Lords of the Deep (19 page)

Struggling against unconsciousness, Damien looked around for the enforcer. Stunned or not, there was no doubt in his mind that one was close by. No typical okean could produce that much current. Only the warriors and enforcers had access to the boosters that could shoot enough current to subdue two okeans in the grips of mating aggression.

He didn’t recognize the okean poised above him and Miles, but he was wearing the badge of his office—enforcer—the red tinted cross harness that secured his weapons.

“What in gods damned hell do you two fucking idiots think you’re doing?” he roared. “
Practicing
for the gathering?”

Fury surged in Damien at the insult, but caution reared up, as well, and a modicum of reason with it. There was deep sarcasm in the last question—with good reason. Okeans often did hone their fighting skills in the weeks just preceding the gathering, but they didn’t flash or attack one another with so much aggression. The fact that both he and Miles had been doing so and had been too caught up in their fight to realize they’d attracted unwelcome attention from one of the enforcers was evidence enough of a real battle rather than practice.

He managed a sickly grin that was more of a grimace, suddenly keenly conscious of the fact that the enforcer was standing near enough to Angie’s window to see her if he looked that way.

Because she was standing at the fucking window staring out at them!

“We got carried away,” he growled.

“Twice in the past two days!” the enforcer came back. “I was willing to overlook it the last time, but neither of you are young enough to excuse excess hormonal drive!”

Miles, Damien discovered with a sense of impending doom, was staring at Angie with a look of horror. “It won’t happen again!” he said quickly as the enforcer began to turn to see what it was that had riveted Miles’ attention.

The gambit to redirect the enforcer’s notice failed. He tensed, the urge to attack the enforcer washing over him briefly, but he saw it was already too late. The enforcer stiffened, almost seemed to go catatonic.

Wryly, he considered Angie seemed to have that effect on unsuspecting okeans.

After staring at her in stunned wonder for several moments, apparently forgetting all about them, he swam closer. Angie’s face registered shock, her eyes widening, her lips parting.

The enforcer grasped the edges the window, staring at her as if mesmerized.

Damien turned to glare at Miles and punched him. “Idiot!” he hissed sarcastically. “Why didn’t you just point her out!”

Miles uttered a snarl and shot both hands out, grabbing him around the throat. He’d managed to break Miles’ hold by slugging him in the face several times and was trying to choke the life out of him when another searing jolt of fire seized him, paralyzing him for several moments before it ceased, allowing him to slump to the ocean floor. The enforcer, he discovered when his mind swum toward consciousness again, was still clinging to the window, studying Angie.

Thoroughly besotted and too stupid with it to realize he was making a fool out of himself, Damien thought with disgust.

He turned his head to glare at Miles, wondering how he’d managed to hit him with enough current to knock him out.

“By what name is she called?” the enforcer demanded in a husky growl, dragging Damien’s attention from Miles.

He discovered when he looked that the enforcer still held the booster in one meaty fist and realized instantly that it hadn’t been Miles that had knocked him out. Fucking asshole! “Angie,” he growled reluctantly.

The enforcer spared a glance at him. “I’ve never seen a catkin with a scarlet caplet—or blue eyes. She isn’t from here.”

Damien’s belly tightened with anxiety. He flicked a glance at Miles, but he saw immediately that Miles was not going to be any help at all. Between the aggression he was now flashing at the enforcer and the sharply contrasting flicker of uneasiness in his eyes, it was clear Miles wasn’t in any mental state to come up with a convincing lie to explain her presence.

“She’s from Pacifica.”

The enforcer turned to look at him at that, his eyes narrowing. “I’ve seen none from Pacifica with the look of her either,” he growled, suspicion evident in his voice.

Damien swallowed with an effort. “She’s his cousin … come to collaborate with him on some of his research.”

The enforcer studied Miles’ light hair assessingly for a moment before he turned to look at Angie again.

“Distant cousin!” Miles growled, glaring furiously at Damien.

Damien shrugged.

The enforcer seemed oblivious. “She’s in season?”

“No!” Damien and Miles both exclaimed at the same time, effectively capturing the enforcer’s attention completely for the first time since he’d spotted Angie. His eyes narrowed on them. “If not then why are two in full challenge?”

“We weren’t!” Damien denied.

“We were giving her an exhibition!” Miles said at almost the same moment.

The enforcer studied them assessing for a long moment and then turned to look at Angie again, frowning. “She’s very small,” he murmured as if he’d just noticed the circumstance. “Is she mature enough for the mating ritual?”

“No!”

“Yes!”

Damien and Miles glared at one another. “Gods damn it, Miles!” Damien growled. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking I don’t want to go to jail for fucking an immature catkin!” Miles hissed at him.

“She’ll attend the gathering then?”

It was said questioningly but neither Miles nor Damien doubted his intentions for a moment.

“No!” Damien responded.

“Maybe,” Miles hedged. “She may return home before then.”

The enforcer turned to study them challengingly. “It’s little more than a week away. Why would she leave to make that journey on the eve of the gathering? She wouldn’t make it back to her own gathering grounds in time to take part.” He turned to study her again. “And there are plenty of okeans here for her to choose from.”

Damien was tempted to tell the fucking bastard she’d be leaving right away. He resisted the impulse. The enforcer, who’d begun to look vaguely familiar to him, though he couldn’t quite place the bastard, was much too interested in her himself to simply accept that explanation and leave. He’d be back to check on her unless Damien missed his guess. “I suppose it’s up to her,” he said tightly. “It generally is.”

The enforcer nodded, turning to study them again. “I’ll let this pass,” he growled finally, “since it’s obvious to me that she’s near ripe and you two morons can’t control yourselves. Keep your distance from her. If I see the two of you battling over her favors again, I’ll remove her to a safe house.”

