“Well, I wouldn’t know.” His full lips curled just the slightest as he looked down on me, eyes at half-mast.
My mouth fell open on an intake of breath when I realized what he was telling me. Now I really was sorry. “Seriously?” I said, disbelief coloring my voice.
“Yeah, I know I’m on the verge of extinction in more ways than one,” he said with a bit of derision.
“I’m not judging you.”
“You wouldn’t be the first if you were. I used to be shy, afraid of girls. And then when Jamie and Erin got together, I watched what they went through. They were crazy about each other. Then she got pregnant. What happened after, it changed everything for them. For a lot of people, and she still hasn’t gotten over it. Not fully.”
It made sense. Erin and Jamie’s story was tragic enough, I supposed, to motivate Noah to celibacy.
“I get that they should have been more careful, but it’s bigger than that. I want it to be right too,” he said.
My pulse raced as his hand skimmed up my arm, fingertips grazing over the peak of one breast. He picked up the end of the braid I had abandoned and used the silken tip of it to trace sensuous patterns over my skin.
“Told you I would have made a good girl,” he whispered into my ear. “But I have to tell you, I’m thinking about it now.” He leaned over and kissed me, long and sweet. He lifted his head, and God, his eyes. I loved his eyes. “Pretty much all the time. And I’d really like to kick that bastard’s ass for taking advantage of you.”
His hand kept at its sensuous play, trailing the end of his hair over my bare skin, over the swell of one breast then dipping to the other, and up the column of my throat. “Being here with you like this is enough. There’s no hurry. With or without your Song. I’m not going anywhere.”
I was entranced by his softly spoken declaration, the way his eyes and hand coasted over me, every touch sending a flutter under my skin. When I saw Sol again I’d have to tell him there was nothing boring about being noble. It was exhilarating and plain hot.
I rolled toward him because even the whisper of space between us was too much. And then his mouth was on me and, even though it somehow felt a little bit wicked, I let my Song, that invisible bond connecting us, flow. His chest vibrated against me as he made some guttural sound. I responded with a groan of my own and hooked my leg over his hip, pressing into his heat.
After Noah finally left, I stayed on the beach. Staring at the Gulf was like looking into an abyss, dark and fathomless. But it wasn’t empty. It knew me. She knew me and was staring back. She’d been with me forever, buried deep. Hidden in the weight of my legs, a formless thought always in my mind. I thought about what Sol had said when he’d placed his hand over my heart.
You have to choose. Magic can’t choose for you.
I was through with magic. It wasn’t going to dictate whom I loved and who loved me. It wasn’t going to dictate any part of my life anymore.
I knew exactly what I had to do.
* * *
Dawn loomed, tinting the whole world in slate gray, from the expanse of the sky to the water stretching out beneath me. All that stood between me and the rest of my life was a fifty-foot drop. Traffic coming over the bridge was light and a few fishing boats cruised the pass, motors churning through the choppy water. A trucked whizzed by behind me, blowing my hair around my head. I positioned myself on the crest of the bridge, webbed toes curling into the concrete, clinging to the last of my former self.
I waited—waited to be called home. I smelled it in the salt air. I heard it in the buzz of the wind. It winked at me in every chop of the water. My heart pounded in my chest. Blood thrummed through my veins. It wasn’t fear I felt, but a complete sense of acceptance. I had never felt so sure of anything in my life.
I lifted my face to the wind and my eyes caught on a boat making its way out of the harbor—an old fishing boat that had seen too many years. My father stood at the helm, face tilted up, silver eyes transfixed on me. Fitting that he would be here, as if she, the Deep, had arranged for this man to witness my rebirth and see me reclaim what I had been robbed of:
My identity.
The sun peeked over the horizon, flooding the world with color, a dawn so bright I was almost blinded. My father had moved. He was standing on the bow, expectancy in his stance as if he were craving this moment as much as I was. He nodded. And then it was as if the whole world held its breath. The wind died. The water stilled.
