Echoes of the Tide (Deep Waters #3)

Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13

A ce had such sweet dreams when she usually had nightmares. She was used to watching her sister die, or being chased through the empty hallways of a city that had died long ago. The worst ones were the people of Gamma hunting her down, all the while knowing that she had to stay hidden to keep her sister safe. It was hard for her to sleep at all these days.

But as she slowly woke from a dreamless sleep, she felt better than she had in years. It was so hard for her to even wake. She wanted to snuggle deeper into the warmth that held her. Listen to the repeating thuds of twin hearts that lulled her back into that dreamless state.

She couldn’t entertain this any more than she already had. Her cheeks burned with the memory of what she’d touched. How her fingers had slipped down the grooves between his abs so mindlessly. Like she was touching someone she had every right to touch.

Then that slickness had covered her fingers. It had been so intriguing. She wanted to run her fingers over that faint slit in his scales, just to see what would happen if she maybe pushed through it. To know what would happen if her fingers delved into those hidden shadows. Would he moan? What would that even sound like? She wanted to hear him when he was lost in the throes of passion. She wanted to know what he sounded like when he was completely unhinged.

And these were not thoughts for an early morning. Already she could feel herself growing wet between her thighs, that foreign need growing so powerful that it was hard to ignore. She wanted to sneak her fingers beneath the waistband of her pants and take care of the issue herself. But he was right here.

That would be decidedly wicked. What if she did? What would happen if she just ignored every part of herself that said she wasn’t a sexual creature and just... allowed it to happen?

Would he wake up? Would he find her touching herself and decide to finish the job?

He shifted underneath her, those tiny scales brushing against her thighs and making a sharper rasping sound than they had before. One moment he’d been like a pillow she rested against, and the next, he was all movement. Every muscle in his body flared and tensed, rippling with life as though he had to use every single one of them to suddenly be alive again.

A deep breath flexed through his ribs and she could even feel the faintest flutter of his gills as though they were also striving for air even though he’d been using his lungs for hours now. Then his hand came back down on her hip as he had last night, cupping her flesh as though the roundness there didn’t bother him in the slightest.

“Good morning,” he mumbled, his voice still raspy with sleep. “You’re up early.”

It wasn’t early at all. She could see the faint sunlight coming in through the window and that only reminded her that she was on a deadline. She was supposed to figure out how to save her sister, and if they didn’t get moving quickly, then she was fucked.

Sitting bolt upright, she scrambled out of his arms and then struggled to her feet. She was a little uncoordinated. And why the fuck couldn’t she see anything? The entire world was a blurry mess. She’d been sleeping so soundly, maybe she’d done something to her head. Or someone might have clocked her in the fight and she’d just forgotten because she’d gotten the world’s worst concussion.

“Ace,” Maketes said, a laugh hiding in that word. He grabbed her hand and placed her glasses into it.

She blew out a long, awkward breath and slid them up over her nose. The world came back into clarity and she looked down at the massive undine spread out on the floor at her feet.

Damn, he was pretty.

All those rippling muscles, like a banquet at her feet. He was just a solid wall of strength and power. He lifted one arm lazily over his head, those ab muscles flexing like they could feel her gaze on them. His biceps were the size of her head. Those clawed hands were draped near his hair, which was tangled in long coils over his chest as though they were fighting to get her attention. Even his damn hair made her want to touch him.

An image burst in front of her eyes. She could get down on her knees, straddle him like she had before, and then lick her way down those abs. She wondered if his skin would taste salty, like hers. Or if he would have some other flavor that would ruin humans forever for her. Where was his cock, anyway? Surely he had one.

They had to procreate somehow. Maybe they were like fish, though. Maybe he was the one who carried the babies, like the little seahorses her little sister used to have as pets.

Maybe he would expect sex to be something boring and transactional. Maybe they didn’t even like sex.

He suddenly moved, flexing all those muscles and all of a sudden his face was right in front of hers. One of those long, dark nails curled underneath her chin, forcing her to stay looking into his gaze. “You’re thinking too much, kefi.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can see all those thoughts racing through your mind, but you’re distracting yourself from what you have to do. The key, remember?”

“Right, the key.” She remembered. It was the only thing she had to focus on.

Her sister. The death of her only family. She had to stay as focused as she possibly could so that she didn’t lose this one opportunity to keep her sister safe. And then, maybe if she did a good job, Jacob would let her fade into the background.

He’d never let her go. Gamma was her home now, even if she could get out of it. No other city would take in a criminal like her. She was stuck there, and keeping Jacob happy was the only way to make sure that her family remained safe.

“Okay,” she whispered. “I know where to go.”

“Good.” He stretched his arms over his head, and suddenly all she had was a wall of chest muscles in front of her. Then abs, as he stretched higher, then scales that were so bright yellow they looked like maybe they were made of gold.

She had the odd thought that she could sell those scales and make a good amount of money before he was coiled again like a snake.

“I have to go back into the sea,” he reminded her. “My scales will start peeling up if I stay out here any longer. Do you remember where you left your wetsuit?”

“We don’t have time for that. Go back into the ocean and keep an eye on me from out there. I’ll be fine.”

He gave her a rather unimpressed stare. “I’m not leaving you.”

“A bodyguard wasn’t the deal. You were supposed to bring me here, but then the rest of it was up to me.” She took a step back from him, crossing her arms over her chest. “No one even knew you could get inside this tower, let alone that you could be out of the water for long periods of time.”

“Well, achromos don’t need to know everything about us.” He sighed. “I do not believe it is safe for you to be alone in this tower.”

“I’m sure it’s not, but I can take care of myself. I’m used to being surrounded by criminals, remember?”

