Page 5 of Rainse
Sunlight caught on him, flashing across the green skin and bits of seaweed attached to his shoulders. His hair was dark, streaked with lighter threads that rippled in the water.
The shark turned sharply and vanished into the blue, as if something larger and far more dangerous had entered its territory.
I hung in the water, frozen. My heart was hammering, too fast to be useful. My brain struggled to form a single rational thought.
He looked at me. Not at Jammie, not at the sea, but straight at me. His eyes were the colour of deep water, shifting and unknowable. They didn’t seem threatening, only curious.
He spoke, a sound that wasn’t quite human speech but not entirely other either. The water seemed to carry it, wrapping the word around me until I felt it as much as heard it.
"You."
My mouth opened, but no sound came out. I was cold to the bone, my teeth chattering so violently I could hardly breathe. Suddenly the last remnants of energy left me. I'd heard about this. People who nearly drowned hung on, only to then go completely limp when they saw their rescuers, believed that hope was imminent.
The world tilted. The sea rushed up again, and suddenly I was moving.
Arms, strong and unyielding, lifted me clear of the waves. I caught a last glimpse of Jammie’s pale face as I was drawn against the stranger’s chest. He was shouting something, his voice lost to the roar of the ocean. Then the horizon tilted again, and the sky dissolved into light.
Salt burned my throat. My vision narrowed to a single thought.
This isn’t possible.
3
Rainse
Nothing had ever felt as right as carrying her in my arms as I swam us to safety.
The waves pressed against us as if trying to take her back. I held her tighter and kicked hard, cutting through the water with strong, even strokes. She coughed once, a weak, broken sound, and her head lolled against my shoulder. The urge to keep her above the surface was so fierce it bordered on pain.
Her scent filled my senses, salt and fear and something underneath, warm and alive. The bond struck again, as sudden as lightning in a clear sky. A pull in my chest so strong I almost faltered mid-stroke. My body knew before my mind did.
My mate.
I'd felt it even before I'd touched her for the first time. I'd heard her voice from beneath the waves, felt the vibrations of her body through the water, and I'd known. She was mine. And I'd finally found her.
I didn't care that my clutch-brothers had taken longer to feel the bond to their mates. I had no doubts that she was the one for me. It was as much fact as breathing.
A flash of memory cut through me: Cerban and the chaos that had followed when he claimed his human. The arguments. The threats from the agency. The endless rules about protection and consent and human rights. They would never allow this. They would take her away, wrap her in safety and study, and I would lose her before I had even learned her name.
I couldn’t let that happen.
The nearest islet rose from the sea less than half a league away, a ridge of dark stone surrounded by white sand and green water. I had used it before during patrols, a place to rest and watch the horizon. It would have to do.
I carried her there, lifting her clear of the surf and laying her on the warm sand. A small freshwater spring bubbled up between the rocks near the largest of the trees. At least she wouldn't die of thirst while I figured out what to do next.
She stirred faintly, her breathing shallow but steady. Her body tensed when I shifted her in my arms, a quiet sound escaping her throat. Even unconscious, she flinched at the pressure against her side. My hand brushed something tender just below her ribs and she whimpered, the sound lost beneath the surf. I drew back at once. Bruised, maybe cracked. I would find out when she was awake.
Her skin was cold against my hands. I brushed her hair - the colour of new coral - from her face and felt the fragile beat of her heart through my fingers.
“Live,” I whispered. “Please live.”
She didn’t stir. Her mouth parted slightly, lashes wet against her cheeks. I could feel the mate bond humming between us, faint and steady, calling to me like the moon to the tide. Would she feel it too, once she woke? Or would she be like the other human females, who had to be slowly persuaded and wooed?
I wanted to stay. I wanted to wrap myself around her and keep the world away. But the other human was still out there. The male. I’d seen him drifting before I carried her off. And those sharp-toothed predators might return. They had retreated when I'd approached the two humans, instinctively aware that I was the stronger predator.
Everything in me wanted to stay. The bond pulled at me. But I had a duty. I couldn't let the male drown. It went against everything I believed in, everything I'd sworn when I'd joined the navy.
But I couldn't bring the male here. I wanted time alone with my mate. I had to get to know her, slowly break the news to her that aliens were real and that one of them was her mate. And only once I was sure that she understood the bond between us would I swim us back to the island to introduce her to my brothers and the dating agency. They couldn't do anything once the two of us were mated. Hot Tatties loved rules and paperwork and scientific tests, but they also respected our most sacred traditions. The mating bond was one of them.
