Page 26 of Tempting Triton
With the pointy end still protruding through his shoulder, Triton sinks.
I take in the biggest breath of air I can and hold it, diving beneath the waves, chasing the fading shimmer of Triton’s iridescent tail. It’s the only way I’m able to pinpoint his location in the murkiness of the salt water. His curls spread out around his head like a halo of gold as he sinks deeper beneath the sea.
I don’t know what happens to someone if their mate dies. Would I feel his life slip away? Would I die as well, or would I be left to live on as a husk of a person who has felt the tether to the other half of their soul tear, leaving an irreparable hole where he should be?
The salt stings my eyes, and at some point, my ears pop, but I keep chasing that glimmer until my hands hook beneath his armpits, and with more strength than I thought I possessed, I pull Triton back to the surface.
As my head breaks through the water, my throat croaks, taking in deep lungfuls of air. I hoist Triton higher in my arms for fear of having him slip out of my grip. We ended up drifting further towards Aeolia in my rescue attempt, the wake of the ship having pushed us back towards the safety of the island. The barrier is still down, but I feel the frantic energy of racing against a timer to get back inside before it shuts us out for good.
With a grunt, I roll onto my back and kick us away from the ship, hauling Triton along with me by his armpits, careful of the pointy end of the harpoon sticking out of his shoulder. I don’t think about anything except the distance between us and the ship and making sure we’re getting further away. I can’t bring myself to check Triton over just yet, not ready for what I might or might not see in his face.
I thought I’d feel something as we passed over the invisible perimeter of the island, but there’s nothing. No tingles, no audible whooshing of a metaphorical door closing. As soon as we’re over the line, the barrier reappears so quickly it’s like it was never faulty in the first place.
In an instant, the ship disappears from view, and I let out a shaky breath. We’re safe. The harpoon is the only evidence we were ever outside of the barrier. I risk a peek at Triton’s face and immediately regret it. His usually golden sun-kissed skin is pallid, and his lips have a bluish tinge. I can’t check for a pulse while I’m swimming, and his chest doesn’t rise and fall like a human breathing air. I just have to hope like hell he’s still alive. I try to reassure myself as I continue the arduous swim back to safety. If he died, I’d surely feel it.
24
Elena
My body is weary by the time we approach the island. I haven’t given up out of sheer desperation and stubbornness. I can’t let Triton down, and I refuse to drown. The irony of a pro-swimmer drowning to death is not lost on me. I startle as a crumbling sound echoes out behind me, and I flinch, expecting an onslaught of falling rock or something as we near a cliff face. Looking over my shoulder, the cliff has parted to create a gap wide enough for me to swim into, the ocean quickly rushing to fill up this new space the island has created, pushing us along with it. I don’t have it in me to be in awe at the magical feat of the island transforming to meet my needs.
The canyon is short, and the ocean pushes us forward into a pool, crashing against a newly made shore protected on all sides by cliffs—a hidden oasis inside Aeolia. On theopposite side of where we entered, the cliff continues to break itself apart in a cacophony of cracking and rumbling until water rushes over the edge of the canyon to meet this new tidal pool in the form of a waterfall. The water steams as it crashes into the pool. Warm, fresh water mixes with the cool, salty ocean, turning the pool a milky blue. Water from the Pierian Spring.
Immediately, the warmth reminds me of the hot spring we stayed in the first night of our journey and how the healing waters chased away the aches in my muscles. As soon as I can touch the silty ground beneath me, I drag an unconscious Triton as close to the thunderous waterfall as I can get. I sink to my butt in the shallows of the pool and pull Triton into my lap. My hands shake as I wipe away the tendrils of his hair from his neck and place my fingers beneath his ear and jaw to feel for a pulse, growling in frustration when his gills are there instead. Cursing, I pull his wrist out of the water instead, pressing firmly and waiting with bated breath for the feeling of his rapid heartbeat beneath my fingers.
Beneath my touch, Triton’s pulse flutters faintly, then grows steadier with each passing moment. I look to the sky, tears pooling in the corners of my eyes, and thank the gods, the Fates, and every othercelestial entity that might be in existence that Triton is still with me. Then, I thank Aeolia for tearing itself open for us and providing the healing waters directly from the Pierian Spring. I can’t even begin to fathom the magic behind a sentient island, but who am I to try? Why can’t things just be magical without someone trying to explain it or figure it out?
I collapse back in the water and look to the sky, the water lapping around my ears while I keep Triton cradled between my thighs. I let the warmth of the water permeate my body and melt away the burning in my limbs, my body beyond exhaustion. My eyes grow heavy, adrenaline wearing off, and I fight to keep my eyes open. What if Triton wakes? What if the tide comes in? But I can’t fight it, and a quiet part of me wonders if the calming magical water is urging me to sleep.
A whimper stirs me from my slumber, and I sit up with a jolt, a heavy weight pinning my legs. Triton’s eyes are closed as he thrashes across my lap. His color has returned somewhat, his lips are no longer blue, but it worries me that he has not woken up yet. Besides the dryness in my mouth, I feel perfectly refreshed from the healing waters of the Pierian Spring. I don’t know what I was expecting.Perhaps for the magical spring to push the harpoon free of Triton’s shoulder? But there it sits, still protruding from his skin. I grimace, knowing I’m going to have to remove it from his shoulder myself so the skin around it can continue healing.
