Shining Sea (29 page)

RISING TIDE

A great clap of thunder shakes the sky, and I spin toward the windows—then back toward the door—fighting an almost physical compulsion to run down the stairs after Bo. My heart lurches in my chest as I grasp the doorframe— I feel sick. Dizzy, like I’m seasick. I feel heartbroken—because I’m lovesick.

Love. Sick.

I struggle against the pull of him, but I can’t help it, I climb the stairs of the tower as quickly as I can. When I get to the watch room, I grab the binoculars from the floor.
I just need to see him one more time. Then I’ll be done.
Imagining I’ll see him striding away from the lighthouse, or heading toward the water or Summers Cove, I step outside onto the gallery deck—

The wind snatches the door from my hands, slamming it back against the bricks, and I throw an arm up against a brilliant burst of light—Maybe the storm won’t last, maybe it will all blow over. But then my eyes adjust to the brightness. No, it’s the sunlight that won’t last. I’ve been fooled by a hole in the clouds. A menacing bruise of a cloudbank is moving in from the horizon—

“Arion!”

My name floats high on the wind. Even as rain splashes my face, my heart lifts.

Bo!
How could I ever have told him to leave?

No. I
had
to tell him to leave.

“Arion!”

Wet hair plasters my face and my neck. Tangled with wind—his voice is hypnotic as ever.

“Arion, please!” The Call comes again, and again, like a chorus. Beautiful, sensual, words on the wind.
Where is he?
My limbs feel languid and strange. My skin grows warmer until I feel liquid, a part of the rain. I just want to
see
him. His voice . . . it’s so dreamy, and dark—and different.
Oh, Bo . . .

“Arion, help! Down here! I need help!”

Not possible, he’d never— Stumbling, I lift the binoculars up—

“Logan!”
The name bursts from my lips, waking me, as if from a dream.

Logan Delaine is dangling off the side of a sport fishing boat tied to the seawall!

The boat tosses wildly in the waves—at any moment, it could be smashed to bits.

Pushing off the railing, I run for the door. The wind holds it fast. Heaving my weight backward, I haul the door open and race across the watch room.

Hurtling down the stairs, I try to make sense of what’s happening. It should have been impossible to hear Logan’s voice above the storm—and I can’t imagine why he’s down there.

Logan, what the hell are you doing? You idiot—get out of the water! Whose boat is that, where’d you get it? And Logan, your voice—

It feels like I’ve never heard it before.

GEMINI

Knives of rain stab at my face as I dive down the steps to the beach. Racing across the sand, I vault up onto the breakwater, tearing along the concrete path that tops the black granite boulders.

“Logan!” Black sheets of rain pound the roiling sea. The fishing boat spins in the water.

The full moon won’t rise until tonight, but already it pulls on the Atlantic. Monstrous waves lash at the seawall. Dodging under the rail at the end of the path, I navigate the uneven tops of the rocks, crouching down, crawling now, leaning into the wind as I work my way toward the boat. A wave breaks on the rocks in front of me, spraying water five feet into the air, nearly toppling me off the wall. Another wave hits, soaking me—

Logan is no longer visible.

Panic explodes in my gut as if someone’s landed a kick there. I scream out his name—

The wind throws it back in my face.
Where is he?
Was he forced from the boat by the waves?

A giant breaker roars up over the rocks—for a second I’m blinded by a wall of water. The wind tears at my clothes as I make my way to my feet, trying to get a better view of the boat.

How is he keeping it tied to the seawall? The Coast Guard—why didn’t I phone them?

A curling wave breaks over me, knocking me to my knees. Briny water burns my throat as a mouthful goes down. I gag, fighting the water like a drowning person.

A snarling wave pushes the boat closer— 
Luck!
The wall isn’t much higher than the deck; I just need to jump out, clear the rocks along the side. The next wave brings the boat nearer still. I take a deep breath—

And jump.

Landing on the slick deck of the fishing boat, I run to the far side where I last saw Logan, shouting his name uselessly into the wind—

Then I hear it.
The humming.
With a sound like a Doppler shift, ominous music fills my ears—
the ethereal songs of my nightmares
.

I cry out as the aural hallucinations vibrate inside me somehow, as real as the rain that pelts my skin. Fantastically orchestrated melodies, spectral harmonies familiar only from the dreams that have recently become so vivid—

I cry out once more as I see him.

And for a moment, the raindrops stall in midair. The ocean, impossibly, stills.

His face is as familiar as the music.

As familiar as the first time I saw it.

Moving as smoothly as a shadow, he emerges from the ocean, lifting himself halfway up the side of the boat with muscled arms, his dark skin dripping seawater.

Logan.

But—
not Logan
.

Hanging off the boat, the lower half of his body submerged in the rough sea, is a boy with the same face, the same dark brows and shadowed jawline, and now, spreading slowly across that face, the same wide white smile.

