SEAMONSTER: An Aquarathi Novella (The Aquarathi) (5 page)

“But you didn’t.”

She turns to face me, her fingers sliding against the glass of the tank. The ten-foot shark swims by lazily, eyeing her like she’s tasty morsel. “No, because you saved me.”

“You and I were in the same place for a reason,” I tell her
, walking over to where she’s standing. “You said they threatened to kill your sister. Would you want to leave her alone with someone like Marco? How old is she?”

Anya’s eyes are wide. “Eleven. She’s in protective custody, too.”

“Just as you were?” I say. “From what you’re telling me, I don’t think Marco is the kind of guy to take losing so easily, and if you were his ticket to a billion dollar fortune, what’s to say that your sister won’t be once you’re gone?”

The color drains f
rom her face as she considers what I’ve said. “But she’s only eleven.”

“And your Marco sounds like the kind of psychopath who will wait a few years until he can seduce her, too.”

Anya slumps against the tank. “Oh, God, you’re right. What do I do, Speio?”

“When’s the trial?”

“In two days.”

“Then we hunker down and wait them out,” I say.
“That’s our only option for now.” That, or I change into Aquarathi form and tear the guy’s head off. He’s already rubbing me the wrong way, and from what Anya’s telling me about how he’s been manipulating her, I have to stop myself from running back to her house and showing him what real bullying is like. I exhale slowly, releasing my clenched fingers one by one.

Anya eyes me. “Why are you doing this
all of this? I was some random girl you pulled out of the ocean. You should just walk the other way. Get yourself out of this mess while you still can.”

“Trust me, Anya,” I say, leaning against the tank
beside her. “I can handle Marco.”

“But why?
Why do you want to handle Marco? Most people would run in the opposite direction.”

I don’t know what she wants me to say—that in t
he days I’ve gotten to know her, I’ve come to care about her? That her life matters? That I couldn’t turn away now even if I wanted to? That I
want
to help her?

“I’m not most people,” I say, right as a loud thump on the glass tank makes Anya’s eyes pop.
She leaps back, staring at the shark that has just bumped its nose into us in an odd aggressive motion.

“The shark is going nuts,” she says. “It’s swum by about twenty times in a row. It must think you’re its dinner.”

Or maybe it’s posturing because I’m the bigger predator around here. Turning away from Anya, I meet the shark’s eye for a second and let mine flare. The beast scurries in the opposite direction, swimming toward the other side of the tank. Our pheromones attract sharks, until they get close and realize what we are. It’s one of the reasons Nerissa and I only surf when there isn’t a full moon. We’re like shark magnets then—safe for us, but not so much for people.

“Whoa, what’d you just do?” Anya whispers.

“Stood up to him,” I say with an inner grin of satisfaction at the shark’s suddenly submissive behavior. “Come on, let’s get out of here. I know a place we can go.”

Swiping a yellow floater keychain from the rack of keys, we
slip out the backdoor, running toward the pier where a small boat is docked. “Get in,” I tell Anya.

“Are you sure we can take this?”

“I’ll return it later, once you’re safe,” I assure her. By the time Frank realizes we’re no longer at the center, we’ll be long gone. I navigate the small craft to my beach, and tie it to the waiting dock. “Come on.”

“Wait,” she says. “Are we going to your house?”

“Yes.”

“What about your family?” she asks. “What are you going to tell them about me?”

“Nothing. That you’re a friend visiting from out of town who needs a place to crash.” I almost snort—not that any of them will believe me. I don’t tend to have friends, especially of the human variety, and especially not girls. “It’ll be okay. Do you trust me?”

She looks at me for a long moment, but nods. “
You know I do.”

“Good.”

We walk up the beach together and enter through the back door. I’ve already checked that Nerissa is not in the pool in full-out Aquarathi form, but they’re all waiting in the living room. My parents’ faces are expressionless, and the look on Nerissa’s is openly approving.

“This is Anya. She’s new to town, and she needs a place to stay for a couple days. Can she stay here?”

“Speio,” my father begins, his brows knitting together.

My mother steps forward, cutting him off. “I’m
Soren, Speio’s mother,” she says to Anya. “Welcome to our home. And you are welcome to stay as long as you like.” I shoot her a grateful look as my father stalks from the room. I know why he’s upset—Nerissa’s safety trumps everything else and I’ve just brought an outsider into our home without clearing it—and her—with him first. But I had nowhere else to go. Nowhere safe enough, anyway.

“This is
Nerissa,” I say, introducing Anya to her. I struggle to find a way to define our relationship and resort to the explanation Nerissa had used at the center. “My step-sister.”