I dove.
The blare of a car horn sent me on my way, the fall utterly exhilarating, and then the water embraced me, warm and welcoming. It sang through my skin as dizzying notes rang in my head.
You are home.
Not one stutter. Not one hint of fledgling flight. My body knew exactly what to do. I glided through the water with sure movements, just like in my dreams. The silence was soothing, and the water caressed me like the touch of a thousand hands, all telling me one thing: I finally belonged.
I swam, testing the strength of my body, the power of my legs, and my ability to move in slow, languid undulations. With the quick, concise flicks of my legs, I built up speed until I was nearly dizzy with how fast I could go. I surged, and floated, and languished along the sandy bottom. And I cried for the sheer joy of it, the Gulf water absorbing my tears.
Desperation gripped me. I had to see him, the one person who I longed to see me as I was born to be.
* * *
He was waiting for me. I don’t know how he knew, but he was there to catch me when I stumbled out of the surf, so excited and exhausted my legs could barely hold me up. I ran straight into his open arms, and he held me so tightly I had to fight for breath, heedless of the water dripping from my skin and soaking his shirt.
“Caris, I’m so proud of you.” When he pulled away, I thought I saw tears in his eyes. He blinked under the bright morning sun, eyes clear and so blue. His hands cupped my face. No magic left between us. No more lies. “Wherever she is, your mother is too.”
“Thanks, Daddy.” I managed to choke before he hugged me again. I clung to him, eyes squeezed tight.
“You want some breakfast? You must be starving.”
I was hungry like I had never been hungry before, but there was someone else I was dying to see, and it wouldn’t wait, not even for food.
I looked behind me, half expecting Noah to come out of the surf after me. “I can’t. I have to go.”
“Go.” He turned me around by my shoulders and shoved me gently in the direction of the surf as though pushing me out of the nest and encouraging me to fly. “I understand.”
I made it as far as the shoreline before turning back to him, the tide lapping at my ankles. “This doesn’t change anything. You’re still my dad. We’re a family.”
“Always.”
Twenty-Four
Noah
Her Song pulled me from sleep. I bolted wide-awake, tripping in my haste to get to the door, dragging a tangled sheet halfway down the hall. I kicked it free, trotting through the living room.
What the hell?
Weak light shone through the glass. I thought maybe I’d overslept, but it was still early. Too early for Caris to be up and moving. I wondered if she was dreaming again. If she did, it was a good dream. I’d never heard her sound so happy—such a damn beautiful sound. My heart thumped wildly. She sounded close. So close her exhilaration reached out to me. For a breather, there was only one thing that produced that feeling.
I couldn’t get to the beach fast enough. She floundered coming out of the surf, skipping over the rolling waves until her feet hit the shore, and then she was running.
“Noah!”
I rushed to meet her and caught her as she hurled herself at me.
“I can swim. I can swim,” she singsonged, and the way she hugged my neck, muscles tense with unseen energy, the emotion coloring her voice, I would have thought she had just conquered the world. In a way she had. Her world. Our world.
Her feet finally
found the ground again and we stood staring at one another, both of us proud and breathing heavy. She grabbed my face between her hands and held my gaze to hers. As if I wanted to look at anything else in that moment but her.
“I can swim.” Her eyes shone up at me and I wanted to plunge in and drown myself in them.
“I can see that.” I thought she was beautiful yesterday. Today, she stole my breath and completely owned me.
“Oh God, Noah. I had no idea.” She hugged me again, arms tight around the back of my neck. I buried my face in the crook of hers, inhaling her salty scent. My tongue darted out for just a taste.
“Come on.” She danced away from me, fingers entwined with mine. I didn’t need any coaxing. I had been waiting for this moment since the first time I’d seen her, since the first time I heard her Song.
