by Ros Baxter
Beached
Ros Baxter
Beached
Ros Baxter
The sequel to Fish Out of Water is a sexy, funny mystery about strength, love, and French fries.
When the clerk at a burger joint is assaulted for trying to sell a fish burger to a hot blonde, it’s just the beginning of a clash between Land and Sea. The world is going mad, and Princess Lecanora is on a special mission to stop it. There are just a few complications…
First, life on the land is a bit harder to adjust to than expected, what with the wearing of clothing and the consuming of delicious (but pointless) calories. Second, the most evil magician the world has ever seen wants her as his bride — consensually or otherwise. Finally, a completely inappropriate gun-toting mercenary who goes against every one of her pacifist principles keeps rocking her world.
As the forces of darkness gather, Lecanora must come to terms with the lengths she will go to in order to save the sea home she has always known, and the land she has come to love.
About the Author
Ros writes fresh, funny, genre-busting fiction. She digs feisty heroines, quirky families, heroes who make you sigh and tingle, and a dash of fantasy from time to time.
Ros has published Sister Pact (a romantic comedy co-written with her sister Ali) with Harper Collins, Fish Out of Water, Lingerie for Felons and White Christmas (Escape Publishing), Home for the Holidays and Seven Deadly Sins (Amazon) and has been a contributing author to the e-anthology URL Love. Sisternapped, the sequel to Sister Pact, is due out in 2014. You can also find prequel stories to the Aegira trilogy on Amazon.
In her spare time, Ros runs a successful business consulting to government and the private sector. She teaches professional writing skills and has authored a writing guide, Clarity. She also coordinates “‘Tomorrowgirl”‘, a short story competition for remote Indigenous girls. You can find out more at www.tomorrowgirl.com.au
Ros lives in Brisbane, Australia, with her husband Blair, four small but very opinionated children, a neurotic dog and nine billion germs.
You can email Ros at [email protected], find her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/RosBaxterInk, or on twitter @RosBaxter. You can also visit her website www.rosbaxterink.com
Acknowledgements
Thanks for this story goes to my husband, for being my favorite fantasy beta-reader.
To Neve, my favorite siren.
Prologue
She comes towards him out of the waves, more and less a woman than he has ever seen. Wild white water breaks against her legs, and the sky is streaked with bruises.
It reminds him of a painting of a god: Wrath.
Silver-blonde hair lies in wet twists across her shoulders, like rope to tie a man’s legs with, and leave him screaming and gasping for air as he slides beneath the waves.
He shivers. Serious grey eyes weigh him up, and he wonders what she can see with them. Old shames and secrets cover their nudity with clumsy hands.
She is covered in sand. It glints, crunchy on her brown skin; shards of crystal. He can’t decide if he wants to lick it off her or throw himself at her feet in worship.
She crooks a finger at him, heading for the cave, and he knows which it is.
* * *
He reaches for her, but he is too late, again.
He is back in the blackness, and the pain.
Contents
About the Author
Acknowledgements
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Bestselling Titles by Escape Publishing…
Chapter 1
Nice girls don’t eat fish
Week Two, Day Three
The girl with the silver hair and serious grey-eyed gaze studied the clerk carefully. He smiled, wide and toothy. Looked like this was his lucky day. ‘How can I help ya?’
‘What,’ she said, her voice a low, breathy whisper, ‘is that?’ She pointed a trembling finger at the sandwich board standing by the counter, advertising a short-time-only special on a Fisherman’s Best. It showed a golden burger with a perfect halo of light hovering above it, suspended over a shimmering ocean in which multi-colored reef fish jumped and played. The words ‘Fresh from the ocean to you’ danced across the poster in a curly script.
‘You from Sweden?’ He felt his smile poke into his fleshy cheeks as he contemplated the tall, blonde stranger with the supermodel proportions and the slow, precise way of speaking. She shook her head.
