Fathom (Mermaids of Montana #3) - Elsa Jade Page 0,33

canister and then raised the same wondering expression to him. “I did it? I did it!”

With a grunt, he herded her toward the edge of the pool. “That’s what I said.” He was fortunate that his abrupt exodus from the spire had ended with him in one of the filled pools and not on the exposed seawall between the susurrating chambers. As tough as he was, if he’d hit the modified plasteel, more than his lips would be numb.

Unresisting, she moved toward the nearest step and clambered out. “But how? How did you know that my zaps, my power could be used for this, for good?”

He boosted himself up beside her, grimacing at the twinge in his muscles. Though he’d plunged farther before and under worse circumstances, it had never been while losing consciousness—and still distracted by the feel of her mouth under his. If he hadn’t taken a lungful of her breath before she blasted him an out of the spire, he might indeed have drowned at the end of the fall.

And some part of him still seemed inexplicably shocked and breathless. Maybe her power had damaged some part of him that even the unplanned fall hadn’t.

He shook his head. No sense worrying about that now. “Electrons are electrons,” he told her. “You are just giving them a boost, on purpose or not.” When she just stared at him, he added, “Like all the waters are eventually connected. Your zaps are either a battery you control—or a storm that you don’t.”

She’d been slowly nodding, but after that last, she froze. “But I didn’t have much control, did I? When you….” She turned her face away. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

“At least you burned off the worst pulse on me, not the gel.” He gave her an approving nod. “Some part of you remembered what mattered.”

Her dark gaze shot back to him, unaccountably angry again. “Your life matters more than some synthetic synapses.”

“Not for this mission,” he reminded her. “Although either way, you’re getting rid of me.”

She threw up her hands in exasperation, lobbing him the capsule in the same gesture. He caught it easily. “Take it. Get out of here. Leave before I kill you—on accident or on purpose.”

The part of him that was still shocked let out another laugh. “Let’s go then. We still have a few components to find.”

But as he led her through the Atlantyri, collecting what he needed, and resetting the alarms to keep watch for the unknown intruder into Sunset Falls space, the part of him that had been stunned and unconscious slowly came back to life—maybe for the first time—with a honed edge that was almost exquisitely painful. The gel in its capsule pulsed with a strength that distracted his senses even though it was tucked away in a compartment of his battle skin.

Whatever she’d done to it—and to him—was more than exciting a few electrons. Maybe the Tritonesse weren’t wrong about the little nul’ah-wys either.

The powerful burst must’ve exhausted her since she was quiet through the rest of their search. Though used to silence, he found himself missing her, so he kept up a commentary on the ship’s systems and some of its history when the exodus ship had fled Tritona in the midst of their war with the Cretarni when their defeat had seemed inevitable. Though she asked a few questions, she still seemed subdued when they returned to the corridor that would lead them back to the waterways out to the world.

He took a long step in front of her and pivoted to face her, making her halt. “Were you injured by the blast?” he demanded. A terrible thought made him stiffen. “Did my kiss damage you?”

She flinched. “No!” Taking a shuddering breath, she repeated more calmly, “No. You didn’t hurt me by kissing me. But…it’s not something you should just…do to someone when you don’t have that kind of connection yet.”

“Because they might blow me out the nearest window.”

The corner of her lip twitched. “Maybe. If they can. But what if I hadn’t wanted you to kiss me at all but I didn’t have the strength to blow you out the nearest window?”

He considered. “That wouldn’t be right. Like taking a fish from a youngling who can’t fight back.”

“Uh… Sort of, yeah. You should use your greater strength for good.”

“That wasn’t why the Tritonesse made me.”

“Maybe not. But it’s your strength now so you can do whatever you want.”

He nodded slowly. No one had ever told him his power