Echoes of the Tide (Deep Waters #3)

Chapter 27

CHAPTER 27

M aketes did not find it natural to trust any achromo. They all made decisions for their own betterment, not because they thought it was the right choice. He’d seen them choose themselves over and over again. Even when it came to their own families. Their friends. All the people who should have mattered.

But this man? He wasn’t sure how he felt about this man.

He watched through the window as the old achromo settled himself down on the strange circular chair across from Ace. There was a calmness to the achromo that belayed a strength beyond the madness in this tower.

Maketes wasn’t certain if that was good or bad. He’d seen strength like this in warriors his entire life. Males and females who knew the value of hard labor, but who were capable of so much more than just using their bodies like a weapon. This was a man who was used to using his mind as well as his strength.

Laying his tail down on the rubble of what might have once been a bridge between towers, he watched the two of them speak. At least for a while. Then curiosity got the better of him and he moved ever closer. They weren’t looking at the windows, anyway. They had leaned into each other, listening intently as the other achromo spoke.

What were they speaking of? Ace seemed to be controlling the conversation, for which he was grateful, but he wondered just how much this man would convince her to do.

Finally, he was close enough to hear them. If either of them looked up, they would see him looming outside of the window.

“And that is how I came to be here,” the old man said. “Many of these cities have secrets that none of us could have guessed. And all of those secrets, just knowing even one, is enough to get you killed.”

“So you’re hiding?”

“As well as I can. But realistically, there is nowhere to hide from these people. At least now, I have leverage. I can keep the secrets from others if I must.”

Secrets? What secrets? Maketes frowned and drew closer to the glass, if only so that he could overhear them easier.

Ace slumped back in her chair, the scalpel forgotten in her lap. “There’s really another city down there? You grew up there?”

“Tau,” he said quietly, as though even the word itself was poison. “A city of terror and nightmares. The things I have seen and heard, those are things you will never forget. It is a place for the lawless and the unworthy.”

“That’s Gamma.”

“You have no idea what they are doing down there. All the cities, every single one of them, are run by Tau. There is someone powerful in each city that has a direct connection to them. Every single person takes their orders from the depths of this sea.”

He watched Ace’s face go pale, and he knew this was when everything changed. Even he hadn’t realized there was another city, but it made sense. There were far more cities down here than anyone knew about, but wouldn’t his people have found it? If there was another city in the depths...

Fortis, he thought. Damn Fortis and all his secrets.

Blowing out a long breath, he stared through the bubbles of the smoke screen for a few moments until he focused on what they were saying again.

The man had leaned forward, something in his hands. It looked like a strange little rectangle. Nothing all that important until he realized Ace was staring at it as though it was worth more than all the treasure in the sea.

“This key has unlocked more horrors for me than it has helped,” he said. “But I do think that it will answer many of your questions.”

“I was sent here to get the key to unlock something. I never knew what it unlocked, only that the person who sent me said it was the key to unimaginable power. I thought it was a weapon storage.”

The man shook his head. “It’s far more than that. Whoever has this key has the ability to speak with Tau. That person is the only one who can be informed by Tau itself about what to do, who to work with, and all the other terrible things that city can provide.”

Ace’s face turned bloodless, and Maketes felt all of his fins flare wide.

That key... It was host to unimaginable things, absolutely, but it was also the secret his people had been searching for. A way to control the cities was right within his reach. It was the end of the age of the achromo. If he got that key, found out where they were hiding, then he could lead the force that would destroy the achromos at their root.

Could he pick her over that? Knowing that this key would be the end of both of their peoples?

Watching her through the window, that inner turmoil ate him up. She deserved so much more than someone who would have to betray her. She had never been chosen first in her entire life, and this was his moment to do that. But he didn’t know if he could.

Ace’s expression hardened. “If that’s the truth, then Jacob cannot get his hands on any of this.”

Thank all the gods of the sea. He wouldn’t have to choose between her and his people.

But it did mean... Her sister. Everything she’d ever done in her life was for her sister, and now what was the choice? Where did they go from here?

Breathing hard, he watched her move and couldn’t believe how lucky he was to find her. This achromo, this woman who had burned through every hesitation he’d ever had with their kind. She was beautiful, remarkable, a terrifying creature who was willing to give up so much for him and his people, even though she wasn’t part of their lives.

He would dedicate himself to her wellbeing. Even though he already had done so. She deserved everything he had to give her.

But then there was a knock on the door and both achromos in the room stiffened.

“Expecting someone?” Ace asked, her voice hardened with fear.

“No,” the man replied. He stood, holding a hand onto his lower back as though there was pain there. “I am not.”

Maketes bared his teeth in anger the moment the door burst open. He didn’t need to see who was on the other side or who dared to attack his woman. With a flick of his tail, he darted away from the window and toward the opening he’d already found nearby. He didn’t care who stood between him and Ace.

They would fall under his claws. Each and every one of them.

Breathing hard, he slammed against the opening. The sharp pieces of metal tore at his scales, ripping them from his flesh and darkening the water with black. But he didn’t stop. He didn’t hesitate. Deep furrows etched into his scales all the way down his sides. And still, he did not stop until the blinding pain turned white hot and then the building released him from its tomb of metal.

He burst out into the water and tumbled out onto the smooth metal floor. With a hiss that echoed throughout the room, all the fins and spines down his back and forearms stood out as he faced the people who stood in his way.

There were more of them than he’d anticipated. Terrifying examples of what the achromos could become if they were allowed out into the wilds on their own. Masks covered their faces, and all of them had long, wicked knives in their hands.

He bared his teeth, showing them his own weapons that were far greater than their own. If they wanted to threaten him with those tiny knives, they deserved to know what beast they faced.