I let her take the lead, content to watch as she explored this new side of herself. Hesitant to stray too far from shore, we stayed mostly in the deeper waters between the two sandbars. Her feet flicked in quick succession, propelling her faster. Then she slowed with long, languid strokes that flowed from chest to toes like the slow swell of a wave that never breaks. Watching her spurred want, and every time she paused to smile at me, my heart threatened to beat out of my chest.
Her eyes shimmered as if she’d brought the sunlight into the blue-green depths with her. She called me, singing in that voice that demanded a response. It would be impossible here in the Deep for me not to respond, and I wasn’t ashamed to admit then that I wanted to go to her. So different now than the first time she sang to me, the first time I had kissed her. That kiss had been for spite, to take advantage of her, prove she had no power over me. Which was a joke, because she had complete power over me, and I didn’t care. Not anymore.
Her hair fingered through the water like curling wisps of smoke. They tangled with mine, binding us together. Our lips touched, warm and soft, and when my tongued slipped inside her mouth, I pulled her against me, holding her heart to mine. My hands dropped to her waist, then over her hips, molding to the curve of one cheek, both soft and firm under my hands. We floated like that, mouths and tongues and bodies touching everywhere. I would never get enough of her like this, in this place.
We spent hours exploring. I showed her how to navigate the coastline and how to avoid the shallow waters where boats and propellers could be deadly. We followed a sea turtle grazing on a patch of seaweed. At one point I took her close to one of the more crowded beaches to let her get a sense of how it sounded, what it was like with so many people around.
I wasn’t crazy about taking her through the pass, considering the shallow water and heavy boat traffic, but I knew she’d want to know how to get to Erin’s by water and I wanted to take her the first few times. The docks mostly looked the same from below the surface, the channel deep and dark, nearly impossible to see.
She squealed when she saw the crudely made sign I had nailed to the end of Erin’s dock on one of the pilings. She shot toward me and I caught her like I always would. Her mouth traveled every inch of my face in a barrage of excited kisses. I walked us toward shore until the water grew shallow and we breathed air again.
“You made me a sign,” she said, her smile so bright. I now lived just to make her smile like that.
“I wouldn’t want you getting lost.” I climbed us up onto the dock, though I couldn’t bring myself to let her go. She slithered down my chest until she found solid footing.
“Thank you. Have I told you I think you’re amazing?”
My only response was to dip my head and press my lips to hers. We were interrupted by the vibrations of the dock when Erin came running toward us.
“Caris,” Erin yelled.
Caris turned in my arms, forcing me to let go. Erin would appreciate the significance of this day and be happy for her.
I smelled barbecue and spotted Marshall standing on the back patio, smoke curling up from the grill. Caris and Erin were already engrossed in conversation, and I decided this was as good a time as any. I made to move up the dock, but Erin grabbed my arm and pulled me to a stop.
“You be nice. I don’t know what went down between you two, but he’s been a bear for days. Let it go, Noah.” Then she hugged my neck and sent me on my way with a pat on my ass.
Walking up that dock felt more like walking a plank, and instead of a knife at my back, I had my mom’s voice urging me to make things right. Getting my shit together was a real bitch.
Marshall had his back to me, a two-pronged spatula in one hand that he used to flip thick pieces of chicken. The fire under the grates sizzled, sending up a fresh wave of smoke. He knew I was here, I could tell by the set of his shoulders and it wasn’t like I had been purposefully quiet. Part of me wished he would turn around and start talking bull like nothing had ever happened, like I hadn’t gone postal and punched him in the face.
“Marshall,” I started, then stopped short when he cocked his head in my direction. He still had the remnants of a bruise on his cheek under his left eye, faded a sickly yellowish-green.
I’d come to think of our propensity for physical violence, over even insignificant things, as a genetic flaw. I couldn’t remember the number of times my brother and I had beaten the crap out of each other when we were kids over something as stupid as who could swim the fastest or who’d eaten the last of the peanut butter. My dad would always laugh, throw in a tip or two about my right hook or Jamie’s lousy footwork. Then my mom would sigh, that sound that spoke volumes of how she didn’t like us fighting so much but knew she had no way to stop it. A couple of hours in the Deep would take care of it anyway.
