. Suggestions wormed themselves into his brain, telling him to go, to get the idol, that Carson didn’t suspect anything, that Luke would be all right and would find him in the water.

  I’m not leaving you, Austin thought desperately. I don’t even know where the damn thing is anyway.

  “Let me get my clothes,” Luke said. “You should go on inside, Father, it’s cold out here. I’ll meet you in your office.”

  Shaking on the dive ladder, Austin closed his eyes and let Luke’s thoughts flow into him. There were no words, just knowledge. If he could get his father to go back inside, Luke would join Austin immediately in the water. If not, Luke would guide him to the idol through their newly-discovered psychic connection. But no matter what, they had to act right now. They were out of time.

  “You’ll forgive me, my son, if I brave the cold to wait for you.” Carson’s voice was hard as steel. “Now dress.”

  Austin felt Luke’s spike of panic clearly in his mind, and knew what it meant. His clothes are in my locker. If he opens it, his father will see my bag there, he’ll see my drysuit’s gone, and he’ll know. Fuck.

  “I, I undressed inside,” Luke stammered. “I’d forgotten. I’m sorry.”

  Carson made an impatient noise. “Whatever has been causing you to become ill and weak lately is clearly affecting your mind as well.”

  “Yes, Father.” Luke’s voice held a thread of hope. “Perhaps if I shift just for a few minutes, it would…”

  “No.” Carson’s tone brooked no argument, and Austin’s heart sank. “Get a towel then, and come along. You may come back and shift when we have finished speaking. You must find the idol tonight.”

  With one swift glance down at Austin, Luke moved away from the rail. The towel bin squeaked open and slammed shut, then heavy footfalls sounded across the deck. Austin heard the sound of a hatch opening and closing, and dread settled over him like a blanket. He was alone in the cold winter night, with the weight of his and Luke’s future on his shoulders.

  For several minutes, he clung to the ladder, paralyzed by fear and indecision. He knew what Luke wanted ‑‑ for him to go into the depths and retrieve the idol. To get it safely out of Carson’s reach, for Luke’s sake, for his own sake. For the sake of the whole world. Austin could already see the idol’s resting place in his mind, could feel the pull of it through his connection with Luke. He could find it. He no longer doubted that.

  What he didn’t think he could do was leave Luke in Carson Cordova’s clutches. Maybe Luke was right and Carson didn’t suspect anything. After all, he’d told Luke he could come back after their talk, shift and dive for the idol. With any luck, Luke would be able to catch up with Austin on the way to the coral patch where the idol rested, and they could recover it together. Their plan could still work out, even if they were forced to abandon all their possessions and swim straight to the closest oil rig. However, Luke’s father would almost certainly beat him again, and the thought of it was unbearable.

  As Austin hung there, trying to decide what to do, a wave of mental images hit him so hard he nearly fell off the ladder. His fingers spasmed on the metal rail, holding on automatically as the pictures flooded his mind. Carson Cordova sitting across an expanse of fine mahogany desk, frowning as Luke spoke words Austin couldn’t hear. Luke’s long fingers spreading a seafloor topography map across the desk, pointing at a spot indistinguishable from all the other points on the map. Carson standing and pacing behind the desk, nodding thoughtfully.

  The images eased Austin’s mind. Maybe he did just want to talk to Luke. Probably about where he thinks the idol is. Austin drew a deep breath, shut his eyes and thought out toward Luke. He felt foolish, having believed all his life that mind reading was impossible. But he couldn’t deny the evidence of his own experience. Somehow, he and Luke could read each other’s minds. There would be time to freak out over it later. He hoped. Right now, they both had to survive the night, and they had to recover the idol before Carson could. This strange psychic connection Austin and Luke evidently had was their only tool for achieving that goal right now.

  Feeling the bright thread of Luke’s consciousness winding through his own, Austin concentrated on their plan. I’m going down. Stay focused on the idol’s call, and I think I’ll be able to find it. And please, please be careful. Don’t let him hurt you. Please.

  A wave of gentle reassurance washed through Austin, telling him Luke was all right and would be joining him underwater shortly. Relieved, and feeling a bit stronger, Austin put the regulator in his mouth, pushed off from the ladder and plunged into the cold sea.

  Chapter Twelve

  Luke’s stomach churned as he followed his father through the passageway and up the stair to his office on the upper deck. Carson never once turned around, but Luke felt the weight of his anger nonetheless. Worrying his bottom lip between his teeth, Luke stared at his father’s ramrod-straight, expensively tailored back. He
hated it when Father shouted at him, beat him and told him he was worthless. But he’d learned to fear these silent moods more than anything else.

