Fathom (Mermaids of Montana #3) - Elsa Jade Page 0,59
cymbals. The delicately balanced bronze rattled a discordant warning, and Sting jumped back. He cut a glance at her giggle and moved in again. This time his touch was so delicate that even the tiny space between the two halves of the cymbals didn’t close.
Her urge to laugh faded. She knew how delicate those big hands could be…
He gave it a more vigorous push, and the finally hammered bronze chimed, as if it too approved of his touch.
His face brightened in a way she’d never seen before, and he clanged the array of cymbals with more enthusiasm. His grunt of delight pinged in her chest. Behind her on the wall the finely spooled strings of the ancient-looking violin, wood worn thin—a Stradivarius perhaps?—thrummed in answer.
Sting spun around to stare at the wall of strings. His eyes narrowed, and the pulse he sent this time rattled her bones—and all the strings at once. His eyes widened with enchantment at the cacophony, and he strode toward her, though his gaze was on the wall behind her.
“They sing,” he whispered, so softly. He curled his hand inward to his chest, fist clenched tight, as if he was afraid to reach out and break them.
“They’re musical instruments,” she told him and rattled off the names of the ones she knew. “Don’t you have instruments? Although I suppose they’d have to be waterproof…” She frowned. “Except now that I think about it, I never saw anything about music on Tritona when I was reading up on you.”
“We used to sing, or so the old stories say.” The rough rasp of his voice failed to stir the strings this time. “During the mating storms, the Tritonyri songs would turn the waves white with sound, and the Tritonesse answers made auroras of rainbow bubbles in the deeps. Our night song made stars in the darkness, and the mothers’ morning chants were so irresistible that krill would swim into the open mouth of the spawnling just to give thanks for the song.”
She swallowed hard at the note of sorrow in his voice. “Used to?”
“Music was irresistible to Tritonans, and we filled the sea with music. But the Cretarni learned to use it against us. They would lure us with false songs of summons and cravings. Too many were drawn to their doom, to dry mountaintops and death. The Abyssa outlawed all music, so we would know that any songs we heard were lies of the Cretarni.”
Her throat tightened, as if her own vocal cords had been throttled. “It’s terrible what the Cretarni took from you.”
“Worse. What we gave up of ourselves just to survive.”
She bit her lip. “No enemies here tonight. If you want to sing.”
Though it seemed to cost him to look away from the quietly humming instruments, he twisted his head to look down at her. “I can’t sing. The songs are forgotten. Even if they weren’t, my voice…” His fist unfurled against his throat, the webbing between his fingers pulsing as he swallowed hard, and she wondered if he was remembering the sonics crushing him.
She gestured at the wall. “Those are your voice.”
Even before she knew anything about Wavercrest syndrome, she’d read in science magazines how dolphins could stun with sound and how crocodiles could make the water dance with the ultralow vibrations of their calls. But though she’d stood in the path of his pings before, even tried a few herself, she hadn’t realized just how powerful and nuanced his pulsing could be.
His sonic pulse washed through her like a wave of caressing fingers, all her nerve endings tingling. And on the wall behind her, the guitar and the violin chimed, a glissando from the harp answering. The sounds were like nothing she’d ever heard from any instrument.
Unearthly. And arousing. Her nipples tingled, and she had to clamp her knees together to stay upright…and ease the sharper ache between her thighs as his invisible sound swept over her again, raising a sweep of sound from all the instruments. Focused, delicate strikes struck individual notes from the strings and metal—and from her most intimate nerve endings. She swayed to the music and his invisible touch. Her own voice was gone, lost in the wash of music and sensation. He seemed equally swept away, his eyes half closed, only the crescent moon sparkle of bared eyes telling her what this meant to him.
She ached with lust and longing, seeing him undone by the power of his own song. She wanted to reach for him, but she