“Show me your neck,” said his father.
Perrin suppressed a growl, and yanked his hair away from his head. He turned. His father stalked close, sending a chill down his spine.
He expected roughness, but Turon was surprisingly gentle as his thumbs traced the edges of the hole in his head. Perrin shuddered, cringed—just enough to make him hate himself, and his father, a little more than he already did.
“You lost the kra’a,” said Turon, his voice dead, quiet.
“I lost it eight years ago,” replied Perrin tightly. “A’lesander killed Pelena. He confessed it to me. Ask him where the kra’a is.”
“A’lesander would not be able to hold a kra’a, even should he have one in his possession. He is too weak.” Turon paused, not seeming to notice how A’lesander’s face darkened at his words. “Pelena warned us you would return. She said your kra’a was calling to you. She could feel its dissatisfaction with her body.”
“I didn’t come here to take back my kra’a,” Perrin told him coldly. “You’re wasting your time with me. You should be searching for it. Finding some way to quiet the beast before it wakes.”
“There is no quiet for the beast. Nothing for it but dreams. You remember that much.” Turon hesitated. “You and your dreams.”
“Don’t,” Perrin snapped. “You punished me. Leave it at that.”
“I cannot. You are here.” His father stood so still, and grim. “Temptation is an ugly thing. What did you think would happen if you killed Pelena for the kra’a? That your soul would be mended? That we would be forced to accept you, simply for the sake of settling the beast?”
Perrin curled his hands into fists. “I would never be so foolish. I told you, I did not come for power. I came because I felt the beast wake.”
“Do not lie,” whispered his father. “Your connection to the sea was severed.”
Perrin swayed toward him. “I felt it. I still feel it. I hear the song of the sea, and I have witnessed the golden eye—”
Turon backhanded him. Jenny gasped, but Perrin just started laughing, cold and bitter, and furious.
“You never could see the truth,” he said, spitting blood at his father’s feet. “You were never as good at divining souls as S’har or the other singers. Never. Even M’cal, his half-human son, was better than you at singing the souls of the living. That’s why they didn’t bring you on land to guard our people’s secrets. They used you as nothing more than a breeder. And you took it out on me.”
His father hit him again. Perrin saw it coming, but received the blow without fighting back. Nearly sent him to his knees.
“I did not kill her,” he said, wiping blood from his mouth. “You see I do not have her kra’a.”
Turon struck him in the face again, and this time Perrin did go down. He heard some commotion, A’lesander swearing, and suddenly Jenny was standing between him and his father. Back straight, breathing hard.
“Don’t you touch him,” she whispered.
Perrin found his feet and grabbed Jenny’s arm, pulling her behind him. But Turon stared after her, frowning.
“I know your eyes,” he said, in rough English. “Little girl.”
Perrin swallowed hard. “A’lesander. Get her out of here.”
Jenny tried to yank free. “Like hell.”
“You carried a big stick,” whispered his father, and Perrin snarled at him, backing Jenny up until she landed in A’lesander’s arms. None of the other hunters moved. Still as statues, conserving their strength. He suspected not one of them was accustomed to the weight of gravity though their eyes tracked his every move. Ready. Waiting.
“Go with him,” he told Jenny, hating himself for not being able to protect her. “Please, go.”
Jenny’s fingers dug into his arm. A’lesander grabbed her waist, but she did not make a sound. Just hung on to Perrin, for all she was worth.
“I love you,” he breathed, prying her fingers off his arm.
Jenny slapped him with her other hand. Perrin flinched but managed to tear her off him. A’lesander hauled backward, but she continued to fight.
Perrin spun around to face his father, and got right up in his face so that Turon had to look at him, and not Jenny. Hurt, being near him. Hurt more than he could stomach.
I tried to be good, Perrin wanted to tell him. I tried to be your son.
Turon said, “The girl.”
“Not part of this,” he replied, sinking into the cold place. Live or die. Live or die. For Jenny.
