An Elemental Tail (4 page)

An idea nibbled at the corner of his
conscience, an affliction he’d developed while passing as human,
quashing his rising desire. If he took the book from her, the only
record of her attendance would be lost. He’d seen Mr. Gardner mark
her absent even though she had clearly been there. Her teacher was
up to no good. Nik took another step, then stopped and scowled at
her retreating back. This game wasn’t simple, and he couldn’t force
her into Mr. Gardner’s net.

Light rain began to fall. His own element was
mocking his inability to act, to take back what was his. He
should’ve been able to feel the storm coming; instead he was
trailing after the woman who held his tail while water slicked down
the back of his neck. Thunder rolled across the sky and the clouds
darkened, ready to release more trapped water.

Storm-eyes paused and glanced over her
shoulder. Nik melted into the shadows that climbed the wall, his
breath tight, willing her not to see him. As the first fat drops of
the real storm fell she looked up, her lips moving. Then, like
every other person caught out, she ran for shelter. He let her
disappear, remaining where he was, the bricks cold against his
back, staring after her.

He thrust his hands into the pockets of his
leather jacket and glared up at the turbulent clouds, sure he could
see the faces of other Elementals laughing at him but unable to
hear their mocking cries. Unable to join the elements, unable to be
human. He closed his eyes and tipped his face to the rain.

****

Nik leaned against the solitary tree, his
gaze focused on the second-floor window of the college dormitory.
The breeze whispered through the movement of the leaves in a
language he no longer spoke. The longest four days of his extended
and unnatural human life had crawled past. Now, he counted down the
hours until the next class to stay sane. He checked his watch. Two
hours then he would be able to see her in the flesh.

Time had no meaning to an Elemental. To a
human it ruled everything, a lesson he had been slow to learn. His
first few years stuck as a human had been abysmal. Human bodies
needed sleep and warmth and food. His favorite island had become a
prison, the ocean a barrier he couldn’t cross. He’d had to relearn
how to swim with legs instead of a tail, or being fluid itself.
Sharks no longer feared him; they saw him as a potential meal. By
the time he’d escaped the island, the book had changed hands.

He hadn’t wasted the days between classes.
He’d learned her full name, Isla Williams, and where she lived.
He’d almost convinced himself he was doing it for the love of his
tail. A few careful questions, and he had found out she was here on
a scholarship. Non-attendance to practical classes meant
failure.

The teacher was blackmailing Isla.

His lips twitched, and he shook his head.
Definitely too human. He was starting to give a damn about the
woman who stood between him and returning to water.

The light in her room went out. Isla was off
to her first class of the day. Nik eased away from the tree. He had
a few things to do before he was required for her life drawing
class. Heat shimmied down his back as she caressed the book again.
She’d handled his tail at what felt like every opportunity, her
emotions pushing against his until he wasn’t sure who was feeling
what. If the weekend were any indication, it would take more than
thoughts of plankton to keep his dignity intact.

****

The model lay on his stomach this time. Acres
of unblemished skin stretched taut over broad shoulders, tapered at
his waist, curved over his buttocks. Muscles didn’t come without
work. He was, or had been, a swimmer. He was too lean for anything
else. Isla ran her fingers over the page, smooth and firm. In her
mind it was his skin. The sunlight gave him a pale glow like a
luminescent deep sea creature. Delicate, yet tough enough to
survive the pressure of life at the bottom of the ocean. Images
drifted past in her imagination, blurring with the body on display.
She saw a series of works, of the man and ocean creatures fused,
blended.

His back flexed as he coughed.

Isla’s pencil rested unmoving in her hand.
She refocused on the jumble of shadows on the page, as if by not
drawing the model’s beauty she wouldn’t be drawn to him. Testing
her self-imposed limits. She could look and draw, but never
touch.

She worked quickly; she needed as many
sketches as possible. The crimson-haired model would form the basis
of her work. Researching the creatures would come later. She wanted
the weird, unknown ones. Ones whose only beauty was in their shape.
The perfect critter floated past her eyes like a dust mote.
Something she’d seen in high school biology. Microscopic, like
snowflakes, but the name eluded her. She’d have to go through the
textbooks on her shelves.

