Waterborne (14 page)

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Authors: Katherine Irons

BOOK: Waterborne
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She did grow dizzy, not from the ever-changing pressure, but from the sights and sounds assaulting her. The single constants were the movement of the stallion beneath her and the overwhelming presence of the man she clung to. Gradually, fatigue crept over her. Twice, she caught herself nodding off and forced herself wide awake, but the weariness returned. How long had she been awake? She wasn’t certain. She knew she’d be fine if she leaned her head against Alex’s back and closed her eyes for just a few seconds.
She was rudely snatched from her catnap by Alex’s hand on her arm as he pulled her up in front of him and cradled her in his arms as though she was a child. “What are you—” she protested.
“I warned you to tell me if you were disoriented. The back of a sea horse is no place to sleep.”
“I wasn’t—”
“You were!” His arms clamped around her, but his touch was no longer that of a lover. “This is no game, Ree. If we’re caught in the open ocean by Lemorian troops, we’ll have no chance. All the fancy swordplay in the Atlantic won’t protect you from a dozen tridents coming at your throat.”
She struggled to get free of his grip. “Let me go. I won’t fall asleep.”
“You did.”
“It won’t happen again.”
“It better not,” he threatened. “Carrying you like this, I can’t use a weapon or control this stallion if he decides to try and toss us off.”
“It was a mistake.”
“A mistake could get us all killed.”
His words sliced through Ree’s protests. She didn’t make mistakes, but she just had. And it wasn’t the first. Once before, with Nick, she’d made the wrong decision, and the man she’d loved had paid for it with his life.
With Alex’s assistance, she regained her seat behind him. She was wide awake now, but some of the magic had vanished from the ride. How had she forgotten what was important?
Sex with this man had been great, fantastic even, but it was only that, a pleasurable experience. Her life, her purpose for being, had nothing to do with him. Whatever had happened to her, whatever she had seen and been part of under the ocean was real or it was an illusion. If it was a product of brain damage or a deliberate chemical assault, she might be powerless to recover. But if it was real—if Alexandros of Atlantis and all his minions were real—and she was inclined to believe that this was all true, then her near-death experience and physical reconstruction could only make her stronger.
If she was some sort of bionic woman, if she could survive under water and still breathe once she returned to land, she’d be unmatched in her career field. She would be able to do what no graduate of the institute ever had. And it could only make her taking down Varenkov easier, especially if she could use Alex and his team to find him. She couldn’t locate him on her own without contacting management, and she didn’t want to do that. They might order her back to headquarters.
Which would mean another failure—her last. That wasn’t an option. If she completed her mission and eliminated the Russian, explaining where she’d been since she’d vanished off the
Anastasiya
wouldn’t be a problem. She sat up a little straighter and tightened her grip on Alex. What was important was to convince him that he needed her, that she would be an asset to achieving his goal.
This time Grigori Varenkov would meet his match.
CHAPTER 14
 
