Chapter 3 #2
The scientist in me wants to catalog everything—measure the algae's luminescent output, test the water's salinity, map the cave's dimensions. But my body knows I'm standing in something's den, breathing its air, surrounded by its scent, and every nerve ending screams awareness of how exposed I am.
"Mercer." The voice comes from everywhere and nowhere, low and rough. It's not a greeting—it's a claim. "Mainlander. You're here to solve our little problem."
Stripping away my title sends a chill down my spine. I move deeper, my hand trailing along the cold stone wall. "I came to investigate the algae blooms. The drowning victims—"
"I know why you're here." He's closer now, much closer than his voice was a second ago. "The question is whether you're smart enough to leave."
My eyes adjust enough now. There's a pool of seawater at the center, darker shapes that might be storage, and there—shadows moving near the back wall. He's not standing still. He's circling.
"Chief MacLeod said you know the deep waters." I keep my voice steady and professional. "I need information about—"
"Need." He's beside me suddenly. I didn't hear him move. I didn't see him cross the space. There's just heat at my shoulder, the scent of salt and wildness. "You don't get to need things here, Dr. Mercer. This is my territory. My waters. You ask. I decide."
The possessive edge in his voice sends a chill down my spine. I turn to face him and immediately regret it.
His eyes are like the ones I saw in the window, not just reflecting light but generating it. Luminous and fixed on me with an intensity that makes my breath stick.
"What do you want to know?" Each word comes out rough, bitten off. "Be specific."
Scientific training wars with the instinct screaming at me to back away.
"The algae. It has a cellular structure that doesn't match known species and bioluminescence I can't explain.
It's appearing on drowning victims who died in shallow water, but the species only grows at extreme depth.
Someone is harvesting it, cultivating it. "
"Smart girl." He moves, and I track him by the movement of the shadows. He's circling me now, deciding which angle to strike from. "What makes you think I know anything about harvesting deep-water algae?"
"Chief MacLeod says you know these waters better than anyone. You live in a cave on the coast. And you were watching me through my lab window earlier." I turn as he circles, refusing to give him my back. "Those eyes are hard to miss."
Hunger flashes across his face. There's dark amusement there too. "You noticed."
"Difficult to forget."
He stops moving. He plants himself directly in front of me, and I have to tilt my head back to meet his gaze.
The size of him registers properly now—broad shoulders, muscular frame, taking up space in a way that makes the cave feel smaller.
Heat radiates from him despite the cold, and underneath the salt smell is musk and smoke.
"The algae grows in the eastern trenches.
" His voice drops lower, intimate and threatening all at once.
"Thermal vents. Deep floor. At depths that would crush you in seconds.
" He reaches past me, arm brushing my shoulder with deliberate pressure, and pulls a water-stained map from a shelf carved into the rock.
"These coordinates show high concentrations.
Someone's harvesting directly from the source. "
He spreads the map on a flat rock surface, but he doesn't move away. He stays close, crowds my space.
I bend over the map because looking at coordinates is safer than looking at him. I see geographic specifics, depth markers. Exactly what I need.
"How do you know these locations?" My voice doesn't sound as steady as I want.
"I dive them."
"Without equipment." It's not a question. The pieces click together—the impossible knowledge, the predator grace, the eyes that glow in darkness. "You're telling me you free-dive to depths that would kill anyone else."
"I'm telling you these waters are mine. I know when things change. When algae that belongs at depth starts showing up on corpses." He leans in, and suddenly I'm trapped between him and the rock wall. "I know when outsiders come poking around asking questions they're not ready for answers to."
It's overwhelming—the smell, the way he's looking at me like prey he wants to tear apart just to see what's inside.
"People are dying." I force the words out. "If you know—"
"I know plenty." His mouth curves, sharp and dangerous.
"I know you've been collecting samples. I know you taste the air when you're thinking, like you're trying to analyze everything by scent.
I know you don't scare easy, but you should.
Because these waters are hunting, and they don't care about your doctorate. "
The casual invasion of that knowledge—that he's been watching me that closely—sends alarm and something else through my system in equal measure.
"The data doesn't support—"
"Your data is shit." He cuts me off, voice rough as broken glass. "Your models don't work here. Your science can't explain half of what you've seen, but you keep pretending it can because the alternative scares the shit out of you."
He's right. I hate that he's right.
"Then explain it to me." I meet his gaze, refusing to back down even though every instinct says I'm in way over my head. "Make me understand."
