by Skye Malone
And all around her, a faint hum quivered through the water, like the ocean was ever-so-slightly electrified.
Niall said something, and I blinked. “What?”
His lip twitched. “I said the change looks good on her. Or wouldn’t you agree?”
I glanced back at her. “Uh, yeah, I guess.”
“You guess?” He looked from me to Chloe and then scoffed. “You feeling alright?”
“Fine.”
“Uh-huh.”
I gave him an irritated look. “What?”
“Oh, nothing. But if you’re not going to make a move on her, you better be sure I will.”
“No, I–”
I cut off the hurried response, uncertain what I’d planned to say. But Niall just paused.
“Wait,” he said. “You’re not…”
“Not what?” I asked when he trailed off.
Niall cleared his throat. “You’re not like actually falling for her, are you?”
“Huh?”
He paused, a weird look on his face, and then he suddenly let out an incredulous chuckle. “Well, I… damn that’s, um…”
“That’s what?” I demanded. “Niall, give me a break. I barely know the girl.”
“Yeah, and yet you wanted all these guys to come to Santa Lucina to rescue her.”
“You know it wasn’t like that.”
His amusement grew. “Uh-huh.”
“Oh for pity’s sake, Niall. Do you feel the water around us? Feel how it’s different with her in it?”
“It’s different, huh?”
“I will kick your ass, you keep this up.”
Amusement still tweaked his expression, but it lessened. “Okay, the water.” He glanced around. “It’s… I mean…” His brow furrowed.
“See what I’m talking about?”
“Are you sure there’s not just a storm topside or something? I know you said strange things happened with the water when you saw her before, but maybe…”
“You ever felt a storm do this?”
“No,” he allowed. “But… come on. She can’t really be–”
“It’s happened every time I’ve seen her. Something similar, anyway. And the second she leaves the water, it stops.”
I looked back at Chloe. She gave a soft cry in her sleep and I hesitated, wondering if I should go wake her. But after a moment, she seemed to calm down.
“Maybe it was a coincidence,” Niall tried.
I met the words with a flat look. “Every time? And that’s not the only thing. The second time I saw her, she was attacked. By water. Black, frigid water like you’d find deeper than Nyciena, but off the Santa Lucina coast.”
He paused. “Okay, now you’re just making stuff up.”
I shook my head.
Niall’s brow drew down and he looked away. My gaze returned to Chloe.
She seemed to be sleeping better now. And the strange feeling in the water remained. It wasn’t quite the same as when I’d first seen her – then, it’d been unmistakable for miles around. Now, it was fainter. Almost diluted, though that made little sense. It seemed like something was dampening it, keeping it from being as… clear… in the water as it had been before, to the point where if, like Niall, I hadn’t been waiting for it, I might’ve missed the feeling.
I scowled. Maybe the difference was caused by the drug the Sylphaen had given her. Or something else I wasn’t aware of. Before Chloe had come along, I’d never felt anything like this. And now, anything was possible, since what she was doing shouldn’t have been.
And she didn’t even seem to know it was happening.
“So what do you want to tell Dad when we get home?” Niall asked. “Assuming he agrees to talk to us, I mean.”
I turned back to him. “The truth?” I hazarded.
“No, seriously.”
“We have to tell him about the Sylphaen. And the best chance we have of keeping her safe from them means she stays nearby.”
“She doesn’t have any family at all down here?”
“None she seems to know of. She said she grew up on land. She wasn’t even aware dehaians existed until I told her.”
“Wow.” Niall watched her a moment and then sighed. “Even so, he’ll want to put out a search. See if she has relatives to take her in. You know, for propriety’s sake.”
I grimaced. Dad and propriety. With kids like us, minus Ren anyway, I knew he would insist on finding her family and making certain who she was. Scandals were the last thing he needed.
Though that didn’t stop it from being annoying.
“If he puts out word that she’s in Nyciena, the Sylphaen might hear,” I argued. “He’ll understand keeping it quiet.”
“That’s if he believes the Sylphaen are real.”
I gave Niall an exasperated glance.
“What?” he protested. “I’m just saying, he’s not the most believing kind.”
“So help me convince him.”
Niall looked at me tiredly. “Of course I will.” He paused. “Maybe if we got Ren to believe us, this’d go better.”
“He’s worse than Dad.”
“And Dad knows that. If Ren believes us, Dad will listen, no questions asked.”
I sighed. That, at least, was true. It wasn’t the way I wanted to go about this, though – Ren was stubborn as hell, and if he got it in his head we were lying, it’d be almost impossible to change his mind. But Niall was still right. If we could convince him, things with Dad would go much more smoothly.
Hopefully, anyway. Kindness and sympathy weren’t exactly Dad’s strong suits.
“So who do you think she is, really?” Niall asked, watching Chloe again. “Or, you know… what.”
I shook my head. “No idea.”
“Have you told her about us?”
I paused, and then shook my head again.