‘‘T’s a Fisherman’s Best,’ he said, breathing in hard and pushing his chest out as far as his too-tight McLearner apron would allow. He wondered how old she was. It was hard to tell. Older than him by a few years, he guessed. Maybe twenty? ‘Real popular right now. Only a buck.’ He leaned closer. ‘Real fish in those suckers too,’ he said, going for a wink, and hoping she was one of those older girls who liked a little confidence, like his mama had told him. ‘Don’t believe none of that stuff about cardboard and mashed taters.’
The girl’s long arm reached across the counter between them, a pale finger caressing his shirt collar. The clerk felt himself turn pink. Then her finger curled, the others joining it to form a fist, as the girl yanked the teenager towards her by his collar, the serene look never leaving her face, the other hand smoothing the shiny laminex under its fingers as though disinterested, and unaffected by the exertions of the other. The clerk displaced straw dispensers, promotional stands and napkin holders as he was pulled up and over the counter, where he stayed suspended on his considerable belly, his face inches from the beautiful blonde’s.
Other customers standing close to the action scattered back, bundling their children in their arms. On the other side of the counter, the young cooks and dish-hands also pressed backwards, one yelling for his manager.
‘What grisly murder is this?’ She brought the young man closer to her face, using her other hand to pin his arms by his sides as he began to struggle. ‘Would you like me to turn you into a—’ She paused, motioning towards the sandwich board, and speaking in careful syllables. ‘What manner of food do you call this Fisherman’s Best?’
‘A…a burger?’ the clerk wheezed, his breath cut off from the way the countertop bit into his stomach. How had this all gone so horribly wrong?
The girl began to pant, her eyes starting to roll a little. She twisted the fist that held his collar, cutting off his breath and making his face pinker. ‘Would you like me to turn you into a burger?’ She said the last word like a purr. ‘Would you like for me to mince your…what do you people call flesh when it belongs to another creature? Meat?’ But before the pinioned boy could answer, a large man pushed forward from the rear of the kitchen, his face red and his arms held in front of him.
‘Now, Miss,’ he said, moving slowly towards the counter and motioning his staff further back into the kitchen as a high-pitched siren began to sound. ‘We don’t want no trouble here. You just put young Bradley down. I’m sure whatever he said—’
The girl cut across him. ‘Are you the master of this house?’ She released the boy’s collar, causing him to flop forward on the bench with relief, only to find himself pinned again as she placed a hand on the center of his back. He made to wriggle away, but she extended her hand upwards, holding him pinned in place on the countertop with just her fingertips.
‘W
ell yes, Ma’am, I guess I am,’ the middle-aged man said, inching forward again. ‘I’m the shift manager, and like I said, we don’t want no—’
‘Release my piscean friends,’ the girl said, moving her hand up to lace the back of the boy’s neck, his face down on the laminate surface, and pointing towards the sandwich board. ‘From wherever you are holding them. Release them, and I will let your apprentice go. I am not hurting him. I am simply restraining him. What manner of establishment is this, that you advertise photographs of this genocide?’
The man shook his head slowly, like he was having trouble keeping up, and looked from the sandwich board to the blonde. ‘You mean the burgers? The fish burgers?’
A low hiss came from the blonde’s pearly pink lips, and the boy almost passed out as he clocked the fury in her eyes. ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘I mean the pisceans you mean to make into the—’ She paused, wincing as though the word caused her physical pain, ‘—burgers.’
The manager widened his eyes, like he was mentally rearranging information about the scene before him, and deciding he was dealing with certifiable insanity.
‘Okay, Missy,’ he said, walking even more slowly towards the girl and speaking in a low, slow monotone. ‘You like fish, okay, I get it. But there ain’t no fish here. Not live ones, leastways.’
The girl motioned with her head towards the sandwich board. ‘It says fresh,’ she insisted. ‘Fresh from the ocean to you. That means you are keeping them here, somewhere. Waiting to murder them.’
The man shook his head quickly, his face getting redder as he did. ‘No, no, no, Missy. You’ve got it all wrong. It says that, sure, the sign. But we get ‘em already dead. Processed, and frozen. Now, surely we can talk about this, hey?’