Damien nodded, barely able to contain his fury. He succeeded only with the reflection that spending the next week or so in jail was even less to his liking than being forced to submit to the will of the enforcer.

He was going to tear the fucking asshole’s head off when they got to the mating grounds, though!

He was still boiling mad when he and Miles trudged inside.

“Gods damn it!” Miles roared furiously once they’d emerged from the airlock. “What the fucking hell are we going to do now! We can’t take her to the gathering, Damien!”

Chapter Nine

Miles’ comment effectively redirected Damien’s thoughts, cooling his fury with a cold dose of reality. He stared at Miles with burgeoning horror as his mind filled with all of the reasons why they couldn’t.

Angie, he discovered when he glanced toward her room, had come to the door to look at them with a mixture of wariness and curiosity.

Anger surged through him, directed primarily at himself and Miles, and regret.

If they hadn’t allowed themselves to get so caught up in mating aggression ….

The gods damned enforcer was right! They
were
a couple of morons!

There was little point in kicking himself now … and none in being angry with her for showing herself, though he was, unreasonable or not.

It wasn’t as if she’d known better, or even that she had reason to consider they might be angry with her for staring out the window when they’d allowed it before, or that she needed to worry about anyone else discovering her presence.

For that matter, they’d stolen her away from her own world. She didn’t owe it to them to keep her presence secret even if she’d known everything that was going on.

None of that changed the fact that they were totally fucked, of course.

“We only have two options,” he responded finally. “I can return her to her people. Or we take her to the gathering.”

Miles pinched the bridge of his nose. “We can’t take her to the gathering. She’s an air breather, Damien. It would instantly be obvious that she was from the
above
.”

Damien felt as if his chest was being crushed at the thought of taking her back. He swallowed a little sickly. “That’s that, then. You’re right. There isn’t another option.”

Miles turned to study her longingly. “Unless …,” he said thoughtfully.

“Unless what?” Damien asked sharply, feeling a surge of hope loosen the pressure on his chest.

“I was just thinking about the procedure they use on the babes that sometimes have trouble breathing because of immature development or occasional defect.”

Damien blinked at him in shock. “You’re talking about doing it … to her?”

Miles sent him a resentful look. “It’s performed on infants. It isn’t dangerous or they wouldn’t survive—no more than any other procedure, anyway.”

“No fucking way!” Damien growled emphatically. “Aside from the risk, and the possibility that it might not work at all, we can’t just do something like that to her without her knowledge or consent!”

“Then we ask her!” Miles said stubbornly.

“She wouldn’t understand, gods damn it, Miles! Even if she did, I can’t think of a single fucking reason why she’d
want
artificial gills!”

“I can,” Miles said tautly. “She’s trapped here as long as she can’t survive outside the domicile. With them, she’d be safer—regardless of the situation about the gathering—and she’d have choice, Damien. She could decide to stay, or she could decide to leave.”

Damien turned to study her. “She’ll leave,” he said flatly.

“Probably but are you really willing to keep her when you would never know if she stayed because she wanted to or because she didn’t have a choice?”

“Yes, gods damn it!” Damien growled and then turned away, slamming his palm against the wall of the corridor. “No. You’re right. I want to know. I need to know.”

Miles nodded. “I know I do.” Releasing a pent up breath, he moved to Angie and held out his hand.

She studied his hand a moment and finally took it.

Damien followed them as they led the way to the lab.

“First things first,” Miles said decisively. “We need to bring the translator to a more satisfactory working condition.” Grabbing a stool, he set it down close to his and helped Angie climb on it. He picked up the headset next and carefully adjusted it to her head before settling on his own stool. To be certain she understood what the procedure was about, he put on his own set and started by giving her their word for hand and then repeating it in her language. She nodded understanding after the first few matches. Miles lifted his hand, touching her cheek. “Angie is beautiful.”

She flashed, turning a deep pink.

She touched his face in return. “Miles is handsome.”

Miles shifted a little uncomfortably, flashing a faint yellow as he flicked a glance at Damien. Noticing that Damien was glaring at him, he cleared his throat and got up. Angie grinned at him, but turned her attention to the translator, listening as the computer listed the words he’d already programmed in.

Damien decided to dismiss his jealousy. “We don’t have much time,” he said pointedly when Miles joined him.

“I know.”

“Assuming we can explain what’s going on and she agrees to the procedure …. I’m still not convinced we can carry this off, Miles. She doesn’t look like our catkins, and it isn’t just the fact that she has a scarlet caplet and the prettiest nipples I’ve ever seen on globes. She has no fins. She can’t meld her legs as we can to form the tail for thrust—she won’t be able to
swim
like a catkin.”

“She isn’t likely to be doing much solo swimming,” Miles said dryly, “and it isn’t as if I hadn’t noticed. I’ll have to think of something to do to help her blend in a little more. At least you had the sense to say she was from Pacifica. They won’t expect her to be able to speak our language.”

Damien felt a sudden jolt. “Miles—she’s an air breather. Even with the procedure, she won’t be able to project, will she?”

Miles frowned, nodding as that sank in and he realized Damien was right. She wouldn’t be able to communicate through sonic vibration as they did. “We’ll have to tell them she’s mute.”

Damien looked surprised, doubtful, and then pleased. “That will make her less desirable,” he said slowly, trying not feel too pleased about it.

“Yes, I noticed the fucking enforcer was completely put off by the fact that he couldn’t talk to her … and the fact that she’s about a foot shorter than average for a catkin,” Miles retorted dryly. “I imagine there won’t be any takers for her favors once we get there. We’re certain to have the field to ourselves.”