Echoes of the Tide (Deep Waters #3)

Chapter 40

CHAPTER 40

M aketes set the final stone on top of the tall pillar he had helped create. It wasn’t a massive pillar, not like he’d seen for the markers of his own people’s deaths. But it was still visible from very far away. Each individual stone was stacked with a memory, starting with the strongest memories at the base with the widest stones.

Tall pillars surrounded it, along with short stacks that had already been tilted by the waves. For his people, they were allowed to mourn as long as the stones still stood. The sea was gentle with the stones of those who needed more time to heal. But once the waves and the currents tipped the rocks over, it was time to move on.

As they placed each stone, they spoke aloud a memory of the droid who had given its life to ensure that they all lived. Tera had succeeded. Every city that was still standing had seen the message that Ace had sent. Even Tau, most likely. He couldn’t imagine there was much of an uprising in that city, but he wouldn’t be surprised if a few people had been uncomfortable facing the truth of what they were doing.

Ace floated next to him, her hand on his shoulder as she kicked to keep herself in place. Drawing her in close, he pressed her against his hearts and listened to the soft sounds of her sadness.

They’d forgone the tentacle this time. Instead, she wore a rebreather from Mira so that she could swim on her own and sob in her grief. At least she could feel her emotions more clearly now without his breath forcing her body into confusion. At least, that’s what both Anya and Mira had said.

They wore their own rebreathers as well. Both of them holding onto their own mates. Sadness tainted the surrounding waters, turning the sea blue with a bitter taste that coated his gills.

“They were unlike any droid I ever built,” Ace said quietly, staring at the pile of stones.

He could taste her tears in the water, and hated that there was nothing he could do. Not right now. Not when she had lost her friend and there was no way for them to get it back.

Her sister was not here, neither were the other humans. But those four still didn’t like being in the water. Especially not with so many People of Water around them now that there were even more joining their pod. He wasn’t sure what Arges was doing to get so many of their kind here, but he had a feeling it was just their people’s natural curiosity.

Even Fortis’s son had been hanging around far more than normal. He’d caught the young man’s gaze on Ace’s sister more times than he could count.

His mate breathed out a long sigh. “Thank you all for coming. You don’t have to stay any longer.”

Shaking his head, he drew Ace even tighter and squeezed her hard. “We can stay as long as you’d like.”

The others came quickly to their sides, the women pushed by their mates through the water so they each could hug Ace. He noticed the differences in the way they did so. Anya came first, shoving Mira out of the way to scoop Ace up in her arms. There was so much love squeezed into her with that movement. Mira waited her turn, and then gently took Ace into her arms. She hugged her as though she was lifting her up into her arms, scooping her like one would someone who had just broken.

Both were individual in the way they handled things. And while Anya and Mira might not get along with each other, they both enjoyed Ace’s company.

His mate was a woman who could be with quite literally anyone. She fit in with every crowd. Those who were rougher around the edges, and those who were kind and quiet.

He was never not impressed with Ace. But right now, he knew his job. And that was to distract her.

The others left a cloud of sand dust in their wake as they disappeared back to the rest of the pod. Maketes squeezed Ace a little tighter. “Are you ready to go?”

She nodded a few times, staring at the small pile of stones one last time. With a darting movement of his tail, he launched them away from that sad place. The stones would remain. She would mourn for as long as the sea saw fit, but for now, he wanted to make sure that she saw life the way she deserved.

He had just the perfect idea for it.

Zipping through the water, he took hours just swimming with her. Letting her mind wander and her heart settle. It had been nearly two weeks since they’d first say goodbye to Tera, but he knew how it plagued her.

That droid was part of her soul. Now, he needed to fill her soul with more than just that memory.

Maketes had spent these past two weeks trying to find the perfect spot for this moment. After searching, he’d spent hours each day praying to the sea goddess for a clear day when they built the stones for the droid. The gods had heard him, and already he’d checked to make sure that this place would remain full of sun and bright sky. There were no storms even close to them today, which meant he could thoroughly indulge her in all the things that he’d prepared.

Circling back to the area, which was much closer to their pod than she would likely realize, he drew her up to the surface.

“What are we doing?” she asked, her voice a little warped by the rebreather.

He helped her keep her head above water and slowly pulled her rebreather off himself. “Look behind you, kefi. I thought, if anyone deserved a day for yourself, it was you.”

She turned and he could see the shock in her gaze. He’d been shocked to see it, too.

Even the People of Water had thought the sea had taken back all the sand it had once deposited on the land to soften its crashing waves. But this tiny cove had weathered every storm and still had much of the white sand that sparkled in the sunlight. He wasn’t sure if it had merely been shoved here by the last storm, but they were safe for now. It was surrounded by impressive white cliffs, sheared and softened by the crashing hurricanes that had occurred for centuries now.

It was beautiful. It was ragged and raw. There were no trees at the tops of those cliffs, nothing green in the slightest. But this white sand cove sparkled like the prettiest of gems he could have gifted her.

He now knew that gifts for his kefi did not come in the form of physical objects. She preferred memories. Time spent with him that she would never forget. Those were the greatest gifts he could give her.

“Oh my god,” she whispered, swimming toward the shore and then pausing when her feet hit the ground.

