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But he wanted to prove that even if he was broken, he was still worth something.
Maybe he deserved to end up dead, just like all the other People of Water who had suffered the consequences of his folly.
She was too small for him to be interested in. His hearts did not beat for someone that would break the moment he first touched them. Not to mention she was so perfect. A little golden statue hidden in the middle of her golden city. So pretty and perfect and wrong for him. A monster would leave smudges on something so lovely as she.
But god forbid she deny him anything! She was his pretty little songbird. She was supposed to sing when he told her to sing.
No female had ever wanted to pick him. He was too large for their offspring to be easy births, and too aggressive to battle in the mating dance. He had already resigned himself that fluttering was foolish for anyone.
That little achromo was his, though. And now he was going to take her.
And if she was pink in other places.
Because that’s all his worry ever was. His image. His city. They couldn’t trust a man who didn’t even keep his own daughter safe. Let alone have her injured twice. And if he didn’t know how to take care of his children, then he certainly couldn’t take care of them. An image. That’s all this was about. And that meant she had to play her part.
Anya didn’t even know her mother’s name.
“Just try to be good for a few more weeks, would you? Can’t have anything happening to my daughter. The undines would tear such a little thing apart.” Then Bitsy added, “He’s an ass.” It took every bit of her willpower not to laugh at that.
“Why aren’t you panicking? You should be panicking. You’ve seen her multiple times now and each time you failed to get her. Now there is no way for us to get in, and we’re all screwed.” “What is that word?” He finally looked up from his project to frown at the yellow-finned pod mate. “Screwed?” “Ah. It’s something Mira says when there is no winning the situation.” Maketes scrubbed the back of his neck. “I think I used it right.”
With her chin on his shoulder, she watched Alpha disappear behind them. Her home was gone. But her heart was free.
for fuck’s sake—was that his fins fluttering against her thighs? He tamped down on the movement immediately, a low growl starting in his chest with disgust at himself. He could not, would not, flutter for an achromo.
So, in the same rhythm she’d been counting, he focused on the lights while they swam. One, two, three, four, five. All the way down his neck. Then again, to the peak of his shoulder. More down his bicep. Then he made the lights turn and go back up the same way. She couldn’t see him very well, although likely better than she had before, but he could see her. The trembling that he’d noticed almost disappeared entirely. Her eyes followed the lights up and down.
And then his little witch of a woman whispered, “We can go through the coral. I’ll keep my arms tucked in tight.”
Then she started tracing circles against his chest. The circles became patterns as they waited for the ships to stop their search. Patterns he had no idea how to decipher, but fuck. It felt so good to have someone touch him.
A soft tap had him looking down at the little creature in his arms. “Lights?” she asked. “Can you make the lights?” “Are you afraid again?” he asked, his voice a low rumble in his chest. At her shiver, he sighed. Of course, he had to be thrown in the direction of a creature who was terrified of the dark. She feared so many things, likely, that he would have to spend the rest of his obsession catering to her every whim. She was weak. But he still started with the rhythm of lights that went up and down his shoulder, trying his best to ignore the way her fingers tapped each one out of existence
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He was alone. As he always was. And as he was cursed to always be.
I should not seek out the shadows when there is so much to see in the light.”
“You taste like the sea,” he rasped. “My favorite flavor.”
“You’re not really making these sound good,” she said with a soft laugh. “Wet and salty isn’t on my list of things that I like to eat.” He opened the next one a little harder, and his claw thunked against the metal floor. “I am wet and salty.” She blinked, her mind clearly trying to catch up to what he had just said.
Perhaps he was too violent for most of his kind, but he had a feeling he was the right kind of violent for her.
“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.”
My soul wishes to keep you and never let you go.”
Their hair tangled together, floating above them. Strands of darkness and beams of the sun as her gold hair snagged in his.
Anya didn’t know how to feel about him getting “fixed” when she’d never thought of him as broken. He lacked an arm, yes, but that didn’t make him less of a person. He had figured out how to live without one and now it felt a little cruel to hand him something like this. Even if he had wanted it, she wasn’t sure how to feel.
And suddenly, she was alone again. Years and years of practice at not feeling like she was the only person on the planet who had suffered, and now she watched someone else get fixed.
“Whole?” he growled, wrapping his hand around her waist and tugging her against him. Water splashed up to her knees with the force of his movement as he dragged her against his chest. “My lack of arm has nothing to do with feeling whole. A metal device or not, I was never whole before you. You were the first person to look at me and see a man after my injury. Not a mistake, not a failure. You were the one to see me. My kalon, if you wished me to shed my skin, I would. If the arm makes you uncomfortable, then I will drop it into the deepest pits of the sea.”
“I am only whole because of you.” He pressed his lips to hers, the long kiss tasting of salty tears and seawater. When he drew back, he pressed their foreheads together and took a deep breath with her. In and out. “Anya. It’s just an arm. A tool to be used, but never something that is part of me. I will use it to bring you to victory, but it does not change who I am.”
He stared his brother down across the water. Arges was now once again between him and the city that kept his mate from him. His mate.
“Go get her,” they whispered in his ears. These voices were no longer full of rage, but of sadness and heartbreak along with him. “Go bring her home, Daios. Lay her down to rest with us. We will care for her.”
“My love,” he called out, his voice echoing through the ocean and pushing through the currents. “I am coming.”
“I was never broken.” She curled her fingers even more tightly around the scalpel blade, as though to remind herself that she wasn’t defenseless. “I became so much stronger. It’s a shame that you haven’t recognized that, General. But allow me to tell you that I am far more than you could ever dream.” “That’s good to know. I’ll tell them all those were your last words. They’ll love that.” He pointed the gun at her head again,
Even in death, he knew she would be the prettiest thing he’d ever seen.
I feared she would fold under the weight of her father’s disappointment. But she is an impressive woman, brother. Impressive enough to win the favor of the depthstriders.”
Rocking her back and forth, he tried to get control over what he was feeling. But these emotions refused to be tamed or named in any way. They were a typhoon of madness and hope and relief and love. So much love.
