by D. N. Leo
“See, you just want to be closed to humans.”
“Faye—”
“It’s the truth. You’ve changed. You can’t deny it, and I don’t blame you.”
“Everything is fixable.” His eyes darkened. “You promised me.”
He looked into her eyes. He held her shoulders gently with his big hands, as if afraid he might hurt her. She had to admit that, with one twist of those hands, her tiny body would probably be broken in half.
“If I hadn’t promised you, you wouldn’t have taken the heart, and you would have died…”
“It’s not the heart. It’s a human organ—-”
“It doesn’t matter, Kai. It has an effect on you, and I see nothing wrong with that. But we have to be careful around here. I don’t have much influence in the Core anymore, and they don’t look fondly on human association.”
“Tell me what to do.”
“Be careful. Maybe you should stop hunting for a while.”
“You want me to take on domestic tasks instead?”
“It’s only temporary…”
“Why don’t you just put me in jail?”
“I need you here with me, Kai. You promised you’d protect me regardless…”
“Yes, I did.”
“So stay alive, stay here, and protect me. The Core has lost trust in me. They might take back my access to resources at any time. And I’m nowhere near ready.”
“Even with the latest subject I’ve gotten for you?”
Faye shook her head. “We’ve lost her.”
“She’s dead?”
“No, taken from us.”
“By the Core?”
“I don’t know. But I suspect so.”
He grabbed her elbow. “No, this is getting too dangerous. I need to get you out of here before they figure this out. I’m taking you back to Black Mountain.”
“I won’t return to land until my mission is finished, Kai. But I want you to control your changes. The organ is affecting you, and you’re becoming more human by the day. As I said, there’s nothing wrong with that, but it makes the Core suspect us even more, and we’ll get kicked out before we can accomplish anything.”
“I’m not worried about being kicked out.” He grabbed her shoulders and looked deep into her eyes. “But I can’t let them hurt you.”
“You can’t let them hurt me because?” she asked and looked back at him. He had a lot of human in him right now, and she wanted him to use the word humans usually used to express their passion to their significant others. There was no such emotion in Nepolymbus, especially in her world. But she wouldn’t mind hearing it from someone else.
And certainly not from Kai. Any female mer-citizen would throw herself at his feet for a chance to be his mate.
“Because I’m a hunter, and I am your guard.”
She felt a lump in her throat but swore to herself she wouldn’t let any tears fall. “All right, I accept your protection. Now let go of me.”
He didn’t. He grabbed her shoulders and lifted her so high her feet almost dangled above the floor. He kissed her.
It was a hell of a kiss.
A loud bang behind her startled them. The kiss stopped. Kai took a step back and regained his composure.
She turned and punched a button on the wall. A panel opened, revealing a row of tanks filled with water, all of them containing sea creatures. In a tank in the middle of the row, a mermaid floated back and forth in an upright position. A half-smile on her face, she looked at Faye and then slammed her tail into the glass wall, making another loud bang.
“ZZ29, are you trying to make a point?” Faye muttered.
The mermaid charged at the glass panel, slamming her hands against it, her tail angled straight up. She glared at Faye and bared her fangs.
“Well, thank you. You’ve saved me a lot of time and resources by proving yourself unworthy as a subject.” Faye approached another panel on the wall and pressed a square purple button, releasing poison into the tank.
The mermaid hissed and hurled herself at the glass wall again and again, but her body soon floated to the top of the tank. Faye flushed the water and the body down a pipe to empty the tank.
“There’s room for a new subject, Kai,” she said then turned and walked toward the lab window.
The rebel’s dome was not as large as the majority of the domes in Nepolymbus. But it was big enough to host thousands of hunters and the forces they needed. From her window, Faye could see the high traffic area of the entrance. It was late in the day, judging by the stream of mer-citizens swimming their way home outside the dome. The rebel dome was not a place for families.
