Chapter 3
AVultor, a huge terrifying Vultor, living so close to the village.
Diving deeper to escape the crashing waves on the surface, Ariella still found it hard to believe.
The Vultor were the other alien race who had colonized Cresca and their relationship with humans was…
troubled to say the least. There had been violent clashes between both sides, but although those had lessened over the past few years, each group kept to their preferred areas.
Despite the lack of recent violence, she was quite sure no one in the village would be happy that one was living so close and yet she’d heard nothing about him—which meant that no one knew about him or his daughter. Why not? And why were they living in such isolated circumstances?
I touched a Vultor, she thought as she swam. I stood in front of him and held his daughter and looked into his eyes and felt—
What? What had she felt?
The memory of his warm fingers brushing hers surged up again, the shock that had run through her, electric and impossible to ignore.
I felt nothing, she told herself firmly. It was just the adrenaline of the rescue. I was cold and scared and my body was pumping chemicals to help me survive. It didn’t mean anything.
The lie tasted bitter, even in her own mind. And he was affected as well, a little voice said, remembering the way he’d gone still, staring at her with eyes that glowed like golden flames.
She swam faster, putting distance between herself and the cliffs, heading south towards the lights of the village. The storm was passing—she could feel it in the changing currents and the gradual calming of the water’s chaos. By morning, the sea would be almost peaceful again.
The lab materialized out of the gloom, all harsh angles and artificial lights. She surfaced at the end of the dock, hauling herself up with arms that suddenly felt heavier than they should have.
Tired, she thought. I’m just tired. That’s all.
She pressed her palm against the access panel for the lab, and the door hissed open with a wheeze of complaint. The interior hit her like a wall—warm, dry, recycled air that tasted of chemicals and old coffee. Familiar but not welcoming.
Her father was working in the main lab, hunched over his workstation, surrounded by the soft glow of multiple screens.
His lab coat—the same one he’d been wearing for three days, judging by the coffee stains—hung off his shoulders like it belonged to a much larger man.
He was a thin man, all angles and intensity, with the distant eyes of someone who spent too much time staring at screens and not enough time looking at people.
“You’re late.” He didn’t look up from the keyboard.
“There was a storm.”
“I noticed. The barometric data was fascinating. Did you feel the pressure differential at depth? I’ve been meaning to study how your inner ear compensates for—” He finally turned, and his eyes went immediately to the medical scanner on the counter. “Come here. I need readings.”
Not are you hurt. Not I was worried. Just data. Always data.
She didn’t move towards the scanner. “I’m fine.”
“Fine is not a measurement.” He crossed to her side, already reaching for the device.
“Your oxygen saturation, your heart rate during the storm stress, your—” He paused mid-reach, and for one absurd moment she thought he’d finally noticed the scrape on her arm, the bruise forming on her shoulder from where the rocks had caught her.
“Is that a new tear in your suit? Those are expensive to repair.”
“A wave threw me against some rocks.”
“Hmm.” He was already scanning, the blue light washing over her body while numbers scrolled across his screen.
“Your lungs performed admirably. Ninety-seven percent efficiency even under storm conditions. Better than last quarter.” A smile flickered across his face—the same smile he wore when an experiment proved his theories correct. “You’re improving.”
I’m not an experiment, she wanted to say. I’m your daughter.
But she’d stopped saying that years ago. It never made any difference.
“I need to change,” she said instead, stepping back from the scanner. “Dry off.”
“Yes, yes. But first—” He was already typing, recording his precious data. “Did you find anything? The trench coordinates I gave you were promising. High probability of mineral deposits, possibly some of those crystalline formations that Merrick has been asking about—”
Her stomach clenched at the name.
“I found something.” The words came out before she could stop them. “But not what you were looking for.”
Her father’s fingers paused on the keys. “What do you mean?”
She’d almost forgotten about the flute in the chaos of the rescue, but now it seemed to pulse with warmth against her ribs, demanding attention. She didn’t want to give it up. Didn’t want to see it logged and catalogued and shipped off to whatever collector Merrick decided would pay the most.
“Nothing valuable.” She did her best to sound casual. “Just debris. Old colony junk.”