“Nice to meet you, Anya,”
Nerissa says. “Call me Riss. Everyone does.”

“Thanks,
Riss,” Anya says with a shy smile.

“
Speio, why don’t you get some fresh towels and put them in the guest room?” my mother says. “Are you hungry, Anya? We’ve already eaten, but I can fix you a plate.”

“No thanks, Ms. Marin,” Anya says politely.

“Okay, well, help yourself to anything in the kitchen if you want a snack.”

“Thank you.”

I show Anya to her room and hand over a clean towel as well as a pair of Nerissa’s pajamas. “She’s a little shorter than you, but these should fit. Are you okay?”

“Your parents seem nice.
Nerissa, too.”

“Thanks.” I stop at the door. “Try to get some rest. You’
re safe here, Anya.”

She stares at me with bright, trusting blue eyes. “What if they find us?”

“They won’t. And even if they do, I won’t let anything happen to you. None of us will. Just try to get some sleep. We’ll figure out a plan in the morning.”

I turn around to pull the door shut, and suddenly Anya is standing beside me, her eyes staring directly into mine. All of the air disappears from the room at her proximity.
Her fingers lift and my breath hitches as they feather through the hair at my temple and flutter down the side of one cheek. Every part of me freezes into immobility at her soft touch, and my pulse is the only thing leaping like a wild creature beneath my skin.

“Thank you,” she whispers and presses a swift kiss to the corner of my
mouth. The scent of her fills my nostrils like a rolling wave of the freshest, morning surf. The warm touch of her lips is nothing like I expected, and it sends a jolt of electric sensation down through my belly. All I want to do is turn my head and deepen the kiss, opening her mouth with mine and letting my tongue sweep inside for a longer taste. Instead, I let her step back, staring at me with a tremulous look. Those eyes are limpid, inviting, daring me to do everything I want to do right at that moment.

I step back, putting some
distance—and reason—between us. “Good night, Anya.”

“Son, a
re you out of your mind?” Outside on the patio, my father is seething. I shrink back from the fierce anger in his voice. Nerissa is nowhere to be seen and my mother is standing off to the side. She sends me a reassuring look that does little to soothe my nerves. My father rakes a hand through his hair, staring at me and shaking his head. “How could you bring her here? We have no idea who she is, and whether she could be a spy for one of the Aquarathi Courts. Lady Nerissa is vulnerable enough as it is. How could you be so foolish?”

I open my mouth to defend myself, but
my mother interrupts me. “Echlios, calm down. It’s the first … friend Speio has brought here. I’m sure he doesn’t intend to put Lady Nerissa in danger, and the girl seems harmless enough.” I shoot her a grateful glance. “We would have sensed a threat if there was one.”

“How did you meet her?” my father asks me in a gruff but more mollified tone.

“When she jumped off of Dead Man’s Cliff.”

My father’s eyes
narrow. “For fun?”

“No,” I say. “Not for fun. She’s in trouble with some humans from Los Angeles, and she needed a safe place to stay for a couple days.
” I stare at my parents in turn. “Look, you encouraged me to make friends here, and that’s what I’ve done. Now she needs help and I can’t just walk away.”

“
What kind of trouble?” my father asks.

“An ex-boyfriend is looking for her,” I say.
“She won’t be a worry, I promise. In two days, she’s going to go back to L.A. and you won’t see her again.”

“Tw
o days, Speio,” my father says and stalks off toward the beach.

I sigh and slump into a
nearby patio lounger, closing my eyes. My mother comes up behind me, running her hand over the top of my head, and sits on the bottom half of the seat. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” I say.

“This girl,” she begins haltingly. “You care about her?”

I don’t answer for a long moment. I don’t know how to articulate what I feel about Anya. Yes, I do care about her, but I know that’s not what my mother is asking. She wants to know whether I have
feelings
for her.

I swallow hard. “Yes.”

“Speio—”

“Mom, I know.”

“You don’t know, my son,” she says gently. “While our species can have relationships with the humans, it’s often at great cost to them. They may love us and we may love them in return, but it can never be as deep as the bond we would have for one of our own. Nothing compares to an Aquarathi bond, and the feelings you have for this girl are but fleeting.”

“Fleeting or not, they’re still real, and … I can’t just abandon her.”

“No,” she agrees. “You can’t. Promise me that you’ll be careful.”