She stood and waited for the light system to shut down for the night. Kai said nothing, but she knew he was behind her, protecting her and looking out for her. At all times.
Chapter 4
Cool. Dark. Mysterious.
Nepolymbus was magnificent. Tadgh was impressed. He had thought this submarine dimension was small—but he’d been totally wrong. Even Ciaran, as king of Eudaiz with all of its resources, intelligence, and technology at his disposal, didn’t give Nepolymbus enough credit.
With their silver blood eudqi on, Tadgh and Jo shot northward through the waters of the Atlantic toward the dimensional hole beneath the seabed. They could swim and breathe like mer-citizens and could stay under the water for as long as they wanted. But there was no point, because apart from swimming around and staring back at the strange-looking fish, there wasn’t much else they could do.
The aqueous environment was such that their supernatural powers didn’t give them much advantage. Tadgh couldn’t de-materialize, although that was his strongest weapon. As for Jo, her ability to liquify had no doubt become redundant here.
They swam along a small sea road, flanked by colorful corals and seaweeds. All around them, odd fish lurked peacefully. To Tadgh’s surprise, he hadn’t seen any mer-citizens, sea elves, or worse, shark-shifters.
Maybe Nepolymbus was truly peaceful. Ciaran had once called this a gypsy universe because it had no permanent location in the multiverse. It traveled and floated through time and dimensions. It was notorious for being elusive and complicated.
Tadgh looked around. His know-it-all brother may be wrong for once.
His eyes landed on the most magnificent creature in the water in front of him—Jo, his beloved wife. Her petite body moved in the water as naturally and beautifully as a fish in its native environment. She looked like a mermaid.
Tadgh kicked his feet hard in the water and swam toward her. He reached his arms out, wrapping them around her waist.
Jo turned and looked at him. They couldn’t speak underwater, but her eyes conveyed all the meaning he needed. She read his mind. She kicked her legs, spinning around, teasing him. He couldn’t resist. He chased her in the water. He could swim faster, but she liked to tease—and he liked her to win. He kept a stroke behind her, and let her decide when she’d let him catch up.
Then she flipped upside down and kissed him in that position.
His entire body filled with an electrifying sensation.
Then she turned so that they were upright, face to face, floating with the gentle current. He backed her against a large rock covered in soft sea grass. A bunch of small colorful fish rushed out before their bodies sank deep into the grass.
The fish might curse him for disturbing their peace, but no man in the multiverse would care about fish while caught up in such pleasure. It didn’t matter how long they had been married, he never get enough of her petite body.
He caressed, he teased, he pleasured her, knowing she always gave back much more than he gave her. And she was far more imaginative when it came to games.
He loved to see her eyes darken and then spark with a strange light green shade when she peaked. It happened in a fraction of a second and then lingered, giving him time to savor the sweet sensation. It didn’t matter how many times he saw it—he loved it as much as the first time.
But sh
e didn’t let him watch for long. She arched up and flipped him over so he lay on his back the cool wet sea grass. She kissed him. Again. And again. So slowly it was torturous. Then she picked up the pace. She teased, she urged, and then she pushed until every cell in his body seemed to explode.
He reached up to hold her, but she pinned his arms down. He smiled. She wanted it a little rough this time. He’d cooperate. Whatever worked, he thought. He relaxed a bit and let her take control. And she took him under. Again.
But before he recovered and could think any further, she pushed both of their bodies off the soft grass and out to the seabed. He didn’t understand where she got the strength, but she managed to keep them afloat a few inches above the sand. They slid through the water at what seemed like a fast pace. He grabbed for a rock standing lonely in the sand to try to stop their momentum. As soon as he sat up, she straddled him.
She smiled down at him, her hair floating flirtingly around her in the water.
If they had been in their bedroom, he would have said with feigned surprise, “Third round?”
She would have winked at him in challenge. But now, no conversation was needed. She wrapped her legs around his hips, and she drove him to oblivion.