But his father shook his head, finally looking troubled. “I was certain Pelena was mistaken.”
Perrin frowned, but A’lesander swore again. He tore his gaze from Turon, just in time to watch Jenny scratch her nails across his old friend’s face.
“Fuck your protection!” she screamed at him. “You murderer! You tried to kill Maurice! You killed that merwo—”
A’lesander struck her. Jenny hit the ground and didn’t move.
Perrin roared, lunging at him. His father and several others caught his arms, holding him back. A’lesander stared at Jenny, then his fist. He looked stunned, utterly lost.
“Enough,” his father snapped, and nodded at one of the hunters. “Give her to the sea.”
Perrin froze. A’lesander’s head snapped up. “No.”
“You don’t want her,” said Turon coldly. “You told me she would keep our secrets, but I assumed it was because she cared for you. Obviously not.”
Perrin did not bother arguing. He fought harder, slamming his elbows into guts, twisting and kicking, using every dirty trick he knew as two hunters grabbed Jenny under her arms. A’lesander reached out, making a small sound of protest. For a moment, Perrin thought he would fight them.
But A’lesander did not. All he did was watch, self-loathing creeping into his eyes, as Jenny was dragged to the rail. Her eyes were closed, and her head lolled. The dog, panting and still, whined.
Perrin broke free just as she was tossed over the rail. He followed, entering the water only seconds after her. He tore off his swim trunks and shifted shape, hauling Jenny to the surface. She dragged in a deep, coughing breath.
“Jenny,” he said urgently, just before they were pulled under. He tried to hold on, but she was ripped out of his arms. Her eyes flew open.
More hunters appeared from the darkness below, bodies pale as daggers and armed with hooks and rope. Fists slammed into his gut, holding his arms, grappling with his tail. Every time he managed to slip free, someone else would catch him. Jenny was swept away. Hunters gripped her arms and legs, holding her underwater.
Perrin knew the moment she ran out of air. Her face twisted in a terrible grimace that was frantic and wild—and he screamed for her. He screamed. Every broken piece of his soul reaching for her heart.
Heat spread through him, that throbbing fire in the base of his skull. Old power swelled, tingling against his skin. The Krackeni holding him flinched in surprise, fingers loosening. Perrin broke loose, swimming from them in long, powerful strokes as he raced to reach Jenny’s side. He sensed his father approaching. Faster, stronger. He had not been on land for the last eight years.
Jenny jerked, head tilting up. Her mouth opened, bubbles escaping. Perrin cried out again, desperate—
—and watched as a nimbus of blue light surrounded her head.
All the Krackeni froze, even Turon. Perrin faltered, as well. He knew that light. He knew it so well, but there was no way—no way at all it could be possible. Jenny was human.
And you are bonded, whispered a dry voice inside his mind, achingly familiar, and gentle. I have known her, in dreams, as long as I have known you.
I should not hear you, thought Perrin desperately. You were taken from me. You are no longer in my soul.
The voice of his kra’a murmured, But she is.
Breathing. She was breathing.
Perrin buried his fingers into her hair, against the base of her skull. He felt something hard and flat against her scalp—hot to the touch. The blue light intensified. Jenny shuddered against him.
Too much. He couldn’t even think about it. The hole in his head ached, briefly, and for one moment he felt a terrible jealousy, a profound envy that was dark and bitter.
No, he told himself, ashamed. No, you will not. This is not her fault.
But how was it possible? No matter the bond, no matter the will of the kra’a, Jenny was human.
Wasn’t she?
Not according to the sea witch, he thought. She had known all along. All her riddles. Telling him the kra’a was with him, that the answers were between them.
And Jenny . . . she must have known, as well. At least that something was attached to her skull. Why hadn’t she said anything?
Perrin glanced over his shoulder. The hunters were following him, and he sensed movement from below. White shapes, distant. Screeching cries and clicks filled the water. Jenny stared at him with frightened eyes. The nimbus of light had faded. Bubbles poured from her nose. Still breathing.
