Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Derius was content. At the tiller of the Wave Dancing Lady, headed to the resort, Leonie beside him, standing within the circle of his arm.
They’d spent the better part of the day snorkeling and admiring the rich colorful sea life clustered on the reef, including an encounter with a giant sea turtle, who’d allowed Leonie to ‘ride’ for a brief time by clinging to the edge of its shell.
The swimming was followed by a nap and languorous lovemaking in the giant bed.
A late lunch from the stasis keepers and then here they were, on their way to rejoin his fellow Ardannans.
Over the course of several conversations he and Leonie had mapped out what they hoped was a workable future together, starting with her returning to Ardanna Prime with him in a couple of days.
His people, ever hopeful, had the spaceships equipped to handle accommodation for couples who wished to stay together after their five-day date.
His friends would be happy for him, learning he and his mysterious Lady had found their way to happiness.
“I’m going below for a couple of minutes,” Leonie said, giving him a kiss on the cheek. “But I’ll be topside in time to arrive at the resort.”
“All right. I’ll miss you,” he said.
She was much more confident on the boat now than on the trip out to the island. He was sure she’d be fine sailing the oceans of Ardanna with him when the need arose. He checked the course, made a slight correction and let his mind wander to their time on the island.
A subtle, odd change in the wind alerted him and a few unusually bumpy swells ran under the boat. He checked the stern and saw nothing but a solid wall of water, rising up and up, blocking the sky.
“Rogue wave!” he yelled, not that Leonie or anyone else could hear him.
The behemoth was upon them. He had no time to even try to turn the boat into it and the maneuver wouldn’t have helped in any case.
The sheer power of the massive wave was more than a match for the boat.
Derius could have been on a seagoing cruise liner and still the boat wouldn’t have survived what was coming.
Derius had time to lunge for the controls and hit two buttons—one was the emergency beacon and the other sealed the cabin off into a survival chamber. Then the wave hit and he was swept away into the maelstrom as the boat disintegrated around him.
He…changed.
Among his ancestors at the dawn of Ardanna’s time were members of the crew of a wrecked alien spaceship.
They’d had the ability to shift into other forms at will and the gift had traveled through the generations hidden in the DNA of certain men and women.
Only a few ever shifted since the first time required the life of a fated mate to be in danger as a trigger.
Derius was terrified Leonie wouldn’t survive.
He dove under the chaotic waters, his body now longer than the boat he’d been piloting, forty-five feet from the tip of his shiny black carapace to the end of his longest tentacle.
Swimming easily his gills bringing him the oxygen he required, Derius surfaced in the choppy waters behind the wave as it continued its inexorable march across the ocean.
Just their bad luck to be in its path. Pieces of the boat floated on the swells but not the emergency pod, which should have surfaced, lights and beacons flashing.
There was a school of brightly hued fish a few fathoms down, who swerved as one to escape him.
A couple of the friendly mammals who’d done all the acrobatics the day before were watching him from a safe distance but no sign of the capsule.
He propelled himself below the surface again, hunting with his new senses, so much keener than his human ones, and detected a large object drifting slowly downward into the black depths.
The water was a mile deep here but even more problematic was the fact humans got what was known as ‘the bends’ if they went too deep and didn’t take the proper care surfacing.
And if the damn capsule was sinking, then it was leaking. Leonie didn’t have much time.
He angled his body downward and deployed his biological propulsion system, riding at high speed on great jets of water.
As he’d told Leonie, his family was deeply involved with the ocean in every way, including a number of his relatives who’d gained the ability to shift into the tarakhan form of their ancestors, so Derius had known what to expect when the change swept over him.
His sonar placed the capsule a few hundred feet down so he redoubled his speed and reached out with his two longest tentacles, managing to grab the edges of the slowly tumbling capsule and stop its descent.
He fastened the other tentacles to the slippery sides, his suckers more than a match for the human-made metal.
Double hearts pounding, he slowly rotated his prize so he could peer into the windows with his massive eyes, capable of seeing clearly in the blackest depths.
There! Leonie was there, unconscious, one arm obviously broken, and bleeding from the head but his senses picked up the sound of her heartbeat, thready though it was.
Thanking the gods she’d gone below deck right before the wave hit because she never would have survived otherwise, he continued on his way to the surface.
Floating easily once he broached the waterline, he scanned the sky but didn’t see any rescue craft on their way.
Maybe the beacon hadn’t sounded long enough before it was destroyed.
He studied the life capsule, which was half full of water.
Luckily Leonie was wedged on top of the bed, above the water.
Using the prehensile tip of one tentacle he attempted to open the latch but although he tapped in the code, nothing happened.
All the capsule’s systems were dead. She lay in an ever-diminishing air bubble.
There was nothing else to do but tear the damn thing apart, like opening a can.
He had to be careful not to hurt her or lose her in the process.
