Dad paused and then looked over at him, and I could see his anger in the tense muscles of his face.
“I said this wasn’t the time,” he repeated. “I called you here, yes.” His gaze flicked to me. “And you’ll stay. Keep an eye out for them, in case they come back. But you will leave my sons to me, understand?”
Richard’s lip twitched with disgust, but he just shook his head. “Fine. You let your pretty boys stay weak. And my sons and I will hold up the
true
family heritage and keep things safe. Just like always.”
He motioned to his sons and then headed for the hallway. Shrugging away from the walls, my cousins smirked at me as they followed him out of the room.
Their footsteps thudded on the steps as they went upstairs.
A breath left me. “Dad, you can’t–”
He held up a hand, silencing me with his eyes on the ceiling.
I grimaced. They’d hear us if we talked, even all the way in the guest rooms. Greliaran hearing could be a bitch sometimes.
And that didn’t bring into it the other senses we had.
Doors closed above us. I could feel them moving across the rooms, heading for the windows to keep watch and not even bothering to hide their presences from me anymore.
I looked back at Dad.
He switched on the stereo, letting the white noise babble of a local radio station cut through the quiet.
“Diane told me they shot you and Maddox,” he said, keeping his voice low.
My words faltered.
“What the hell were you
thinking
, Noah?”
“Dad, I–”
He crossed the room and put his arms around me. I blinked, taken back by the gesture.
Releasing a breath, he pushed me away again. “What happened?”
I struggled for words, still floundering with shock. “I-I went after Chloe, and while I was gone they came to the cabin.”
“They knew about us?”
A short scoff escaped me, not quite a laugh since nothing was funny. “Dad, you sent one of them through a window and nearly put the other through the wall. I think they figured out we weren’t human.”
He gave me a dark look and my sarcasm died.
“And then you brought her here.”
“I had to. They’d injected her with something. It was killing her. Forcing her to change into one of them even though she wasn’t in the water. If I hadn’t gotten her to the ocean…”
Dad sighed, turning away and pacing across the room. “Will she come back?”
I paused. “The other ones said she couldn’t. Not till that drug was gone.”
“Other ones?”
The grimace tried to return. “Dehaians. They met us on the beach. I think they were looking for her.”
He ran a hand over his hair. “Noah…”
“I didn’t know they’d be there! I…”
Frustrated, I looked down, not sure what I was attempting to say. I’d been trying to save her life. I couldn’t let her die.
A breath escaped me. She’d just been Baylie’s friend. The beautiful, kind-of-shy girl who avoided me when I visited Kansas on holidays, though I’d never been able to figure out why. I’d always hoped to talk to her, and when she’d finally come to Santa Lucina and I had the chance…
My fists curled against the memory of my last moments with her. Of kissing her and feeling her against me. I’d wanted to do that for weeks, ever since that first night on the beach. She’d looked amazing by the water, silhouetted by the moonlight, and everything about her fascinated me. I’d held back, though, thinking what I was would make things difficult. Thinking she was human.
I’d never expected this.
“You can’t let her come back here,” Dad said, turning to me. “Understand?”
I looked up at him. His face hardened at my expression.
“I mean it,” he said. “This is for her sake as much as yours.”
“Well, if you wouldn’t let Uncle Richard and his–”
“They stay.” He paused. “Those dehaian bastards
shot
you and Maddox. Next time, maybe they’ll keep shooting till you won’t be able to recover from the wounds. I’m not going to take that chance.”
“But Dad, Chloe isn’t–”
“She’s a danger to us. And we’re a danger to her. This isn’t going to work, Noah.” He sighed, sympathy tingeing his gaze. “I know you like her, son. She seems like a nice girl. But she’s dehaian, and right now…” He glanced to the upper floor briefly. “I’ll talk to Richard. Make sure the boys understand she’s not to be harmed. But I’m not risking you, which means your uncle and your cousins
will
stay, at least for now. And if she does come back…” He shook his head. “I want you to make her leave again, for good this time. No matter what it takes.”
I stared at him. “Dad…”
“I mean it, Noah.”
A breath left me. Protests formed and died at the look in his eyes.
