Fathom (Mermaids of Montana #3) - Elsa Jade Page 0,52

would’ve grown appendages and taken itself out of harm’s way.

“What did it say?” The Earther male known as Evens popped up from the other side of the storage rack.

Knowing he was not at his most civilized after a long night alone on the Diatom, bashing his knuckles on plasteel conduit and rehashing every moment of his hours with Lana, Sting didn’t respond immediately, lest his answer be bloodshed. He let out a stale breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. What kind of Titanyri didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath?

“This sensor is poorly calibrated,” he told the Earther.

“Since I stole it from the IDA center without having any idea what it was, I probably wasn’t as painstaking as I might’ve been.”

Sting glowered at him. Given the choice, why would anyone take pains instead of inflicting them? Earther words were more confusing and annoying than algae tangles. One announcement was clear though. “You admit your thievery?”

Evens made that Earther gesture with his shoulders that indicated he didn’t know, didn’t care, didn’t want to say, or some combination of the above. “No one else was using it or any of the other things since the center was abandoned.”

Collecting his selections, including the confused sensor, Sting stalked toward the empty sack he’d brought with him. The back room of the shop was stuffed with non-Earther tech; Evens had been persistent in his thieving even if he wasn’t painstaking.

Maybe that had been the problem with Lana? Had she sent him away because he’d been too persistent? Or not enough? He had willingly taken the inconsequential pains of her clamping thighs, digging fingernails, even her involuntary zaps. But then she’d banished him anyway.

The sensor beeped another seismic warning before he dumped it into the sack along with his other finds to finish repairs. With the late-morning sun, he’d left the Diatom synthesizing the data gel and returned to the Wavercrest abode to demand that Lana…do something.

Instead, the Wavercrest guardsman had informed him that Lana and her mother were sequestered doing female things. Thomas had used more words than that, but the exact language didn’t matter since the meaning had been simple and clear even without Lana standing right there: Go away.

So he did. Because he might be just a beast of war, but he knew when he wasn’t wanted.

When he’d brusquely informed the guardsman that he would be visiting Evens’ Odds & Ends Shop, should Lana require anything of him, Thomas had given him a look even more inscrutable than a shrug. The expression most closely resembled the look of a Cretarni soldier watching one of his fellows drift toward the deep: a mix of helpless dismay and resignation.

“If she asks, I’ll let her know,” Thomas said eventually. “Might I suggest that you don a disguise?”

And so Sting had found himself stalking the streets of Sunset Falls in his battle skin covered with a long flowing layer that the guardsman called a trench coat.

“It’s all I have that will fit you, sir,” Thomas had said with a grimace. “But please don’t let anyone see what you have on underneath—what you don’t have on underneath. Also, your lack of footwear will seem suspicious, so if anyone questions you, you should probably just run. Oh, this is probably a terrible idea…”

Sting eyed him. “Yes, terrible. I have never run from an enemy.”

“Imagine all the words it would take to explain why you killed a closed-worlder,” the guardsman cautioned. “Sometimes running is easier.”

“Lana ran,” Sting grumbled, “rather than tell me anything.”

Thomas pursed his lips to one side then the other, as if he were priming whatever he was about to say. Sting, who’d very recently bragged that he had the strength and endurance to last nights and days at a time, found himself impatiently contemplating throttling this particular closed-worlder, but that would just keep the explanation bottled inside the other male, so he waited.

“I have not spent all that much more time with Miss Lana than you,” Thomas said finally. “But if I might offer some Earthling insights…” He hesitated again.

“Speak,” Sting growled. “I am more than the unknowing monster everyone seems to fear.”

Thomas gazed at him. “The knowing one?”

Sting narrowed his eyes. “You’re saying that Lana thinks I’d purposely hurt her?” A rage, very much in keeping with what any reasonable sentient creature would fear, stropped his senses to a predatory edge. “No. I have held back at every moment—”

But Thomas was shaking his head. “You are not the monster she fears.” He folded his hands