Chapter 14

She hadn't expected him to leave her alone for such a long time. But it gave her plenty of opportunity to look at the research facility he'd brought her to. Though the place was running low on power, it hadn't been abandoned for that long. There were useful power stores that could be diverted, and oxygen that would keep her alive for a while yet.

Bitsy did the work she was required to do. Ace had sent them a download a long time ago for hacking, hence the ability to hack cameras. Apparently, there was some information in that download as well about manipulating a system such as this.

According to her little droid, the AI functions on the ship were simplistic, outdated, and run down. If that was said with rather sarcastic italicized words, then Anya ignored the sass. She figured Bitsy deserved it after surviving their plunge into the depths of the sea. Such was a traumatic event that the droid would not let her forget.

Together, they worked to get the facility back semi-online while also still not allowing the AI to send off any warning signals back home. If anyone at Alpha figured out that a long dead facility had just gotten back online, they would send someone to check what was going on.

And that was something to avoid.

The emergency supplies had a few things that were helpful. A medkit, which she moved somewhere safe just in case they needed to use it for someone's injuries. A droid that had died a long time ago, the battery running out with no access to electricity. Three old tins of food, as well. But no clothing. So she was forced to shiver as she tried to keep herself warm in the icy building.

"What do you think?" she muttered, looking over the console panel Bitsy had lit up. "Can we get the tunnel to the left open?"

Bitsy had left the screen on the console table with one leg connected to it. Words scrolled across the glass. "Maybe."

"Is it functional?"

"Maybe."

"These are not answers, Bitsy. I need a report that's useable, not just a maybe."

Exclamation points jumped all over the screen. Clearly, she'd made her droid angry again, but that was just the way of it. She sat in the wheelie chair, trying not to be overwhelmed by the dust in front of the window. She was used to Alpha, which had miles and miles of clear ocean surrounding it. The pillars had always lit up some of the sand, and of course, the lights from the city itself spread like a beacon. She had watched bubbles move over glass for her entire life.

Here? The bubbles were even murky and filled with dust. Every time she thought maybe she caught movement, there wasn't anything at all. Just a whole lot of dust that could hide almost anything out there.

For a second, she thought she saw teeth. Just a wide open maw of a mouth, grinning at her through the window because it knew she couldn't see.

Trapped. Oh, she was so trapped in this place and she wouldn't even know if something was coming at her until the very last second. She could feel her heart beat kick up as it got a little harder to breathe.

Rubbing a hand over her chest, she stood and paced. "Bitsy, we have to get more room in here. I can't stay like this for much longer. I'm losing my mind."

She didn't even look at the screen to see how her droid replied. She knew what Bitsy was going to say.

This is nothing different than her room at home. Her father had her cooped up in that room for weeks on end, and she hadn't gone as stir crazy as this. Or hadn't panicked, at least. This room was the same as all the others she'd been in for countless times in her life. She could manage this.

Still, she didn't know how to sit still or even how to breathe like normal until she saw more exclamation points come across the screen. Jolting forward, she grabbed onto her droid at the same time Bitsy exclaimed across the lens, "I did it!"

"You did?" she breathed, craning her neck to peer down the tunnel.

And she could see it. The water was draining and there were plenty of buckling joints all around it that she knew someone else might have heard it. The building was shifting and moving and finally, finally, the door opened.

A rush of water erupted into the room, sliding toward the opening in the floor. A cold blast of air followed, smelling like seaweed and rotting fish, but it didn't matter. Because at the end of that hallway was another room. And she didn't care what that room was as long as it was more space.

Rushing forward, she tested her foot on the floor of the hallway into the other area. It had been filled with water, after all. The last thing she wanted was for the rusted out floor to give and then she'd been stuck in that murky water. Already she could easily envision how hard it would be to even find the facility. Her eyes would burn with the smarting of dirt and the saltwater that would make the light seem like it came from the wrong angle.

She'd drown. And even though she'd lived her entire life in the sea, Anya was just now realizing how terrified she was of it.

The floor held, though. As she skittered across it into the other room, she was surprised to find it was one of the few living quarters. Popping Bitsy back on her head, she started through the room and peered at all the details.

