by Starla Night
A strong wave would lift it right out to sea.
She timed the waves and stood when one gave her a good push, then teetered on the sharp coral. Her dress flapped.
Harmony hugged her chest.
The raft support beam shrieked. Wave after wave yanked the slats apart wider and wider.
She had to get it off the ledge before the whole raft fell to pieces.
Harmony hobbled toward it.
If the raft floated out to sea, then what should she do?
Get in?
She couldn’t live on this island. There was no spring. No stream. No well. No water whatsoever, as her parched mouth and dry throat reminded her. No food, grumbled her stomach. She’d eaten and drunk nothing since Faier had left, and that was another reason she tracked his absence.
No food, no water. Nothing to make a shelter. Nothing.
Maybe Faier could fish as he had on the raft. Maybe she could set up another dew catcher as Monsieur Joseph had taught her. Maybe she could survive.
But her ancestors had abandoned this island for a reason.
One solid wave from a mild tropical storm would wash over the whole island. The sea could sweep her away at any moment, even in her sleep.
A wave knocked Harmony forward. She fell on her knees. Her dress ripped clean apart.
Okay. Now it was a robe.
Wind and waves crashed. The raft squealed as the second support beam frayed.
She pushed herself up and slogged to the disintegrating raft.
A faint echo reached her. “—ony!”
She straightened and looked behind her. “Faier?”
Nothing but horizon, island, and empty ocean.
Huh.
She turned back to the raft.
On the other side, a long, dark, slimy green log drifted.
Finally, good fortune!
So, there was driftwood. She’d rescue the raft, somehow, and Faier could use the driftwood to repair the…
Wait.
Neutral white glowed around the log’s edges.
Aura. The log had an aura.
She squinted.
Neutral white?
An animal.
A long, greenish-brown, partially submerged, log-shaped animal…
Danger.
She backed away just as the log—no—the massive crocodile lunged. Roar. It stomped on the raft as it surged for her face.
She froze.
Teeth. Snapped. An inch from her nose.
The raft collapsed in half like a bear trap. Wood smashed together over the crocodile’s back and shattered.
The crocodile whipped away from her in surprise.
Its tail whooshed the air in front of her.
Her shelter tangled its feet.
It attacked the shreds of plastic and bits of crate in the shallows. Its anger echoed between the three pinnacles. Roar!
Harmony stood stupidly while the crocodile thrashed in fury. She felt nothing. Just an electric coldness.
She.
Couldn’t.
Breathe.
Something dark erupted from the deep water next to her. An arm hooked around her waist. Dark head. Scars.
Faier.
He dragged her away.
The horizon rotated. Sky underfoot, sea overhead.
She plunged under water.
The shock of the cool jolted her out of her stupor. She struggled away from the surface where the crocodile was making so much noise splashing and roaring.
Her dress separated into fibers around her.
She was nude.
The crocodile was coming!
Panic seeped in.
She had to outswim the crocodile, and she had never learned how to swim.
The roaring and splashing dropped silent. The crocodile had escaped its entanglement. It chased them with the opening music of a horror movie.
Ba-whoomph. Ba-woomph.
Her heart jumped into her throat. Her chest trembled.
Faier gripped her shoulders. His dark, mauve-threaded eyes focused on her. His mouth was closed. But she heard his soft voice inside her chest, right behind her heart.
“Go.”
He released her and kicked for the diving crocodile. An indomitable warrior, he faced the charging reptile barehanded.
The crocodile slashed his chest. Red marks appeared, and blood puffed in the water. He kicked his big fins and flew over the crocodile’s bumpy back. The crocodile twisted after him. He outpaced its turn, straddled the beast, and looped his arms around its neck in a chokehold. The crocodile rolled. Faier rolled with it and then broke free.
The crocodile swam after him, leaving her.
This was how he’d earned the scars. He battled the deadly monster with grace. He led it out to sea.
Her heart calmed. Faier would get away. She had to wait for him to come back and rescue her.
Rescue her from being underwater.
Right.
Harmony held her breath.
But…huh.
Did swimming always feel so…freeing?
The entire ocean spread around her. Floating in the middle of it felt natural. She didn’t even need to breathe. But that was crazy, wasn’t it? She must breathe.
Harmony wiggled.
She didn’t ascend. Her human toes looked so little in comparison to Faier’s long fins. The surface remained far away.
But she wasn’t too worried about it either.
Why wasn’t she worried? Panicked? Drowning?
It made no sense.
She had to be dreaming.
Faier returned. He’d led the crocodile far out to sea. Now he searched the surface of the water, his two long fins propelling him quickly. He didn’t see her. So he looked down.
He flew to her. Concern glowed in his aura.
Blood flowed from long slashes across his chest. Scars obscured his compass rose.
He cared.
Her heart contracted again.
She had once called him a monster. Beneath those surface scars, he was a good man.
At least, in this dream world where she was floating underwater like it was no big deal, he was a good man.
“Harmony.” He stopped in front of her. Sunlight glimmered from the surface behind him. His concern morphed into confusion. Even with his mouth closed, his voice reached her. “You are alive.”
