“Where are you from?”
Surprise flickered through her at the question. She wondered why he’d want to know that—what it had to do with the situation. “Georgia,” she responded finally.
He studied her for a long moment and finally moved away, pacing a few steps before he turned to glance at her again. “And this is where?”
She stared at him blankly. “Uh … just north of Florida.”
“Which
is
…?”
“East of where we are now.”
His
lips
tightened.
“Why are you here?”
“Because you grabbed me before I could leave.”
He paused in front of her again. Leaning down until they were almost nose to nose, he fixed her with a hard look. “Are you laboring under the misapprehension that this is some sort of game?”
Right up until she’d seen that expression on his face Cassie had only admired it with the sort of detachment one reserved for inanimate objects that were aesthetically pleasing, clinging, she supposed, to her first impression of ‘the sculpture’ she’d admired.
This
, however, was a living, breathing—dangerous looking man and the tone of voice he’d used only emphasized that fact. She gulped and shook her head slowly.
“Are you having difficulty understanding the translator?”
She felt her face heat. “No.”
“Then why don’t you tell me why you came here?”
“I was just looking for the others.”
“The others? Your partners?”
Cassie’s heart fluttered uncomfortably. That sounded like a leading question to her. “My … uh … companions,” she corrected. “The people who were with me in the other room.”
“You were looking for them? If they were your companions that would imply that you were with them, would it not?”
“They left me alone on the boat and I didn’t know when they’d come back, and I was afraid the storm would hit before they did.”
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“You’re saying they led you here?”
Cassie studied him doubtfully, wondering if it was just her imagination that his questions seemed to be designed to make her responses sound guilty. “Could I just explain what happened?”
He lifted his dark brows but bowed his head slightly and moved away. Deciding that must have been a ‘yes’, Cassie composed her thoughts and told him everything she could remember exactly as she remembered it happening. Hopefully, she thought, everyone would tell it the same way and then they’d see it was just a mistake. “I hadn’t planned to leave the anchor chain, because I was afraid I might not find it again, but then I saw …. Well, I saw you. I thought it might be them, but I saw when I got closer that it was …. I thought you were a statue.”
He turned and looked at her curiously.
“You weren’t moving. I couldn’t even see that you were breathing.”
If he realized she was hinting at getting some answers of her own, he ignored it.
Instead, he paced the room for several moments, obviously deep in thought, though she couldn’t tell whether he was just reviewing what she’d said, searching for flaws, or if he was trying to think of other questions to ask.
Unnerved as she was now, Cassie was starting to get a crick in the neck from staring up at him and that distracted her, temporarily, from her anxiety about what else he might ask her. She hadn’t imagined he was a big man when she’d first seen what she’d thought was a statue, she realized. He was big, and tall. She thought he must be half a head taller than Mark, and
he
had claimed to be six feet tall.
Maybe Mark had hedged a little on the height, like she’d hedged on her age?
Either way, Raen was still very tall, and broad shouldered. He looked good even in the robe, she thought---and manly. She would’ve thought the thing would detract from his masculinity. Odd how it didn’t, but then she supposed there wasn’t much that could, not with a man built like he was—and square jawed. There was no five o’clock shadow, despite the fact that his hair was as black as onyx. In fact, now that she thought about it, there hadn’t been hair anywhere else on his body besides his head—including his pubic area.
That hadn’t really surprised her when she’d thought he was a statute. Given that he wasn’t, now she had to wonder.
Did he shave—everywhere? Or did he just not have hair?
He sent her a speculative look. “We do not have hair—at all.”
Cassie stared at him blankly, feeling her jaw slowly slide to half mast. She
knew
she hadn’t spoken aloud, but there was no way she was going to believe he’d just
guessed
what she was thinking, or that it was just a coincidence that he’d seemed to answer the questions in her mind. She felt her face heat up until sweat popped from her pores.
“You’re … telepathic?”
He cocked an eyebrow, obviously not familiar with the term.
“You read thoughts?”
He frowned. “We communicate with our minds.”
Cassie pursed her lips, trying not to think about what she’d just been thinking about. It didn’t help. Even though she managed not to formulate the words in her mind, she was keenly, uncomfortably aware that she’d been thinking about how good looking he was
before
she got to thinking about the hair—the lack of hair—everywhere. The 39
blood that had just begun to recede from her cheeks came back with a vengeance. “That is
so
unfair! You might at least have warned me!”
Several
emotions
flickered across his features in quick succession. Amusement seemed to dominate, however. “Why would I have done that? And how is it unfair?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “If you were reading my thoughts you know damned well why it was unfair!”
To her surprise, he chuckled.
The sound sent a quiver all the way through her, warming her insides.
She would rather have thought shiver—as in chill—but she couldn’t delude herself. “I don’t know why you bothered to question me if you could tell what I was thinking,” she said resentfully. “You must know I’m not hiding anything and that it was just an accident that we came here.” She thought that over. “It was the blue glow. Mark wanted to know what was causing it.”
His expression turned thoughtful. “You saw that before you came below?”
“We saw that, or at least Mark did, before I noticed the freak storm surrounding us.”
Nodding, he moved toward the door.