"I turned life support back on for this room only," Bitsy said as Anya turned toward the bunk beds on the wall.

There were four of them, each one made of steel that would last for centuries down here. Clearly there hadn't been any water in this room, because the blankets were still on the bed and they didn't look too worse for wear. Other than the dust, of course, but even that was minimal.

To the right, there was a small plastic card table that had seen better days and a lot of cards thrown around it. Bitsy highlighted the cards. "Look! Entertainment."

She shook her head, trying hard not to snort at the joke. There was a wall of lockers as well. Even if this space was limited, it was something.

Anya opened the lockers first and ran her fingers over the ancient photographs inside the first one. The man looked friendly with his arm around another man, younger, who looked just like him. There wasn't much left in this locker other than an emergency gas mask, which she supposed would be useful.

She closed it, feeling the angry way it fought back against her hand. She remembered when she was little there was a sound to that, but she'd long forgotten what that sound was.

A shame, really. She had a feeling the sound might have jolted her out of the fear that she was going to find a skeleton in one of these lockers.

Blowing out another anxious breath, she opened the next one. This one had drawings on the inside. Clearly done by a child, they were so thickly attached to the door that it almost created another stiff layer. With a soft smile, she looked in and let out a sound of surprise.

Clothing. The suit was old and smelled like mold. It had the Alpha seal on the breast pocket, a winged bird with the sunset behind it. The gray color wasn't flattering, and it was a man's size so it would be baggy in all the wrong places and tight in others, but at the very least, it would keep her warm in the cold facility.

Finally. She had something useful. She'd been a little afraid she was going to have to peel off the wetsuit and wrap herself in a blanket while hoping she didn't lose her toes.

Peeling off her wetsuit, she worked it down over her shoulders and had to take a breather with it stuck around her hips. Her bra was so stuck to her skin it was almost gross. So she quickly took that off as well, even though the icy temperatures turned her nipples to diamonds and made her skin so goose bumped she swore it was going to stay that way.

Hissing out a long breath, she started in on the wetsuit again. "Heat, Bitsy? That's kind of important."

"The heat is on."

"It's clearly not on. Do a scan."

The little droid scanned before teeny, tiny words flashed on the lens.

"Bigger."

The words only got marginally larger.

"Bitsy, you know I can't read that," she grumbled as she yanked the damn wetsuit down over her hips. Breathing hard and bending at the waist, she worked it down over one of her legs. "Make it bigger."

"It's fifty-two degrees." Finally, the words were big enough to read.

"And I'm in my underwear, still soaking wet," she grumbled.

"Not cold enough to die."

"So, is the heat on or not?"

The words this time were underlined as Bitsy tried to make her point. "Yes, the heat is on. This is the capacity at which the facility can run."

Great. Just great. She was going to freeze her ass off down here, all while trying her very best to stay alive in the middle of the sea. Why had she thought this would be better?

Her skin prickled with the sensation of being watched. Which was crazy. She was losing her mind down here too now. Bending to pull the rest of the wetsuit off her other leg, she struggled to get it off and then tossed the offending suit as soon as it popped off her foot. Even though it was still cold, she was surprised at how much better she felt without the wetness pressed against her skin.

She must have torn a hole in it while they were going through those sharp corals. That's the only explanation for her being wet inside a suit that was rated for these depths.

For some reason, she turned back toward the tunnel and the room she'd originally been in. She didn't know why, perhaps it was some sixth sense because when she looked up, all she saw was red scales.

Red scales that connected to a dark black body and soulless eyes that watched her with a sense of hunger she hadn't seen in them before. His eyes were wide, his claws digging into the ground as he looked her up and down.

With a strange garble vibrating her throat, she pressed the suit against her breasts. He had been looking at her. Staring at her.... wanting her?

No, that wasn't possible. He was an undine. He was probably looking at her body like it was strange and uncomfortable, not intriguing. And that heat in his gaze was just because he was surprised to see her. And the way he licked his lips as he looked her up and down. That was just because he was... hungry. That was it.