His amusement returned. “Seriously? You didn’t even try playing that–”
“I’m not chasing her, Niall.”
He eyed me for a moment, still appearing amused. “If you say so.”
I scowled, looking back at Chloe. It wasn’t like that, whatever Niall thought. I hadn’t said anything about my family because there hadn’t been time, and because there’d been bigger issues at hand. Issues like powerful and dangerous drugs. Like electrified, possessed water.
Like the fact that nearly every time I’d seen the girl, a psychotic cult had been trying to kill her.
“How about we see if the guards have figured out the best way back yet, now that the Vetorians are around?” I suggested, unable to keep the annoyance from my voice. “You know, get home before they spot us?”
He grinned. “Okay,” he agreed, a touch indulgently. “If you’d rather talk about that than–”
“Niall.”
He laughed.
I shook my head in exasperation. I knew him. He wasn’t going to let up on this. Not when there was the chance of some entertainment at my expense – no matter how wrong he was about the whole thing. Chloe was intriguing, yes, but because of the mystery surrounding what she did and the question of why the Sylphaen were after her. And she was attractive as well. She’d been beautiful before this and the change looked amazing on her now. I wasn’t blind.
But none of that was the point. Chloe wasn’t just another girl to pursue. Even in the incredibly short time I’d known her, that’d become clear. With Chloe, it was… more complicated. She hadn’t grown up dehaian and she wasn’t like us. Not really. She didn’t know about our world, about her new form, about any of it. And to ignore all that just to get her into bed with me… I couldn’t. The thought was vaguely nauseating, since it’d feel too much like manipulating her and taking advantage of how confusing this all was for her right now.
And no matter what Ren or others in Nyciena thought, taking advantage of girls had never been my style.
Besides, I’d seen her with that other boy. The human, in
the surf moments after her body transformed for the first time. She hadn’t wanted to leave him. And yes, if I’d cared to chase her, that would’ve just been a challenge to overcome.
But it wasn’t like that. Not this time.
Chloe was different.
Chapter Three
Noah
The front door slammed.
Sitting on the couch, I didn’t look up. Around the living room, my four behemoth cousins leaned on the walls with their overly muscled arms crossed in front of them, looking for all the world like the near-identical, sadistic meatheads that they were. Watching me and the ocean beyond our windows alike, they made no secret of their disgust for me, or their anticipation for what they’d try if the dehaians returned.
“Noah?” my dad called.
“In here, Peter,” Richard replied.
Silence followed the words, and then I heard his footsteps coming down the hall.
Dad walked around the corner, taking in the five of them and me seated in the middle.
“Are you alright?” he asked me.
“He’s fine,” Richard answered before I could speak. “Except for having a fling with a scum-sucker, that is.”
Dad paused. “What happened?”
“Your son–”
“I asked Noah.”
Richard snorted, derision in his dark brown eyes, and then he gestured for me to go ahead.
“Nothing,” I said, not wanting to get into it in front of the others. “She’s gone.”
Dad regarded me for a moment.
“He let her go, he means,” Richard inserted. “Kissed her goodbye and let her swim away.” He rounded on Dad. “This is what I’ve been warning you about. You, and the way you raise these boys. You can’t keep–”
“This isn’t the time, Richard,” Dad countered.
His brother scoffed. “You called me, remember? Even you can see how dangerous this is. That thing was staying with your family, for pity’s sake! And now you’ve got scale-skins breaking into your house. What’s next?” He shook his head. “What’s it going to take, Peter? Are you really going to risk your sons, just to hang onto your pathetic principles?”
Dad paused and then looked over at him, and I could see his anger in the tense muscles of his face.
“I said this wasn’t the time,” he repeated. “I called you here, yes.” His gaze flicked to me. “And you’ll stay. Keep an eye out for them, in case they come back. But you will leave my sons to me, understand?”
Richard’s lip twitched with disgust, but he just shook his head. “Fine. You let your pretty boys stay weak. And my sons and I will hold up the true family heritage and keep things safe. Just like always.”
He motioned to his sons and then headed for the hallway. Shrugging away from the walls, my cousins smirked at me as they followed him out of the room.
Their footsteps thudded on the steps as they went upstairs.
A breath left me. “Dad, you can’t–”
He held up a hand, silencing me with his eyes on the ceiling.
I grimaced. They’d hear us if we talked, even all the way in the guest rooms. Greliaran hearing could be a bitch sometimes.
And that didn’t bring into it the other senses we had.
Doors closed above us. I could feel them moving across the rooms, heading for the windows to keep watch and not even bothering to hide their presences from me anymore.
I looked back at Dad.
He switched on the stereo, letting the white noise babble of a local radio station cut through the quiet.
“Diane told me they shot you and Maddox,” he said, keeping his voice low.
My words faltered.
“What the hell were you thinking, Noah?”
“Dad, I–”
He crossed the room and put his arms around me. I blinked, taken back by the gesture.
Releasing a breath, he pushed me away again. “What happened?”