He’d brought her to an island before. She’d been on the dock as well. But he knew that this was the first time his achromo was stepping foot on land. Real land that was solid and firm beneath her feet so she could exist where her people had once conquered.

She walked out of the waves and for a moment, he saw her as the goddess he’d always compared her to. White wave caps lapped at her thighs, breaking and cresting and crashing against her sides. Then she was walking straight out of the sea and onto the sand.

A small bubble of laughter escaped her as she fell onto her knees, knocked by a particularly large wave that then picked her up and carried her all the way onto the beach. He joined her, allowing the sea to toss him out of the water as well. Even if it would be difficult to get back in, he wanted to see this joy on her face.

Her hands dug into the sand, taking fistfuls of it and tossing it back down with wet plops. She kept murmuring little sounds of shock.

“Sand,” she whispered. “Just like in the books they gave us.”

“You have seen this before?”

“Only in pictures. We were told there weren’t any beaches left. That the storms had taken those until there was only rough rock. But to see this now...” Her hands sank into it again, and then she looked up at him in that way that always made him feel like a god himself. “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me for bringing you here.”

“I do.”

She crawled toward him, and all he could focus on was the seductive sway of her hips. The way she crawled made all those curves stand out even more, so pretty, so tempting, so much that he could not have right now, because she was supposed to be in mourning.

Yet, he was a weak man. He allowed her to push him onto his back, and remained right where he was, without complaint, as she straddled him. Those tiny hands braced her up on his chest.

Her dark eyes were filled with something he hadn’t hoped to see, though. A softness. A relaxation. She had let go of the guilt and the mourning for a few moments to look at him lying beneath her on a rare beach.

“You look so pretty in the sunlight,” she murmured, tracing her fingers over the peaks of his cheekbones. “Your scales are always yellow, but in the sunlight they’re almost blinding.”

“I don’t want to blind you.”

“You always do. No matter where you are, even in the darkest parts of the sea, you blind me.”

The words filled him with more love and hope than he believed she could imagine. He filled his lungs with the emotions, as though he was sucking up every single ounce of attention she gave him and drawing it into his body so that he would never forget the feeling.

His hands found the spots just above her hips. It was like those curves called to him, compelling him to hold on to her and never let her go. “I am lucky to have found you,” he murmured. “Truly.”

“Oh, I think we found each other.”

She leaned down and kissed him, those lips gentle and toying as she played with him. He loved her most when she was like this. Not worried about what might come, and no lingering thoughts of the outside world plaguing either of them.

It was just him and her.

His mate. His love. His joy.

The sun seemed to turn even brighter as they indulged themselves. He relearned the softness of her lips, the way she made little soft sighs when he rasped his nails down her back. Everything about her turned him into a puddle because he just wanted her. Only her. There had never been another who made him feel like this.

Then she leaned back out of his reach. A little whimper escaped him before he could catch it, but he hated to lose her, even if he was panting with need at this point. He could keep himself away from her, though. He had enough self control to let her do whatever she wanted.

Her grief was more important than his desire, that much he was certain.

Until she pulled her shirt over her head and suddenly he was greeted with an even better sight. He took in a long, deep breath, telling himself that perhaps she was only overheated with the sun at her back. If she wanted to stretch out over his cool scales, so that her breasts were flattened against his chest, he could still hold himself together. Even when she propped her head on her hands and looked at him with that gaze that he knew meant she was hungry for him.

He would let her set the pace. This wasn’t the time to be thinking with anything other than the brain he had in his skull.

But when she was looking at him like that, it was hard to think of anything but that grin on her face. “I don’t want to push you,” he said.

“You’re not pushing me.” She spread herself a little closer, rubbing against him in a way that was almost impossible to ignore. “I’m asking.”

“Ace—”

“Maketes. I know this might seem like the wrong time to be asking you to do this, but I know what I want.” Her gaze turned a little serious, her tone sharper than before. “I understand your hesitation. I really do. But right now, I just want to forget everything. I want to forget the world, what happened, and even that we’re here. I just want it to be you and me, together. Can we do that?”

A distraction. Of course that’s what she wanted.

He wasn’t sure it was the smartest thing to do, considering the circumstances. She likely needed to sit in her feelings for a little while longer, but... he’d never been very good at denying her anything.

Nodding, he palmed the softness of her thighs and jerked her even higher up his body.

The sun framed her face, turning some strands of her hair to liquid gold. But it was her eyes that he stared into the most, the eyes that he so adored. It was difficult for her to even ask this of him, he knew. She didn’t want him to think less of her for distracting herself.

He drew her down until her forehead was pressed against his. The webs of his fingers smoothed through her hair, holding her tightly where he wanted her to be.

“Ah, kefi,” he breathed. “You never have to ask me for anything twice.”

He drew her to him with soft hands and quiet sounds. When she wanted him to roll her beneath him, he didn’t. He merely turned her to face the sun and ran his hands over her in that way. It was important that even while he pleasured her and drew out those sounds that always made him hard, that she still look at the world around her.

Because this was only a moment in time. A memory for her to come back to when the world was dark and the rains wouldn’t stop. He wanted her to always remember the pleasure they brought each other on a white sand beach where the sun was still overhead.

Even as he could hear the storms in the distance. Even as the world felt like it could tumble down around their ears at any point.

He wanted her to know that they had loved each other in the stillness of peace. And oh, they loved each other well.