Leviathan's Lament

by Kaye Draper

  Grey flushed and looked away. Luca paced closer, invading Grey's space, towering over her. “You came in there looking for me.” She said in a rich, sultry alto. “You were probably terrified that everything had changed now that you were a woman, but I know you. You were still hell-bent on making me accept you—on proving your love, no matter what.”

  Luca leaned close, pinning Grey to the wall with her tall frame. “God that was hot—that you’d damned well force me to respond if you needed to. Because you knew we belonged together.”

  Grey knew what she was saying. Luca was just as desperate to convince Grey, now that the tables were turned. Grey could see the determination in her stormy blue eyes.

  “We’ll be amazing together,” Luca murmured, her warm breath rippling the hair behind Grey's ear and giving her goose bumps. "We always have been." Luca was clearly done being gentle and patient. She radiated sexual tension like some sort of goddess. Had he ever been so straightforward? He had, she answered herself immediately. But this Luca was the real Luca, more sure of herself, more confident of her place in the world, just... more.

  Grey’s head was spinning. “Just...give me some time,” she whispered. She was having trouble breathing. Her body was urging her to go with it. Her brain was crying out for logic. “Let me get my head around this.”

  Luca sighed and ruffled Grey's hair as she drew away. The predatory sexiness melted from her demeanor and a wry smile quirked her wide mouth. “I’m sorry,” she said, running a hand through her shiny, ebony hair. “I’m really not as good at being forceful and domineering as you are.”

  Grey sighed and pulled her clothing straight with a jerk, trying to cover her embarrassment. And her flushed cheeks and rapid breathing. “Ha. Ha.”

  Chapter 8

  Grey strolled along slowly, demolishing an extra-large mint chocolate chip waffle cone while Abbie gushed about the new bolts of fabric she’d bought and all the marvelous things she was going to make from it. Grey tuned most of it out. Even though she was a girl now, she still didn’t understand fashion, or sewing, or fabric weights. But she gave Abbie a genuine smile. She was happy that her best friend was happy. The sun was shining, and spring was heating up every day as it crept toward summer. All things that Grey had once thought would never happen.

  “Are you even listening?” Abbie said, nudging Grey with her shoulder.

  Grey gave her an innocent look, still not quite used to the petite, pretty blond who just a few short weeks ago had been a lumberjack in drag. “Oh, yeah. Totally. Fabric. Shirts. Runways. That one up-and-coming rock band.”

  Abbie narrowed her gray eyes. “No. That was like five minutes ago, jackass. I said are you planning on living on the island?”

  Grey stopped inhaling her ice cream and blinked at Abbie in surprise. “What?”

  She tossed her perfect blond waves over her shoulder and adjusted her grip on her overstuffed shopping bags. “Wow. You really weren’t listening at all. Look, I know it’s hard to wrap your head around after being trapped here for years. But we have options now, you know. We don’t have to stay on Etna island the rest of our lives. We could move anywhere we want. I just wondered what your plans were.”

  Grey frowned and finished off her ice cream cone, tossing her napkins into a nearby trashcan as they made their way down Seaway, the light breeze carrying the scent of the ocean beyond. “I haven’t really thought about it,” she said slowly.

  Which was weird, wasn’t it? Like Abbie said, they had thought they’d be trapped on the island forever, but every resident of Etna probably dreamed of the day they could get the hell out of here. And yet, now that things were changing, and the quarantine was grudgingly being lifted...somehow Grey didn’t feel that call to adventure. Even the thought of going to mainland for concerts was still a little unsettling.

  It was like Grey would be leaving something behind. Something valuable and important. She shook herself.

  “I don’t know,” she said, trying to focus on the conversation, and not the warm weight of the kleidí around her neck. “I guess that would depend on what the rest of Lucifer decides to do. It would be kind of hard to keep up practices and schedules and stuff if we lived too far away.”