Not that it would help her, or him. Panic clawed, bleeding fire in his belly. Perrin didn’t know where to go. Not the boat. No land nearby. He was tiring. His muscles burned.
He glimpsed another flash of movement, a silver streak angling toward him from the darkness. Dolphin, he realized at the last moment.
A dolphin with glowing golden eyes.
Rik.
Perrin rolled sideways, throwing out his arm as the dolphin slid in tight beside them. He caught the dorsal fin and held on with all his strength.
Dolphins were fast. Much faster than a Krackeni.
But his old clan was everywhere—and they had summoned help. He glimpsed the shimmering bodies of viperous deep-sea dwellers, darting quick from the shadows in front of them; men and women shining with a faint bioluminescence, cavernous bodies mutilated and pierced with decorative bone shards. None of them would ever be able to come on land. No bones, just soft cartilage. The sun would burn their milky eyes. The only reason they could come so close to the surface now was that above it was night, and dark.
They carried nets and spears. Rik twisted, swimming hard in another direction, but the clan hunters were already well ahead of them, sharp whistling clicks vibrating through the water, translating into his mind with all the speed and ease of telepathy.
Herd them. Stop them. Kill the human first.
Jenny’s fingers dug into Perrin’s shoulders. He didn’t see bubbles coming from her nose anymore. Her lips were clamped shut, and her gaze was wild, desperate.
He could not let go of Rik, and there was no good way to tell him to surface. No time, either. He wasn’t even certain breathing for her would work.
Do something, he called out to the kra’a. Save her.
And just like that, the nimbus of light returned. Flaring blue as the sky, then deeper, shimmering from Jenny’s head down to her feet like fire. Perrin remembered what that would feel like—heat and power, and the throb of a million tiny heartbeats on his skin—but all he felt now was a tingle: pins and needles, as humans would say. He held Jenny close as the light slammed outward in one single pulse.
Rik made a startled sound but did not stop swimming. Everyone else did, though. Perrin glanced back and saw bodies floating, unconscious.
He also saw his father, who was very much awake, though unmoving, his body floating straight as a silver dagger in the water. Staring at him with unfathomable eyes.
Those same eyes, even after eight years. Those same eyes, even after a lifetime of Perrin wishing he could see, just once, something warm in them. For him.
Shadows swallowed his father.
After that, they were alone.
Perrin had never been aware of the passage of time until his exile. Time did not exist in the world below, only the shift in tides, or the arrival of light or dark above the mirror surface. Migrations happened, and temperatures changed, and there were seasons of storms that even his people could sense—but that was not time. That was just life.
Humans were preoccupied with the cutting of lives into discrete moments, and, out of the need to survive, Perrin had learned to be equally attentive to the ticking of a clock. Even now, back in the ocean, he found himself breaking moments, trying to calculate how long they had been in the water.
But instead of time, he relied on breaths. Jenny’s breaths.
Each one precious, brief interludes at the surface of the sea, holding her close while she coughed and rubbed her nose and eyes, and dragged down great lungfuls of air. She was good at holding her breath, but doing so consistently, without pause, required endurance. And she was tired. Hurt.
On her tenth breath, their tenth stop, Perrin forced her to look at him while he studied her face. Split lip, bruise forming against her left cheek. Her eye was a little swollen, too, but he thought she would still be able to see from it after all was said and done.
“I’m going to kill him,” he whispered, suffering a grim rage that settled so deep in his bones that every movement felt tender, ready to explode.
Jenny closed her eyes, silent. The lack of fight in her scared him. Perrin cradled her close, kissing her brow and smoothing her hair from her face. He thought of the kra’a buried in the base of her skull, and it took all his strength to keep from touching it again.
The hole in his head ached.
