Page 61 of The Demons in the Deep: Extended Edition
“Because—”
“Because you do whatever they say, don’t you? Captain Flay and the lovely Kestra—they know best, for all of us. And you can’t think for yourself, because you’ve never had to. You were a follower in the Realm Below, and you’re a follower now.”
Rake caught her arm, whirled her to face him. His lips curled back, his mouth a serrated gash in his sharp, beautiful face.
“I can think for myself,” he said. “I always have. I alone defied the Queens, conspired against them, and escaped my fate. I bought a new life for me and for Jewel, paid for it with my own blood and flesh.”
His fingers tightened on her upper arms as he towered over her. Mai stood transfixed, ensnared by the snarling, wicked grace of him, even as she felt the pinch of claws against her skin.
“I do not follow Flay, or Kestra,” Rake said. “I do what I believe is best. But I also listen to the voices of others. Sometimes they are wiser than me. You would do well to listen to those who love you.”
“But the people who love me don’t listen tome.”
“I do.”
A shiver ran through Mai, from head to toes. “You—you what?”
“I listen,” he said. “And I love you.”
Her skin stippled with goosebumps.
“You are my family like they are,” he said. “Like Jewel is. You are precious to me. Your words sink into my thoughts. They stay in my heart, and I—I see your face, often. I saw it while I was coming here from Kiken Island. You guided me through the darkest part of the ocean. I wanted to see you, to tell you of the city, because I knew you would have the same desperate need to go there that I do.”
Mai tried to convince herself that the tremors racing through her body were from lack of food. But she knew they were something far more frightening—the deep unspoken thing that had nestled into her heart when she first met him—the thing that had bled when he died and healed when he returned.
She could not speak at first. She could only stare up at him. His dark blue eyes swirled with a storm of emotion, and his thick lashes flicked down as he glanced at her mouth.
She knew of gravity, of the vast power that kept creatures and objects pinned to the surface of the world. But Rake had his own kind of gravity, a well of power sucking her in until she was conscious of nothing but a deep, wild desire that hollowed her out inside. It was rather like the panicked intensity she felt when exploring or learning something new. But a sweet agony threaded through it, too—an affection so strong it was like an open wound.
“Why do I hurt when I’m near you like this?” Rake said, low and pained, and Mai’s belly thrilled with shock because it was so exactly what she had been thinking.
“It hurts, but I want more of it,” he continued. “More—of you.” He dipped his mouth lower, until his lips skated over hers, a light brush of warm, soft skin.
Sparks danced over Mai’s mouth at the touch. Urgency ignited deep at her core, and she rose on tiptoe, pressing her lips to his.
A simple act. The mouthparts of one living entity contacting those of another living entity. Logically, it shouldn’t generate such a rush of wild delight through her entire body—shouldn’t make her whimper and sway against him with such reckless need.
He had been gone, gone, gone, and she’d been broken. Even now, since his return, she sometimes couldn’t be sure of him unless he was there, unless she could hear his voice, touch his arm or his fingers or his tail. During the Race, she and Kestra had clutched each other from their watchpoint on a clifftop, mutely acknowledging that each of them had someone beloved on that tiny racing vessel. She had feared that Rake might disappear into the maw of a monster or be burned or torn. When it was over, she’d been coldly congratulatory to theKestrel’s little crew, simply because anything else would have tempted an explosion of feeling she couldn’t allow.
That very morning, at the university, she had looked up from a book and felt the familiar sickening drop in her chest, the silent scream of something lost—before she remembered that Rake was the lost thing, and that he was back. Even then she wondered, for a second, if seeing him again had been like sensing a phantom limb—a feeling so real, yet just an echo of what once existed.
But kissing him—kissing him was reassurance beyond an echo or dream. His lips tasted like the sea on a summer day—a salty, savory heat. He wasn’t cold, because his blood ran hotter than a human’s to keep his kind warm in the depths. Warm, firm, beautiful lips, pliant and eager beneath hers.
She could kiss him for days.
Rake rumbled low in his chest. He took one hand from her arm and clasped the back of her head. Mai could tell he was being careful—careful with his claws, careful with the mouthful of knives behind his lips. He wouldn’t open for her, even when she slid her own tongue across the seam of his mouth.
She drew back a little, but he made a soft frantic sound and sealed the kiss again. Mai let her eyes drift shut, and in the haze of delighted panic she heard the echo of Kestra’s voice.I kissed him once.
She pulled away again, and Rake snarled faintly in protest. His eyes were dilated, his gills fluttering as they sometimes did when he lost control and forgot to keep them shut.
“You kissed Kestra,” she said. “You wantedher.”
“Of course I wanted her,” he said, breathless. “She is beautiful. She was the first human woman I ever saw.”
“Do you still want her?” Mai steeled herself for the answer.
Rake huffed in frustration, baring his teeth briefly. “Maybe I loved Kestra, because she was new, and strong, and beautiful. Maybe I loved Queen Calla a little, in a strange, poisonous way—she was Jewel’s mother, after all. But I’ve loved you since you first looked at me and you weren’t afraid. It was a tiny love then, small and weak, like a minnow, but it grew when you were kind to me and taught me things about land-life. It grew more when I found out how tenderly you cared for my Jewel. And it has grown far wider and deeper since I’ve been with you again.”
