Chapter 22
His lips were soft despite the cut on the corner.
My heart fluttered wildly within my chest as I pulled away to let him breathe. I had intended the kiss to be nothing more than a quick, necessary physical connection between us to keep him from drowning, but it still sent waves of heat skittering through my veins.
Reiven took one gasping breath of water before cradling my face between his leather-covered palms and crashing his lips against mine again.
There was desperation in the way he kissed me, but such reverence as his fingers slid up my temples into my waves.
Almost like he had broken free of something more than Vaetrik’s chains.
My hair flowed in a cloud around us as he tilted my head, deepening the kiss.
Shouldn’t I say something? That now was simply not the time for this, that I only gave him a quick peck out of necessity? Something was seriously wrong with me, because the moment those thoughts surfaced, I shoved them far away and parted my lips to let his tongue slip inside.
He explored my mouth like he needed to memorize every part of it, and I tentatively explored his, too.
He was warm—so wonderfully warm in the ocean’s cold.
Sparks burned up my spine until they reached my scalp.
I savored the way his body felt against mine, almost wishing he had less clothing on—almost wishing I had legs to wrap around his waist. My tail curled behind his calves on instinct, pulling him closer.
An urge to mold myself against him like that forever railed against me, stupid and frantic as it was.
I tasted blood. The metallic tang on my tongue reawakened my senses enough to break away from him.
“Rei…”
He stared at my lips with dilated eyes. A drop of blood drifted away from where I had accidentally punctured his cut with my fangs.
“Um…listen, you’re under a Siren’s protection for now. It’ll only last for about five hours, so we might have to do that again. But it doesn’t have to be that…intense. It can just be a quick brush of our lips.”
His thumb skimmed against my jaw. He remained silent, still staring unapologetically at my mouth as if he were too entranced to hear me.
“Snap out of it. It's just the venom,” I barked, a bit more harshly than I intended.
“Is it? Hm.” His mouth quirked into a grin and he dropped his gaze to the flowing tips of my iridescent fin and the inky blue scales that made up my tail. “Can you at least give me a moment to admire my savior, even if this is a venom-induced haze? Damn, you look…”
“Terrifying?”
“Beautifully so.”
Simple words ruined the steady current of my pulse. Unable to come up with a quick response, I hid my face by circling him slowly, as if observing his pathetic surface-dweller body with disdain. “Well, you’re at my mercy now, Rei. Don’t tempt me to let a shark eat you.”
His soft laughter reverberated through the water. “I’ve always been at your mercy.”
I needed to focus on something else, anything else but him.“We should swim to land so it’s easier for Ash and the crew to find us. If we come across any sea creatures, they might know which way we should go.”
“Oh, shit, let me tell Ash we’re alright.
” He touched his earring. “Hey, kid.” As expected, he had no choice but to grimace and wait out whatever it was Ash was yelling at him through their link.
“Don’t burst a blood vessel, we got away with our skins intact.
I’ll let you know when we’re somewhere more stationary. ”
I raised my brow at him once they were finished talking. “Is he alright?”
“Madder than a wet hen at us for worrying him. His words, not mine.”
The ocean felt like home. Dark, frigid water.
Pressure. Air bubbles rising from the deep, far below.
Currents that pulled schools of silver-scaled mackerel towards us, chased by blue marlins.
They were too engaged in their hunt to talk to, so I followed a reedy, high-pitched song until we came across a blue whale and her calf.
I played with the calf and got some directions to a nearby landmass from the adult whale, while Reiven gaped at the majestic size of her.
The second time I had to kiss him, he didn’t escalate it again, but he did tenderly free a piece of seaweed from my billowing hair.
I had nearly forgotten, but Humans find it difficult to move in the open ocean, even with the protection of a Siren. I literally swam circles around him while he labored to make any headway.
“Spirits, could you be any slower?” I teased, zooming ahead.
“You think this is easy for me?”
“I know, I know. I’ll take pity on you, my poor Human friend.” I swam back to him and grabbed his hands, pulling him through the deep blue at a much faster pace with the strength of my tail and the help of the current.
“Oh, hasn’t it been five hours by now?”
It had only been half that since I kissed him last.