The first person rushed toward him. It was a female, and she screamed as she ran. There were two knives in her hands, both of them flailing with her anger. He turned away from the sight, flexing his arm spines as she got close. They caught her in the chest and just underneath her jaw, spearing through the soft flesh and bursting out of her mouth. She let out a little gurgling noise, her eyes widening. But she didn’t stop trying to stick him with those knives.

“Pity,” he muttered as he retracted the spines and let her drop onto the ground. “There is some bravery in you. Or perhaps it is foolishness.”

They all converged on him, then. Everything became a blur of flashing scales and sharp objects. His claws bit into every flesh that he could find, while his jaws continued to rend flesh from bone. All he could hear were the screams of the dying and those who continued to fight him as though there was no choice for them to stop. Some of them should have run. Some of them could have.

A knife plunged through the fluke of his tail, then another. Five of them that all pinned him to the floor, lest he rip them through the delicate membrane. He wouldn’t be able to swim right if he tore his damn fluke in half, and he was fucking proud of how pretty it was.

Hissing, he spun around on the people who were there, but they danced out of his reach. More leapt onto his back, and he knew they thought this was the end. They would pin him down, slice through more of his fins, force him to bend to their madness.

All of his spines stood up straight again. Shorter spines than the ones on his forearms, though just as sharp. They all lifted at once, piercing through the flesh of these achromos almost too easily. Blood dripped down his sides, but this time, he did not retract the spines. He used their bodies as shields, stuck as they were on the spines that held them against his sides. A few of them were still alive, moaning or shrieking in their pain.

He must look like a nightmare. At least four corpses were stuck on him as he pulled out the blades in his fluke, one by one. He glared at them all, hatred seeping out of his pores along with the black blood that spread around them.

“I am going to kill you all,” he said. “I will watch you die. Hold you close as the life flees from your body so that I can consume your souls. One by one. I will devour them and bring them into the abyss where you will be plagued by the souls of the drowned for an eternity.”

They couldn’t understand him, but perhaps there was some sense of reason in their minds still. A few of them stepped away from him. Doubt flashed in their gazes as they had a moment of hesitation. Others tightened their grip on their weapons.

The sound of more footsteps approached, and Maketes knew he had to leave. This was not where he should be. Enough achromos could kill him, after all. He was only one warrior against many. Even if they weren’t all that talented at fighting, even if they had weak weapons, eventually they would overwhelm him.

Baring his teeth, he planted his hands against the floor and launched himself forward. Now that he’d been inside these buildings a few times, he knew how to move. His slithering tail was muscular enough to propel him forward with ease, even weighed down by the corpses. His arms were strong from years of swimming, and he dragged himself through the halls without having to stop. Even as he dripped blood. Even as he left a dark trail for anyone to follow, it did not matter.

Because he knew Ace was in trouble. If he died, then he died. It was an honorable death for one such as him and he would not mourn dying for the woman he... he...

Bursting through the hall in the direction where he knew she was, he could see that there were only a few people left outside of the room. A shriek of anger echoed around him, and he recognized the voice.

She fought. His kefi, with her heart of a shark and her bravery of all the sea itself, fought back against those who would hurt her. He’d never been so unworthy of a mate.

Maketes lunged for the two men lingering outside of the room. The first he grabbed at the shoulder and waist, ripping into the man with his claws until he’d nearly torn the achromo in half. Letting him drop, he loomed over the second man, his tail coiled beneath him to give him even more height.

The achromo stared up at him, his jaw loose as his gaze danced over all the dead bodies still clinging to Maketes’s form. The knife in his hand flashed, lunging forward, but all he managed to do was catch his blade on one of the bodies.

Maketes grinned as he sliced through that man’s throat and left him staggering down the hallway in seek of help. It was hard to fit through the door with all the bodies attached to him, so he had to retract his spines to get through. The bodies hit the ground with hard, wet thuds, and that was enough for everyone in the room to look back at him.

The old man laid in a corner. His hands clutched his throat where red fountained between his fingers. Wild eyes watched him, and Maketes wondered if the elderly man thought he was looking at his doom.

In a way, he could be. If there was anything that he’d done to Ace that was even questionable, Maketes planned to kill him too.

There were only three people left in the room. Two cackling females who paced back and forth in front of him like he should be intimidated by their show, and a man who held Ace by the hair.

In a flash, he used his tail to whip the two women’s legs out from under them, slamming his tail down upon them so hard that he felt their ribs break on impact. Then it was just him and the man. And the crowds of people trying to get into the door that he currently held closed.

“This what you want?” the man said. He wore a strange white mask with long, tall ears. Then he ran his blade along Ace’s throat, leaving a faint red line behind, but not breaking the skin. “This little bitch?”

He didn’t hesitate. He lunged forward, leaving the door unguarded as he reached for the man. It took such little effort to grab onto his hand, using it to reel the achromo in. Ace dropped like a stone, falling onto her hands and knees and crawling away from the two of them with the slightest whimper in her throat.

He’d deal with her fear later. Right now, he held the man up by his throat and kept a grip on the hand that held the knife.

“This doesn’t deserve to touch her,” he snarled, before taking the knife from the man’s grip with his teeth. Then he drew the hand closer, watching the man’s eyes widen beneath the mask as those fingers came ever closer to the sharp teeth filling Maketes’s mouth.

Those fingers slotted between his teeth too easily. Three of them came off with the first crunch. Blood spurted into his mouth and the sound of the man’s screams was music to his ears. He wanted to hear those screams for the rest of his days, enjoying the sound of bone snapping. Biting another mouthful of fingers, he finally spit them all out onto the floor and dragged the man closer to him.

“I will bite pieces off of you now,” he growled, his fins standing straight out. “I want you to stay awake for all of it. Every bite. Knowing you are being consumed by the very thing you fear.”