Rik circled them tightly, golden eyes glowing. Perrin grabbed his dorsal fin, and said, “Breathe, Jenny. One deep breath and hold on to me.”
She nodded, eyes still closed.
Down, down back into the sea. Perrin watched the shadows, listening to the song of the deep earth rise through the darkness into his heart, wondering if Jenny heard the song, as well.
Kra’a chosen. A human, chosen. A kra’a did not have to bond to just any candidate. It had a will of its own, an ability to choose the one person most compatible. Until now, that had always been a Krackeni. Out of necessity, availability.
But this kra’a had sought out Jenny. Known where she was and somehow latched itself to her.
Old memories hit him. Years of total isolation in the darkness. Years, for the Kraken and the kra’a to become accustomed to him. Another initiation. Old rituals.
And all he’d had, in those years alone, was Jenny. Jenny, in his dreams. Part of him. Soul bonded, he realized now. Sharing space with his kra’a, which had been ripped from him and given to Pelena.
She said your kra’a was calling to you, his father had told him. She could feel its dissatisfaction with her body.
That gave Perrin no comfort. Nor did it answer the question of what to do next.
Except keep you safe, he told Jenny silently, burying despair with determination.
She was small in his arms, small but strong, and the memory of her standing against his father—again, again—filled him. Filled him until even thoughts of the kra’a were forced to share space in his heart.
Little girl. Grown woman. Not much had changed. She still carried a big stick.
Perrin lost track of how many times Rik brought them to the surface, but he sensed it was near dawn when they arrived at a familiar, battered fishing vessel floating alone in the middle of the ocean. Golden lights burned, and a slow rock song blared, something from a James Bond movie. For Your Eyes Only, maybe. Perrin had seen that one at the homeless shelter. He hadn’t watched much television once he found an apartment of his own.
Sajeev was on deck, arms wrapped around his waist, slow-dancing with himself. Eddie stood at the rail, watching the sea. He wasn’t looking in their direction, but that changed when Rik let out a faint dolphin squeal. Eddie flinched, spinning around to run across the deck.
Jenny’s arms tightened around Perrin’s neck. Her eyes were bloodshot, and the bruise had deepened on her face. She watched the boat with an intensity that was all business.
“It’s okay,” Perrin told her, letting go of Rik when they neared the side of the fishing vessel. He took a moment to hold her with both hands, pressing his mouth against her ear. His palm touched the kra’a, and she shuddered. “No place is safe, Jenny, but this one is as good as any.”
“Ringing endorsement,” she muttered hoarsely, which were the first words he’d heard her speak in far too long.
“I trust them,” he said, which surprised him because it was true. “But stay away from the crazy dancing man.”
Jenny’s shoulders twitched, and he kissed her cheek, burying his nose in her warmth, letting it fill him. Scent was a very different thing in the sea. Limited. Human scents, on the other hand, were rich as light—and Jenny’s made him warm in places he couldn’t even name, just that it was deep and secret, and his. His Jenny.
The dolphin shimmered with a golden glow that lit the water like a gasp of pure sun. Rik’s body melted from dolphin into man: blue-gray skin shifting to bronze, while fins flowed into a liquid radiance that solidified into arms. Perrin did not hear bones crack, or grunts of pain. Shape-shifter magic.
Jenny watched in tense silence. Rik watched her, too, and was still eyeing her when his body settled into human. Perrin noted several deep bruises in his chest, along with a decidedly wicked-looking cut. He was certain some of those injuries were fresh, and not from their fight.
Rik tore his gaze from Jenny, settling a hard look on Perrin. For a moment, all of them were silent. Except for Sajeev, who was somewhere out of sight, crooning to himself. Perrin wasn’t certain whether he should thank Rik or get ready for another fight. Jenny tensed against him.
“Hey,” Eddie said, his voice low, strong. He leaned over the rail and looked pointedly at Jenny. “Ma’am, would you like to come out of the water?”
In the Dark of Dreams Page 26