“I see.” Her father’s disappointment was palpable, settling over the room like fog. “Well. Perhaps tomorrow you can try the secondary coordinates. The seismic readings suggest—”
“I saved a child tonight.”
The words cut through his lecture like a knife. He blinked at her, confused, as if she’d suddenly started speaking a foreign language.
“What?”
“In the storm. A little girl fell into the water. I heard her screaming and I—” She stopped. Her father was staring at her with an expression she couldn’t read, not concern but something more calculating. “I pulled her out and brought her to shore.”
“A human child?”
“No. Vultor. Or half-Vultor, I think. Her father was—”
“Vultor?” Her father’s voice sharpened. “You were in Vultor territory?”
“I’m not sure. I was further north than—”
“Ariella.” He strode over and gripped her arms with hands that trembled slightly. Not from worry, she realized, but something else. “Did they see you? Your modifications? Did they—”
“They saw me save their child from drowning.” She pulled free of his grip, her bioluminescence flaring indigo with frustration. “The father wasn’t exactly grateful, but he didn’t try to kill me either.”
“You shouldn’t have been there. If Merrick hears that you were interacting with—” He turned away, running a hand through his already disheveled hair. “This could complicate things. Merrick has been working to establish trade relationships with the Vultor, and if they think we’re spying…”
“I wasn’t spying. I was swimming. And then I was saving a life.”
“Yes, well.” He was already back at his keyboard, typing frantically. “Heroics don’t pay debts.”
She flinched, her chest aching. Not from surprise—she was long past surprise at her father’s priorities—but the weary, familiar disappointment never quite stopped hurting.
“I’m going to change,” she said quietly. “I need to get dry.”
He didn’t respond. He was already lost in his data, muttering to himself about territorial boundaries and political implications and all the ways her existence continued to create problems he had to solve.
Her private quarters were more closet than bedroom—a narrow space barely large enough for a bunk, a storage locker, and a small mirror that showed her reflection in unforgiving detail. She sealed the door behind her and leaned against it, letting out a long sigh.
She crossed to the bunk and sat down, then gave a nervous glance around before carefully pulling the flute out of her suit. She felt like a child hiding stolen sweets.
This is ridiculous. It’s just a piece of debris. An artifact. It probably has no value at all.
But she’d lied to her father about it. She’d hidden it. And now, as she unwrapped the waterproof cloth and pulled the instrument into the light, she understood why. The flute gleamed softly in her hands, carved into a shape that fit her palm like it had been made for her.
This is mine.
The thought was fierce and unexpected and absolutely certain. Whatever this thing was, whoever had made it, it belonged to her now. Not to her father. Not to Merrick. Not to anyone who would see it as a commodity to be sold or a curiosity to be studied.
Mine.
She blew the faintest breath across it and the air shivered with a note so pure it made her teeth ache.
Her bioluminescence flared bright violet in response, pulsing in time with the fading resonance.
Suddenly overwhelmed, she wrapped the instrument in cloth and tucked it into the bottom of her locker, beneath spare dive suits and waterproof gear, hidden and safe.
For now.
The knock on her door made her jump.
“Ariella?” Her father’s voice was oddly stilted. “You need to come out. We have a visitor.”
Her stomach dropped.
No. Not tonight. Please, not tonight.
But she already knew who it would be, and she fought back tears as she stripped off the dive suit and pulled on a loose, concealing robe before joining her father.
Merrick Bane stood in the center of the main lab like he owned it. In a way, he did.
He was immaculate, as always, dressed in clothing that cost more than everything she and her father possessed combined.
Dark fabric that somehow managed to look both understated and obscenely expensive, cut to emphasize the sharp lines of his body.
His shoes were polished to a mirror shine, unmarred by the salt and rust that coated everything else in the village.
His hands, emerging from perfectly pressed cuffs, were manicured and pale and cold.
His hands were always cold. She’d made the mistake of shaking his hand once, years ago, when she’d still been naive enough to think he was just another investor. Touching his skin had felt like touching something dead.
“Ah.” Merrick’s voice was pitched low, soft, the kind of whisper that forced you to lean in to hear. “There she is. The jewel of the ocean.”