by Skye Malone
I ran at him.
Owen crashed into my side. I tumbled into the water and then scrambled back up, lunging at him. His hands caught me, and his feet skidded through the sand with the effort of stopping my momentum. Twisting in his grasp, I tried to knock him off balance, but he wouldn’t give.
Wyatt slammed into me, throwing me back to the ground again, and then Clay was there. White light burst across my vision as he drove his fist into my face.
And then he disappeared.
I shoved to my feet.
Maddox stood between us, his hands raised to keep us apart. By his brothers, Clay was pushing away from the ground.
“Back off,” Maddox snapped.
Contempt curled Wyatt’s mouth.
Fissures spread through Maddox’s skin. “I said, back off.”
“And what’re you going to do if we don’t?” Wyatt sneered.
The fissures grew. “You don’t want to find out,” Maddox replied quietly.
Wyatt paused, looking Maddox up and down. He gave a disgusted scoff. “You’re not worth it.” His gaze slid to me. “And you… well. Your precious dehaian bitch came back. Who knows? Maybe she will again.” He smiled. “This isn’t over. And we’re not going anywhere.”
With a jerk of his chin toward his younger brothers, he turned and headed for the stairs.
Barely restraining a growl, I watched them walk away, my muscles shaking with the desire to go after them and end the problem once and for all.
“Noah.”
I twitched, Maddox’s voice like an annoying buzz in my ear.
“Breathe, dammit,” he ordered in a low tone. “Get a hold of yourself. Someone might see.”
The growl escaped.
“Noah!”
I drew a sharp breath. I closed my eyes, struggling to do as he said.
The heat faded. The vivid rush of sensation from the world around me did as well. I trembled as my skin returned to normal and when I opened my eyes, the colors were dull enough for me to be sure my greliaran side was gone.
I winced, the pain of that first punch returning.
“What happened?” Maddox asked.
Lifting a hand to rub my jaw, I didn’t respond.
“Wyatt said Chloe was here?”
He waited.
“Noah?”
I nodded. “Her and some dehaian guy, yeah.”
“Will she be back?”
“I doubt it.”
Maddox paused. I glanced over at him, and his mouth tightened as he read between the very short lines.
He sighed. “I’m sorry.”
I nodded again, not wanting to talk about it. I hated what I’d said to her. What I’d done. But there hadn’t been time, and if she’d stayed even a second longer…
Nausea twisted my stomach. My cousins had tried to take their frustration out on me, but it wasn’t anything compared to what they would have done if they’d gotten their hands on her.
But that look on her face. Confused. Hurt.
Terrified.
I couldn’t stop seeing it.
“Come on,” Maddox said quietly.
I shook my head, my gaze going back to the ocean. “I’ll be inside in a minute.”
He hesitated and then nodded. Clasping a hand to my shoulder briefly, he turned and walked to the stairs.
I closed my eyes, an ache pressing down on me that had nothing to do with my cousins’ fists. She wouldn’t be back. Not after what I’d said or the way she’d looked at me. And maybe that would keep her safe. From my kind, anyway.
It was all I could do for her.
Even if it meant she hated me.
Chapter Eighteen
Chloe
We swam on, and I barely saw the seafloor change beneath us as it went from empty sand to outcroppings of rock.
I couldn’t understand it. Noah. Why he’d just…
“This way,” Zeke said quietly.
He turned, leading me toward a mound of boulders jumbled together in a precarious mess. Dipping low in the water, he slid through a dark opening at the base of the pile. I followed.
The rocks closed in around me, and then opened into a cave. In the darkness, I felt Zeke swim to one corner, shrugging the bag from his shoulder as he moved. He retrieved something from inside, and then let the bag sink to the floor.
Blue-white light flooded the space, making rainbows sparkle from the fissures of ore in the stones around us. Reaching up, Zeke notched the torch into a crack in the cave wall.
I sank down, sitting on a small shelf of rock. My gaze wandered across the light playing over my scales.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I didn’t respond. I still wasn’t sure what to say.
“Fucking asshole,” Zeke muttered.
I opened my mouth and then caught myself, not wanting to sound like a girl defending her jerk boyfriend. Especially when, truth was, I didn’t even know what to call him. Boyfriend. A guy I’d kissed. Something else that didn’t have a category.
Psycho who’d been so kind a few days ago and now inexplicably hated the sight of me.
“What the hell was he, anyway?” Zeke continued.
“Greliaran,” I answered without looking up.
“Which is?”
I gave a helpless shrug. “That.”
Silence fell between us. My grip tightened around the edge of the rough stone shelf.
I didn’t get it. How could someone change so completely? There had to be a reason. Something I wasn’t seeing. Something that could have prompted him to just–
Cold horror spread through me and set my heart racing.
I looked to Zeke.
“What?” he asked, alarmed at my expression.
