Fathom (Mermaids of Montana #3) - Elsa Jade Page 0,79
peaceful intent or a threat. “If you think you can stop us—”
“I can’t,” she acknowledged. “You took my zaps. But the Phantom will end you!” Triumphantly, she pointed at the screen.
Where Sting said softly, “No.”
She ducked her head between her shoulders and sidelonged a glance at the screen. “Sting…”
“The war is over,” he continued inexorably. “Give me the fire-witch, and I will clear the way.”
“No!” She waggled her weapon, as if she could force them to listen now, when clearly that had never worked before. “Sting, we have to stop them—”
Cinek turned his back on her to face Sting, as if he’d already decided where the real threat lay. “You’d risk your status with the intergalactic council to challenge us for her? But Tritonans ended the light switch trials.”
“I am Titanyri. I was made, as the fire-witch was made, as a weapon of war. And the war is over.”
Cinek tilted his head. “If I say it’s not over?”
“Then you can keep fighting. But do it without us.”
“Sting.” Lana took a step out of her protected nook. “We can’t just walk away.”
“Walk, no. But dive, or maybe fly.” The nictitating membrane over his eyes flickered, so quickly even the high-tech projection almost didn’t catch it, but she did. “I’ve fought long enough for a cause that had no place for me in the end. I want more. I want you, Lana.”
Again, the bridge stayed in frozen silence for a heartbeat until Cinek shook himself. “We give you the fire-which and you clear our outbound trajectory?” His tone dripped suspicion. “That’s all?”
“Or you deny me and I aim this ship at your face and send us both to the void.”
Cinek’s fur-feathers ruffled. “You’d kill her too.”
“Yes! That’s what I said,” Lana shouted.
They both ignored her. “There is no place left for me in this universe, except what I make for myself. With her.” The blank shield flicked away from his gaze, exposing the pearly luminescence of his raw gaze. “The Intergalactic Dating Agency, that you counterfeited to lure us here, has a test that claims to know who will be our perfect mate.” His vulnerable gaze shifted to Lana. “I failed that test. I won’t fail this one. The fire-witch is my match, my mate. Lana is my love.”
His rough voice wavered like a ribbon of light through misting water—and the rainbow cast shimmered in her soul.
The Cretarni captain also swayed on his feet, as if mesmerized by the broken lilt of the Titanyri song. After another long heartbeat, Cinek shook himself free of the spell. “For the fire-witch’s sake, you would let your world die?”
“And this one too,” Sting said. “And all the rest until the galaxies burn. And I would take her deeper and deeper into the black, where nothing matters but us together.”
“Sting, no,” she despaired softly. “That’s not what I meant. This is not how we end the fight.”
“And what do you want?” His voice broke again, like a wave on rocks. “Because I would give you whatever you ask, i kharea nul’ah.”
My sweet fire. Tears burned in her eyes. All this time she’d questioned what she wanted. She’d consulted tarot cards and tea leaves, cast runes and thrown bones and thrown up when she took too much peyote once. She’d traveled the country, always staying just ahead of her fears and her memories, dreading what would happen if they found her.
And considering what was happening right this very second, she’d been right to be afraid! But he was giving her a chance. Now, at her lowest point, he held a hand out to her, offering…
What was she asking for? What was she brave enough to want?
“I want to be with you,” she said raggedly. “Wherever that is. Diving or flying or singing. I want to do that with you and if there is no place in the universe for us, we’ll make our own place, sing it into being, you and me.” The pearl of his eyes was like the delicate inner spiral of a shell she could gather around herself, tucking herself in deep like a home she’d bring with her everywhere. Her heart ached to touch him, but she kept a tight grip on the laser gun instead as she lifted her chin high to gaze at him, wishing the space between them were nothing. “I want you, i shah-lan.” My strong night tide.
After an endless moment, the armored white dropped across his eyes again, and the growl in his voice was all serrated edges,