13. Poppy
POPPY
The bug-tendon line is literally slicing into my palms, but I don't even care. I dig my boot heels into the mud, leaning back with all my weight.
I’m going to catch a shark, and then I’m going to eat it. Because fuck this place, that’s why.
The glowing neon eye-meat vanishes into the black water.
BAM.
The line yanks so hard I think my shoulders are going to pop out of their sockets.
“Oh, fuck me,” I yell, yanking right back. “I’m not a Barbie, my arms don’t pop out that easy!”
The first of my bloodline to say that, I’m pretty sure.
A silver shape explodes under the surface. Holy shit. I caught a fish. An actual, toothy, multi-eyed space monster, but a fish nonetheless! Look at me go! I am actively surviving!
“Shark week MOTHER FUCKER!” I scream.
Except there is a minor problem, I realize.
This thing weighs more than a Honda Civic and it dives straight down, dragging my boots through the slime right toward the cliff. I have absolutely zero landing strategy here. It's just me, my sad little bug bait line, and a very angry fish trying to pull me in for an early lunch.
Suddenly, the light goes dark. I squeak. What fresh new hell is this?
A shadow blocks out the cenote's skylight, and…
THUD.
Vael-Torin drops straight through the hole, landing on the rocks with a heavy, bone-rattling crunch. He looks completely unhinged. His hair is wild, his chest is heaving, and his fangs are fully out. He takes one look at the situation, then at the line pulling me toward the abyss.
"Poppy," he rumbles, "How has this creature captured you?"
"I am not being captured. I am an apex predator!" I yell, my heels sliding another terrifying inch through the grease. "I caught him! Help me! Chicken of the sea over here!"
Vael tilts his head, looking way too amused for someone watching his mate get dragged into a shark tank, but he moves.
His hands clamp down on the tendon right over mine. His chest hits my back like a heated mattress, and one, two, three—HEAVE. The silver shark flies completely out of the water, landing on the stones with a wet slap.
“This is a chicken? What we have here?” Vael asks, staring at the shark. “My translator must be wrong.”
“No, chicken of the sea is tuna, but this is a shark…” I trail off. “You know what? Never mind.”
Before I can even clap my hands in excitement, a second, even bigger fin rips through the surface. A jaw the size of a garage door snaps open, chomps my catch completely in half, then drags the bloody remains back into the deep.
I stand there staring at the steaming puddle of fish guts left on the stone.
“Are you kidding me right now?” I scream at the water, shaking my fist at the fins. “That was my fish! You goddamned thieves!”
Vael is staring at me with something like shock.
Yeah, I’m not a pillow princess out of the bedroom, my friend. Whatever.
The adrenaline drains out of me.
I slump against the vine-covered wall, my own uselessness hitting me all over again. I am exhausted, covered in bug paste, and completely failing at this.
“Great. Perfect. Now we don’t have dinner.”
Vael frowns, his forehead wrinkling as he tries to translate my pity party. "Perfect?"
"Yes, Vael. I am perfectly awful at this. I lose the food, I get kidnapped by a giant centipede—"
"No," he interrupts, stepping right into me. His hands hit my hips and squeeze, and I suck in a surprised breath. "This is incorrect. You are perfect, not perfectly awful." He stops, looking like he’s thinking hard.
“No, I suck.” My lower lip wobbles. “I messed it all up.”
"The other night. You sucked my—"
My jaw hits the floor. I completely freeze.
"—you sucked my cock with great skill," he finishes, looking intensely proud of his little linguistic breakthrough. "It was an excellent suck."
A choked wheeze of a laugh escapes my throat, then turns into hysterical laughter.
Vael just stares at me, looking totally baffled. One second I'm waging war on mutant fish, the next I'm cackling like a super villain.
The giggles slowly fade into something real. I look up at his handsome, serious face.
“Thank you,” I whisper. “For tracking me down. And… I’m sorry. For getting snatched. For tricking my friends. For making our lives a dumpster fire.”
Vael looks at me for a long moment. He doesn't say anything, but he picks up my awful excuse of a fishing rod, uses a razor-sharp talon to slice a fresh chunk of green eye-gummy off the dead bug carcass, and hooks it.
"Let us see what else we can catch for dinner," he says. “As a team.” He looks a little proud of that word, and it eases something in me.
I perk up a little, watching him test the tension of the tendon.
He looks back over his shoulder, his eyes unblinking.
"You are beautiful, Poppy. And you are clever.
We will survive this place together." He pauses, his red tail giving a slow, calculated thud against the rock.
"We are a team. But do I trust you yet? I do not know. I think you will show me, though."