But she couldn't help her own reaction to that expression. Clenching her thighs together, she grit her teeth against the unnatural reaction to him, as well. She was human. She shouldn't feel this way about a monstrous creature who had kidnapped her.

Her eyes still skated down the bulging muscles of his shoulders and the powerful flexing of his chest and ab muscles as he braced himself on that single arm. Those abs twitched at her stare, and she swore he flexed them just a bit harder.

Spinning, she turned herself beyond his sight and stepped away toward the lockers. Grabbing onto the fabric there, she shoved herself into the utilitarian body suit, and then grabbed a blanket off one of the bunks for good measure.

But, as she made her way down the tunnel back toward him, she couldn't help but feel like she was putting on clothes to stop herself from feeling anything. It wasn't a shield against his eyes. It was a promise to herself that she was covered, and coverings made it harder for her to want his eyes on her.

Because maybe she was a deviant who wanted him to look again.

Blowing out a long breath, she shook her head before stopping before him. "I didn't know when you were coming back."

From this angle, she was taller than him, but not by much. That massive arm still held him almost halfway out of the water. His serpentine tail disappeared into the dark, dingy water behind him. But from this angle, she was staring down into his face. He was so close she could see the water dripping off his hair and rolling down the mountains of his shoulders, pooling in the hollow of his collarbone.

She wanted to know what that pool of water tasted like.

Damn it, Anya, she told herself. Mind of out the gutter.

He nodded toward something to their right.

"Oh," she whispered. "You brought me a fish."

Bitsy highlighted an area beside her, bringing her attention back to the undine before her. And when she looked, she could see that his gaze was trailing down her body once more. Almost as though he were remembering what she'd looked like without her clothing.

A black tongue darted out as he licked his lips, and she couldn't look away from it. For a second she swore she saw bumps on that tongue, and it took everything in her to not squeeze her thighs together again.

Deviant. Wrong. She shouldn't be affected by a creature who looked like this. Not when she knew how sharp those teeth were and how much he had fought against her own people. He'd killed humans. Probably killed a lot of them. She was an idiot for even thinking....

He shoved himself forward. She watched as that thick tail coiled underneath him so he could loom above her. It was a slow rolling of his body, his face so close to her, and then it was miles and miles of hardened muscles dotted with scars.

His hand came up between them, those claws gently trailing up the fabric she now wore. She could feel the pull of the claw against every single button that it dragged against, each one sending a little popping jolt throughout her entire body as they snapped back against the fabric.

Finally, his claw eased up her neck, feather light and sending more goosebumps scattering wherever his touch lingered. With a gentle tap against her chin, he forced her to look up at him.

"You are pale everywhere," he said, his voice a low rumble that moved through her body with a white hot heat.

"Humans are usually the same color everywhere." She cleared her throat, feeling like it was a little hard to breathe. "We don't have patterns like..."

She didn't finish the sentence, because she'd focused a little too hard on the black lines that went from his collarbone and disappeared into the darkness of his tail. Because within those patterns were the gills on his ribs, and they were moving. Gently. Just a little.

Was being out of the water difficult for him? Could he even breathe?

She meant to ask, but then his thumb brushed over the peak of her breast. A lightning bolt shocked through her entire system, and she couldn't think. Couldn't even move as he did it again.

"Except here," he murmured. "Here you are not pale."

Fuck.

The slickness between her thighs rushed so quickly it was distracting. She had never thought... He couldn't know what he did. He didn't understand that humans were sensitive there.

He was curious about her kind, and the touch to him must be innocent. She was over thinking this entire meeting, but she had to... to...

Swallowing hard, she nodded, still frozen with his hand against her breast. "Thank you for the fish."

When he didn't reply, she looked up into that hungry expression. His eyes reflected her own features back at her. The black orbs of his eyes showed a woman with bright red cheeks, a blush staining all the way down her throat and hidden beneath the ugly fabric of her clothing.

His claw tugged the lapel of her borrowed suit. "You turn so many colors, kalon. I can't wait to see how many."

And then he slipped back into the sea, leaving her breathless and so red she felt like her skin might melt off.