“I was way out of line the other day, sir.”
Yeah, it was different with landers. They had to deal with the consequences for days. My dad had taught us to never back down from a fight with one of our own, but always back down from a fight with a lander. Breather-on-lander violence was frowned upon, especially by those on the lander side. The playing field was tipped heavily in our favor, to say the least.
Marshall looked at me sideways, eyes bright in his weathered face. I was pretty sure Marshall had thought it was his flowery speech that convinced Jamie and me to team up with him when in reality it had been his eyes. He had breather eyes, so bright and clear that I wondered when I first met him if he wore colored contacts, though that was hardly his style. He was a “what you see is what you get” kind of man. Clear, honest eyes, that were just a little mean.
“I respected your dad when he was alive. Jamie was like a son to me, and whether you like it or not, so are you. If I could change what happened, I would. For you and your mom.” Marshall cut his eyes to where Erin and Caris were sitting on the dock, feet dangling over the side. “Especially for her.” He flipped the chicken over again even though he’d done it a minute before, a faraway tone in his voice. “You think your men are ready. You train them and give them every advantage. God knows Jamie had more than most. Convince yourself you’ve done everything you can so they can succeed and still, shit happens. Goddamn unexplainable shit.”
I slid halfway on one of the stools, not quite sitting, not quite standing, eyes focused on Marshall’s hands as he mindlessly turned the chicken.
“He loved it though. All of it. The grueling training, the idea of making a difference. A real difference,” I said.
And that’s all Jamie had ever wanted to do; make a difference, prove we could be the asset Marshall believed we were. An experiment somehow gone wrong. And shamefully, I had to admit, I was disappointed Jamie hadn’t proven us to be the superior species. Invincible. Maybe there was a time that had been true, before the days of modern technology. The modern world didn’t really need super humans.
“He did make a difference. Inspired me. Loved my daughter, made her happy for a while.”
I met his half smile with raised eyebrows and snorted. God, they had fought, Jamie and Marshall, with Erin right there between them. Marshall had made it clear so many times: You didn’t touch his da
ughter. You didn’t look at her. You didn’t get close enough to breathe the same air as her. Jamie had ignored all that, but then that was Jamie. He saw what he wanted and went after it, to hell with the consequences.
“Yeah. We had that in common, your brother and I. We’d both do anything for her.”
That’s what I admired about Marshall. He could be mean and ruthless when he had to be, but he loved his family and genuinely cared about other people.
“She seems to be doing better,” I said, hearing her laugh at something Caris said.
“She’s a tough one,” he said, then pegged me with a speculative look. “I could still use you, Noah. Don’t let what happened with Jamie discourage you from your own path.”
My eyes drifted out over the water. It sparkled under the afternoon sun, a sight that never grew old. I loved this place. For us, it was so much more than a beautiful setting, a place to live. It breathed in us, was a part of us. Without it we couldn’t live. I wanted to protect what we had. We had thought we were doing that by joining Marshall. I just didn’t know if it was what I had wanted or if I had wanted it because Jamie so clearly had.
“Think about it,” Marshall said, as though he sensed my indecision.
“I will.” I nodded, held out my hand, returned his penetrating stare. We exchanged a good handshake, one that said we understood each other.
“And, Noah? If you ever hurt your mom again? I don’t care what you are, I’ll kill you.”
I smiled because for the first time in so long things felt right. “I’m gonna hold you to that, sir.”
* * *
The next few days with Caris were damn near perfect, like watching a flower blossom. We’d established a routine I could get used to: swim, eat, find a deserted beach and make out.
We were on one of those deserted beaches now, the sky a curtain of velvet over our heads, scattered with twinkling stars. Warm humid air drying our skin.
Waterborn (The Emerald Series Book 1) Page 26