O
rion nodded to his sister-in-law as he entered her private sitting area. He’d always loved this room. It had been his mother’s favorite. He could remember her teaching him his first letters by pointing out the ancient symbols carved between the starfish, sea grass, and conch shells into the marble columns. His father had closed up the room after his mother’s death, claiming that it was too much a woman’s room. It pleased Orion that the new queen had adopted it as her own, and he was sure his mother would approve.
Poseidon stood by one of the floor-to-ceiling doorways, staring out at the city, and the two royal children played on the floor under the watchful eye of a dolphin attendant. Danu had hidden a red-puffer under one of three tiny conch shells, and the little prince was trying to find it. When he lifted the right shell, the scarlet fish would swell to three times its size and spin like a top, much to the delight of the toddler.
“Fish! Fish!” Perseus crowed.
“Yes, it is a fish,” Orion agreed. He was a doting uncle, deeply fond of both the boy and girl. He and his wife Elena hadn’t started a family yet, but he looked forward to the day when he would be a father. But today, he had disturbing news to report concerning the man his brother Alex had been ordered to kill, none of which was suitable for children to hear.
He glanced at Queen Rhiannon and then back to the children. She nodded and motioned to the nurse. “Danu, why don’t you and Perseus go down and see if cook has anything special for you this afternoon?”
The princess sighed and gathered her shells. The fish, freed from the game, swam up and out the window, while Perseus waved at it. “Bye-bye, bye-bye, fish.”
When the children had left the room, Orion delivered his report to the king. “Varenkov is in Pago Pago. American Samoa. One of our operatives confirmed a sighting. He’s in contact with at least two of his factory fish-processing ships, one of whom is captained by the man who led the mass dolphin slaughter in Tonga last season.”
Poseidon frowned. “Who do we have in the area?”
“Alex, Dewi, and Bleddyn, provided that Alex is still among the living. I haven’t heard anything since the word that he’d escaped and the other two were trying to bring him out of Lemoria in one piece.”
“American Samoa.” His brother went to the mural that covered a large section of one wall. Islands of the Pacific were represented with inlaid pearls, some as large as a woman’s fist, the ocean with blue and green tiles. The outlines of larger land masses such as Australia and New Guinea had been crafted of ivory. “Merfolk, of course,” he said, answering Orion’s question. A few scouts, but they’re scattered around the sea. Friendly dolphins, some whales we can count on.”
Orion grimaced. “Not enough numbers to prevent another massacre if Varenkov acts quickly.”
“He was connected to the genocide at Taiji in Japan, wasn’t he?” Rhiannon asked. “When so many dolphins, pilot whales, and porpoises were slain for sport?”
The king nodded. “He was. Dolphin isn’t a favored food in Japan, but in Asia, meat is meat. And wherever Varenkov can profit, he’ll be there.”
“It’s a shame that Alex wasn’t able to eliminate him before he could do more harm,” Rhiannon said.
Orion winced inwardly. Since he was an infant, he’d lived with dolphins, learned their ways and their language. They were not humanoids and their intelligence was of a different kind, but sometimes he thought they were smarter than the two-legged species. He knew their courage and their dedication to their mates, their children, and their extended families. Among his people, slaughtering dolphins was as heinous a crime as murdering a man or woman. And those who killed the young of dolphins deserved a royal roasting in Hades.
He swallowed. Twice he’d been present at a massacre of dolphins and once of pilot whales. Both times, he’d attempted to save as many of the doomed creatures as possible from the nets and stabbing spikes and sharp blades of the air-breathing humans. He had been born and bred a warrior, yet the sight of so much innocent bloodshed had brought tears to his eyes. And, if he lingered on the memories, it might do so even today.
“We can’t stand by and allow this atrocity,” he said, thinking back, remembering the smell of blood when the sea had run red and the frantic cries of the mothers as they saw their children hacked and disemboweled, some skinned while still living.
“I agree,” Poseidon said. “The question is, what can we do that will make a difference? We’d need to muster dozens, and we don’t have the numbers in the Pacific.”
The queen laid her hand on her husband’s arm. “We don’t”—she said—“but the Lemorians do. What if we warn them of our suspicions?”
“Send word to ’Enakai?” Orion considered her suggestion. “Would she heed anything we say? Rumor is that Caddoc and his mother have sought refuge in her kingdom. If so, they’ll only stir up more bad blood between us.”
“We have to try,” the queen urged.
Poseidon nodded. “Rhiannon’s right. ’Enakai may be our enemy, but the Pacific is her domain. And whatever we think of her, she’s an able ruler. The dolphins and other sea life in peril there must be of even greater concern to the Lemorians than to us.” He slipped an arm around Rhiannon. “Sometimes I think you should be king, wife,” he murmured affectionately. “You’re the wisest of us all.”
“You can say that? Knowing that I was born human and share a heritage with a monster like Varenkov?”
“You were never like him,” he assured her. “His crimes against his own kind are as bad or worse than what he does to our kinsmen. He deals in weapons and addictive drugs, buying and selling wherever a profit can be made.”
“He’s deeply involved in the international sex trade,” Orion added. “A ship of his that sunk in the Celebes Sea last year carried thirty-two young girls to their deaths. Some as young as nine or ten.”
“Such evil,” Rhiannon said. “And no court has brought him to answer for his crimes?”
Poseidon leaned and kissed her forehead. “In the world above the oceans, justice can be slow for those who possess riches.”
“I’ll see that messages are sent at once,” Orion said. He’d go to Lady Athena and ask her to intervene with the temple mystics. Ordinary means of communication would be too slow, but if the psychic priestesses here could send an alert to their counterparts in the high temples of Lemoria. . . He saluted, as he would have to his late father.
Morgan shook his head, moved forward and hugged him. “Pray that Rhiannon’s idea works, but alert the merfolk. Primitive they may be, but they have their own mysterious ways of sending messages across time and space.”
Orion grinned. “I’d already planned on it.” He started for the door, and then turned back as his sister-in-law called his name.
“And ask the holy ones to say a prayer for Alex,” she said. “That he comes home safe to us.”
“So he can finish his mission,” the king added grimly. “And rid us of this foul Russian once and for all.”
 