“Ina. She said we… we have this thing. Magic thing. Ava… ave-something. She said it feels all great for dehaians, but for humans it’s like a drug. Makes them fall for us. Like, if we just want them to.” I gulped down a breath. “So, what if I did that to him? Accidentally, I mean. What if I made him like me, and then he woke up from it and–”
Zeke swam over, catching my hands. “No, no, aveluria doesn’t work like that.”
I stared at him.
“It doesn’t,” he repeated. “Trust me.”
“How do you know? You’ve done it?”
He hesitated. “Once. But not much. And that’s not my point. People don’t come out of it like that. They’re either confused and not sure what happened, or they… you know…”
“Die.”
He nodded uncomfortably.
“Did the person you used it on die?”
“Chloe, I – no, she didn’t. She was fine. But I’m trying to tell you, that’s not what happened here. You didn’t cause this.”
“Why would you do that to someone?”
Zeke paused. “Because I was trying to get past security to save a friend’s life.”
I looked down. Of course it was something like that. Zeke had never given me any reason to think he would hurt somebody that way.
But then, Noah had seemed like a good person too, until about twenty minutes ago.
Tears stung. I closed my eyes.
“You didn’t do anything to deserve the way he treated you, Chloe,” Zeke told me quietly.
I didn’t respond.
“Hey.” He put a hand to my cheek. “You didn’t.”
I looked up, meeting his insistent gaze. I managed a small nod.
He nodded as well, and for a moment, his eyes studied my face. His brow flickered down, and then he drew a short breath. Taking his hand away, he swam back to where he’d left the bag by the far wall.
“We should be safe here till you decide where to go next,” he said, his voice tight.
I turned away, not wanting to think about it.
“So I… I’ll just go find us some food,” he continued, drawing a rope and some stone hooks from the bag. “Jirral’s provisions aren�
�t that great and there’s usually–”
“Zeke?” I called, nervousness gripping me as he headed for the opening to the cave. I didn’t want to be here by myself in the middle of nowhere.
I didn’t want him to leave as well.
He glanced back.
“Don’t?”
He hesitated, and then set down the rope. He swam toward me, pausing at the stone ledge for a heartbeat as though he didn’t know what to do, and then he sank down by my side.
A moment crept past.
“Bad few days, eh?” I tried.
A small scoff escaped him as he watched the blue flames. “Yeah.”
And I didn’t know what else to say.
Shadows and torchlight danced on the sand of the floor. Beyond the cave entrance, the current rushed over the rocks with a whispering sound.
I closed my eyes. A shudder ran through me, making my breath catch, while something so much heavier than exhaustion pressed down on my body like a blanket of lead. I knew I needed to keep moving. Get to land as fast as I could. The safety of anyone near me pretty much depended on it.
But I was tired. So tired. I hadn’t slept in days and everything in the world was painful right now. I didn’t know where to go anymore, or what I wanted at all, except maybe for the fresh hells of people hurting me every time I turned around to finally end.
Tears leaked from beneath my eyelids to join the saltwater.
“Hey,” Zeke said quietly, taking my hand.
I looked over.
“Please don’t cry,” he urged. “It’s going to be alright, I promise.”
I gave a tiny nod, wanting desperately to believe him despite everything that’d happened so far.
He echoed the motion, his eyes not leaving mine.
A moment passed. He didn’t look away. His brow twitched down, as though he was struggling with something, and he swallowed hard as he began to draw his hand back.
My fingers tightened on his. I didn’t want him to go. It felt good to have him here. Comforting. Safe.
And more than that…
He paused. Questions flickered through his eyes. His other hand lifted to my cheek again. He drew closer to me even as I moved toward him.
Gently, his lips met mine.
Warmth spread through me. A quiver tightened my stomach and chest, the sensation fluttery and amazing and desperate to grow. And I wanted it. More of it. My hand reached up, finding his side, holding him for fear he’d pull away and make this disappear.
His mouth pressed harder to mine as his fingers moved through my hair, gripping me as though he never wanted to let go. My body turned, leaving the ledge and meeting him as he rose as well. His hands slid around my back, pulling me to his smooth chest, and his tail pressed against me, contouring to every curve. My skin tingled with pleasure everywhere he touched it, the feeling building in intensity till it was all I could do to breathe.
I didn’t know what I was doing.
The thought wasn’t welcome. I didn’t care. I wanted him touching me. Holding me.
This wasn’t right.
I gasped, my mouth breaking from his. “I-I’m sorry. I…”
He drew back and let me go, the confusion on his face swiftly transforming into regret.
I turned away. It was too hard to look at him. I wanted his hands on me again. The desire for it was agonizing.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated.
“Chloe…”
I felt the water move as he came up behind me. His fingers neared my shoulder and I flinched away.
A breath left him.
I looked back.
The pain in his eyes was worse than anything.
“Me too,” he said quietly.
Turning, he swam from the cave.
A choked sob escaped me. Tears stung my eyes.
I sank to the ground and cried.
Chapter Nineteen
Zeke
For a hundred yards, I swam, before anger and frustration kept me from going any farther.
I couldn’t believe I’d been such an idiot.
Such a complete idiot.
