Fathom (Mermaids of Montana #3) - Elsa Jade Page 0,1

sensors to tell. “I’ll add it to my to-do list.”

With another snort, releasing a few deliberate bubbles this time, Sting sank back to the bottom of his cage. “I rise to serve,” he snarled the Tritonyri vow, one he’d never had the personal choice to make. “Mate or mountaintop.”

Though his commander was still speaking, if they were no longer at war than Sting had no reason to keep listening. Turning his back, he swam to the far end of his cage and sank down into the corner.

And this time when he dreamed, the blood that passed over his lips wasn’t his own nor his enemies’ but a lure far, far sweeter.

***

Eventually he let himself out of his prison—even ruthless killing machines got hungry eventually—and made a leisurely circuit of the vents. This far down, almost everything was a scavenger or a predator that fed on scavengers. Little could generate its own life at such depth of pressure and darkness.

Exactly where he deserved to be.

But for once, he hungered for something else. Adjusting his inner ballast, he began a slow spiraling helix to the surface. The other great creatures of Tritona’s sea sidled away into the shadows long before he arrived, as if the bow wave of his approach physically removed them from his path. He kept up his passive scanning, more out of habit than need, so he identified the surface ship approaching when it was still at quite a distance. It was a Cretarni ship of course—Tritonans not needing any vehicle confined to the air—but he held his position. All the Cretarni had been driven from Tritona’s waters and land, not once but twice. Presumably it was Tritonans in command of the confiscated ship.

If it wasn’t…

He continued his slow circles and shallow dives, scooping mouthfuls of rich, tasty plankton where they swarmed at the sunlit level. It took forever to feed a creature of his size this way, but it wasn’t like he had anything else to do.

Not until the ship arrived at any rate. If it was Cretarni trying to start a third war, maybe they would have plasma cannons. Plasma in water always made beautiful rainbows, sprays of mesmerizing color made half of water, half of air. Even prettier than the squirts of soil-sucker blood.

But as the ship closed the distance without a sound—the Cretarni had favored hydrocarbons, but the Tritonans retrofitted everything with wind and solar—he sighed out a wistful acknowledgment that these were his people, not enemies. When he shot a spume of saltwater and air straight up so they might see him, his own rainbow was a pale thing compared to a plasma blast.

Not that he feared they’d run him over. If they were out here, in the middle of the great sea, they were obviously looking for him.

As he lazed to the surface, rolling to expose his belly to the hazy rays of Tritona’s star, the playful breeze turned the droplets of water on his armored flesh to cold pricks, like needles. Needles brought memory of blood and pain that were nightmare, but the soft caress of sunlight took the edge off his annoyance at being interrupted.

Still, he waited for the ship to come to him rather than meeting it halfway. As the battle skin sails furled, the ship skimmed past him and wheeled around in an arcing fountain of power and joy. As it hoved about, he caught a glimpse of another Tritonyri male. Maelstrom was not at the controls, however. That was one of the Earther females. Ridley had a fierce grin on her face as she hauled the lines with all the weight in her strong body, as if she’d become the sleek ship.

The other female—the one they’d been sent to Earth to retrieve, wrongly—was hanging half off the bow, the cutouts in her battle skin revealing curves of dusky dark gold skin. Her black gaze riveted on him. “I found him!”

With an aggrieved grunt, Sting rolled, preparing to dive. If they were using him as a hunting exercise, he could make this much more interesting…

The female, Marisol, waved a large chunk of something toward him. “Sting! I have pixberry pie. Sooooo much better than ebb porridge.”

He hesitated. A hunt-and-kill mission was one thing, but this would be just an exercise, with off-world-born, half-blood Tritonans at that. Hardly a challenge.

And she had pie. Neither pixberries nor flakey crust could be found in the deeps.

With a hard flex of muscle, he lifted himself above the waves, and Marisol flung the pie