  She supposed that all of them living in the same house was weird. It wasn’t something that most bands would do, though it had made perfect sense when they’d been offered the option. They were all stuck on the island in less-than-ideal living situations anyway, so why not share a house and make things more convenient. And Grey was absolutely not going to analyze the way her chest hurt at the thought of them all going their separate ways. She’d come to love having them all nearby. Even when they were annoying each other, Luca, Ethan, and Matheus were part of her family. Grey had spent a lot of her life feeling outcast and alone. All the newfound comfort and companionship wasn’t something she was ready to lose.

  “What about you?” she asked Abbie. “You don’t really need to stay near the band. You’d only have to get us ready for performances. Then you could sit back and watch from a distance—maybe call us to yell when we didn’t wear the right accessories with the outfits you planned.”

  Abbie shrugged, her gaze darting away to study the brick row buildings and shops they passed. “I don’t know. I just figured I’d follow you around. God knows I can’t trust you to dress yourself.” She looked at Grey’s current ensemble of ill-fitting jeans and a light-weight hoodie from her male days.

  Grey snorted. “Right. And I’m sure I didn’t see you making goo-goo eyes at our new roadie.”

  Abbie gave Grey an innocent look. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Grey arched a brow. “Right. Does Cameron know you want to climb him like a tree?”

  That earned her a dark glare. “That’s disgusting. Did you forget how awful the whole college jock crowd was to us when we were guys? I wouldn’t touch that with a ten-foot pole.” She shuddered in distaste.

  Grey called bullshit, but whatever. She had better things to worry about than who Abbie decided to lust over. “Well, you’re welcome to follow us around as often as you want. But you also don’t have to feel obligated to live your live around Lucifer , Abs. You’re right. You could go anywhere. Maybe go to school, intern, find a job in the fashion world you’re so obsessed with.”

  Abbie just smiled. “And miss out on the soap opera that is your life? No way.” She shrugged. “Besides, I’m happiest when I’m doing my own thing. If I went to school or worked for someone else, they’d just want me to conform. Gross.”

  Grey laughed. True. Abbie might look like a stereotypical girly-girl these days, but she was no more into following the herd than she had been a few weeks ago, when she was dressing in drag and picking fights with transphobic assholes. Her design choices always had that little bit of hectic, defiant, “fuck you” in them. It would be sad if someone tried to stamp that out.

  “Okay,” Grey said, holding up a hand. “You do you.”

  Abbie flung her hair around again and lifted her nose in the air. “Well, duh. As if that was ever a question.”

  Grey laughed again, feeling lighter than she had in a while. They parted ways at the next intersection, Abbie sliding into her little compact car, filling it almost to bursting with her latest haul. Grey waved away her offer for a ride home, feeling the pull of the ocean in her bones. “I’m going to go for a walk by the water,” she said as she helped heft the last bag onto the pile in the back seat. “Good luck with all this. Don’t get buried under it and die.”

  Abbie rolled her eyes and pulled away.

  Grey rubbed the spot over her solar plexus, trying to ease the pressure there. She had always felt the ocean’s pull. But ever since The Change and the Swap Back, it was like an insistent, living thing clamoring for attention. Sometimes she just needed to touch the water, to breathe the sea air and let the sound of the waves drown out the world. Her feet carried her to the boardwalk, then down off the wooden planks onto the pristine white sands of the
beach.

  The sun was shining today, no stormy seas or ominous winds like the last couple months of her stint as a male. The ocean was content today, nature in balance. But still, Grey felt restless. She had the sudden urge to dive into the water, to swim down deep, to the depths of the sea where the sunlight couldn’t reach. She shivered at the thought of all that dark unknown.

  What the heck was wrong with her lately. Her constant headache eased a little as she gazed out at the waves, sucking in a deep lungful of sea air.

  A wave of awareness tickled over her skin and a pointed throat clearing brought her eyes back to the shore. A man stood beside her, glowing and golden. His rich brown skin glinted faintly, as if he wore a sheen of gold dust. She blinked at the sight of the white feathered wings that flicked and settled at his back. He wore a smug expression as she studied him, as if he just knew he was perfect and awe-inspiring and was giving her a moment to drink it all in.

  Grey snorted. “What the fuck are you, and what do you want?”