‘Do not humor me.’ The girl’s voice suddenly sounded older and more authoritative as she raised it, and then pointed at the advancing man. ‘And stay where you are. Right now. Or I will—’
But before the clerk under her hand could find out what she meant to say, a large, hairy man, who had retreated to the back wall with his family, leapt forward and wrapped muscular arms around the girl’s shoulders from behind. The blonde was very tall, but he towered over her in black jeans and a singlet top that revealed arms dripping in ink.
The girl pushed down on the neck of the boy balanced like a stranded beetle on the countertop and turned her body slightly. The silver curtain of her hair shimmered as her free hand tore the man’s arms from around her shoulders as though they were made of cotton candy. Flicking her wrist, she captured one hairy finger and bent it backwards, twisting his arm and body with it so the large man was forced backwards onto his knees, howling in pain and upending a nearby table and chairs as he went down.
At the sound, the manager also leapt forward, and a cacophony erupted. Customers screamed, and others surged forward towards the counter.
Then a single shot split the air, freezing the scene like a party game.
‘What the hell is going on here?’ A muscly brunette stormed into the middle of the action, a smoking handgun pointed at the ceiling and a stony look on her wildly beautiful face. She was dressed in tight jodhpur-style pants, and a black T-shirt. Her hair was short as GI Jane, but it did nothing to camouflage the full redness of her lips or the crazy-long lashes that framed her dark eyes.
‘Holy fuck, it’s Lara Croft,’ the man on the ground bleated. ‘I can’t decide if this is a nightmare or the best fuckin’ dream I ever had.’
Lara Croft pointed the gun at him. ‘You,’ she said. ‘What did you do to her?’
The man tried to shrug but the action twisted his shoulder in its socket because of the angle at which his finger was being held, and he yelped with pain.
The brunette turned to the blonde. ‘Drop him, Princess,’ she barked, keeping her gun trained on the tattooed giant.
The manager started to protest, and the brunette pulled a slim leather wallet from her pants pocket. ‘No one move. I’m enforcement,’ she said, spinning slowly and showing her badge to the group. ‘I’m transporting a prisoner.’ She moved slowly to the counter and the blonde, who stood as still as a statue as the woman with the gun plucked her fingers from the teenager’s neck, pushed him unceremoniously off the kitchen side of the counter and yanked on one of her arms.
The boy, released from her grip, suddenly felt the full horror and humiliation of what had just occurred and began to howl loudly. The brunette considered him carefully before turning back to the blonde. ‘Have you hurt him?’
‘No,’ the blonde said, sounding shocked at the suggestion.
‘Well excuse me, Missy,’ the manager said, coming forward towards the counter again and squaring his shoulders. ‘But I’d like to know which parish you—’
The brunette waved her gun in his face. ‘You don’t get to know shit,’ she barked. ‘This is a federal matter. Just get the kid home to his parents.’ She put an arm around the blonde, who sagged against her. Then she motioned to another clerk, still frozen in place with a tray full of fries. ‘But before you do, we need two boxes of those, to go.’
* * *
‘What the hell was that? I was in the bathroom two minutes. I said to sit and wait. Sit and wait.’ Rania blew air out of her mouth and banged her hand on the steering wheel, stashing the gun in the glove compartment with her free hand.
Lecanora sniffed, her eyes closed as she leaned back against the chocolate leather of Ariel, Rania’s red Chevy Corvette Stingray. ‘They eat fish,’ she whispered, feeling a million miles from home as the horror of it settled in her skin. ‘I never knew that they eat fish.’
‘Jesus,’ Rania said. ‘They do worse than that. I thought you went to Land School. I thought your ma saw to that. I mean, you know, your ma, the Queen. Not…you know. My ma. Our ma.’
‘I did,’ Lecanora said, smiling a little at Rania’s attempt to get used to the new fact of their shared sisterhood. ‘I did go to Land School. I just never really knew they ate fish.’