“Are we done now?” Cassie asked hopefully, pushing up from the chair.
“For
now.”
She stared at the watery door when he’d left. After a few moments, she turned to look at the bed speculatively. Shrugging, she moved toward it and felt the surface. She shouldn’t have been surprised that it felt dry when the chair had, but she was. Whatever materials they used either dried very fast or shed water.
Maybe Jimmy had been right and they were aliens? The place looked like an ordinary building, an old one granted, but like a structure that might be found anywhere.
Nothing in it, however, was the least bit ‘ordinary’—certainly not the inhabitants, she reflected, still smarting over the fact that she’d been drooling over him in her head and he’d caught every bit of it!
If she hadn’t known better, she would be wondering about her sanity.
Even if they
were
aliens, it still seemed bizarre that they could change forms at will and breathe water as easily as they could air.
And hear people’s thoughts.
Maybe that part actually made sense, in a weird sort of way. They’d have to be able to communicate under water, she supposed.
And what had he meant by saying they had
no
hair?
What was that growing out of his scalp if it wasn’t hair?
It looked like hair.
She struggled with it briefly, but decided she was just too tired to analyze any of it. Settling on the bed, she pulled the cover over herself, shifted around until she felt comfortable, and closed her eyes.
As soon as she did, she remembered that, when she’d asked him where she was, he’d seemed to imply that this was Atlantis. That didn’t make sense to her, though. She only had a vague idea about the legends. She’d heard bits and pieces of it, but she knew it was a very, very old story.
Which was harder to swallow? That this was Atlantis? Or that these merfolk were actually aliens?
40
That was a tough one. Neither one seemed believable or likely.
Actually, she decided, what she’d seen outside looked like it could be old enough to fit the story. But what about the people of Atlantis? The story had seemed to indicate that it had been destroyed. So they could breathe water and it hadn’t mattered when it sank? Why would they have been living on the surface to begin with if they were merfolk?
And how could this enormous thing have been here all this time without anyone discovering it?
Even considering how huge the ocean was and the fact that very little of it had been explored it seemed unbelievable that this place could have been here all this time and no one had ever found it.
Unless the people who had just hadn’t returned to tell the tale?
That thought sent a shiver through her.
Raen hadn’t seemed threatening—unnerving, yes—especially when he’d been strolling around stark naked—but not threatening. Surely she would’ve felt ‘vibes’ if he actually meant them harm?
It wasn’t until she was hovering on the brink of sleep that it clicked in her mind that these people had heard everything that had been discussed—everything, including Linda’s suggestion that she try to seduce Raen and distract him to give them an edge.
And then they’d arrived, five women, and three men, and separated all of them.
Had they decided it seemed like a good suggestion? To seduce
them
and discover what they could about them?
Maybe, but that theory didn’t seem to hold water, either. He hadn’t
tried
to seduce her!
* * * *
What did the others have to say?
Raen asked abruptly when he’d joined Jadin in the observation room again.
Jadin shrugged.
The other ‘interrogators’ haven’t reported back yet,
he said wryly.
Raen moved to the split screens that displayed the other rooms and stood watching for a time before he moved to the one that displayed Cassie’s room.
I did not
understand the half of what she said,
he murmured finally.
The translator is malfunctioning?
Raen shook his head.
It can not translate beyond our knowledge. Much of what
she spoke of is. The world has changed drastically while we were sleeping. She spoke of
places I had never heard of and have no way of knowing even if they exist or not. She
could have made it all up. She spoke of things they seem to use in their everyday life that
I have no understanding of.
It still seemed clear enough to me that they happened here by accident,
Jadin said pointedly.
I am fairly certain they did, but that does not change the situation a great deal.
Either way, we would have had to release them eventually. It is a relief that they were
not sent here to do harm, but no more than that. They are still a problem that will have
to be resolved.
He fell silent, staring frowningly at the monitor for several moments.
When is the council to meet? Have you heard?
41
They have decided to wait until our visitors can join us. They have freed the ship,
by the way … three levels have already been drained.
Raen nodded
. We are rising. Any idea of when we will surface?
We have been down a long while and the ship ….
He shrugged
. They are
bringing us up slowly to avoid problems. We should surface in a few hours. It will be
good to walk in the light again, to breathe air.
Raen sent him a look.
The air is not as clean and sweet as it once was, and I
could not see the sun for the mother ship above us.
Jadin frowned.
Just how long, by your reckoning, were we in stasis?
Far longer than anyone anticipated we would be.
That is not what I asked.
Raen studied his friend for a long moment
. Do you want me to guess?
You have a fair notion,
Jadin said tightly
. They spoke of the ancient Greeks,
he added, jerking his head toward the screens.
Our brethren broke
The Atlantis
free of the coral,
Raen said tightly.
We have
been down here, to my thinking, nearly a thousand years, perhaps even more than that.
Jadin stared at him in disbelief.
That is not even possible, is it? To stay in stasis
so long?
Obviously, it is. We will not know these ‘visitors’ from our own world. Only the
gods know how much it, and our people, changed in all this time. All I do know for
certain is that
this
world has changed a very great deal and now we do not really belong
anywhere.
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