Chapter 29

It was remarkable how the voices suddenly silenced the moment he wrapped his arms around her. And that was insanity. He'd kidnapped her from her home, stolen her away into the ocean where she was constantly in danger. He'd made her rely on him for everything—warmth, breath, and food. She should hate him. She should want to see him rotting at the bottom of the ocean and revel in the sight of his dying writhe.

But she didn't. Anya wrapped her arms around him and held onto him as though she'd missed him just as much as he'd missed her.

Perhaps they were both mad. Lost in the future the ocean had promised them when they both knew it wouldn't be so easy to catch that future. No matter what they did, there was a journey ahead of them that could not and would not be stopped.

He was one of the People of Water. He would always fight against her kind, just as Arges still fought. But Mira had no real ties to her people, whereas Anya did. Anya loved her city and every person in it.

Otherwise, she wouldn't have fought so hard to keep them all alive. She wouldn't have struggled and pulled herself up every time something had gone wrong. She wouldn't have fought tooth and nail to bring her father down and liberate them from the leader that was destroying their lives.

She wouldn't have fled that city with a monster.

Tightening his arm around her, he relaxed back into the kelp and told himself that this was a place out of time. He could lay with her wrapped around him. He could pretend that they didn't need to leave this place. All he had to do was feel her.

And oh, he did. The soft press of her belly against his. The sensation of her ribs moving with each breath that he gave her. Her tiny fingers toying with the ends of his hair, gently separating the knots and then draping the strands out across his mangled shoulder.

Daios told himself that she didn't even see the old wound. That she touched him without fear because his arm was still there. That he was a whole man who could do whatever it took to keep her safe and happy. Together, they would live out their lives without struggle or fear. It was just... them. Breathing in the ocean as he exhaled into her lungs.

He'd forgotten what true relaxation felt like. How long had it been since he didn't feel like he needed his guard up? But he knew this place like he knew his own heart. There were no dangers here that he had to keep his ears and senses awake for. He could open his gills wide and fill himself with the scent of her. For later. For when all this fell apart again.

"What happened?" she asked again some time later, her words muffled by the water that pressed against her lips.

He didn't want to talk about it. He didn't want to say anything at all. He just wanted to sit here and hold her and listen to her breathe. But he knew that wasn't possible, not when his little kalon had a curiosity that burned through her.

Sighing, he tightened his grip on her waist. "I trust my brothers told you about the depthstriders?"

"Barely," she grumbled. Then she reached up to adjust Bitsy, tapping the glass as though his words hadn't come through clearly. "They don't like to tell me much. I don't think they trust me yet."

"They probably won't for a while." Though he hated letting go of her, he also knew that it was important for him to speak her language.

Arges had never done that for Mira. And suddenly, he wanted to be better than his brother at something.

So he nudged her, rolling her over his broad chest until she lay in the crook of his shorter arm. He braced her there, grateful for the wetsuit that prevented her from being pressed skin to skin with his gnarled scars. Then he lifted his hand, and brokenly signed what words he knew as he spoke.

"Depthstriders are like us and not. The woman who controls our pods, we call her Mitera, she is of their kind as well. They see the future in a way that none of us can. They have... contacted me before." He knew so few of these words. Frustration sank into his voice before she reached up and cupped his hand in hers. Together, they signed the other words, as she taught him what was the right way to move his hand, and filled in the words when he needed a second. "I failed them before, and I fear I will fail them again."

"Why would you be afraid? What are they asking you to do?"

He untangled their fingers and ran his hand down his face in frustration. "They do not often tell us what to do, only what is to come. We are meant to discern for ourselves what is the correct next step, and from there, we do what we think is right."

"They don't sound like very good oracles," she grumbled.

With a soft chuckle, he shook his head at her blasphemy. "Perhaps not. But I have endured some kind of friendship with one for years, so they have their place."

"You're friends with one?" She sat up on his chest, her hair floating in front of her face before she shoved it back. "What do you mean, friends?"

"Not in the way you're thinking. They are not a species of creature who readily maintain relationships with anyone. They are solitary creatures." He couldn't help himself. Daios smoothed her hair back from her face as it started to float forward again, if only so he could feel his fingers dancing past her ear. "But Fortis and I have worked together before. I do not enjoy disappointing people, if you have not noticed that about me yet."

"Oh, I have seen it."

To his utter delight, she mimicked what he was doing. Her fingers moved through his hair, gently pressing against his skull before dragging her nails down the back of his neck. He arched into her touch, letting his eyes drift shut as she trailed her light touch down his face and the delicate frills that framed it.

"You all have such interesting names," she murmured, her voice light as rain. "They all seem to end in a hiss."

"Most do. They all have great meaning to them. My people believe that names have power."

"Of course they do. Humans don't believe that as much, but quite a few of us believe there is power in names."

He blinked one of his eyes open, keeping that narrow-eyed suspicion on her. "What does Anya mean?"

Her face split into a bright smile. "I don't really think it's as deep as your name meanings. Anya means ‘grace', I have been told. I did not grow into that name very well."

He disagreed. For their people, grace was something that was given in someone else's hour of need. She certainly had done that for him.

Licking his lips, he nodded. "My brother's name, Arges, means brilliant and shining. I grew up with a clutch mate who shared the same name meaning as how we would describe a bolt of lightning, or the shimmering of a fish's scales. He was always born to be the better of the two of us."

Daios knew he was baiting her. He wanted her to ask what he did not want to tell her. It was a foolish thing to do, an endeavor that would only end in pain for him.