She heard him inside her chest, in a cavity behind her heart, and answered in the same natural, closemouthed, chest-vibrating way. “You saved me.”
His brows shot for his hairline. He jolted, both palms open, his entire body electrified in surprise.
Was her gratitude really so surprising? She needed to fix his surprise by expressing her gratitude more.
The air—or water?—between them grew warm as she drifted into his orbit.
“You saved me again.” Harmony touched his scarred forearm. “And I’m sorry I made you feel bad. Your scars don’t bother me. Not at all.”
He looked at her touch without seeming to understand. “Scars? But…you…”
She rested her fingertips lightly on the teeth marks. Fresh cuts too. Angry, red slashes he’d gotten from saving her.
Again.
“Me?” She floated closer, giving in to the wish that had called her soul forth this entire time.
He drifted back, not understanding her intention, his surprise giving way to a slight frown. “Yes, you…”
He said they’d kissed? No, that she had kissed him? Well, this time, she would remember.
His lips parted as if he were about to take a breath and ask her what she was doing. “You are a—”
She aimed for his mouth and brushed his lips.
They kissed.
Lips touched, the briefest union, and parted again. Sparkles flickered in her veins like the blue luminescence from her fingertips stirring the ocean in the twilight. She felt happy, for the first time in forever, and alive.
His lips cracked open. “Harmony.”
Was he t
rying to draw back?
Normally Harmony would let him. She never took the initiative.
But Faier was different. He held himself back, taking care of her, still protecting her. In the dream world, his control drove her wild.
She pushed forward, her tongue thrusting into his too-willing mouth.
He groaned in his chest, the same way he spoke. “You kiss me. Remember this time.”
“I’ll never forget. I want to do everything to you.”
Heat seduced her mouth. Hunger curled in her belly and dragged her forward. She wove eager fingers into his locks of dark hair and meshed his lips with hers. Wet heat mixed with the salt of the ocean.
He tasted like freedom. Like water. Like life-giving rain.
She sucked him in, consuming all of him. A primal warrior whose aura glowed with addictive heat. A friend and ally who had become so much more.
“No,” he said, low, his control holding on by a thread. “Your soul is not mine.”
“Isn’t it?” She pressed her chocolate-kiss nipples to his hot chest and canted her hips, writhing. “Don’t you feel what I do?”
He did feel what she did. His control broke.
His arms tightened around her back. His biceps flexed. His fingers lowered, feeling the shape of her nude body pressed to his. The curve of her waist. The flare of her hip. His fingers dug in.
Her pussy throbbed. She moaned, giving herself to him, finally sheltering in his arms the way she’d dreamed since the moment of their first meeting.
His large, steady thigh nudged between hers.
Yes.
She wrapped her thighs around his and writhed. He was her protector. Her warrior. The motion dragged her throbbing clit across his taut muscle. She disappeared into pleasure.
He growled deep and kissed across her jaw, down the column of her sensitive neck to her breasts. Possessing her just the way she wanted.
She arched, guiding him to her dream.
He dragged one nipple into his mouth. Pinpricks of desire lanced her throbbing pussy.
She tangled her hands in his hair. More. She wanted so much more.
This was the best dream ever—
Someone shouted. Arms ripped her away from Faier.
She thrashed.
Faier cried out. “Swim to the land!”
But she couldn’t swim anywhere. Enemy warriors holding long tridents, bristling with daggers and inked with strange tattoos, surrounded them.
One held a sharp blade to her neck.
Chapter Eleven
Faier bashed the dagger from the idiot warrior in teal and white tattoos who threatened Harmony.
That warrior dropped his blade and tumbled back with a cry.
Other warriors flew around them in a hunting formation.
Harmony hovered, frozen.
He dragged her into his arms under his protection. “You will not dare attack a sacred bride!”
The new warriors slowed. They circled for an opening to separate him from Harmony.
Faier evaluated the war party. Three low-level warriors. Two leaders. All armed with long, sharp tridents and short bicep-bound daggers.
Standard escort for a sacred island bride.
Faier’s blood pumped. Harmony’s taste lingered on his lips. Her acceptance heated his chest and her arousal pulsed in his hard cock.
No one would take her from him.
The youngest, least-experienced warrior—by the simplicity and barrenness of his tropical pink tattoos—spoke to them. His words vibrated in his chest. “Aiycaya a n’aila l’ai no ana pu?”
Harmony’s arms tightened around Faier’s neck. “What’s he saying?”
“I do not know.”
“What? How can you not know your language?”
“It is not my language,” he explained with soothing patience he did not feel. “It is the language of your tribe.”
“Oh. My tribe? Then they are…?”
“Warriors of Aiycaya,” he guessed.
Her mouth snapped shut. Her soul light darkened in fear.
The youngest warrior darted to her. “Aiycaya l’ai no ana pu?”
She hid her face in Faier’s shoulder. “Eep!”
The young warrior growled low in his tropical pink chest. “L’ai no ana pu!”
