Fathom (Mermaids of Montana #3) - Elsa Jade Page 0,27
ancestors. But was it a homecoming for her? Or just a reminder that there was no place in the universe quite right for her?
She would’ve gritted her teeth, but the external gill got in her way. Yet another reminder that whatever she was wasn’t right for this place either.
Fire-witch.
Annoyed at her own dejection, she stepped away from Sting as soon as he powered them up into the open air.
Hadn’t she learned a long time ago not to rely on anyone to stick around? Even Sting, weird as he was, didn’t have suckers.
If she hadn’t been to the Tritonesse hall on Tritona, the clearly alien architecture of the Atlantyri would’ve shocked her. But to her semi-discerning eye, though the alien spaceship was clearly more advanced than anything on Earth, it was not as advanced as the technology on Tritona itself. The Atlantyri was an old ship, launched in desperation from a failing civilization. The Tritonans were lucky to have recovered the living specimens of their past.
Not that the Tritonesse had considered her such a valuable recovery.
The foyer where they had emerged was empty except for the bioluminescent glow embedded in the walls. But Sting strode toward a wider circle and pressed his wrist datpad against the pale light. He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Maelstrom left defensive commands with the ship’s old AI,” he told her. “I want to make sure it doesn’t deploy any of those defenses against us while we’re here.”
She nodded even as she wondered who they were defending against. The alien ship had remained safely hidden on Earth for centuries, at least until the Cretarni had tricked Ridley, an unwitting Atlantyri descendant, into opening its doors. She glanced around. What had the Cretarni wanted here? There was only some glowing moss and half-frozen undersea creatures from Tritona’s past. Nothing to justify the violence and even death that the Cretarni had instigated, breaking Earth’s closed-world status and lying to the Tritonans about their Intergalactic Dating Agency profiles.
At least that was all over now. Marisol and Ridley might have thought they were doing work with the Intergenetic Data Agency, but in the end they’d found their alien mates anyway along with their new lives on another world.
Lana wrapped her arms around herself. Sting’s sub-acoustic tricks had kept her warm on their journey, but nothing could touch the emptiness inside her.
“Why are we here?” She couldn’t quite keep the peevish note out of her voice.
“Because you stole the Diatom and fled Tritona,” he said in a reasonable tone, as if he were just reminding her.
She wrinkled her nose at him. “Why are we here-here?”
“I told you already. Since I’m here on Earth I wanted to review the security of the Atlantyri and the Wavercrest abode.”
She grunted. “There’s something more to it,” she prodded. “You’ve been acting odd ever since you looked at the status report on the Diatom.”
He looked at her. “I was made a monster. Of course I’m odd.”
She snorted again. “I meant odder than usual.” She put her hands on her hips, puffing herself up as big as she could, at least compared to him. “Now spill, or I’ll zap you.”
His gaze dropped to the jut of her breasts, which filled out even the generous cut of the alien fabric. It was good to know that even an alien monster could be distracted by boobs. “Either you can control your zaps to torture me at your whim, or you can’t.” He dragged his attention upward. “It can’t be both.”
She huffed out a disgruntled breath. “Fine. I can’t do it on command. But if I was a Tritonesse and ordered you to tell me, you would.”
He straightened. “Are you ordering now?”
A hidden edge in his tone sent a shiver down her spine. Not exactly menace, but something dangerous nonetheless.
But she didn’t back down. “Oh, just tell me.”
He inclined his head. “It’s possible you were followed back here. I found signs of another ship on the Diatom’s scans caught as you were crashing. It may have been the Cretarni.”
Another jolt went through her, not her own zap but the zing of fear. “Why would they come back here? Everything that was sent away on the Atlantyri mattered to you Tritonans, not to the Cretarni. And I thought you’d already taken everything of value back to Tritona.”
He stared past her. “I thought so too. I don’t know what they could want.”
“Would they…” Her voice shook despite her best effort to be as calm and cool as a fish. “Would they