  The guy’s expression fell, and he looked less than amused at the lack of awe and fawning. He lifted his chin a notch and crossed his arms over his chest. He was wearing a loose white t-shirt and flowing white cotton pants, but the overall effect was that of a toga-clad angel.

  Grey had seen enough shit the last month or so to be unimpressed. “Well?”

  He spoke, and his voice was full of...something. Magic, maybe? “I am a messenger of the god your people call Apollo. I’ve come to offer you Apollo’s blessing in exchange for that rock you wear around your neck.”

  Grey raised an eyebrow, trying to look like she was unfazed, even though inside she was rattled. What did a god want with the key that granted power over Etna island—the rock that had anchored the curse that created morphs? Maybe it would be best to hand it over and be done with it. Grey could wash her hands of all this supernatural bullshit and focus on living her life. But something inside her was calling out a warning, insisting that she shouldn’t trust the gods, shouting that if they wanted the kleidí, it couldn’t be for anything good.

  The kleidí pulsed against her skin and she wrapped a hand around it, feeling the banked power thrumming through it, like the stone was...angry. As if stones could feel emotions.

  Maybe Grey really did need that brain scan after all.

  “Well,” she said to the winged messenger of a god. “Thanks for stopping by and all, but the answer is no.”

  He frowned at her flippant attitude. “I suggest you give me the stone. Power and responsibility like that was never meant to be wielded by mortals. It is dangerous. Deceptive. It will destroy you. This is for your own good.”

  Grey backed away. “And what? You’re going to take it from me by force? What happened to benevolent gods and all that jazz?”

  He scoffed. “Clearly you’ve been indoctrinated by the modern ideologies your people preach. The gods are only benevolent when it suits them. You should strive never to see what happens when they are displeased.”

  Grey shrugged, but inside she felt desperate. The kleidí was hers. The gods shouldn’t have it. They couldn’t have it. She couldn’t even describe the feelings overwhelming her, except as bad juju. Intuition, maybe. He’d get the fucking stone over her dead body. “Eh, I piss people off all the time, what’s new? You gonna beat the shit out of me now, or just stand there yapping?”

  The winged golden boy narrowed his eyes. “You know full well the kleidí can only be freely given.”

  Huh. No, Grey hadn’t really known that. But in retrospect, she thought maybe the siren queen had yammered something about that. And even though her mother had challenged her to a sort of magical face-off, Grey hadn’t actually taken the kleidí from her by force. Arianna had just...given it to her, in the end.

  And suddenly she was feeling like maybe that wasn’t as much of a gift as her slippery, devious mother had implied. Just what the hell was the big deal with this damned stone?

  “Why does Apollo want the key to a podunk American island?” she demanded. Etna island was tiny, and really, it couldn’t be worth much to someone as powerful as a god.

  The winged guy just let out an impatient breath. “Give it to me, child. There are things at work which your small mind could never understand.”

  Grey crossed her arms over her chest and lifted her chin in defiance. “No. And you just said you can’t force me. So how about you fuck off. My small mind just can’t deal with your godly presence.”

  He shimmered. “Someday soon, you’ll wish you had complied with my request.”

  Grey shrugged. “Someday soon, people will stop trying to make me do shit I don’t wanna do. Or maybe someone will actually tell me what is going on, so I’ll feel a bit more cooperative. Buh-bye, asshole.”

  She backed away and the weirdo flickered, then disappeared.

  “For fuck’s sake,” she muttered, rubbing her aching head. “Would anyone listen if I said I quit?”

  The stone at her chest pulsed and she had the weirdest sense of dark, wry laughter.

  Shivering, Grey turned away from the ocean and headed for home.

  Chapter 9

  L ucifer’s next performance was a sold-out show at the largest open-air venue in Tera, Etna island’s biggest city. Things felt smoother this time. Grey thought she could feel the band relaxing. They’d all been holding their breath since the Swap Back, afraid of the backlash that might be caused by the revelation that two of their most popular members were actually morphs. Instead, they found themselves overwhelmed by the devotion of their fans, as they realized that the band had weathered the hardships of The Change just like any other island resident. Not only that, but they were also more accessible to fans from the mainland now. Plus,se they had gained a whole new subset of fans who were more drawn to the female members. It still felt oddly tenuous and new, but their world was opening up before them, boundless and immense.

