Chapter 24

Twenty-Four

Arges

He should break her.

Shatter her.

Let her blood drip into the water and bring the animals that would devour her body so he could forget this had ever happened. Mitéra would understand. She would know the truth when he said it was an impossible task, that he had failed and he would take the punishment that came after.

The achromos were destructive in everything that they touched. They were impossible to tame, and as such, there was no way for him to get information out of her. It was the achromo’s fault that he had failed his people. But soon enough, the People of Water would forget. He would get his pod back from his brother, and he would lead them to attack her people with even more fervor.

All it would take was one slash of his claws, and she would be dead. The life dimming from her eyes as he dragged his nails along that long, beautiful neck.

But his gaze lingered on that neck instead. Arges couldn’t stop staring at it even as he tackled her to the ground, forcing her to submit beneath him. He wanted to scare her. He wanted her to realize that tempting one of his kind would only lead to madness and ruin. And yet...

Ah, and yet she was so lovely. So pretty. An otherworldly creature who had somehow captivated his mind, body, and soul. He couldn’t harm a hair on her head, and it killed him that he’d already done so. She deserved so much better than this. Than him.

His mind came back to the present, and he realized their position was a rather compromising one. He’d laid out between her legs, where her heat pressed against his scales. Her hands were caught in one of his, held over her head with a webbed grip that looked so luxurious against her pale flesh. And those eyes... Oh, her eyes spat fire just as the humans’ weapons did.

Arges had never seen such a beautiful woman. He’d never known someone to meet him head on, no matter what he did. She did not fear him, and that was intoxicating.

Though still glaring at him, she didn’t move as he dragged his free hand down her throat. Tiny bumps rose on her skin. Captivating, although he had a feeling it might be a fear response.

Good, she should fear him.

But then she tilted her head to the side, baring more of that lovely neck until he reached the prominent muscles of her shoulders. And still, his fingers caught on the blanket and he thought, “I could tear this off her.”

He would then finally see what an achromo looked like underneath all those layers that they hid beneath. Even more than that, he could see what she looked like.

His skin still tingled as he remembered their moments near the hot springs. He could still feel the sensation of her skin against the back of his hands, dragging as she shifted and moved. It was... More than he’d expected. Even now, the thoughts were tempting.

Hissing in a long, deep breath, he told himself that there was no place for thoughts like this. She was pinned beneath him, likely terrified, and yet he pressed himself harder against her. The strong muscles of her legs surrounded his hips, and he’d thought this would disgust him, but instead it... intrigued him.

Those delicate arms lifted above her head, and those big eyes that stared at him with so much determination. How was he supposed to function normally when all he wanted was to press their lips together? To do what he had seen achromos do a hundred times, but his people had no reference for it?

“Why do your kind touch mouths?” he asked, knowing that she had no idea what he was talking about. “I always saw it through the glass and wondered why you were doing it. Was it to pass food between the two of you? It disgusted me. But now I find myself looking at you, and I am curious what your people were doing.”

She almost... reacted to his words? He couldn’t really tell. Her pupils dilated until he stared into a black-eyed gaze, and he thought she shifted a little closer to him. It was a strange reaction from a woman who could not understand him.

Did it matter, though? He was already so deep into this that he couldn’t remember what he had planned before. He didn’t even notice that he’d rocked against her, pressing them a little closer as he got dangerously close to showing her everything that his people hid underneath their scales. Already he could feel his cock pressing against the backs of the armored plates, wanting to release and take her.

He hadn’t taken a woman in ages. He hadn’t felt the bite of their claws or the gnashing of their teeth. Mating for his people was not a kind event. The male frequently left the interaction with scars that he’d carry with him for the rest of his life.

Still, he had to wonder if the experience would be similar with an achromo. She was too delicate to damage his hardened scales, and his tail was so far out of her reach that she wouldn’t be able to lock him in place. Those tiny nails on her hands would impede her and barely break through his skin on his back. And she had no fangs or sharpened teeth in the slightest.

He wondered how they protected themselves. But he would not complain about needing to protect her, because for some strange reason, it made him feel rather powerful.

Arges tightened his grip on her blanket as he stared into her eyes. He swore there was acceptance in that gaze, maybe even need. She wanted him to tug it down a little farther. She wanted him to see her, and perhaps find himself captivated even more by what he found there. Was she this pale all over her body? Were there really no scales to protect her?

But then a loud clunking noise made him freeze, and her stupid little robot dragged itself closer to them.

“Mira?” it asked, those strange metallic eyes blinking. “Are you well?”

She turned her head toward the robot, and he swore she was a little breathless. “I’m fine, Byte. He’s not going to hurt me.”

Or maybe he would. Their bodies were clearly not compatible, and he was considering doing the impossible. Fitting them together might hurt her more than she thought.

The little robot clunked again, clicking a few times like a dolphin before it muttered, “Should scan. Something is wrong.”

He returned his attention to the woman beneath him. Something was wrong with her? Perhaps her cheeks were a little pale, but that wasn’t surprising, considering he had her pinned to the ground underneath him. She wasn’t shaking or vomiting or spewing anything out of her orifices, so surely she was all right?

But then she made a slight coughing noise, almost clearing her throat, but he heard the rattle in it. Perhaps that was what the robot had heard as well. The rattle, the strange sound that erupted from her lungs when she spoke. He only sounded like that when he was trying to clear the fluid out of his second set of lungs so he could breathe on land.

