Fathom (Mermaids of Montana #3) - Elsa Jade Page 0,81

deep-sea survival would keep him oxygenated awhile, though the cold—colder than any trench—sapped him, but Lana had only some of those advantages. Her powerless tumbling meant he couldn’t make eye contact, and he had no way to tell her he was coming.

In that timeless heartbeat as he closed on her, he knew once he caught her, he would never let her go.

Narrowing his eyes against the cold that ached even though his protective eyelids, he reached out—and tackled her with one long arm around her middle.

Little though she was, as he grabbed hold of her, the momentum of her spin grabbed hold of him too. His own bulk and direction were only enough to slow them, not stop. With his grip on the restraint cable unyielding, his arm wrenched hard and twisted. But he did not let go, not ever.

As if to punish him for his stubborn resolve, a hard thunk against the back of his skull made his head spin even more than the rest of him. What… Had he been hit by a small asteroid?

Before he could make sense of the unexpected attack, Lana hit him again and then stiff-armed him, as if trying to shove free of his grip.

Not happening.

In the small distance between them, he finally met her wide, terrified gaze.

Tears had frozen in silvery spikes on her lashes, and her lips were clamped bloodless on whatever last breath she’d taken. But she pushed against him again, struggling to get loose.

And the pulse pistol shackled to her wrist over dried streaks of scarlet blood floated past his peripheral vision. Its indicator lights signaled an imminent overload.

Lana whipped her hand away, trying to force the about-to-be bomb past them. But the binding wasn’t long enough and even the vacuum of space wouldn’t blunt the force at this close range.

She locked her gaze on his, and for an instant, a hazy image of her spinning out of his arms formed in his vision—and then ended in a blossom of light as she exploded.

No. He snarled, accidentally letting out a wisp of precious air in tiny bubbles of vapor that crystalized in an instant. He couldn’t answer her, not even with a delicately constructed sonogram of his resolve.

With a furious flex of one arm, he clamped her to his chest. Yanking his other arm, he reversed their course, flinging them toward the Diatom’s hatch.

The gun hadn’t overloaded yet. And until it did, he’d keep her.

Before they even reached the ship, he pulled her shackled wrist toward him. The soil-suckers had known he’d pursue Lana rather than hunting them. He’d made that clear with his impassioned declaration to her. But he wouldn’t take back those words for anything. It would be his own fault if he ended up dead from his desire. But he would not let Lana suffer the same fate.

Ignoring everything including the accelerating blink pace of the warning light on the pistol, he focused on the tether between her and the bomb. If he’d been wearing his battle skin, he would’ve had all of his tools neatly arrayed around him. Instead he had this constricting Earther garb with not enough pockets. If only she’d stop squirming.

With a hard, focused pulse he broke the bond between the shackle on her wrist and the weapon. In the same moment, he slung her deeper into the hold. No time—

The vacuum of space carried no sound, but the glare of light blinded him an instant before the pressure wave slammed into him from behind, hurling him toward Lana.

He curved his body to make a protective hollow, bracing himself away from her as his palms and knees smashed into the inner bulkhead. Her small form was almost entirely covered by his so he could pray she survived…

He’d never prayed to any of Tritona’s deities, not even the Abyssa though he’d floated once in that sanctified glow and could not deny its existence. He closed his eyes as the radiation sliced around him.

With his contact against the wall, the blare of the emergency klaxons reached him, the voice of the ship’s AI pitched to urgency in any language. “Detonation detected. Structural damage detected. Loss of atmosphere detected.”

With a grunt that wasn’t strong enough to move even the molecules of dust floating in the vacuum, Sting forced himself to straighten. Lana wasn’t safe yet.

The explosion so close to the hull had sent the Diatom into a tumble of its own, and onboard gravity had failed. A quick glance over his shoulder showed him that