  The show was a huge success, and the band had returned to the stage for a second encore before finally calling it quits. The energy from the crowd pulsed around them like a living thing as the lights went down on the stage. Grey followed the rest of the band down the stairs at the back and into a hallway that led to dressing rooms and showers. She paused and let the others pull ahead, needing a moment alone to center herself. Now that she was in the proper form, her siren powers were alarmingly responsive, and they seemed to still be growing every day. She did her best to tamp it down while she sang, but the energy of the crowd called to her, pulsing around her, and begging to be... siphoned .

  Someone touched her arm and Grey’s eyelids fluttered open. Luca stood there, those familiar dark blue eyes staring at Grey with such heart-breaking tenderness. Her heart thundered in her chest and Grey felt like she was gasping, struggling to draw a clean breath as she reached out her hand, still intoxicated by the pull of the crowd and the high of the band’s success.

  Luca’s eyes widened just a bit as Grey’s hand slid through her silky black hair and came to rest at the nape of her neck. Standing on tiptoes, Grey pulled her down.

  Luca’s lips were soft on Grey’s, slack in shock, but they firmed quickly, and she slipped a long arm around Grey's waist to draw her close, slanting her mouth over Grey’s. There was a hunger in both of them that was blinding, like a floodgate had been opened. Luca’s cool, clear magic danced over Grey’s skin, enticing, teasing, reminding Grey of the little sprites she’d read about in fairy stories, long before she’d ever met a water sprite in real life.

  Grey pulled back slightly, and Luca set her forehead against Grey's. Their breath mingled as they drank in the feeling of...being whole again.

  “I missed you,” Grey breathed. Her voice trembled.

  Luca’s shoulders shook with breathy laughter. “Ditto.” They smiled together like children sharing a secret.

  “It really is you,” Grey whispered.

  Luca could only nod. Grey knew she understood. Grey had been viewing closeness with her as a betrayal of Luca—the re
al Luca. But on some level, her soul knew Luca's—recognized it in whatever form. The woman standing before her was Luca, the person Grey loved more than anything in the world. No matter what she looked like.

  Finally, Grey drew herself upright. Luca felt her pulling away and refused to let go. “What does this mean for us?” she asked, her blue eyes intense with emotion.

  Grey shook her head, a slurry of emotions rising through her chest—longing, pain, excitement bordering on panic. What if she messed this up? What if one kiss wasn’t enough to tell whether she could be more to Luca? What if it was all just the siren high she was on at the moment, and it all faded away when the power and the need to take receded? “I don’t know,” she whispered, her voice shaky.

  Luca drew away then, some of the light in her eyes fading. “Come on, they’ll be waiting for us to change.”

  Grey swallowed around the lump in her throat. She recalled how angry she had been back when Luca had told Grey that he was “confused.” Grey was swimming in confusion. But she had to figure this out, for Luca's sake if nothing else.

  "Luca," Grey said, catching the taller woman’s arm as she started to turn away. "We'll talk later, okay? Pontus invited me out to the house for dinner...."

  Luca sighed, but she tried her best to put on a smile, as calm and patient as ever. "Sure."

  GREY LEANED A HIP AGAINST the marble countertop and sipped her daiquiri. The primeval sea god who was Luca’s father had been staring her down all evening, but Grey had been loath to bring it up. She didn't want to upset the warm joy that had surrounded their meal. Luca had seemed almost happy for once, at ease with her father and brother...and with Grey. Mostly.

  Once the meal was over, Grey had caught Luca casting longing glances her way. The old Luca would have made some saucy comment when Grey met his eyes, but the new Luca just glanced away and said she felt like going for a walk.

  Grey used the excuse to find a quiet moment with Pontus once the others had left the room. "So," she said, setting her glass aside. "What's up, pops?"