AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He shrugged and didn’t seem bothered in the slightest. “I think of you often. So I bring you whatever makes me think of you.”
“Pearls make you think of me?” She had never heard something so kind in her life.
Imber traced her fingers with his own, gently touching the delicate pearls and her collarbone in the same stroke. “They look the same as your skin. Pale, but with a hundred colors hidden underneath.”
“I don’t have any colors other than my skin,” Alys snorted.
“Oh, you do.” He moved his fingers, stroking her collarbone with intention this time. “You turn red here when I do something you like. And if I follow the line of your shoulder, there is the faintest hint of blue and purple where your veins are close to the skin. I’ve seen patches of yellow and green, where I think perhaps you have hurt yourself.”
With her breath caught in her lungs, she didn’t move at all when he moved her mouth piece up enough for his thumb to trace over her lower lip, gently pulling it down before he gave herback her air. “And you are so pink here. Especially after you’ve touched me with your mouth.”
“A kiss,” she replied. “That’s what we call it.”
His eyes somehow went from black to obsidian. “A kiss. I would like to kiss you again, Alys.”
She groaned and let the world fall away. Who needed to breathe when he could breathe for her? Pouring desire and oxygen deep into her lungs with every broad stroke of his tongue.
Chapter
Six
Something was wrong with Alys.
Imber could tell that easily enough, even if she refused to tell him what was wrong. He’d asked, and even just in asking felt as though something had changed. She obviously knew he could sense when her emotions were off. Although, he didn’t have the heart to tell her it was because he could taste them in the water.
He’d never met a creature easier to read. She wore her emotions like a second skin. Her desire was warm and musky, a scent that he regularly kept hidden under his scales for later, when he was alone. Her anxiety was bitter and noxious. It made him flatten his gills against his sides because it was hard to breathe in.
But lately, he had started to taste her fear. Bitter, acrid, it wriggled through every ounce of him and made his hearts beat faster with hers. When he’d asked her why she wasn’t feeling well, she’d brushed him off. But he could tell something was wrong.
And he wasn’t certain what it was, but he had a feeling it had something to do with her people.
Every time she went home, he had to fix her. She came to him to forget who she was, and she was getting thinner every time he saw her. Like she wasn’t eating. Hollows had bruised underneath her eyes, which she said was because she hadn’t been sleeping very well.
Just a week ago, she’d fallen asleep on top of him. Imber had cradled her against his chest, but he knew it wasn’t enough to take her pain away. He’d have done anything to help her. She knew it. He knew it. But there was nothing she would tell him to do.
At a loss for what he could do for his beautiful wave song, he’d swallowed down his emotions. But now, watching her submarine leave him behind in the kelp, he couldn’t stop the feeling that maybe he should follow her.
It was a silly thought. Even when he was a child, he had sought out the achromos. They were strange creatures, so different from his own, and many of his kind took the risk to see where they lived.
Even if he followed her home, he couldn’t leave the water. And she would.
She always did.
Sighing, he tried to will his own nerves out of his body and into the waters. Let the ocean take his fears, because the ancients knew all. They would protect the People of Water.
But he feared...
Well, maybe he was just absorbing Alys’s fears. He could let it go, even if it wanted to lodge itself in his throat.
The kelp beside him shifted, moving with a current that was rather unnatural to see. He assumed at first that it was a sea turtle, or perhaps a curious seal that had drifted a little farther than their normal hunting grounds. But then he caught a glimpse of bright green scales and he knew who it was.
For all that his sister was larger, and arguably should have been a better hunter than him, she had never been very good at hiding. Especially with a little one attached to her hip.
Leaning down to the sand, he scooped up a handful of the golden granules and let them trail between his fingers. “What do you think, Imber?” he said to himself, loud enough that his sister and her offspring would hear him. “Should we go hunting for oysters? Perhaps Virago’s child would like to go pearl hunting.”
The little one was born just as all of his people were. She could understand him easily. The long and low language with which they spoke had already been instilled in her long before she was born.
And he knew something his sister could never battle. The little one was a fiend for oysters. She loved slurping them down while finding the prettiest pearls with her uncle. No matter how hard Virago tried to keep her in the net that wrapped up her daughter, the little one would fight free with her sharp teeth and newly pointed spines to get to an oyster.