I’m sure she’s
more worried about me being careful with my heart than my life. If either of my parents knew the kind of people Frank and Marco are, I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t be so accepting of Anya or her presence in our house. We aren’t here to get involved in human affairs—we are here to learn and to acclimatize, not to make waves or draw undue attention to ourselves.

“I promise
,” I say.

My mother stands but hesitates
, as if she has something more to say. She exhales slowly and bends to press her knuckles to my forehead in a maternal caress. She hasn’t done that in years. “The humans can fall hard for us. Do not give her any hope that there can be something more between you two beyond friendship.”

I think of the kiss that Anya had pressed to my lips minutes before.
Too late for that. Too late for either of us to pretend that there’s nothing there. I don’t answer, and my mother walks back into the house. I stay outside for a long time, watching the sky turn from fiery orange to deepening purple to inky indigo. Starlight glistens in the cloudless night sky, making me think of the jeweled depths of Waterfell. It’s strange—normally I miss home with a fierce longing, but I haven’t been as preoccupied with such thoughts lately. Maybe I’m finally getting used to living here.

Or maybe it’s because of Anya.

My thoughts wander back to her and what she must be going through—losing her father and being coerced by someone she’d once trusted,
loved
even, to testify against his killer. My fists curl into claws at my side as anger floods through me like a rushing tide. I want to protect Anya, I realize. I don’t ever want her to feel like she has to jump off a cliff without me there waiting to catch her.

The realization shocks me. How is it possible for one person to get under someone’s skin so quickly and so easily? I’d met her barely a week ago and yet I
feel this overwhelming need to make sure she’s okay. I want to keep her safe from Marco. Maybe it’s part of some protective instinct I never knew I had. Or maybe that’s what happens when you save someone from dying—you find your lives inexplicably intertwined. It’s like a crash when two souls collide in the universe—you can never go back to how things were. You can never extricate that person or incident from your life. You’re involved for good.

Perhaps
that’s why I feel so protective of Anya. I didn’t save her life for some thug to use her for his own seedy ends. Not that I want her for myself or anything. She’s human, after all, and Soren is right. There can be nothing between us. What I feel is brotherly, paternal even. I want her to be safe, nothing more. Ruthlessly, I shove the kiss out of my mind. Anya is emotionally vulnerable, making her feel things more viscerally than usual. I have to be the voice of reason for both of us.

I glance at the moon’s position in the sky and guess that it’s about one o’clock in the morning. I yawn and cross my arms beneath my head.
My entire body feels restless and coiled with tension. A swim will help to clear my head. The house behind me is shrouded in darkness—everyone’s asleep. Making my way down to the beach, I stand at the water’s edge, watching the silvery tipped waves lap at my feet. My body soaks the saltwater up like a sponge, revitalizing me like nothing else. I inhale sharply and push my arms above my head in a deep stretch.

I sense her before I hear her, bright awareness making my pulse leap with recognition.
My arms slide to my sides and I wait silently. I couldn’t move if I wanted to.

“Hey
,” her soft voice says.

Anya is standing there, a blanket thrown around her shoulders, her eyes
darkened from fatigue. The moonlight has leached their vibrant blue color, shading her features into sharp grays and shadows.

“What’s wrong?
Are you all right?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” she says in a husky voice. “You either?”

I shake my head. “I was thinking about going for a swim.”

“At night?” she blurts out.

I nod. “I like it because it’s quiet.”

“What about all the things out there?” she says with wide eyes. “Like sharks.”

I’m the worse thing out there
, I think to myself, but I just shrug. “They don’t come this close to shore,” I lie and pull my t-shirt over my head. “You should go back to bed.”

Anya’s sharp inhale is audible. I keep my eyes fixed on the ocean’s swell. “I want to stay here … with you. I feel safe with you.”

“Anya—”

She steps forward, close enough that I can feel the warmth of her body press into the space of mine. We’re not touching and the electricity between us is combustible. “There’s a reason we both can’t sleep, and it’s the same one,” she whispers.

The backs of her fingers flutter against my bare ribcage, and I inhale sharply, jerking away from her touch. “Anya, you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Don’t I?”

“You don’t even know me.”

“I feel like I do.”

I turn to face her, and wish I hadn’t. Her eyes are like liquid pools of silvery blue. I clear my throat. “I can’t be anything other than a friend to you.”

Hurt flickers across her face for a second before it’s eclipsed by something else. Resolve, maybe. “You feel it, don’t you?
The attraction between us? I know you did, before—in the house, when I kissed you.” Her voice turns silky and I can’t help looking at her mouth, the perfect contours of her lips. Her tongue slips out to wet them as if sensing my gaze. I look away with effort. She takes a step closer to me until we’re nearly nose-to-nose. “I can’t stop thinking about it. About you.”

