Page 1 of Rainse
Prologue
Verity
I'd always loved whales. Until the day one tried to kill me.
Or maybe it didn't. Maybe it just wanted to play and didn't consider that it was so much bigger than the RIB.
Either way, it hit us like a truck, slamming into the boat from the side. The impact tore through the inflatable’s hull with a sound like thunder. There was no time to radio for help. We were in the water before we could blink.
One moment, we were laughing about the playlist Hugo had put on – Under the Sea, of all things – and the next, the world flipped upside down. Cold swallowed me whole. The sea punched the air from my lungs, and I barely remembered to close my mouth before the saltwater rushed in. My life jacket yanked me upwards, forcing me to the surface just in time to see the whale’s tail fin rise like a mountain behind me, then crash down, sending a wave that rolled me over again.
When I surfaced a second time, coughing and choking, it was gone. Its work was done.
The sea around us was a chaos of foam and debris. The overturned RIB bobbed nearby, half-submerged. The engine hissed and spat before dying entirely.
“Hugo!” I gasped, throat raw from salt and panic.
He surfaced a few metres away, eyes wide, coughing up seawater. “I’m here! Jammie?”
A spluttered reply came from somewhere to my left. Relief, sharp and fleeting. All three of us. Alive. For now.
We tried to stay afloat as the sea rocked us like rag dolls. There was nothing around us but endless blue – no shore, no boats, no sign of rescue. The Minerva, our main vessel, had to be out there somewhere, but the swell made it impossible to spot her. The horizon was a jagged line between sea and sky.
I tilted my head back and stared at the sky. A single gull circled high above us, its cry thin and lonely. The world was too vast, too silent, too indifferent.
I’d always loved whales. Their songs, their grace, their impossible size. It’s why I had spent my adult life studying them. But floating there, tiny and breakable in the endless ocean, I realised love could be as dangerous as it was beautiful.
Now, we could only wait to be rescued.
Or to become part of the deep.
1
Rainse
Jealousy didn't suit me, and yet I wore it like a cloak. Hiding my envy became more difficult with every day.
The two people closest to me, my clutch-brothers, the finmen I'd grown up with, who I'd travelled all this way to another planet with - they had found their mates and were busy kissing, swooning, disappearing into quiet corners.
But not me.
I was still alone. Every sunpass - no, several times every sunpass, what humans called day - I checked my messages, just in case I'd overlooked a notification from the dating agency. Nothing. How could it be that my brothers had both found a female, yet I hadn't?
It wasn't fair. I hated being alone more than ever. Until we'd come to this planet, at least the three of us had shared our pain, our loneliness. None of us had been given the honour to be allowed a mate. I had almost made my peace with that - until Fionn had heard about this planet, Earth, and we'd gone on the adventure of our lives. For Fionn and Cerban, the risk had paid off. I was still waiting.
And there was no guarantee that I'd ever find a mate here. Out of the twenty-something finmen who'd travelled with us, half had been matched with a human female. Pam, the leader of the Hot Tatties dating agency, insisted that those odds were 'absolutely fabulous' and that she'd never worked with an alien species this compatible with humans.
I seemed to be an exception. While my brothers got to spend time with their mates, gallivanting around with huge grins on their faces, I was left to spend my days working hard to keep the peace between humans and finmen. The job had got easier over the last few spans, now that the two species had got to know each other. Everyone could see how well the matched couples got along - sickeningly so. It churned my stomach every time I saw a finman kiss a human female. Not because of the species difference, but because I craved to be in his position. I wanted a mate with every cell of my being. Jealousy was exhausting.
I didn't have to work this sunpass, but I'd been hiding in my office until a few clicks ago, distracting myself by sorting virtual files and reading news reports from back home. I missed Finfolkaheem. The vast, endless oceans. The underwater cities twinkling like beacons at the bottom of the sea. The food, oh yes, the food. Fish on this planet lacked the flavour I was used to. I had tried other dishes, plants grown on land rather than in the water, but they weren't salty enough. My clutch-brothers embraced the exotic food Peritus offered, but I couldn't be like them. Maybe if I'd had a mate, it would all be easier. She could introduce me to this world, stroke by stroke, until I forgot Finfolkaheem and its delicacies, the taste of its ocean, the scent of its soul. I was sure that everything would be so much better with a female at my side.
I stretched my shoulders, arched my back. I'd been sitting inside for too long. A swim in the sea would do me good and rip me from my maudlin thoughts. The good thing about living on an island was that the sea was never far away. Even if the sea didn't taste quite right.
When I got to the closest beach, I spotted Cerban and Maelis in the distance. She was wearing her diving equipment, he followed behind her like an enthusiastic catfish. I turned away from them, unwilling to see their happiness up close.
I hated the male I'd become. Bitter. Jealous. Full of dark thoughts that I couldn't push out of my mind.
Maybe I should never have come here. Maybe the Matriarchs were wiser than I'd thought. Their system had worked for generations, ever since climate change had increased the water temperatures, causing fewer females to be born. Now only select few males got to have a mate. It was sad for the rest of us - no, not sad, devastating - but now that I saw the male I was becoming, twisted by jealousy, I could understand their reasoning. I wasn't worthy. I didn't deserve a mate.
