Page 26 of Currents of Desire

But here, there is no current, only the static, dead air of the dry place, and the rhythmic, thumping bass of the wind against the siding.

Knees to my chest, I lean against the headboard and watch the door. The salt bath left my skin humming, my bioluminescence fading to a bruised, pulsing blue. I don't blink. My eyes were made for the lightless deep. In this dim room, the scuffed brass handle and the grain of the wood are perfectly sharp. I sit in the terrifying quiet, bracing myself.

The scent in the room is overpowering. To Jack, it probably just smells of sex and the sea, musk, salt, and sweat. But to me, to my sensory organs that can taste a drop of blood in a million gallons of water, the air is thick with a chemical scream.

Pheromones.

The mating frenzy has triggered a biological release I didn’t anticipate. In the ocean, these chemicals will disperse, carried by the currents to signal their availability to males miles away. Here, in this sealed box of a house, they are concentrated. They are leaking out through the cracks in the floorboards, seeping under the door, drifting out into the storm.

I’m a beacon and a flare fired into the night sky, signaling every hunter in the radius that a female is fertile, vulnerable, and on land.

They are here.

The thought arrives before the sound. It isn’t a conscious deduction but a vibration in my lateral line, a phantom pressure against my skin that screams threat.

I go rigid. My lights flare, spiking from soft blue to a harsh, warning violet.

Jack stirs, groaning low in his throat. “Nerida?” he mumbles, his voice thick with sleep.

“Hush,” I whisper, my hand shooting out to cover his mouth. My skin is cold now, the heat of the mating drained away, replaced by the icy calculation of the kill.

Then, the sound comes.

It isn’t the wind but a heavy, wet thud against the pilings beneath the house.

The house shudders. Then another thud. And another. A dragging sound, like wet leather being pulled over sandpaper.

They are climbing.

Jack’s eyes fly open. He feels the tension in my body, the way my claws have partially extended, pricking the skin on his shoulder. He sits up, reaching for the bedside table, where the heavy flashlight and the flare gun lie.

“What is it?” he hisses, fully awake now.

“Scouts,” I say, my voice vibrating with a growl that isn’t human. “Trackers. They smell us.”

I slide out of bed. I don’t bother with clothes since they would only hinder the shift. My body is already changing, the biological imperative of fight overriding the form I wore for love. My spine elongates, cracking audibly. The webbing between my fingers thickens and spreads. The soft skin of my thighs and stomach hardens, the pearlescent scales darkening to the color of bruised iron.

“Get the gun,” I command, moving toward the bedroom door. “But do not fire unless they touch you.”

“Nerida, wait…”

“There is no waiting!” I snap, turning to look at him. My eyes have changed. The pupils are gone, replaced by reflective, silver mirrors that catch the scant light. My teeth have fully descended, a double row of serrated needles. “They are not like me, Jack. They do not want to talk. They want to claim.”

The sound of splintering wood comes from the living room—the front door.

They didn’t bother to pick the lock. They simply applied the pressure of the deep to the frame until it gave way.

The wind howls into the house, bringing with it the intruders’ smell. It’s a vile scent of rotting kelp, stagnant trench water, the copper tang of old blood, and the smell of the scavengers, the bottom-feeders who pick the carcasses of whales.

I move into the hallway. I don’t walk, I flow. My center of gravity drops, my movements becoming serpentine.

Two of them.

They stand in the ruin of the living room, illuminated by the lightning that flashes through the open doorway. They are massive, hulking shapes that barely resemble the humanoid form I favor. Their skin is a mottled, sickly gray, slick with mucus. Their heads are blunt and wide, like hammerheads, with small, dead eyes set too far apart. Gills slash their thick necks, pulsing rapidly as they choke on the thin, dry air.

They are suffocating, which only makes them more dangerous. Pain causes them to become frantic.

One of them, the larger of the two, opens its mouth and lets out a sound that shatters the air, a clicking, high-pitched shriek that’s used to stun prey in the dark.