Fathom (Mermaids of Montana #3) - Elsa Jade Page 0,12

put the—what had he called it?—sin-man onto a small, transparent platter along with a second and handed it to Sting. “Please, do sit down, and I will assemble a plate for you.”

Sting slanted a glance at Lana who was already helping herself to a selection from various other containers. Suddenly reluctant to display his ignorance, he nodded once at the other male and stood awkwardly clutching his sin-mans on their tiny platter. When Lana moved to a seat at the counter, he took the one next to her.

The Earther male placed a much larger platter in front of Sting with another smile. “This should be enough to get you started. And here’s a cup of coffee, plus cream and sugar, if you’d like.”

Sting looked at him. “Thank you,” he said very deliberately. The Tritonesse from the weapons conclave might have considered him little more than an animal, but animals appreciated tasty food too.

“Aren’t you having breakfast with us, Thomas?” Lana clutched her eating implements as if they were small weapons.

The guardsman shook his head. “I have a call with two governors about the foundation contributing to a river restoration. But I will check in on you shortly.” His gaze drifted to Sting. “Just press the intercom if you need anything.”

From the way his gaze flicked again back to Lana, Sting wondered which of them the guardsman considered more likely to require his assistance.

Or which of them was more the threat.

When he stepped out, Lana focused on her food. Since he was hungry, Sting did the same. When he’d cleared the platter, he picked up the cup of coffee. The liquid was even darker than Lana’s eyes and smelled almost as good. He took a mouthful—

And spat it back. “Kak.”

Lana let out a choked sound—probably sympathy, since she had a cup of nasty beverage too—and pulled his cup toward her. “It’s black coffee, not fish poop. Here. Try it this way.”

He watched distrustfully as she dumped a pale liquid and even whiter granules into the blackness. “Is that more poison?”

“You’re tough enough.”

Since that was true, he sipped at the cup she gave back to him. “More white granules,” he decided.

She added another spoonful. “No more. Too much will make you jittery. But who would’ve guessed you’d have a sweet tooth.”

“I have many teeth, from the gene mods that made me Titanyri.”

“Ah… Well, that explains some things.”

He went back to the container of sin-mans, since he suspected the sweetness of the rolls would offset the lingering bitterness of the coffee, and though he was a clandestine visitor to this planet, he felt an obligation to explore—

“Sting.”

He froze with his hand over the rolls. “No more?”

She frowned at him. “What? No. I mean yes. Have another. It’s fine.” When he still hesitated, she let out a snort. “Oh, just bring one for me too.”

He brought the whole container back with him. Using the flat-bladed utensil as he’d seen Thomas do, he carefully served them each two more sin-mans.

Lana gazed down at the platter he put in front of her. “I can’t…” She let out a breath. “Never mind. Back to the real problem.”

Sting eyed the container. “That we’re already running out of sin-mans?”

“Noooo. That you’re still here.”

“Need a spaceship,” he mumbled around a mouthful of spicy sweetness washed down with more coffee, which tasted surprisingly good with Lana’s flourishes. Like pixberry pie, sin-mans were not suitable for submersion, so he would need to eat them all now before he returned to the water.

“Well, I’m fresh out of spaceships, just like we’re about to be out of cinnamon rolls.”

He stiffened. If she tried to take his, he could probably take her down before she electrocuted him, but he didn’t want to fight over breakfast. “I will fix the ship you broke.”

Her eyebrows flew up as if the planet’s gravity had failed. “You’ll fix it? But you’re…”

He waited. “What?”

“I mean, I didn’t know you were an electrician or an engineer or a pilot or whatever.”

He ate another half-arc of the sin-man while he contemplated how much she might know of war. “There were never enough of us in the fight. So we all learned to do more than we were meant to be.”

Her eyebrows crashed down again, puckering. “Tritona’s war was so hard for all of you, wasn’t it?”

Giving himself time to answer, he took another bite, although the rolls were starting to weigh heavy in his gut. Which didn’t make sense, because he could eat much more than this so-called breakfast. “After so long,