She needed him to leave. She needed to get her head screwed back on straight because it wasn’t normal to look at an undine and want to lick him. It wasn’t normal to look at her friend like that, and that’s all they were. Friends.

He must have seen that panic in her expression, because he finally gave her a curt nod. “All right. I’ll be just outside, though. And if you think I can’t break one of these glass windows, you are very wrong.”

They both knew it was a lie. The undine couldn’t break the glass, because they’d tried countless times. That was part of the problem. They couldn’t get into the cities to destroy the humans, and the humans couldn’t stay in the water all that easily to fight them.

She watched him open the door and slither out into the hallway, all without even looking around. Like he wasn’t afraid of her people. He didn’t care if someone was lurking out there, because he would kill them if they tried to attack him and... well, she supposed that was accurate. He would kill them. He had already.

Ace took a few seconds to breathe and then pulled out the little bead droids from her pocket. “All right, Tera. What do you think? Can you get me there without being seen?”

Her droid clicked together multiple times before she let it down onto the floor. They all zinged in separate directions, and then out the door in a line as she opened it. They all disappeared, half in one direction, half in the other. And while she waited, she took some time to steady her emotions. She had a job to do. She had to search for that key and Doctor Faust’s office.

That was it. There was nothing else in her brain. No thoughts of handsome undine, no dreams of friends who might become something more. Nothing at all. Just silence.

By the time Tera returned, she was back to herself. Her droid seemed pretty confident it knew where to go, especially since all of its pieces were back together.

“I’m as prepared as I’ll ever be,” she muttered, then turned to grab one of the remaining scalpels from the table. Just in case.

With that in her pocket, she headed down the brightly lit halls. Tera guided her, clicking and clacking in front of each split in the hallways before quickly choosing a direction. It was easy to get lost in this place. There were no markers. She could see the shadows on the walls where there used to be signs or paintings, but someone had taken them all down. So now, the only way to get through the labyrinth of the medical pavilion was to know where one was going. Thankfully, she still had the map. But it was easy to get turned around.

Then they reached their first obstacle.

Tera was so confident, it careened around a corner and then froze. She could see the little gears working quickly to pause it, even using some of the magnetic force to pause itself. Which could only mean there were people in the hall now.

She pressed her back against the wall, listening for any hint of a conversation. And there it was. Voices. Both men and women, talking about nothing all that important. But they were talking, and that was enough for her to change direction. Tera zipped back the way it had come, and Ace was forced to nearly run after it before she lost the droid.

They did that a few more times, each time finding more and more people coming out into the halls. Apparently, she should have tried this earlier in the day. Or perhaps in the dead of night.

Ace cursed her own bad luck. Every single time she tried to get somewhere, there were people. She was getting farther and farther away from her goal, no matter how many times she tried to go down the same halls in the hopes that people had moved on.

Until she had to stop and catch her breath, so she happened to hear what some of them were talking about.

“An undine?” came a woman’s voice, filled with surprise. “What do you mean there’s an undine hanging around?”

“I saw him against the glass. Gave me the stink eye and then swam away. Some other people have seen the same one. Damn bright bastard. Seems to be circling the building and watching all of us.”

“Should we get the guns?”

“And what? Shoot it through the glass? We can’t do that, you idiot.”

They wandered away, but she had the sudden realization of why she was having such an issue getting to the office. She had a bodyguard who was looming over her shoulder and unknowingly drawing every single person in this damned pavilion right in front of her. The idiot had no clue what he was doing.

“Tera,” she whispered, getting her droid’s attention. “New plan. Where’s the closest room with no one in it with big windows? I need to talk to this stupid undine.”

Her droid clacked together twice, its usual answer for a yes. Which meant it also had made the connection that the undine was the problem.

She followed the glowing beads into another room and closed the door behind her. Ace winced at the slight click, knowing that if anyone was nearby, they would hear it. But that didn’t matter, because she was in some poor soul’s old office, which happened to have an empty bed in the corner, and a large window that looked out to the sea.

There he was. Already. A giant idiot in yellow, with his arms crossed as he glared through the window at her. Like she was the one doing something wrong. Like he was the one who was angry with her.

Stomping up to the window, she pointed at him and then pointed away. “You need to go!”

He pointed at his ear like he couldn’t hear her.

“I know you can hear me, you stupid ugly... Ugh!” Ace dragged her hands through her hair to calm herself. “Get away from the windows if you’re going to watch me. You’re drawing a crowd.”

Once again, the infuriating man pointed to his ears and then shrugged. He even had the audacity to follow that movement with pointing up, like he was asking her to keep going.

Even Tera clacked at the sight before them. This undine was going to get them caught, and he didn’t even care. To him, it was more important that he be involved rather than her actually getting this shit done.

Grumbling under her breath, she yanked the map out from the back of her pants and slapped it against the glass. She jabbed the paper where she was going, hoping he was at least smart enough to read a map.

“This is where I’m going. This office. It’s on the twenty-second floor, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was an entrance into the pavilion near it, considering there is a partial drainage system nearby. Get there, and then you can watch me all you want. But let me fucking get there without you looming over my head. Got it?”

He frowned and shook his head.

“Maketes, you have to trust me to do this. You have to let me find the office. Otherwise, people are going to find me here. If you don’t leave, they will continue trying to look at you because they think you’re going to attack the city. You’re following me, and they’re following you. This won’t work.”

He seemed to waver. She could see it in the way his gills froze for a second before they started breathing for him again.

Ace planted her hand against the glass. “Please,” she said. “Please trust me to do this.”

He gave her a nod before flicking his tail and disappearing out of sight. He’d headed to the higher levels, and that was good enough for her. Now, she just had to figure out how to get there herself.