Ree opened her eyes, blinked, and then closed them again against the glare of the midday sun. Sun? The thought registered, and she sat upright and stared wide-eyed around her.
“Finally awake?” Anuata asked. “I thought you were going to sleep all day.”
The earth was solid under her. Not solid, Ree realized. Sandy. White sand. Palm trees. Coconuts. She could hear the gentle roll of surf and wind through the trees. Not far away, she heard a
plop
as a coconut fell and rolled. Something tickled her ankle and she glanced down to see a small crab. “Get away!” She shook the tiny, black crustacean off her sandaled foot and it scurried off to join an army of companions that darted in and about the trees.
“He likes you,” the warrior-woman said.
“The only way I like crabs is on my plate.” She brushed sand off her legs, legs that she noticed were quickly becoming sunburned.
How long have I been lying here?
“Is this really land or another illusion?”
Anuata scowled and used her sword to hack the top off of a coconut. “It’s real enough. I don’t know how you stand the heat of the sun.”
She passed her the coconut, and Ree cradled it between her hands. She could hear the swish of liquid inside and realized that she was parched.
“Drink it,” the gold-skinned woman urged. “It tastes good.”
Ree took a sip of the coconut milk. It was delicious. “Where are we?” She couldn’t remember leaving the ocean. The last thing she did remember was riding behind Alex. “The sea horses ...” she began.
“The little man is looking after them. Alex and Bleddyn are scouting the sea around this island, to make certain we weren’t followed.”
Ree tried to make sense of it all. Here on solid ground Anuata looked bigger and stranger than ever, but she also appeared as solid as the palm trees. Whatever she was, Ree didn’t think she was a figment of her imagination. The blue-black tattoos that covered much of her face and muscular body reminded Ree of those she’d once seen in a display of early artifacts from the Maori culture in New Zealand. “So we’re on an island? Is it inhabited?”
“By humans, no. Crabs, birds. There is no fresh water. I believe your kind no longer drink salt water.”
“Not if we want to live long.”
“Fortunately, it seems to do you no harm,” Anuata observed. “You are not quite human anymore, are you?”
“That’s what Alex says.” Ree took a deep breath, inhaled the salt air. That tasted as wonderful as the coconut milk. She inspected her hands and her body. Nothing seemed changed, other than the sunburn and a few scrapes and bruises.
She’d reached the point where she had to either accept everything that had happened to her since Varenkov shot her as fact, or accept the fact that she’d lost her mind. She didn’t feel crazy, so that left only the alternative. She must proceed as if Anuata was as actual ... Ree searched for the right word and then borrowed one that Alex had used.
Humanoid.
Ree couldn’t continue doubting herself or she was doomed to failure. So be it. Anuata and her coconut had made a believer of her.
“He said something else,” the Amazon said. “Prince Alexandros. He said that just before the ambush in the catacombs, you knew the Lemorians were there. You couldn’t see them or hear them, but you knew. He thinks you have the powers of a priestess or a witch. Is that true?”
“It all happened fast,” she answered, not wanting to admit what she’d kept hidden from outsiders all her life. “He’s mistaken.”
Anuata shook her head. “No. He isn’t.” Her harsh features became as hard as flint. “I don’t know if you mean him good or evil, but if you betray him, I will kill you myself.”
Ree met her gaze without flinching. “I’ll keep that in mind.” She got to her feet and brushed the remaining sand off her legs. The boy’s tunic she wore came midway up her thigh and gave little protection from the direct sun. The last time she remembered, she’d had armor and weapons. “Where is my gear?” she asked. “My sword.”
Still scowling, Anuata motioned to a breadfruit tree about thirty feet away. “There. The cuirass must be kept damp. The air and sun will deteriorate it. It isn’t metal, at least not any metal you’re familiar with. It’s an older material, a gift from the star people.”
Star people?
Ree studied the Lemorian woman closely.
Is she joking?
What Anuata was saying seemed impossible to believe, but Ree had never seen any metal like the sword blade or armor, light but incredibly strong. How could she tell what was truth and what was fantasy? And how could she rationalize someone or something like Anuata? “You don’t like me very much, do you?” Ree said as she moved into the shade of a spreading palm tree.
“I don’t trust you.”
“No more than I trust you.”
“Good.” Anuata grinned. “It’s a place to start. Trust must be earned.” She turned away, then paused and glanced back. “Alex said that I was to stay with you until you were yourself. He said that I must give you food and drink.” She indicated a net bag on the sand. “There are crabs and a fish. I have obeyed my prince’s orders. Now I go to see what the little man has done to my horses.”
“Do you know when Alex will come back?”
The big woman shrugged. “Today or tomorrow, or when it pleases him.”
“He told me that he intended to hunt down the Russian and kill him. The longer we remain here, the farther Varenkov will be away.”
“It’s not your affair, is it? If it were not for you, the Russian might already be dead.”
“How am I supposed to cook the crabs?”
Anuata smiled. “My prince said nothing about cooking.” She stooped and snatched up one of the scurrying black crabs, raised it to her mouth and bit down on it. “In the field, we don’t bother,” she explained as she chewed a mouthful of shell and still wiggling crab. “We eat them like this.”
“In that case, don’t let me keep you from your meal,” Ree said, forcing an equally false smile. “There are plenty more where that came from.” Not giving the warrior-woman time to think of a comeback, she walked off toward the sound of the breakers. She intended to explore the island. If Anuata had lied, if there were people here, she would find a way off.

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