Dumbstruck, I managed a nod.
Echoing the motion more firmly, he regarded me a moment longer and then turned away, switching off the stereo. Taking out his cell, he climbed the short steps from the sunken living room and headed out through the back door. I heard him talking to Diane on the phone as he walked across the yard.
I closed my eyes. Short of Chloe being dead, I didn’t know how this could have gone much worse. And that wasn’t to say she wouldn’t be. Not with my cousins around.
Exhaling sharply, I turned to the windows and the brilliant sunset beyond. Dad didn’t know those guys like I did. They’d always managed to hide how they were from him, and in any case he thought Richard controlled them.
Instead of just egging them on.
My arm rested against the glass, though I really just wanted to break it. My brother and I, my dad, we all fought what we were. What our instincts demanded we do. We all felt the cravings – the way our greliaran sides whispered of the need to kill dehaians, and of the incredible rush from absorbing their magic that would follow – but Dad had taught us to be more than that. More than bloodthirsty monsters created by old wizards to defend against fish people. More than weird mash-ups of human and dehaian traits that left us something wildly different than both.
But my cousins weren’t.
And that was what it all came down to in the end. My cousins gloried in being greliaran. Loved the strength, the power. They were salivating at the prospect of killing a dehaian, and after a lifetime of never seeing a single one…
They’d hunt her. For as long as they thought she’d come back here, they’d be watching day and night, waiting for the chance to rip her apart.
Anger rose. I wouldn’t let them hurt her, though. Whether the rest of the stories my grandfather had told about her kind were true, I still wouldn’t. It didn’t matter. She wasn’t like the dehaians he’d described – the sadistic, pleasure-seeking, soulless creatures who charmed innocent people into loving them and then let them die – and I wasn’t a murderer. I wouldn’t let my cousins become ones either. Not with her.
No matter what it took.
Chapter Four
Chloe
I opened my eyes to nothing but endless blue in front of me and, despite my nightmares about the Sylphaen and the worries of the evening before, I couldn’t help but smile.
It was just like my dreams.
Drawing a deep breath, I pushed away from the sand. The fire still flickered several yards away, and Zeke and Niall sat near it. All the other dehaians were likewise up, making me wonder how long I’d been sleeping while they all got ready to go.
Niall laughed at something and Zeke looked away, irritation on his face.
He caught sight of me.
“Hey there,” he said, his annoyance disappearing.
Niall glanced over. “Morning.”
“Hi,” I said, blushing with embarrassment. “Sorry I slept so late.”
Zeke shook his head. “You didn’t.”
I smiled, grateful for the way he kept trying to make things okay. “Are we going soon?”
“Yeah.” He glanced to Niall. “We were just talking about how maybe you could stay with us for a while, once we get back to Nyciena.”
I paused. “That’d be nice. If there’s room, I mean. I don’t want to impose.”
Niall chuckled. “Oh, there’ll be room.”
Zeke gave his brother a brief glare, and then turned a reassuring look on me. “It’ll be fine.”
“Thank you.”
He smiled.
One of the dehaians came over and said something to Niall.
“Okay,” he replied. He glanced to us. “Ready to head out?”
Zeke nodded and kicked up from the sand easily, and after a bit of floundering, I managed to leave the ground as well. The veil around the campsite fell away, disappearing back into the seafloor as though it’d never been, while the fire did the same.
And in only a moment, nothing remained to show we’d been there.
“Cool, huh?” Niall commented when he noticed me watching the space where the fire had burned. “Wait till you see Nyciena.”
I smiled, though the comment sent a flutter of trepidation through me. Everything here had me gawking enough.
Nyciena would probably be overwhelming.
The guards set off and I followed with Zeke and Niall joining me on either side. It was easier to keep up with them today, and as the hours continued on, I didn’t have to slow down once. Past underwater valleys and hills we swam, weaving our way along a path the guards seemed to know without question.
And gradually, a realization spread over me.
I was aware of the hills and valleys before I saw them.
My brow furrowed. The gloom beyond us looked impenetrable, and yet, if I focused, I knew there was a valley inside it. Likewise, an array of hills lay to our right, with a smattering of caves midway up on this side, though their other side was a mystery.