For a while, they lay tangled in the seaweed. Tadgh did a mental check—all of his limbs were intact, although he couldn’t feel a single one of them. Jo smiled at him. He kissed her cheek, and they sat up in the sand.
After recovering from their water sport, it was time to go about their business. They swam toward a magnificent dome in the distance—a dome that, based on the wrist unit navigation system, was Nepolymbus headquarters.
Chapter 5
Jo narrowed her eyes at the dome that her navigation system identified as the headquarters. Her head was ringing from the intense water activities she had just experienced with Tadgh, but she was still sure something wasn’t right about this dome.
From a distance, the large area appeared to be peppered with giant domes that had transparent boundaries. Inside the domes were houses and towers, with land and mer-citizens going about their business. Jo figured each dome would accommodate at least a small city on Earth, but from a distance, the domes looked like tiny music boxes.
There didn’t seem to be clear entry points to the domes. Mer-citizens exited and got into parked rectangular boxes—some were the size of cars and others were more like buses. She thought the boxes must be used as transport between domes. Some of the citizens swam directly out into the water without getting inside a box.
Why would they want to do that? she wondered. She preferred not to get wet, like she was now. Her hair was messed up, and her makeup was nonexistent.
Tadgh had told her many times that she was pretty and needed no makeup. Jo sighed. Tadgh seeing her without makeup was something she had never tested and would never consider.
Some mer-citizens swam past them and entered the dome of the headquarters. Once inside the dome’s environment of air, they looked almost like humans.
Tadgh walked into the dome first. She knew he wanted to be sure the new environment was safe before letting her go in. And it was. They walked through the dimensional gate and entered the dome-like area, which was the size of a football stadium.
From inside the dome looking out, it felt as if they were in a fish tank, but with the water and the fish outside.
“Welcome to Nepolympus,” said a throaty female voice, thick with a strange accent, from behind them. They turned around and saw—for lack of a better description—a walking mermaid. She had long, wavy blonde hair and beautiful blue eyes, the kind that mesmerized men and killed them at sea.
“Hello, we’re from Eudaiz,” Tadgh said as he pulled Jo behind him. Jo knew her husband. He was wary of female sea creatures like mermaids or sirens.
And Jo thought that was wise. The beautiful woman in front of them could likely grow an extra head or eight tentacles before they blinked an eye.
“Yes, you are expected. I am Lavinia, the wife of the Gaxanxi.”
“Gaxanxi?” Jo asked.
“My apologies. My English is very limited. But I think it’s something like a General Officer or something equivalent to that on Earth. I am unsure of the system in Eudaiz.”
Tadgh smiled. “In Eudaiz, the role is called fointe.”
“I see.” Lavinia nodded and smiled. She gestured toward a double door. As she approached, the door swung open, revealing an ancient town behind it. When they stepped inside, they lost the perspective they had of being underwater. There was no longer the top of a fish tank above them, but rather something that looked like the sky. Coming from Eudaiz, Jo knew that sky lookalike would be just like a dome. If Eudaiz didn’t share time and space with the Earth dimension, there was no way a dynamic dimension like Nepolympus would have a true sky.
“What’s a fointe?” Jo whispered.
“Short for finger pointer!” Tadgh answered.
She rolled her eyes. “They would never hold positions in Eudaiz.”
“That’s precisely my point.” He grinned.
Jo chuckled. Tadgh was just a couple of years younger than Ciaran. Both were exceptionally smart. But unlike Ciaran, Tadgh rarely took anything seriously, and he hated with a passion any sense of formality.
“The Gaxanxi, whoever that is, is toying with us. No universe would take delegates from Eudaiz this way,” Tadgh said.
“Are you upset they didn’t roll out the red carpet for us and have giant trumpets blown by seahorses? I thought you hated formality.” She smiled at him.
“I do. But something is fishy about this whole thing …” Then he looked at her and rolled his eyes. “I guess there will be plenty more fishy business we’ll have to deal with. This is Nepolymbus.”
