Fathom (Mermaids of Montana #3) - Elsa Jade Page 0,43
please feel free to request any accommodations you might desire of me.”
She smiled. “The first one? Please, call me Kailani.”
“Of course. Kailani,” Thomas said. “A lovely name. Hawaiian, yes?”
“My mother always said her mother told her we were descended from island royalty.” Another twist of her lips was half amused, half sad. “Now I discover we didn’t just steal the name and part of an identity but half our blood as well.”
“Probably more,” Sting offered.
Thomas ignored him. “We’re all seeking truth we didn’t believe possible,” he said. “And until then, maybe we just need a little something to get us through the long, lonely nights.”
She gave him a half-lidded, assessing glance.
Lana tucked her chin. “It’s late. I’ll take my mom”—she emphasized the word this time—“up to one of the spare rooms and get her settled.”
“I can do that,” Thomas countered smoothly. “That’s why I’m here, after all.”
Refusing to be scraped off, Lana tagged behind them and lingered with her mother, chatting and poking around the room while they waited for Thomas to bring up a late-night snack.
Finally, her mother cupped her chin. “Honey, you have dark circles under the bags under the sorrow in your eyes. I know you haven’t told me everything yet, but get some rest and we’ll figure it out now that were together again.”
There’d been a time where she might’ve believed it could be that easy.
They hugged again, and reluctantly Lana headed for the door just as Thomas returned with a heavily laden silver platter. She gave him a look, which he returned blandly, and then glanced back one more time.
“I can’t believe you got the message,” she murmured, “and that you came.” If she’d still been on Tritona, she might’ve missed this moment, might not have been around at all to see her mother again.
“What’s not to believe?” Her mother smiled. “The Atlantyri left Tritona to give us a chance at a better life. And now? This is the chance. I love you, honey.”
“Love you, Mom.” Lana smiled back, her heart withering since she’d already had her chance—and lost it.
She slipped out of the room, leaving her mom and Thomas and the sweet scents of jasmine tea, buttered toast, and fresh-cut citrus behind. Though she started toward her own room, for some reason her feet turned her the other way down the corridor, down the stairs, to the library.
As if she’d already known he’d be waiting.
Chapter 9
He’d known she would come back. Currents were swirling around them now, holding them closer than his tow rope, deeper than the distant blood they shared.
Also, the sparking static of her restlessness had warned Sting that she wouldn’t be able to seek her own rest yet.
She paused in the doorway of the big room, gazing at him. Sometimes the Tritonyri warriors who’d fought beside him had complained that they couldn’t see past his barriered lenses, but he thought they would be even more unnerved by the little nul’ah-wys’ dark eyes. They held all the subterranean secrets of a buried labyrinth, with none of the open spaces that Tritonans took for granted.
He’d always been the one to seek out the vast, unfathomable deep-sea trenches where nothing could touch him from any direction, not even the light of the sun.
Now, for some reason, he wanted to be engulfed.
Maybe he was just hungry.
The guardsman had left a tray with foodstuffs before taking a matching selection upstairs. Now, Sting gestured at it. “You should eat. You were drained by the journey through the cold water—and zapping me.”
She flicked a glance at the silver bowls. “I’m not really hungry.”
Yes, he did not really think that was his problem either.
Still, he wasn’t mistaken about her energy needs. The restive shudders still rippled through her electric field, making his own pulse skip like a silverwing over the storm waves on Tritona’s sea. He went to the side table and methodically assembled a plate, as Thomas had done at the morning meal. Turning his back on Lana, he padded to the empty stone of the large square cove where there’d been fire once before and held his datpad to the controls. “Ignite,” he commanded.
With a huff, Lana marched over to join him. She flicked the switch, and flames burst up from the pretend rocks within the cove.
“You are good at that,” he said.
She huffed again and plucked a round, flat, shiny disk from his plate. “You can fly a spaceship. I’m pretty sure you could figure out the fireplace if you wanted.”