Faier’s chest thrummed with readiness. “Calm. You frighten her.”
One leader—sharp featured, with mango tattoos—made an irritated comment. The young warrior’s eyes flashed with embarrassment.
Thud. Behind Faier, the idiot teal-and-white warrior thumped Faier’s calf with the hard butt of his trident.
An opportunity.
Faier whirled and hooked the trident in his elbow.
Harmony shrieked.
Faier continued his whirl and dragged the idiot warrior in a circle. The warrior fought him like a hooked skipjack. Faier slammed him into the other two.
The tropical-pink warrior kicked free.
Faier shoved the others back.
They caught themselves, glowed with fury, and attacked.
“I have a bride!” Faier snarled, bracing to protect Harmony.
The second leader, with intricate blue-green tattoos, dealt a short, clipped order.
Both warriors ignored him and charged.
The mango leader snapped.
They pulled up like he’d grabbed their hair.
So, the sharp-featured mango warrior was the true leader. The blue-seas warrior was a lesser leader trying to assert authority. And the young hot-pink warrior berating the insolent warriors and fawning over the mango leader was…
What was he?
The hot-pink warrior darted to them once more. He moved without discipline. And he alone addressed Harmony. “Su ala no laina a. Tu su la no.”
A bad feeling pooled in Faier’s chest.
She almost strangled Faier in her tight grip. “What does he want?”
Faier did not understand any words, but the warrior’s body language was unmistakable.
“Something he will never have,” Faier growled.
“Me.” She swallowed. Her hands shook. “Sorry. I’m supposed to order them. But I don’t know how.”
“Tell them.”
“Just tell them? They’ll listen? Are you sure?”
“You are powerful.”
She moaned.
“Salana na ala no.” The youngest warrior held out his hand to Harmony.
She stared at his outstretched hand in horror. “No…”
“Believe,” Faier insisted.
He evaluated the escort for another opportunity. Their coordination was not good. He could…hmm…
The young warrior continued to lure Harmony, ignoring her mounting distress. “Asa la sana pu?”
She shrieked. “Leave me alone!”
The hot-pink warrior looked startled and then offended.
Faier stroked her shoulder, calming and protecting her. It was a start.
The hot-pink warrior regrouped his warriors, and they muttered among themselves.
The blue-green leader articulated one word. “English.”
The hot-pink warrior dismissed him and jabbered on in their language.
“Are they going away?” she asked Faier.
“For the moment.”
“Now what are they doing?”
“They are debating whether to speak to you in English.”
She blinked. “They speak English?”
“Yes.”
“Seriously? They understand what we’re saying? Right now?”
“English is the common language of warriors.”
“So why are they pretending they can’t understand?”
“They do not pretend. The warrior speaks to you in his city’s language of brides. Changing to English forces him to admit you are not his city’s sacred bride.”
“Ugh.” She shuddered and rested her chin on his shoulder. “Lifet used to speak Kreyòl when he didn’t want me to know what he was saying. It’s torture.”
/>
“Tell them.”
“Tell them what?”
“Speaking a language other than English is torture.”
“What good will that do?”
“They will speak English.”
“Okay.” She swallowed hard. Her vibrations turned ragged and her soul light darkened. “Tell them. Just tell them. Okay.”
The hot-pink warrior bowed to Harmony and yammered in his language once more.
“Um.” She swallowed. “E-excuse me.”
The hot-pink warrior talked over her.
She turned her tremulous gaze on Faier. “I tried.”
“Again.” Faier nudged her encouragingly. “Order them to speak English. What do you fear?”
“Do you see all those knives and spears?”
“They will not injure you. Believe.”
“B-believe.” Her light dimmed further. “S-sure.”
The hot-pink warrior snarled at him in English. “Do not harass my sacred bride. I will kill you!”
“Speak English,” Faier returned on Harmony’s behalf.
“We speak the sacred language.”
Faier waited.
Harmony hid her face, terrified beyond her limit.
Faier answered, “She does not.”
The hot-pink warrior’s mouth flattened with disbelief. “She is my sacred bride.” He puffed out his narrow chest. “I am King Kayo of Aiycaya.”
“King!” Faier had seen a lot of kings. This young male could not lead a hunting party, much less rule a city.
Harmony lifted her head. “King?”
“You, sacred bride, accept my offering and come with me.” King Kayo reached into the woven bag at his slender hip and held out a large, pearly mating gem.
Faier’s heart stung. He should have defied the Coast Guard and carried his offering to give to Harmony. His arm tightened around her.
Harmony stared at the king’s offering. “That’s a Sea Opal.”
“Yes, my sacred bride. It is my gift to you.”
“No.” She rubbed her forehead as though she experienced sudden head pain. The fog cleared from her eyes, and heavy resignation replaced it. “No. It’s not for me. I don’t want to go with you. Don’t make me go to the bottom of the sea and consume my soul.”
“Consume your soul?” King Kayo tilted his head. “I will care for you. You will join with me and give me a young fry.”
She again turned to Faier. “Tell me what to do.”
“Tell him no.”