Danger flickers in those glowing eyes. "You want understanding? Leave this island. Go back to your mainland lab where things make sense. Because if you stay—" He leans closer, voice dropping to gravel. "—you're going to find answers I'm not sure you can live with."
"That's not your decision to make."
"No?" The word comes out almost a growl. "You're in my cave. You're on my island. You're asking about my waters. Seems like my decisions are the only ones that matter right now."
The dominance in his tone should anger me. Instead, my body responds with a rush that has nothing to do with fear. It's chemical, immediate, completely unwelcome.
Heat floods through me—not the ambient warmth radiating from him, but something internal, something that makes my pulse spike and my skin hypersensitive to the closeness between us.
I've spent my entire adult life in control.
My career depends on rational thought, measured responses, the ability to observe without being affected.
But standing here in this cave with Finn Rowan watching me like prey he wants to devour, every carefully constructed wall I've built crumbles.
This isn't supposed to happen. I don't do attraction.
Don't have time for the complications it brings, don't trust the way it clouds judgment and undermines objectivity.
My last relationship ended five years ago because I chose a research posting over compromise, and I haven't missed the distraction since.
Except this isn't distraction. This is something else entirely.
My body recognizes him in ways my mind can't explain—the way my breath catches when he moves closer, the way heat pools low in my belly when his voice drops to that graveled warning, the way some animal part of me wants to either run or press closer and I can't decide which impulse is stronger.
It's primal. Irrational. Everything my training taught me to dismiss as evolutionary noise.
And it terrifies me more than his glowing eyes or impossible movements or the casual way he just shredded every scientific model I've built my career on.
I pull out my phone and photograph the map, the coordinates, the depth markers. Evidence. Data I can verify. Something concrete to anchor me when everything else feels like it's changing beneath my feet.
I shove away from the rock wall, putting distance between us. "Thank you for the coordinates."
He doesn't stop me. He just watches as I retreat toward the cave entrance, those luminous eyes tracking every step.
"Mercer." My name in his rough voice stops me at the threshold. "Stay out of the deep water. Whatever's hunting doesn't distinguish between scientists and tourists."
"Noted."
"And keep your door and window at the inn locked." The edge in his voice turns sharper. "Not everything dangerous stays in the ocean."
I leave before he can say anything else. Before my body can betray me further with its reaction to a man who just threatened me while giving me exactly the information I needed.
I climb back up the slick path to where Catriona waits, my hands shaking and my breath coming too fast. My mind races with observations that don't fit together.
Finn Rowan knows too much. He moves too well in complete darkness. His eyes reflect light like an animal's. He circled me, breathed in my scent when he thought I wasn't noticing, studied me like prey.
This island, these deaths, the man who claims to protect waters that are killing people—none of it adds up.
And the most disturbing part is how my body responded. The attraction was immediate, chemical, completely irrational. I don't do attraction. I don't have time for it. But standing in that cave with Finn Rowan watching me like prey he wanted to devour, my detachment failed.
"Did you get what you needed?" Chief MacLeod asks as we climb back toward the village.
"Coordinates for deep-water locations. Information about thermal vent systems." I don't mention the rest—the eyes that glow, the impossible movements, the visceral responses that have nothing to do with marine biology. "It's a start."
"Good. Finn doesn't usually share information with outsiders."
I want to ask what makes me different, but I'm not sure I want the answer.
We part ways at the police station. Before leaving, Chief MacLeod pauses. "Get some rest. You look like you need it."
"Thank you, Chief MacLeod."
"Catriona." She offers a small smile. "Or Chief if we're being formal. But since we're working together, Catriona works."
"Lila, then." I manage a tired smile in return. "Thank you for tonight, Catriona."
"Goodnight, Lila."
I return to my makeshift lab, lock the door, and lean against it while my heart rate returns to normal.
The map coordinates are on my phone, ready to be verified against sample locations tomorrow. The cellular analysis needs to continue. The data requires systematic documentation. I have work to do, patterns to identify, a case to solve.
But when I finally pack up my equipment and walk back to Flynn's Inn as dawn colors the horizon, my thoughts keep circling back to eyes that glow in darkness and a voice that promised the waters have teeth.
The coordinates will wait until I've slept. The samples, the analysis, the rational explanations I'm supposed to build—all of it can wait.
What can't wait is the need to check the door lock.
Twice. Then the window latch. Then the door again, because Finn's warning about things that don't stay in the ocean keeps playing on a loop in my mind, and for the first time in my career, my scientific training has no answer for what I just experienced.