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I shove the sheets back with both hands and push myself up on my elbows, because apparently dignity is the first thing I reach for when the world goes sideways.
Then I notice—my wetsuit is gone.
In its place, something soft and warm molds to my skin, a fabric that hugs my curves in a way the rental wetsuits never do.
For approximately two seconds I panic about belly rolls and whether anyone designed this silk for a body like mine, and I hate myself for the vanity of it.
Stupid, Phoebe, really stupid.
I shake my head like a dog trying to dislodge water.
My hair falls from its tie in a tangle of sand-colored waves across my shoulders.
I touch my cheeks with the backs of my hands as if I can prove to myself, I’m not still dreaming.
This isn’t the kind of bed linen you’d find in hospitals or even in my shitty little rented apartment.
This is also not a dream.
“If this is a joke, it isn’t funny,” I say. My throat wobbles. “You can’t just kidnap people. Now, where am I? Who are you? What?—”
My hands fumble and land on his sleeve because outrage needs a handle, and the fabric under my palm is real and warmand absolutely not what I expected a man who could drown a city to be wearing.
“Easy, Telya.”
“What is that you keep calling me? What does it mean? Where the hell am I, buddy?”
He watches me with a look that could flatten cliffs and not get winded.
Somehow, even amusement sits on his face as if it knows how small my outrage is compared to whatever tide he’s commanding.
It’s infuriating and absurd and, I’m ashamed to admit, disorienting in how attractive he is.
“You are in Castletide,” he says.
The name lands like cold water—strange and alive.
“Castletide.” I say it aloud like I’m testing abrand-new-to-humanslanguage on my palate, and it turns odd in my mouth.
I slide out of bed, and the room tilts. My knees wobble.
All the sensible things scream—run, call someone, find witnesses, make a list, do not accept hospitality from men with horns.
But then, this large, improbable hand clamps on my elbow with a gentleness that steadies me.
“Easy, Telya,” he murmurs.
Telya.
That alien word again.
But this time it hums somewhere low in my ribs.
It’s almost laughable.
He calls me this strange pet name while I’m mentally composing a strongly worded letter to every embassy known to humankind.
I shouldn’t appreciate being steadied.