  At the back of his mind, Austin’s terror and worry hung like a black vapor. Luke kept his thoughts calm, sending out a thread of reassurance to his lover. No matter what else happened tonight, Austin could not be allowed to follow him with intentions of rescue. If he did, they were both as good as dead. Father believed himself to be close to finding the idol, possibly close enough that he could find it even without Luke’s help. Discovering that Luke and Austin had plotted against him, or even simply that they’d been together, could push Carson to murder them both.

  A couple of crew members walking down the hallway glanced at Luke as he and Carson passed, but said nothing. Seeing Luke walking around in nothing but a towel wasn’t terribly unusual, even in winter. Everyone on board knew that he swam in all weather and in almost any water temperature over fifty degrees. The few who knew the secret of his shifting abilities knew why he did so; the others just thought he was slightly unhinged and had an unnaturally high tolerance for cold.

  Luke’s apprehension escalated when he stepped into his father’s office and Carson locked the door behind them. The older man didn’t speak. He turned around, very slowly. Luke backed away when he saw his father’s face. The man’s dark eyes burned with a fury hotter than Luke had ever seen there before.

  “Father, please,” Luke quavered, holding a hand palm-out in front of him. “Don’t. Please don’t.”

  In answer, Carson strode forward and punched Luke in the stomach. Luke fell to his hands and knees, gasping for breath. The towel came loose and fell to the floor.

  “Did you truly think you would keep your little secret from me?” Carson growled. “It is bad enough that you are a sodomite.” He spat the word as if it were poison. “But to indulge your sick proclivities under my very nose, and believe you could get away with it?” A leather-shod foot connected with Luke’s jaw, sending him sprawling. “I think not.”

  Luke curled up on the floor, one hand covering the place where his father had kicked him. A sharp, searing pain throbbed through the bone. Hairline fracture, Luke thought with a strange sort of calm. It wasn’t the first time.

  What scared him was the hollow feeling that it just might be the last time.

  “Please stop,” Luke pleaded, ignoring the high, piercing pain lancing through his jaw with each word. “It’s a mistake. A mistake. I, I don’t know…”

  “Yes you do!” Carson roared, silencing Luke’s protests. He started pacing, expensive shoes thumping the carpet. “Collins saw that puto Bell exiting your cabin this morning. Do not try to deny it.”

  Oh God. Adrenaline coursed through Luke’s body, making his mind race. The pain faded into the background. “He, he knocked on my door. He was lost, he thought it was Smith’s office. I gave him directions.”

  Luke’s father stopped pacing and stood with his back to Luke. Luke watched him. In the unexpected quiet, he reached for the first calm, rational memory he could think of in relation to his father ‑‑ the two of them perusing a map of the Gulf floor at the start of this expedition ‑‑ and sent it out to Austin’s mind. Sending a memory had worked well before. He hoped it worked this time. The overwhelming terror and worry flooding from Austin through their psychic connection eased somewhat, and some of the tension melted from Luke’s body. As long as Austin was safe, and free to recover the idol, that was all Luke wanted right then.

  Luke barely stifled a startled cry when Austin’s thoughts coalesced in his mind. Austin was going to continue the dive as planned. Luke managed a smile. Good.

  Sending out a pulse of reassuring thought to his lover, Luke focused his mind on the idol and steeled himself for what he fully expected to be the worst beating of his life.

  “He did not lose his way,” Carson said finally, his voice dangerously calm. “He came to you and had you like a woman.” The shiny leather shoes shuffled around, the tips inches from Luke’s nose. “A woman!”

  The word was punctuated by another kick in the face. Luke felt his partially fractured jaw shatter, felt blood fill his mouth and trickle down his throat. He coughed and spat it out, keeping his brain resolutely focused on the idol. Can’t think of anything else. Austin can’t know this is happening.

  Big, square hands hooked under Luke’s armpits, hauling him to his feet. “You have shamed me for the last time, boy,” Carson growled. “You will beg my forgiveness, or you will not live to earn my wrath again.”

  Hope surged through Luke’s heart. If his father was giving him even a slight chance at surviving, then he still needed Luke to find the idol. It galled him to beg forgiveness when he’d done nothing wrong, but Luke knew he had no choice.