‘They freakin’ kill each other,’ Rania exploded, emphasizing the last two words. ‘They couldn’t give a hot damn about fish.’ She turned to Lecanora, and her face softened. ‘They just don’t get it, babe,’ she said, her voice quieting. ‘They don’t know. They think fish are vacuous. They don’t know they’re sentient.’
Lecanora’s eyes closed again as she considered something. ‘Rania you have to tell me. Tell me straight. They don’t…?’
‘Don’t?’ Rania drummed her fingers on the steering wheel as she reversed out of the car park, like it was on fire.
‘They don’t eat…’ She dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘…dolphins. Do they?’
Rania laughed, a rich, throaty sound, and then stopped when she saw the look on Lecanora’s face. ‘Sorry babe,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to laugh. No, they don’t eat dolphins. Jesus, I’d kill the fuckers myself if they served up a freakin’ dolphin burger.’
She shuddered, jamming her foot on the gas pedal once they were clear of the car park and back on the highway.
They drove for a couple of minutes in silence, and then Lecanora noticed Rania sneak a look at her, before she sighed and pulled over on to the shoulder.
‘Look at me, babe.’
Rania reached for Lecanora’s chin and tipped her face towards her, studying the silver-tinged eyes and pale skin. ‘You’re not yourself,’ she said. ‘You’re sick. You have to eat.’ She looked carefully into Lecanora’s eyes.’ You aren’t used to hydroporting.’
Lecanora knew it was true. She could feel the edge of nausea biting into her stomach like hunger, with a dash of seasickness added to the mix. She closed her eyes and remembered the journey. She had only song-travelled a few times in her life, but she was an Aegiran Princess. She had been taught all the skills of the deep ocean. She had sung the right notes, perfectly. She had imagined where she needed to be—seen it, crisp and clear in the eye of her mind. And then she had scattered into the droplets around her, to reform again in another place. A pla
ce far from the home she had always known.
A place where they make the gentlest creatures of the universe into burgers.
Rania picked up the box of fries she had stashed in the middle section. ‘Here, try these.’
The silver-blonde shuddered. ‘I could never take sustenance from that place.’
‘Oh, you’ll take it alright,’ Rania spat, running her hands through her hair. ‘You have to. If you don’t, you won’t last. It’s dangerous, Princess. I’m telling you, because I get it. I’ve been there. I’ve done it way more than you. Especially this last week, back and forth. Too much, too soon, or if it’s done wrong, it can kill you.’ Lecanora watched Rania’s face, and the shiver that shook her strong frame as she spoke about the previous week. ‘You have to eat. And you have to sleep. Otherwise, your body can’t take it.’ Rania patted Lecanora’s hand quickly. ‘Babe, listen. If we’re going to do this you’re going to have to learn. Hydroporting is dangerous.’
Rania picked up Lecanora’s wrist with one hand and looked at the watch on her other arm, mouthing out timing as she studied the delicate webbing of veins on Lecanora’s arm. Finally, she breathed out all at once, and spoke. ‘Oh, thank the Mother. There it is. The alorha.’ She dropped Lecanora’s wrist. ‘But your life fish is slow, babe. It’s sluggish. Ran help us, if the Crown Princess of Aegira dies on my watch I’ll have more problems than I’ve got already. You have to eat. You get that, right? You have to eat, now.’
The blonde slowly nodded, before picking up one of the fries. She knew it was true. Rania knew more about this than she did, more about bridging the space between The Sea and The Land. Rania knew more about almost everything that she did. Everything on The Land, anyway.
‘I am not just the Crown Princess,’ Lecanora said, smiling at Rania. ‘I am also your sister.’ It felt good to say it, and Lecanora reveled in the new feeling of connection as it blossomed warm and ripe in her chest. She had only known for a few days that her childhood best friend was also her sister. It was a new feeling to belong to something. And, for someone who had grown up with a black hole for a history, it felt good.