The blanket drops to the sand as she slides her palms up over my chest, leaving fire and longing in their wake.
I don’t dare to look down, but I do. She’s dressed in borrowed too-small pajamas, her breasts pushing against the thin material. An enticing swath of bare skin beneath the shirt’s hem peeps through. My entire body goes rigid. I’ve never felt this confused—the call of ocean tugging me one way, and a deep, unfamiliar desire to be near this human tugging the other.

“Anya—” I say hoarsely. “You don’t know what you’re asking. I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?” Her hands continue their soft exploration, making it hard for me to breathe.

“They’re the same thing.”

“They’re not.”

“Anya.”

Her fingers slide up my neck and over my mouth, trapping the rest of my words there. “I love it when you say my name, but you’re talking too much. Just kiss me and I’ll stop thinking about it. Then I’ll leave you alone and go back to bed, I promise.”

One kiss
, I tell myself.
It won’t hurt anyone
. We both want the same thing. Soren’s warning slips through my head, making me pause for a brief second. Anya’s fingers slip through the hair at my nape and she pulls me closer. I hold her arms gently, pulling her wrists down between our bodies and separating us. The ocean wind dances in the space I’ve made, cooling my overheated body.

“Why?”

“Because I may not get a chance to,” she says honestly. “And I want to know what it feels like. Because I like you. Because I could be back in L.A. tomorrow. Because Marco could kill me. Because of a whole bunch of things. There shouldn’t have to be a reason for two people to … want to kiss each other.”

“
One of us has to be reasonable,” I say gently, desperate to do the right thing. The thought of hurting Anya in the future because I’m unable to curb my body’s heedless response now is a sobering one. A kiss between us could never be a single act—I know that as clearly as I know I need oxygen to survive. A kiss between Anya and me would be the beginning of the end. We would both want more, much more than a single touch of our lips would ever satisfy. “You’re in a fragile place, and I don’t want to take advantage.”

“Take advantage of
me
?” Anya sputters, but I can see sting of rejection on her face as she breaks my hold and steps to retrieve the fallen blanket. “I’m the one throwing myself at you like a desperate, pathetic fool. Don’t worry, I get it, you’re not attracted to me. We’re … friends. I’m sorry.”

Anya starts to walk up the beach
, and I feel like I’m separating into two distinct pieces. I can taste the scent of her tears on the wind, and instead of heading into the ocean where I should go, I turn and race the other way up the beach, toward the human girl walking away from me. Without hesitation, I take her by the arm and pull her toward me, bracing her body with mine. My hand splays against the small of her back, the discarded blanket tangled between our hips. I hold her to me, searching her eyes, memorizing the planes of her face as we stand there motionless for a long, charged moment.

I look at her lips last,
seeing them part in unconscious invitation. I tighten my hold, watching her eyes widen as the space between our bodies disappears. Her breasts flatten against my chest, my heartbeat merging into hers as if we’re a single entity.

“Does
any of this feel like I’m not attracted to you?” I say gruffly.

Anya’s mouth open and closes, but she doesn’t say anything.
I kiss the tears from her eyes, tasting the salt of them on my tongue. I kiss her eyebrows, the space between them, the soft fuzz at her temples, the tip of her nose. My lips trace the apples of her cheeks, working their way down to the side of her neck. I press my mouth into the hollow of her collarbone, grazing her sea-dampened skin with my teeth, and drag it upward to her ear, taking the soft lobe into my mouth. A weak groan escapes Anya’s mouth, drawing my attention there, and I can’t wait any longer.

I put us both out of our misery.
Fanning my fingers behind her head, I sink my lips into the willing embrace of hers, shaping my mouth against hers. The tug of the ocean behind me wicks into silence. All I can feel—all I can sense—is Anya. My entire body feels like it’s made of air and fire instead of flesh and bone. Her mouth parts sweetly and my tongue touches the inside of her bottom lip. She tastes of salt and honey, and I only want more. Slanting sideways, I delve deeply with a groan of my own, giving in to the kiss, completely unhinged.

Without releasing her mouth, my hands skim up her sides
beneath the pajama top, flicking past her ribs and up to the soft curves of her bare breasts. She gasps against my mouth, her hips arching into me as my hands slip around her back. Her skin is like pressed silk. My mouth releases hers briefly, only to nip down to her chin, nuzzling and kissing and biting, before she drags my face up to hers again. I don’t even know how either of us is still standing, or whether minutes or hours have passed.