Shattered by the Sea Lord - Starla Night Page 0,22
released her seat. The weight lifted off her. She slipped out and into Ciran’s strong arms.
He crushed her to his chest. His body trembled with feeling. Words thrummed deep in his chest. “Praise the Life Tree.”
She “heard” the vibration in her own chest in some sort of echo chamber beneath her sternum.
He was so torn up, so grateful. The wreckage and her unfortunate situation had put him in so much pain.
“I’m sorry.”
“Me as well.”
They talked but did not talk. The timbre of his vibrations was pleasingly firm, the same as the surface, yet deeper and richer melodies interlocked with new meaning. Nuanced emotion inflected his vibrations.
He pulled back and stroked her cheeks with his thumbs. Subtle music, pianissimo, infused every touch. “Our first kiss should not have been forced. I wanted you to choose me.”
Her heart thudded in her chest.
Because she did choose him. She had.
Dannika pulled him close and pressed her lips to his.
He pulled away in shock.
She clung to him. I choose you.
He kissed her back. His mouth explored, questioned, redefined. His upper lip felt thinner and flatter than she’d expected, and his lower lip was thicker and perfect for nibbling. He opened and sought her, chasing and claiming her. She accepted it all, yielding to his embrace, bathed in a hot, fizzy glow of perfect safety, of having found her home, of sanctuary.
Heat swirled into her soul.
He tasted like hope and fury, desperation and renewal, salt and male. Their lips united and the shock of shifting faded away. Heat and warmth and life kindled within her.
While they kissed, his chest vibrated fiercely, “You are mine.”
She was his.
And she also belonged to the ocean.
New exhilaration filled her, just like when she’d survived the plane crash. She laughed with delight. And because she was underwater, her laughter vibrated in her chest. There was no air to bubble within her anymore. The water wrapped around her like an embrace.
Ciran pulled back.
This weightless sensation felt magical. She twirled inside the small compartment, dancing with the debris, an undersea astronaut with perfect form.
Ciran grinned, tired and happy.
He was so adorable. So sweet.
Outside the broken windows, the ocean spread out, lighting up for miles. Ordinary sunlight filtered down from the surface, where the tail of the plane still poked out, but beneath it, a depthless, breathtaking infinity spread in all directions.
Every sea creature, from the tiniest speck of sparkling plankton to the mightiest nova of a humpback whale appeared in sharp relief. Dannika was a falcon and the ocean was the shorn grass.
And music flooded in. Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony played around her in pieces. Distant whales hummed in a melancholy A-minor, and closer, a pair of mako sharks wailed in descending sirens as they darted and interwove. Jellies burbled like happy French horns, schools of tiny silver fish trilled like excited piccolos, massive groupers bellowed like tubas, and swarms of squid jetted across the sea with the low doot-doot sounds of the classic contrabassoon in high G.
The fish formed a swarm of glowing musical instruments absent a conductor, and so they played backward, forward, and all at once.
It was chaos, and yet, it was beautiful.
Her fingers suddenly itched to pluck the strings.
She had given up harp after Eliot died. Harp took a short time to sound nice and a lifetime to master. She’d loved playing with her mother so much as a child.
Ciran bumped her shoulder.
Even though her senses had changed to sense lights in the animals, nothing unusual showed on him. Just a broad, powerful chest, lickable abs, a promise of more beneath the Bermuda shorts, and swirling, iridescent tattoos marking him as an honorable warrior.
“Val’s raft is drifting.” He vibrated in that almost-ticklish way deep inside. “We should surface before the current takes her too far. Can you make your fins?”
Dannika wiggled her human feet. “Not yet.”
Bending over made her belly ache. She pulled out the loose caftan bodice. Red welts bruised her abdomen.
The Sea Opal elixir would heal her. It probably already had fixed the worse injuries. She needed to give it time.
Oh, and Val’s forehead hadn’t looked too good.
“Get some elixir for Val,” Dannika said.
“Down here.” He kicked through the broken floor into the baggage area.
His broad quads strained the Bermuda shorts and his feet elongated to fins. His shirt floated up and a series of gills lined his lower back.
Gills!
She must have those, too. She pressed the flowing caftan at her lower back, but it was ticklish too.
The tone of the animal symphony changed. Minor keys shifted to