“You’re right.” I brushed my lips against his.
Waves of pleasant emotions rippled across my skin at the quiet smile he gave me.
His clothing floated loosely off his frame.
We just stared at each other in silence, so I hurried to say something, anything.
“Um, s-so how are you doing here in the ocean? Since you’re afraid of it and all. ”
“I’m not afraid of the ocean, but I’m definitely not a fan of the odd pressure. Makes me feel weak.” He snickered at my eye-roll. “You look truly at home, though. It’s a nice change.”
He asked me to tell him more about the Abyssal Deep as we continued to travel alongside a glittering school of tuna, past hordes of pale moon jellies and violet man o’ wars.
Just talking about it had me so excited that I practically put on a water acrobatics show for him while he panted and dragged himself after me.
“There are several entrances to the Abyssal Deep, natural trenches cut into what appears to be the sea floor that lead even further below. The underside of the trenches are covered in glowing corals and sponges that light up the Deep, sort of like a curtain of stars permanently above us. It’s beautiful…
You should come see it when this is all over. ”
He wouldn’t be welcome; he was a Human, after all. But maybe I could convince my people to allow him and Ash to visit, just once.
A giant manta ray leisurely glided above us, and I swam in its shadow with my arms outstretched as the temperature of the water warmed.
Sardines rushed past, a writhing mass of sterling scales that brushed against my skin, and some of them weaved in and out of my hair.
The surrounding water brightened until it was a blanket of clear blue.
The sea floor grew closer, covered in yellow and red and green corals, peachy anemones, and purple sea urchins. So much life.
My heart sang with the silent current as I left Rei to swim amongst the seahorses, blue tangs, and spotted groupers.
Something amongst the coral reef below caught my eye.
Tangled in a patch of weaving kelp, an algae-covered silver metal disc about the size and thickness of a carriage wheel glinted in the dappled sunlight.
I freed it from the seaweed and showed Rei.
“It’s a Sirensteel machine! Look.” A tap to its center prompted six metal legs to shoot out of the base, wriggling in my grip like a crab stuck on its back. “These guys are used to clean the walls of our caves. They crawl and there’s a hole in the bottom that sucks up the algae.”
“Did a Siren build that? It looks complicated.”
I laughed. “Sirensteel responds to our voices. We sing the metal into the shape and use we desire. It's actually quite easy to turn a bit of metal into something intricate—or even something that moves on its own.”
These were really the simplest creations of our kind, but it was still a jolt to see one outside the Abyssal Deep. A Siren must have discarded it, and it had been carried by the current until it got stuck in the seaweed.
I set it free on the current once again, and we continued forward in the shallow water, soon surfacing to swim to the nearby island.
Warm air hit my lungs, then came the sensation of the ocean swirling around my tail, pulling it apart scale by scale until I was left with the surface-dweller legs and clothing I had before.
It wasn’t as uncomfortable a process as I remembered.
Rei dragged himself ashore with a groan, flopping onto his back in the golden sand while I hesitated up to my thighs in water.
The storm had long given way to a perfect cerulean sky and the warmth of the surface-dweller sun that beat down on my shoulders.
Sunlight glimmered across the waves. The salty tang of the air blended with the earthy smell of the plentiful vegetation that covered most of the island.
Palms stretched into the sky, tall grasses and shrubs flourishing in the near distance.
It took a great deal of effort to force myself out of the water to kneel at Reiven’s side on the grainy, hot beach. When he sat up, no amount of brushing at his back would get all the sand off him.
He threw me a grin. “This place is nice. The perfect island for me to relax in the shade with a strong alcoholic concoction in my hand and a pretty Siren on my lap.”
“Reiven, we have to figure out how to survive here until we get saved. Unless you’d rather wither away to nothing being lazy.”
“I do prefer being lazy, so let’s see if Ash can find us before I wither away.
” Reiven touched his earring and spoke quietly.
“Hey, we made it to an island.” He paused.
“I don’t know where we are, Ash. This island feels pretty damn uncharted to me.
Er, I think we swam—west, maybe?” He squinted up at the location of the sun, then out across the ocean, and nodded as though he were confident.
“Nice. Tell Lyneca that Zephra says she’s a gem. ”