When Tadgh meant business, he was tenacious. Ciaran had sent him on this mission. And the most obvious reason she could come up with for why he had done that was that Nepolymbus was not a place to be taken lightly.
They approached an eerie temple gate. The engraved door covered in gold and red patterns was opened to them manually by guards.
They walked along an aisle that seemed to go on forever. It was flanked by a row of aloof guards. At the end of the row, close to a raised platform, stood some more human-like people. They smiled and nodded in acknowledgment of the incoming people.
A man stood on the platform. He smiled at Lavinia and gave Tadgh and Jo and nod. “Welcome to Nepolymbus, Silver Blood soldiers,” he said.
Tadgh chuckled. “Silver Blood is just a weapon—or an ability, you might say—that we have. I wouldn’t use it as our identity. If you prefer formality, however, you can call me Sciphil Seven and her Sciphil Four of Eudaiz.”
The man raised an eyebrow. “What’s a Sciphil?”
Tadgh smiled. “In Eudaiz, we are of a higher rank than your Gaxanxi. We are the councillors of the king. And who are you?”
“I—”
“He’s Simon, the Gaxanxi’s deputy. He works directly with my husband,” Lavinia said and smiled at Tadgh.
“If you two are done measuring dicks, can we move on with the task?” Jo asked. “We’re here to verify an important piece of information, and that should be done with your highest authority.”
Tadgh chuckled.
“All right, this way, please,” Lavinia said and gestured toward a corridor on the left.
Simon scowled. “There’s no need to go anywhere. We can discuss whatever you need right here.”
Lavinia smiled. “Our guests have told us they need to speak to the highest authority. I imagine that would be our king.”
“But in this temple, under this dome, I am the highest authority. And you have no rank. You’re only a …”
Jo didn’t need to look—she knew exactly what Tadgh was doing. In an instant, he de-materialized and reappeared right next to Simon, with his dagger against Simon’s throat.
“Look, pal, we’re here for important business. We don’t have time to waste on your little domestic dispute.”
>
Simon opened his mouth, but Tadgh pressed his dagger harder, cutting into skin, before Simon could utter another word. The guards raised their weapons. Simon gestured the guards to put them away. They obeyed.
“And if you intend to call any ladies in this room by any names other than those their parents gave them, or refer to them by social class or rank, I’ll let my dagger talk to your throat, in which case, you won’t have a chance to respond. Got it?”
Simon nodded and glanced down at the dagger, waiting for Tadgh to ease it out. Tadgh did, and then he pushed Simon aside.
“You’ll regret this,” Simon muttered and strode out of the room.
“Shall we?” Lavinia gestured toward the left wing corridor. Jo turned and walked out with Tadgh. As soon as they stepped through the door’s arch, Lavinia slammed her palm onto a picture on the wall. A hidden wall slid out in front of Tadgh and Jo, blocking ten arrows flying toward them.
Tadgh turned and looked at Lavinia. “You knew?”
Jo smiled. “I don’t think she did, not until Simon demanded to stay in the room. Why would a royal invite us and then set a trap to kill us?”
Tadgh approached Lavinia. “Or perhaps we weren’t invited by a royal?”
Lavinia looked at Tadgh, then back at Jo. “You’re both wrong.”
Chapter 6
Faye darted frantically back and forth between the compartments of her subjects. The lab had become chaotic. Lab assistants moved from one monitor to another. They didn’t do much, mainly kept an eye on things and waited for her instructions. But she had no clue how to handle this as it was unprecedented.
She was the chief scientist in this lab, at least that was the identity she’d been given. This lab was funded by the rebels, and its findings fed straight to the Core, the brain trust of the rebels.
She needed their resources as much as they needed her expertise. They had never once questioned her about where she got her skills, and she had never once questioned them about where they got their financial resources. As far as she was concerned, it was a mutually beneficial deal.