  He met his father’s murderous gaze without flinching. “I’m sorry I’ve shamed you, Father,” he whispered, his voice slurred. The broken ends of bone ground against each other, sending waves of agony through him. “Please forgive me.”

  Carson’s lips curved into a cold smile. “I am glad you have seen reason, my son.”

  Luke blinked in surprise as his father let go of him and stepped back. “Thank you ... Father. M-may I dive now?” Speaking hurt so badly Luke had to fight to remain conscious, and he could barely understand himself, but he knew better than to remain silent.

  “You may, when I am finished.” Crossing to his desk, Carson opened a drawer on the far side and started rummaging through it. “There is still the small matter of your punishment.”

  A cold knot of dread formed in Luke’s gut. “Father ... Wha ...

  The words dried up in Luke’s throat when his father’s hand emerged from the desk drawer clutching a short but thick police club. Luke backed up as his father stalked toward him, but there was nowhere to go, and soon enough his back hit the cherry-paneled wall.

  “You will live to find my treasure, thanks to your ability to shift,” Carson said softly. “But you cannot defy me; you cannot behave like a degenerate whore, and expect to escape punishment.” He smiled, shark-like and menacing. “Just remember, my son, that I forgive you for your transgressions.”

  The first blow broke Luke’s arm. He concentrated on the image of the idol, and soon it was the only thing he could see.

  * * * * *

  Darkness surrounded Austin on all sides. The only sound was the whoosh and bubble of his own breathing through the regulator, the only light provided by the bright dive light he held. Floating weightless in the cold blackness, the rays from the dive light sparkling off phytoplankton and the occasional fish, Austin felt like a tiny white star glowing in the vastness of space.

  Ever since he’d jumped off the dive ladder into the black and ominous sea, Austin had been plagued with a sense of impending doom. He tried to ignore it, attributing the feeling to an unavoidable worry over Luke, and to diving to nearly three hundred feet at night without a partner. He’d never gone diving alone before. Diving without a partner, especially to the depths he was aiming for, was against every safety rule he’d ever learned. However, he had no choice. Luke’s urgency about finding the idol right away had come through loud and clear over the strange connection between their minds. They had to retrieve it, tonight, or they were both dead.

  In a contest between the possibility of a diving accident and the certainty of losing Luke forever, the latter won hands-down as the outcome he’d most like to prevent.

  The back of Austin’s neck prickled, as it had done several times on the way down. He turned in the water to scan the emptiness behind him. A few points of greenish luminescence dotted the endless expanse, but otherwise the water behind him remained empty.

  He tried not to worry that there hadn’t yet been any sign of Luke. It hasn’t been that long, he reminded himself. He has to wait to leave until his father’s ready to let him go. Otherwise, that bastard Cordova will be suspicious. Austin didn’t have to be told that arousing the elder Cordova’s suspicion could be deadly.

  Austin
swam on, following the weird siren song of the idol. It was disorienting to let himself be guided not by a compass or an anchor line or a concrete visual, but by a noise in his head. However, he felt completely certain of his direction, and he trusted Luke. Right now, his and his lover’s survival ‑‑ and the success of their quest ‑‑ depended on Austin not over thinking things. Austin was a born survivor. He let himself be guided, and kept his questions locked firmly away.

  Long minutes passed. Just when Austin was beginning to wonder if he’d gotten lost and would simply keep plowing into the dark until he died, a faint orangish patch appeared in the wide beam of his dive light. It expanded and became clearer as he drew nearer, and soon resolved itself into a large mound of coral hunched on the sea floor.

  Austin whooped around the regulator in his mouth. This was it. The hiding place of the idol.

  It took him only a few moments to find the entrance to the cavity inside the coral. He hung in the water, forcing himself to be still and study it. The aperture would be barely wide enough to get through with the tanks. He’d have to enlarge it.

  Hooking the dive light onto his weight belt, Austin opened the equipment bag and took out a medium-sized pick. He swung the heavy point at the coral on one side of the opening. A large section of it crumbled away, clouding the water with a fine, chalky orange dust. Chunks of the material floated to the sea bottom.

  A few more well-placed blows doubled the size of the opening. Austin shoved the pick back into the bag and swam through the widened entryway. Inside, the coral formed a vaulted chamber in the shape of a rough circle. The water inside was still and clear. Openings of various sizes pitted the walls. Austin drifted to the center of the space, trying to trace the thread of the idol’s song with his mind.

  It wasn’t as strong as before. Austin’s brow furrowed. That’s not right. It should be getting clearer, not fainter.