I can’t wiggle out from beneath him to let him rest on his back beneath the water, lest it push the prongs attached to the harpoon further into his back and lodge it more securely into his skin. I feel the sharpened tip beneath him, tracing it to his skin and giving it a light tug to see how much it gives. Triton groans as the harpoon shifts slightly, and I pause. The prongs from the harpoon wiggle a little, fresh streams of blood drifting from the wound and mingling in the water beneath him. It seems to move fairly easily, and I come up with a plan, but I have to be quick and hope like hell it doesn’t get stuck.
With a grunt, I attempt to shed my sports bra, the wet fabric suctioned to my skin. I wrestle it over my head, thankful to not have woken with the aching muscles I would have expected after yesterday, and that there’s no one else here to see me wrestle a harpoon with my breasts out.
Clutching my sports bra in one hand, I roll Triton off my lap. He lands face-first in the water, the impact helping dislodge the harpoon further as the slight impact pushes the broken end against the sandy bottom. I work quickly, not wanting Triton to be face down in the sand for too long, unsure if it would impact his ability to breathe when he has gills, but not wanting to take the chance.
I get to my feet for maximum leverage, the water lapping mid-calf. Reaching down, careful not to cut myself, I wrap my sports bra around the sharp end of the harpoon. I bend my knees, preparing to brace myself, and give a great big pull. The harpoon budges at least halfway. Huffing, I reposition, and with another pull, it slides out of Triton’s shoulder, causing me to stumble backwards with a splash. I drop the harpoon to the side and rush back to Triton, rolling him onto his back, the now-empty wound in his shoulder seeping fresh blood into the water.
“Shit!” I curse, attempting to put pressure on the hole, which does absolutely nothing when the wound goes all the way through his shoulder. My mind races, panic bubbling to the surface at the thought of having done the wrong thing by removing the harpoon. I look around frantically, spotting the teal of my sports bra stillentangled with the harpoon in the shallows where I dropped it. I rush to it, kicking up water and almost tripping as I snatch it back up and jog back to Triton. I wedge my sports bra against the back of the wound, sandwiching it between Triton and the sand beneath him, and reapply pressure to the front. I wait there for what feels like eternity, propped up on my knees, both hands on the space between Triton’s armpit and shoulder, hoping like hell the spring can work its magic and close up the wound.
I don’t know if there’s a limitation to what the spring can do, and the longer I kneel here, waiting for a miracle, the more questions that pop up, my mind running away with all sorts of imaginings. I wonder if the spring could bring someone back from the dead. Or is it limited to just scrapes and aching muscles? I hope it’s at least closer to the former, with Triton’s life hanging in the balance beneath my fingers.
I begin to feel a tingle beneath my hands as the bleeding slows and then stops. Removing my hands from the wound, I sit back on my haunches with a groan, watching in awe as the wound stitches itself back together again, without even a trace of a scar to remind us ofthe traumatic incident. I feel like this means Triton is out of danger, but my anxiety grows as he remains unconscious.
With shaky hands, I rinse the blood from them while fully taking in our environment. Something I haven’t had a chance to do yet. Flowering bushes that scent the air with their perfume, and trees heavy with mangoes, sit flush against the sheer cliff walls, providing shade from the sun above. The pool quietly laps at a sandy shore, with the newly formed waterfall off to one side. It’s a little slice of paradise, literally carved into the island, hidden away from the outside world even more so than before.
My gaze drifts back to the waterfall beside us, and I decide that Triton might heal faster if he’s even closer to the undiluted spring water. I huff and puff as I drag Triton as close as I can to the thundering water, careful not to reopen his newly healed wound. I leave him semi-submerged, his face the only part of him above the water in the shadows of the rocky cliff. Heavy spray from the waterfall coats the air around us, and fat droplets of water land on Triton’s face, keeping his skin wet. I hope that this is enough, and he’ll wake up soon, but the wound was severe, and I resign myself to the fact that it might take a while for him to come to. Eventhough he looks healed on the outside, maybe he needs to soak a bit more to be fully healed on the inside.
My stomach pangs, and I’m reminded I haven’t eaten since who knows when. What I wouldn’t give for a big block of chocolate right about now. I’m sure that would ease some of the stress. Instead, I settle for one of the fat, juicy mangoes I pluck from a low-hanging branch, groaning in ecstasy at the sweet and tart juices that flood my mouth and run down my chin, the flesh filling the hollow of my cramping stomach.
25
Triton
Everything around us is warm. Warm, loud, and wet. Roaring fills our ears, blocking out the sound of anything else except the thundering of our heartbeat in our chest. We scent blood, it perfumes the air and lingers in the water. Ours and something else. Our mate. Memories flash to the ship that reeked of death, our whale cousins slaughtered on the deck, their blood thick in the water. Our eyes snap open. We need to see our mate. We need to know she is safe.
We do not recognize our surroundings. A rushing waterfall to the side, cliffs all around us. Our heartbeat thunders like a violent rainstorm smashing against the surface of churning waves, both competing for who can wreak the most havoc. There is blood in the air, and blood in the water, only this time, it is sweet, tantalizing, teasing. Hunger flares to life like a fire burning in our gut, driving us mad.