Mira didn’t have another set of lungs for underneath the water. He should have known something would go wrong after he’d kept her underneath the surface for such a long time.

Sliding his hands down her arms, webs trailing across the delicate skin underneath her wrists, he moved his body off of her. She almost protested. He watched her eyes flash in disappointment before she drew her hands back down to catch the blanket that slid. He caught the slightest glimpse of endless pale skin before she hid herself yet again from his gaze.

“Scan her,” he grumbled to the box. “If there is something wrong with her, I wish to know.”

Why? He had no idea. He should be happy if she was getting ill. That was the purpose of his mission, after all. Learn what he could when she was this weak and then learn how to fix what her people had broken. That information would be significantly easier to get from her if she were weakened.

Still, he didn’t want to see her harmed. If only because he so admired her bravery and ability to survive despite everything that he’d thrown at her.

Byte dragged itself a little closer to her with those short arms. The metal clunked again, clicking and whirling as a new tool he hadn’t seen erupted from behind its head. He hissed and sank deeper into the water as a new light emitted from the strange device. Green and slicing, it broke through the air and traveled up and down Mira’s body.

“As I suspected,” Byte muttered. “You’ve been hiding your health from us.”

Hiding what? Mira looked fine. Maybe a little rattling in the lungs, but that must be something fairly easy for achromos to fix. It was easy for him to address.

“You would have visible injuries if you were mortally wounded, would you not?” he asked, hating that he couldn’t actually converse with her. “Surely it would be easy to see.”

But it wasn’t, apparently. Byte chittered a few times before whirring again, that light running over her body again. And Mira? She wouldn’t even look at him.

“Severe vitamin d deficiency,” Byte said. “Significant vitamin depletions in multiple other forms. Significant fiber loss and blood pressure is far too low. You’ve been sick for a while, Mira. Why haven’t you told us that?”

Arges let out a frustrated huff. He didn’t know if the strange robot could understand him, but he had to try. “What can I do to heal her?”

“Bring her back to the surface,” Byte replied.

“You know I cannot do that. There are questions that need to be answered, and she is the only one who can answer them. She will remain down here until we get what we want.”

“Then she will die.” The robot was so matter of fact with its tone.

Every spine down his back rose and his gills flared wide in anger. “She will not die. You will fix her.”

“I am not a medical droid.” The tool went back into Byte’s box and the robot seemed to shrug those tiny arms. “There is nothing I can do for her down here. She should be taking supplements, eating vegetables, doing all the things that keep humans alive. You are doing none of those.”

“What do you mean?” he hissed. “I bring her food. I bring her to the caves with light. She lives, does she not?”

“Light is not sunlight! The humans have been taking supplements for years now that they live underneath the surface. The depths are not made for humans, not like your people. Humans need sunlight. They call it vitamin d, and it fuels so many important functions in their body. And fish are not food!”

“They are food!”

“Not like humans need to eat!” the little droid shouted back. “A varied diet is important for humankind. You might be able to eat the same thing every single day and still swim about with your tail flipping around, but a human needs proper food. Food that can actually sustain them. You have not brought her any of that.”

He was going to crush the box. That was the only way to ease the anger in his chest. Some part of him knew that he was angry at himself, not at the box, but it would still feel good to crush something between his claws.

Sinking lower in the water, he glared at the droid. “Tell me what I can do to help her.”

“You can bring her back to the city, so she can be seen by a medical droid and be treated for all these issues.”

“Tell me something else I can do.”

“Unless you can magically find an abandoned human home underneath the sea that is not connected to the city, then there is nothing else you can do to help her.” The droid looked at Mira, then back at him. “Am I not speaking English? Are you having trouble understanding me?”

“I understand you fine, abomination. But there are no options. I cannot bring her back to the city and I cannot find another way to heal her.”

His hearts raced. Would he lose her so soon? The guilt in that thought alone threatened to swallow him. It was his fault that she was here. And she’d told him she knew nothing. She wasn’t meant to even be here. He could have taken one of their leaders if he had been more patient and less intrigued by the glimmering light of her suit.

For all the murdering and killing he’d done in his life, he’d never harmed an innocent. In this, he knew she had no guilt to carry and didn’t deserve to die because he’d made a mistake.

Oh, he had never thought it would come to this.

He met Mira’s gaze, looking at her from the water and seeing the way the light played off her green eyes. He couldn’t stop himself from saying the words, even though he knew she couldn’t understand him. “I am sorry, kairos. Perhaps I never should have brought you here, but know I will do what I can to save you. Throughout all of this, you have been brave, and that is something to honor. Even if I have proven myself incapable of honoring much in your time here.”

He pressed a fist to his chest, watching her eyes dart between him and the droid.

Finally, she sighed. Her shoulders curved in on her body, like she was folding into a new being. “I’m fine,” she said. “I don’t feel all that sick. It’s just my joints that ache and my stomach that’s a little off, but nothing is going to kill me here. I just need some sunlight and some vegetables and I’ll be fine.”

“You won’t be fine,” Byte muttered. “You need multiple injections and perhaps a healing pod.”

“I’ll be fine,” she repeated, her words a little harder than before. “You don’t have to worry about me. Either of you.”

But this still didn’t settle well with him. The only option was to return to the depths, to Mitéra, and beg for her to allow the release of his kairos. Even if that meant his honor would be forfeit, Arges found himself willing to do it.

“I will be back,” he murmured, his voice low as he sank beneath the waves. “I will save you, Mira.”