I struggled for words, still floundering with shock. “I-I went after Chloe, and while I was gone they came to the cabin.”
“They knew about us?”
A short scoff escaped me, not quite a laugh since nothing was funny. “Dad, you sent one of them through a window and nearly put the other through the wall. I think they figured out we weren’t human.”
He gave me a dark look and my sarcasm died.
“And then you brought her here.”
“I had to. They’d injected her with something. It was killing her. Forcing her to change into one of them even though she wasn’t in the water. If I hadn’t gotten her to the ocean…”
Dad sighed, turning away and pacing across the room. “Will she come back?”
I paused. “The other ones said she couldn’t. Not till that drug was gone.”
“Other ones?”
The grimace tried to return. “Dehaians. They met us on the beach. I think they were looking for her.”
He ran a hand over his hair. “Noah…”
“I didn’t know they’d be there! I…”
Frustrated, I looked down, not sure what I was attempting to say. I’d been trying to save her life. I couldn’t let her die.
A breath escaped me. She’d just been Baylie’s friend. The beautiful, kind-of-shy girl who avoided me when I visited Kansas on holidays, though I’d never been able to figure out why. I’d always hoped to talk to her, and when she’d finally come to Santa Lucina and I had the chance…
My fists curled against the memory of my last moments with her. Of kissing her and feeling her against me. I’d wanted to do that for weeks, ever since that first night on the beach. She’d looked amazing by the water, silhouetted by the moonlight, and everything about her fascinated me. I’d held back, though, thinking what I was would make things difficult. Thinking she was human.
I’d never expected this.
“You can’t let her come back here,” Dad said, turning to me. “Understand?”
I looked up at him. His face hardened at my expression.
“I mean it,” he said. “This is for her sake as much as yours.”
“Well, if you wouldn’t let Uncle Richard and his–”
“They stay.” He paused. “Those dehaian bastards shot you and Maddox. Next time, maybe they’ll keep shooting till you won’t be able to recover from the wounds. I’m not going to take that chance.”
“But Dad, Chloe isn’t–”
“She’s a danger to us. And we’re a danger to her. This isn’t going to work, Noah.” He sighed, sympathy tingeing his gaze. “I know you like her, son. She seems like a nice girl. But she’s dehaian, and right now…” He glanced to the upper floor briefly. “I’ll talk to Richard. Make sure the boys understand she’s not to be harmed. But I’m not risking you, which means your uncle and your cousins will stay, at least for now. And if she does come back…” He shook his head. “I want you to make her leave again, for good this time. No matter what it takes.”
I stared at him. “Dad…”
“I mean it, Noah.”
A breath left me. Protests formed and died at the look in his eyes.
Dumbstruck, I managed a nod.
Echoing the motion more firmly, he regarded me a moment longer and then turned away, switching off the stereo. Taking out his cell, he climbed the short steps from the sunken living room and headed out through the back door. I heard him talking to Diane on the phone as he walked across the yard.
I closed my eyes. Short of Chloe being dead, I didn’t know how this could have gone much worse. And that wasn’t to say she wouldn’t be. Not with my cousins around.
Exhaling sharply, I turned to the windows and the brilliant sunset beyond. Dad didn’t know those guys like I did. They’d always managed to hide how they were from him, and in any case he thought Richard controlled them.
Instead of just egging them on.
My arm rested against the glass, though I really just wanted to break it. My brother and I
, my dad, we all fought what we were. What our instincts demanded we do. We all felt the cravings – the way our greliaran sides whispered of the need to kill dehaians, and of the incredible rush from absorbing their magic that would follow – but Dad had taught us to be more than that. More than bloodthirsty monsters created by old wizards to defend against fish people. More than weird mash-ups of human and dehaian traits that left us something wildly different than both.
But my cousins weren’t.
And that was what it all came down to in the end. My cousins gloried in being greliaran. Loved the strength, the power. They were salivating at the prospect of killing a dehaian, and after a lifetime of never seeing a single one…
They’d hunt her. For as long as they thought she’d come back here, they’d be watching day and night, waiting for the chance to rip her apart.
Anger rose. I wouldn’t let them hurt her, though. Whether the rest of the stories my grandfather had told about her kind were true, I still wouldn’t. It didn’t matter. She wasn’t like the dehaians he’d described – the sadistic, pleasure-seeking, soulless creatures who charmed innocent people into loving them and then let them die – and I wasn’t a murderer. I wouldn’t let my cousins become ones either. Not with her.
No matter what it took.
Chapter Four
Chloe
I opened my eyes to nothing but endless blue in front of me and, despite my nightmares about the Sylphaen and the worries of the evening before, I couldn’t help but smile.
It was just like my dreams.
Drawing a deep breath, I pushed away from the sand. The fire still flickered several yards away, and Zeke and Niall sat near it. All the other dehaians were likewise up, making me wonder how long I’d been sleeping while they all got ready to go.
Niall laughed at something and Zeke looked away, irritation on his face.