A hand landed on her shoulder. She jumped,
lost in her own thoughts. She hadn’t sensed Mr. Gardner sneak
up.

“Interesting. What exactly are you
drawing?”

Her heartbeat doubled, the nails of her left
hand pressing into the leather cover of the book. She shouldn’t be
giving him excuses to talk to her.

Before she could answer, he ran his finger
down the edge of the pages. “Strange book for a student.
Expensive.”

Anger welled inside her.
He
was
touching
her
book.

“It was a gift.” Her throat closed on the
rest. Saying Sarah was dead was still too much, the loss too raw to
be put into something as fleeting as words.

He grunted but didn’t move on.

Isla forced out a breath and put pencil to
page. Her hand was stiff under the unwanted and unneeded
supervision. With more detail, the drawing emerged like a surfacing
whale. The curve of his shoulder, the crook of his arm, a shadow
where his face was hidden. A bubble of satisfaction popped in her
stomach and sent its glow rushing through her blood.

“See, I drew the shadows first. I wanted to
try something different. I read about the technique.”

Jealousy and distaste scored Mr. Gardner’s
features. “My offer is withdrawn.” He snapped as if it were Isla
threatening him. “You can’t make up any of the classes you’ve
missed.”

Sweet relief pumped through her veins instead
of blood. She hadn’t missed enough to affect her scholarship, and
she was no longer fighting unwelcome advances. She had won. She bit
her lip to keep from grinning as her finger stroked the edge of the
leather book cover. Her lucky charm.

With renewed enthusiasm, she changed pencils
and started a new drawing. Her eye trained only on the shadows and
the way they filled the dimples at the back of his hips. The shapes
his vertebrae cast on his back. Her hand wondered what the bony
bumps would feel like beneath her palm.

The play of light and dark consumed the rest
of the class until the partial body on the page looked like it
would stretch and wake. For a moment she let the illusion take
over. While she’d drawn plenty of nude men, she’d never had a man.
What would it be like to have a man in her bed? To fall asleep safe
in someone’s arms and wake with the person there? To have someone
who cared, who wanted her to succeed instead of cutting her
down?

Caught in her dream, she packed away slowly,
moving as if she were underwater. She watched him as he eased up
with no trace of stiffness from lying motionless. He ran his hand
down his side where four red crescents marked his skin. She turned
the book over: four nail-marks dented the cover. She rubbed them
with her thumb; she hadn’t meant to damage the book. A frown
formed. Isla returned her gaze to the model, but he was already
robed. She shook her head. She was imagining things. The model
caught her watching and gave her a smile that was meant for her
alone.

Her cheeks burned brighter than his crimson
hair, giving away her true feelings like she’d whispered them in
his ear. She couldn’t do this, couldn’t think about him. She’d
never seen a man do anything but take over. Her mother’s life was
always dictated by her latest boyfriend’s wants, her kids picking
up the scraps of attention and fighting for them like starving
puppies. She’d traded her mother’s control for college and the
demands of the scholarship, an exchange she was happy to make. Now
the model was taking over her thoughts as well as her book.

Isla ducked out of the room and into the eddy
of students moving between classes. Two sets of eyes watched her
go. One scored her flesh with tightly leashed anger; the other
caressed with an interest she shared, but wanted to deny. Both men
were an obstacle to be climbed over.

****

Isla’s daydreams invaded her life when the
model turned up at her work for dinner again. He sat fully clothed
in black at a corner table reading the morning’s newspaper. Isla
smoothed her apron and fished out her notepad. He wouldn’t
recognize her, but he was unforgettable, and not just because of
his brilliantly colored hair falling over his shoulders in a
curtain of red and black shot through with turquoise.

She approached the table and cleared her
throat. “Hi, would you like me to run through the specials or are
you ready to order?”

“I know what I want.” He raised his gaze and
pulled his eyebrows together. “But what is an art student doing
here?”

Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. He
did remember. Those smiles hadn’t been imagined, or meant for
someone else. They were for her. Inside she melted, but to him she
presented a cool façade as if all the charm in the world would
leave her unmoved.

“I’m practicing for when I finish my degree.”
Waitressing was where everyone thought she’d end up. But Isla had
bigger plans. She wasn’t only a fine arts major.

His lips curved in a lush smile that turned
her ankles to water and threatened to send her sprawling to the
floor.
Get a grip, Isla
. She was able to hold his overly
familiar gaze because she didn’t have to imagine him naked; she
knew what lay beneath his clothes.

He laughed, the gentle bubbling of spring
water, breaking the tension of the moment. “This is a little
uncomfortable. You’ve seen me naked, and now I am at a
disadvantage.”

“And I have the drawings to prove it.” The
words slipped out as she basked in the playful banter.

He placed the newspaper down and leaned
forward. “So how do I even the playing field?”

Isla raised one eyebrow at the blatant
suggestion. “I don’t even know your name.”

“Nik.” He offered his hand.

She hesitated for a second then shook his
hand. Sarah had instilled manners and grace where her mother had
failed. His skin was cool and smooth, but behind the casual shake
was an iron grip. “Don’t you want to know mine?”

“It’s on your name tag, Isla.”

She shifted, as if her well-worn shoes were
suddenly uncomfortable. Of course it was. The order was taking too
long, and she had other tables to attend to. She tapped her notepad
with her pen.

Nik got the hint. “Coffee and a piece of the
most deadly cake you have.”

“Healthy.” And not what she’d expected him to
order. There was nowhere for the calories to hide on his body.

“Everyone deserves a night off.”

Did she imagine the glint in his black eyes
and the lowering of his voice? She didn’t wait to find out. She
took off with his order, her body jumping with instincts she’d
spent her teenaged years suppressing. She didn’t meet his eyes when
she returned with his coffee and a large piece of white chocolate
and raspberry gateaux. But her body was aware of every move he made
and the lazy way his eyes followed her around the restaurant as she
worked.

This time of night, customers were either
picking over the remains of dessert or heading home hand-in-hand.
She threw herself into scrubbing down tables, working ever closer
to Nik.

“There’s a twenty-four-hour coffee shop over
the road. Can I take you out for a drink?” He asked like it was the
most natural question in the world.

Isla stopped wiping the table next to his. It
was the cleanest table in the room. She opened her mouth to refuse.
His words resurfaced in her mind.
One night off
. Why not?
“Sure. Then you can tell me how you ended up in my class and at my
work.” As flattering as it was, it was too coincidental he was
turning up wherever she was.

****

Nik placed the cups on the tiny table in the
coffee shop and sat down opposite of Isla. He’d only planned to
check on her, to see if she was at work tonight. Instead he’d gone
and mooned over her like the half-wit human he was. He was sure
that every day he spent as a human he became more like one. If he
was truly Elemental, he would have checked on her then broken into
her room, taken the book, and headed toward the islands where he
was once worshipped as a god. Instead, he was having coffee with
her. Was he stalking her or dating her? As long as the result was
the same, did it matter?

“Thanks.” She poured in a packet of sugar and
stirred the coffee without looking up at him.

“Only fair, since you’ve already waited on
me.” He sipped his coffee. He’d be up for two nights straight after
two cups in one evening, but he couldn’t drink decaf; it was an
insult to the water it was mixed with.

They sat in silence. However, it wasn’t the
most uncomfortable silence he’d ever experienced. He should have
taken her to a bar, where the music would have masked the pauses,
but she wasn’t old enough to drink in this country. He shook his
head. He had to focus on the prize. To get the book, he had to fix
the lecherous teacher. Mr. Gardner’s fingers trailing over the skin
of his book had revealed more about the thick slime that passed for
personality than he ever needed to know. Mr. Gardner was bitter,
jealous, and teetering on the edge of sanity. He’d failed as an
artist and hated those with talent. Isla had talent in buckets, but
Nik was biased.