His tarakhan was equipped with a beak hard enough to rend metal and he applied himself to the task, using his tentacles to bend the edges away.
Finally he had enough clearance to reach inside with yet another tentacle, wrap the tip carefully around her waist and lift her out into the air.
He knew it wasn’t wise to move someone with unknown injuries but there was no choice.
As soon as he released the capsule from his suckers it rolled over and sank like a stone.
Derius transferred Leonie’s limp form to one of his two gripper tentacles, which could be cupped like a giant leaf. She lay there with her eyes closed, breathing raggedly, heart stuttering.
Tarakhan couldn’t handle human speech. He could talk to his own kind or other sea creatures, or even telepath to other Ardannan shifters but the best he could do now was emit distressed squeaks and squeals.
She stirred at the sound and called his name but then subsided.
He resisted the urge to shift back to human form so he could cradle her in his arms. She had no chance of survival if he reverted.
As a man he couldn’t get her to shore fast enough for the help she needed.
Decision made, Derius folded the other gripper over her. to keep her safe and began moving through the water toward shore at his best speed, about 40 miles per hour. He could keep that up for a time and he was sure Leonie was going to die if he didn’t make a supreme effort to get her to safety.
Leonie’s head ached and her entire body throbbed.
She was lying on a weird lumpy bed, damp and smelling of saltwater and the sea but when she tried to sit up agonizing pain in her arm and ribs made her freeze and tense every muscle.
She put a hand to her head and was shocked when it came away covered in bright red blood.
What the seven hells happened?
Vaguely she remembered telling Derius she was going below.
She’d been hunting for something in the duffle bag when suddenly the boat was being thrown around like a toy, walls had gone up confining her to a small space and the entire ocean had come pouring in.
She had broken flashes of memory of being tossed like a doll, ending up on the bed but then nothing.
Had Derius hit another boat? Gone aground on a reef? Did the engine explode?
Leonie couldn’t remember the sound of an explosion. Trying to think the chain of events through was making her headache worse and her vision was blurred and cloudy.
She was confused by where she was now. She couldn’t see clearly—it was as if the bed she was on had a canopy right above her but it hurt too much to move to explore her odd surroundings.
The sound of rushing water was loud and Leonie had the sense of moving through the waves at a high rate of speed. Was this a rescue boat?
What had happened to Derius? Was he all right?
Panic ran through her for a few moments, terrified of what might have happened to her lover but then gradually she relaxed against the strange surface beneath her.
Inexplicably she had the feeling Derius was close by, watching over her.
She murmured his name as the dark took her under and away from the pain and confusion.
His reserves were draining and his bursts of speed became shorter and shorter but finally he saw flyers overhead and sensed boats coming toward him.
He waved a tentacle at the sky but remained in his shifted form, continuing to swim forward.
He hoped there were Ardannans in the boats or the flyers or both.
His people would recognize him as a shifter.
The humans might think he was a threat, stirred from the deep by the wave and threatening Leonie when nothing could be further from the truth.
He slowed as the boat in the lead approached, reversing engines and stopping, holding position.
Raising the gripper tentacles, he opened the top one to reveal Leonie’s form, extending her toward the boat, up over the rail and holding her there so the humans could move her to the deck and begin treating her.
Exhausted, he retracted his tentacles and curled up, bobbing in the waves. There were splashes and a moment later two swimmers approached him. With relief he recognized Nikko and Ethaan.
“Derius, man, you shifted,” Nikko exclaimed in awe as he swam right up beside Derius, who swiveled one eye to watch him. His pal touched the hard carapace. “We’ve got your lady now and the medics are working on her. Time for you to change back, okay?”
He emitted a high pitched sound and released his hold on the tarakhan form.
Dimly he was aware of the golden sparkles of the change in the air and water and closed his eyes.
His arms were leaden and he couldn’t kick with his legs to tread water because his muscles weren’t responding.
Nikko and Ethaan grabbed him and towed him to the boat.
Hands reached down to assist him over the rail and to the deck, where someone wrapped him in a towel.
He started to crawl toward Leonie, but Nikko hooked his hand under Derius’s arms and got him to his feet.
Together they made their way to where frantic efforts were being made by the paramedics to keep her alive.
“I want her taken to our ship,” Derius rasped out to Nikko, who had the power to make that happen. “She needs more sophisticated treatment than they can provide here. She might have the bends as well—the capsule sank pretty deep before I could rescue it.”
The boat he was on made a sharp turn toward shore and raced through the waves at a high rate of speed.
Nikko grabbed his handheld from a sealed pocket in his swim trunks and stepped away. “I’m on it. You look like you need medical attention yourself, pal.”
Frustrated by his inability to get closer to Leonie, Derius didn’t reply.
He lowered himself to the deck and sat, legs out, watching his mate, who never opened her eyes once.
Someone brought him pants and a tee shirt and he got dressed right there on the deck, uncaring who saw him. He wasn’t leaving Leonie.