Fathom (Mermaids of Montana #3) - Elsa Jade Page 0,26

as well she didn’t know how to scan his body to reveal his thoughts, or she would boil them both in this cavern.

She only shrugged again. “Not literally abducted. I was carried away by the hope that somewhere out there someone else had a solution for my problems. But that’s never been true.” Taking a deep breath, she held it a moment, then smiled at him. “Okay, I’m ready to go.”

Of course she didn’t mean leave Earth with him—she’d already sworn she wouldn’t do that again—but for some reason his blood surged like a moon-drifter breaking the veil between sea and sky when the nightlight called. That she was willing to merge her wake with his on even this short journey felt strangely more perilous than diving into battle.

But he didn’t grasp her close and dive. Instead he gazed at her. “Why did you think there were mysteries in your life before you discovered your blood is not Earther alone?”

She glanced away from him. “Doesn’t everyone have mysteries about themselves they can’t reveal?”

“No. My trainers in the weapons conclave let me have no secrets. I always knew what I was.”

Her jaw hardened. “A monster.”

“Exactly what they wanted.”

She let out a hard, gusting breath that fluttered her lips—the lips he couldn’t help watching even as they were tightened with some old memories he didn’t understand. “It wasn’t right that they made you for their own purposes,” she said gravely, “and then decided you were too much so they forgot you.”

A bitterness in her voice, like toxin in the waters, warned him of hidden dangers he couldn’t understand. Before he could dive deeper—the only way he knew how—and ask her, she huffed out another breath and added, “I know they felt they needed you to help save their world. But then they owed it to you to give you a place in that world.”

He gazed at her. Had anyone ever acknowledged his place—or lack thereof? Even his commander and the other Tritonyri fighters had used him in their battles without question. War had made them ruthless even to their own.

Was this the first time he’d ever acknowledged to himself that he was one of them?

Shifting from one foot to the other, he edged back toward the dark water. “If you’ve breathed enough, we should keep going.”

He could wish whatever he wanted, but he didn’t need magical rocks or the charts of the unfaltering stars to tell him what he already knew: a beast of war had no place in peace.

Maybe that was why he hoped to find intruders to justify his continued existence and why he couldn’t bear to listen when she suggested there might be something else.

Chapter 6

Tucked against Sting’s all-but-bare chest, Lana could only cling tightly as he rocketed them through the dark water. The strength of his arm held her close as her fingers cramped on the straps of his battle skin. Meanwhile powerful thrust of his legs zoomed them onward, never slowing. He managed to keep the temperature of the water around her warm enough to stave off hypothermia, but she needed the simmering heat of his body.

Why had she told him stuff about dreams and being lost? He was certainly in no place to give her any guidance. With the possible exception of these moments when they were swimming through drowned-out underground tunnels.

It had just been so long since anyone held her that obviously she was equating physical closeness with emotional intimacy. Sting had all the relationship availability of a great white shark cruising endlessly through the deeps.

Maybe that was for the best. Considering what she knew about herself now, even if she found a way to survive the zaps, it would be unethical for her to pursue a relationship with some oblivious Earther who could never know the truth about what she was, all the while risking potential death by electrocution. And the Tritonesse had made it clear that she had no place with them.

Sting was the only being in her orbit right now armored enough that she could be herself.

Whatever that was.

She lost track of time in the darkness, though she suspected it was longer than the swift rush of water made it seem. When the luminous glow of Sting’s skin was reflected in a brighter way from the walls around them, in sharp geometric lines, she realized they’d passed from the natural aqueducts to the carved pathways that surrounded the Tritonan exodus ship.

A pang went through her. This was the home of her unknown