I knew it all. I just couldn’t see any of it.
“You okay?” Zeke asked.
I blinked and turned to him. “I, um… is there a valley ahead of us? I mean… can you, like, feel that it’s there?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
I stared at him.
Sympathy touched his face. “It’s just how we are, Chloe. It’s fine. You probably just didn’t notice yesterday because you’re still adjusting to all this.”
“But how is that even possible?”
He shrugged. “Combination of hearing, sight, smell… your skin is pretty sensitive too. That’s part of why air burns if you’re above water and you don’t change it a bit. But yeah, all of that. Our sight’s really good, but it’s not the only way we navigate.”
I looked down as the valley I’d felt emerged from the gloom.
“It’ll get easier,” Zeke assured me. “Just give it time.”
I nodded, hoping he was right.
We swam onward, the miles passing below us in the form of small plains, rolling hills, and little valleys. Invisible in the water far overhead, a pod of whales drifted by, their cries barely reaching my ears.
A sense of blackness and cold prickled my skin. I looked down as the plains gave way to a canyon so deep, I couldn’t feel its end.
I shivered, suddenly feeling so tiny as we continued over the trench.
“Nyciena ahead,” Niall commented.
I pulled my gaze from the valley, my eyes searching the featureless water and seeing nothing.
And then I blinked. I could feel it, past the gloom, rising up from the depths of the canyon.
It felt like a mountain.
One of the guards slowed and lifted his hand, wordlessly signaling the rest. My brow furrowed as Zeke and Niall pulled up.
“Someone’s coming,” Zeke explained quietly.
I swallowed.
Six dehaians swam toward us from the murk, and all of them were armed with objects that looked remarkably like guns.
“What the hell?” Zeke protested at the sight.
“Nice to see you too, Zeke,” one commented as he came closer.
I looked between them. With the same black hair and gunmetal scales as Zeke, the man could easily have been related to him and Niall, although in Zeke’s case the guy seemed at least ten years older. Unlike the two brothers, however, his face was stern, with a jaw that appeared made of granite and blue eyes that had probably never seen anything they deemed worthy of a laugh. His bearing was likewise firm, as if everything his gaze touched belonged to him – with the expectation that it had dare not present a problem. As his eyes scanned over me, I tensed, suddenly uncomfortable at being in what he obviously considered
his
ocean.
“What’s with the welcoming party, Ren?” Niall asked, his tone lighter, though it sounded forced. “There a problem?”
The man ignored him. “Is this her?”
“Is this who?” Niall asked. “We’re just–”
“Is this her?” the man repeated, his tone hardening.
Zeke hesitated. “Chloe,” he said to me, his head turning my way though his eyes never left the other man. “Meet my brother, Ren.”
Annoyance twitched Ren’s face. “You should have cleared bringing her here with me,” he said, tucking his weapon into a slot on his belt.
“There wasn’t time,” Zeke replied. “She needs medical attention.”
Ren looked me over again. “Medical attention?”
“Yes. The Sylphaen gave her a drug. We need the doctors to look at her.”
“She seems fine.”
Zeke stared at him. “They gave her a
drug
. As in, they injected her with it? She needs help, Ren. Trust me.”
I tried not to shift position in the water, hating the way Ren kept eyeing me like he wasn’t sure if I was a person or an insect.
“And did you
see
these Sylphaen?” Ren asked.
Zeke looked incredulous. “I told you I did when I called from the relay station.”
“Did you see them give her this drug?”
“I – no, but I saw what it did to her.”
Ren’s mouth tightened.
“These guys are real, Ren,” Niall said.
“You saw them?”
Niall faltered. “Well, no, but I–”
“So we have nothing but her word that there is anything in her system requiring attention. And nothing but yours, Zeke, that the people in question were not simply pretending to be members of a cult that has been dead for a hundred years.” He looked at his brother tiredly. “I told you to come back to Nyciena and let us handle things. Matters like this are infinitely more complicated now, given the current situation.”
“Current situation?” Zeke repeated. “What are you–”