Spinning to a stop, I hovered in the water, shaking.
I shouldn’t have done that. Kissed her. Let myself and the aveluria and everything else just go like that. I should have been smarter. She was hurting. This wasn’t the time.
What the hell had I been thinking?
My fist swung back, hitting the boulder behind me. I hadn’t been thinking. That was the answer. I’d let the sight of her pain and the need to take it away drive me when I should have been using my brain.
And instead, I’d made it worse. Like an idiot, I’d just made it all worse.
My fist struck the stone harder. I couldn’t believe myself. She didn’t need this from me right now.
But when I’d touched her… when she’d moved toward me…
I grimaced, trying to push the memory away. Because it didn’t matter. Her touch. Her taste. The warmth of her against me when every inch of her incredible body had pressed to mine…
Cursing, I kicked away from the seafloor. I was never going to be able to come near her again at this rate.
Breathing hard, I scanned the ocean around me. I needed something, anything, to get my mind off this.
Three shapes paused in the water at the edge of my senses.
And then they turned, heading my way.
My blood went cold and I swore, damning the universe’s sick sense of humor. Vetorians had not been the kind of distraction I’d meant.
Of course, it could be Ren’s soldiers this time.
Like it mattered.
Twisting in the water, I dove and pulled up just shy of the seafloor. Kicking up as little dust as I could, I flicked my tail and took off, weaving through the boulders.
I really hoped Chloe hadn’t left the cave.
Torchlight flickered in the entrance. I darted through the opening.
Chloe looked up, hurt and alarm on her face in equal measure.
“Company,” I told her as I swam across the cave. “Coming this way.”
Her breath caught. She pushed away from the ground.
Snagging the torch from the wall, I jammed it quickly into the sand, extinguishing the blue flames. The cave plunged into darkness.
I turned. Chloe hovered in the center of the cave, watching me with her body silhouetted by the paler water beyond the entrance and her green eyes glowing ever-so-faintly in the darkness. Swiftly, I swam back and took her arm, drawing her with me. “Stay behind me,” I whispered.
She didn’t argue.
I inched my head from the cave opening, straining to feel any motion nearby.
Something shot through the water and I jerked back.
A pod of tentacle-ropes burst against the stone behind where I had been.
Chloe gasped. Outside, I heard a distant click, and then the sound of someone swearing in a Prijoran Zone dialect when nothing happened.
“Go!” I ordered.
Shouting broke out behind us as we sped from the cave and took off, twisting between the boulders scattered across the ocean floor. Pods flew through the water at our backs and splattered on the rocks in masses of brown webbing.
I could feel the Vetorians coming.
And merciful waves, were they fast.
My grip on Chloe tightened as I fought for more speed. Several hundred yards ahead, the open water waited, devoid of cover for miles. I could hear her gasping beside me, straining to keep up as I swam.
But the mercenaries were gaining.
“Keep going!” I yelled, shoving her ahead of me.
Carried by momentum, she floundered and then spun to look back in alarm.
“Do it!” I shouted over the distance between us. “Go!”
Spikes grew from my arms. I turned to see the mercenaries charging through the water like torpedoes from hell.
“Zeke!” Chloe yelled.
“Go, Chloe,” I told her.
And then I raced at the Vetorians.
Chapter Twenty
Chloe
The three mercenaries sped through the water.
And Zeke swam right for them.
Like a snake, he cut sharply to the side as he came close and then swung out, striking at the nearest one. But the man just rolled, avoiding his spikes and then lashing out at Zeke with his knife-edged fin. Twisting away, Zeke darted around and sliced at him again.
His spikes caught the man’s tail. Blood clouded the water.
The dehaian shouted with pain, and one of his companions spun back. But the other kept on, coming straight at me.
Knives glinted in his fists.
The other two circled Zeke, drawing their own knives as they moved. Feinting toward him, they slashed out, testing his speed, waiting for an opening.
And there was no way he would escape them both.
A breath left my chest. Through my body, a stillness spread.
The Vetorian rushed at me and I dove, my tail scraping his as I narrowly avoided his grasp. Pain flickered at the edge of adrenaline as the blades on his fin grazed my scales, but I kept moving. He gave an angry cry as I sped off, and I could feel him spin in the water, trying to chase me down.
Spikes tingled from my arms. I charged at the other dehaians.
Their attention was on Zeke. Their knives were pointed at him. The man behind me yelled a warning.
But then it was too late.
My spikes slashed deep into the back of the mercenary Zeke had wounded, and the man howled. His companion’s eyes went wide as the guy floundered and went still. Regrouping fast, the surviving mercenary flinched toward me as I curved in the water toward him.
Zeke didn’t wait. He darted to the other side, his arm swinging with deadly precision.
A cry escaped the mercenary, the sound strangling itself as pain took over. I twisted around while Zeke swam up beside me fast, his gaze on the third guy.
The man kicked backward, coming to a stop in the water. His eyes went from me to Zeke, something almost like fear past the rage on his face.
And then he spun and raced away.