And then she asked, "What does Daios mean?"

He cupped her cheek in his hand, watching as she tilted her face into his palm. Her lips pressed against his skin. Not a single part of her flinched away from him, and perhaps that was why he let the words slip from his tongue.

"Enemy," he whispered, the words suddenly pouring out of him. "It is a word we use to describe hostile or destructive beings. Creatures who consume all that stand in their way. So it means enemy in the way you call evil beings demons."

The skin around her eyes pinched. "They named you the enemy of your people from the day you were born?"

"No, my kalon." Cupping the back of her neck, he drew her down until he could press their foreheads together. Here he could breathe her in. Here he could hope that this would not ruin all that they had built. "They named me the enemy of yours."

He felt the shudder run through her body as though it ran through his own. And he knew what it meant.

For the first time since meeting him, perhaps she understood that she should fear him. He was created to be a weapon, and he had been aimed at her people for his entire life. Daios had killed more achromos than any other undine. And he killed them with pleasure.

Even now, he did not think he would hesitate to kill one of her kind. The pleasure and enjoyment he drew out of their suffering was the same as it had always been. He longed to taste their metallic blood in the currents. He still enjoyed seeing the horror in their eyes as their life fled from them while his claws ripped and tore into their beings.

But this one? This was not one he wished to kill. He only wanted to see her safe and so far from his violence that she would never be touched by it.

He heard her swallow, the clicking of her throat a warning. "You have called me kalon more times than I can count. If all your names have meaning, what does that one mean?"

Telling her that would bare his soul. It would say so much more than he was willing to say in this moment, because he knew that word was special. He'd seen the faces of the other undines when they'd heard him say it. They knew what that word meant.

He almost didn't tell her. He almost kept the secret to himself for a little while longer, because to everyone and now to her, he was a beast. A weapon. The brute who attacked and killed whomever and whatever he was told to kill. He was a murderer and a monster through and through.

But when she pulled back and looked down at him, her hand holding his palm to her cheek, all of that faded away. All the screams. All the creatures he'd killed a hundred times over, and all the lives that had been lost because he'd made the wrong choice. All of it was gone.

Only she remained.

He stroked her jaw with his thumb, tracing the outline of her bottom lip with the pad of it. His black claw arched over her mouth and she didn't look afraid of him.

Perhaps that was why he could murmur, "It is a special word. We save it only for a rare pearl that we find only once in our life. It means a beauty that is more than skin deep. It refers to a soul that radiates inside a person, so much so that you can see it on the outside as well."

"Daios," she whispered, her eyes wide.

"I hate your kind." He needed her to know that. "I will kill them again. I will fight until there is no breath left in this body and I have lost every limb I can stand to lose. That will never change."

"I know."

"I find your people disgusting. From your ugly toes to the horrid white color that surrounds your eyes. Every bit of your people is revolting, and your bodies are a nightmare to look upon."

Her lips twisted with a soft smile. "So you have said."

He slid his hand into her hair, dragging her close to him again. "But I do not find you ugly."

"Do you not?"

"How could I? When your hair is the color of the sun on a cloudless day? When your smile warms the entire ocean around me? When I touch you, your soul is so familiar to me. It is like I have known you in a hundred lifetimes before this, and some part of me that I've forgotten wishes to bury itself inside you. It tells me to cling to the curve of your waist, to clutch at the feeling in my chest that lingers when you are near. My soul wishes to keep you and never let you go."

Somehow, they had drawn closer to each other. He could feel the warmth of her lips through the thin veil of water that separated them. Her words were tiny currents that rippled over his face.

"What are you so afraid of?" she asked. "You have been holding yourself back, and I want to know why."

He swallowed. "I am made of rage and pain. I do not want to give you any of that, my kalon."

"I want you, Daios. I don't know why or how, but I do. Every bit of you. Your anger, your rage, your pain. I want that just as much as I want your attention and your adoration." Her hand pressed flat against his chest, her palm so warm against his skin. "I am not afraid of you."

"I am."

The words seared through him. Sometimes, the truth burned. It was worse than when he'd lost his arm, knowing that he was so terrified to touch her even when she lay on top of him and begged.

"Of me?" she asked.

"No."

"Then what are you afraid of?"

He stared into those strange eyes and replied, "Of hurting you."

Anya looked back at him, and he knew she stared into his very soul. Those blue orbs saw too much of him. In that look, she saw he was terrified of hurting her with his claws, his spines, with every bit of what he was. He could so easily tear into her flesh and for a long time, he'd thought that wasn't fair.

Now he knew he wasn't the only one with claws. Because with one word, she could break him. Snap him into a thousand pieces and shatter his soul into shards that dusted the sands of his home.

He'd given her that power. He had handed her the leash to his heart and now he couldn't take it back.

"You won't hurt me," she whispered, using both of her hands to hold on to his face. "Do you know how I know this?"

"You cannot know that."

"I do, though. I know you won't hurt me because you don't want to. And that is good enough for me."

He stared up at this brave woman, and he wondered just how far she was willing to take this. "Then what are you proposing, my kalon?"

She licked her lips, that pink tongue flickering in a way that he wanted to follow. "Let me ease your pain, Daios. In whatever way I desire."

Who was he to deny this siren? "Whatever you desire, Anya."

Daios breathed her in, that citrusy smell that coiled around his heart and flooded his tongue with her flavor, and he wondered if this was what it felt like to fall in love.