This boy is almost unbearably beautiful, but he is not Logan. He is not my friend, my sulking, laughing Logan, with the rainy-day eyes. At the realization, I gasp for breath—

But there’s none to be had. There’s only water where the air should be—

And I can barely choke out his name.

SIREN

“Nick.”

“Arion.” His tone is casual, his voice—
sublime
.

It’s as if the stars have fallen from the sky. Fallen and found a home, in him.

His grin grows but doesn’t reach his silvery eyes.

We stare at each other as the storm slaps the sea.

“So nice to finally meet you face-to-face,” he says. His eyes glint with dark humor. “Join me in the drink?”

With one hand, he reaches for me—

And then—I’m in the sea.

His hands circling my waist, he holds me above the waterline. But even with most of my torso out of the water, the waves crash mercilessly against me.

They seem to roll off Nick as if his dark, gleaming skin repels them.

Moving his hands to my hips now, he lifts me slightly higher, the tips of his thumbs pressing low on my pelvis, and to my horror, I find that
nothing
about him repels
me
.

I close my eyes, or rather, they simply shut—

I don’t have the will to keep them open. Don’t have a will at all.

His music is profound—a work of art that will endure forever. At the same time, it’s a forgotten song, the music of antediluvian rituals. There’s the rhythm now:
Step, stop. Step; stop.

He draws me closer, until my body is against his—

And I don’t care if I live or die—as long as I can be with him now.

He, too, is halfway out of the water, floating effortlessly in the whirling waves. Projected onto the inside of my eyelids is the image of his torso. Broad shoulders, a flat stomach with muscles that ripple like waves on a quieter day.

In my mind’s eye I stare at his hip bones, then look slightly lower. No shimmering scales, and yet—

He is the man from my nightmares.

“I thought you were Logan,” I mumble, a blissful fog filling my mind. “You look just like him—how?” My voice doesn’t stand a chance against the wind, but still he answers—

“Twins.”

Even with my eyes closed, I know he’s smiling. I hear the curl of it.

Feeling the pull of him now, I’m more than ready.
I am waiting.

And just like that—I know. It’s him. The details—they don’t matter. Nothing matters.

I am waiting.
And he is waiting.

I turn my head—

He places his full lips on mine. Quick as a flash of light, the thought of Bo crosses my mind—

Then burns away under the kiss of the Siren.

Our bodies snake together, curve and crevice, neck and arm, waist and hands—hands . . .

He draws back—

That only makes me want him more.

But suddenly he laughs, and my eyes fly open to see him lifting his face to the black sky.

“Your breath
is
sweet, intoxicating, even, but this is far too easy. Where is he? Your ever-present hero.” Nick’s sterling eyes skim the surface of the sea. Scan the sky.

The heat of his body clashes with the cold of the sea. Will I die burning in his arms? Or will the well-earned hypothermia finally claim me?

I don’t care, but through a nebula of lust I wonder,
Bo
,
will I ever see you again?

Nick’s head jerks down and his eyes burn into mine. “You’re Calling him!”

The words seem to echo out over the water, reverberating inside me, and something in the tone of his voice—or maybe the words themselves—break the Siren’s spell—

Nick Delaine is holding me—Nick Delaine is a killer!

“I don’t know what you mean,” I sputter. Bitter anger crawls up my throat like bile. Of course I want to live!
Have
to live.

“You do know. Go ahead! Draw him here, and I’ll kill you both!” With a sound like the highest tide thundering in, immense white wings emerge on either side of his torso, branching above us. The water turns to turbulent froth as he kicks—

And lifts me into the air.

He sweeps me through the sky, holding me tightly along the length of his body, his low laugh filling my ears. In an instant we’re at the top of the lighthouse where he sets me down roughly on the wet deck and I slip, nearly fall. As I regain my footing, I instinctively press my back against the white bricks of the tower. He watches me with mercury eyes as my gaze darts to the door that leads inside. The storm rages around us.

My gaze slips to his hips. His legs, where they emerge from a frayed pair of shorts strewn with sand and bits of kelp, are powerful looking—

There’s no trace of the snakelike appendage from my nightmares.

“Not as pretty as a Summers boy, but maybe I know better what you want.” He steps closer, his hands moving to the top of his shorts, his voice hissing beneath the sound of the storm.
“Something serpentine.”

“You’re horrible—crude!” But I haven’t forgotten the most recent dream, the humiliating craving. It makes partial sense. My subconscious had kept the truth from me, the dark chimerical being who visited my dreams looked like
Logan. He looked like Logan
but was Nick
. Nick—
he’d been in my room
. And the wings, they’d been his—

“Crude? You’re about to
die
, and you’re worried about manners? Oh, Miss Arion, I’ve been
so
polite, gone
so
slowly. I could have had you on the cliff, or at Seal Cove. Or Smith Street—you were practically home. I could’ve taken you the rest of the way.
I still can.
”

“No!” My heart thuds against my ribs.

The Siren comes closer. “How does the expression go? Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you—?” His low voice is an invasive vine, coiling, twining inside me. I can’t speak. “Arion, don’t
be
like that, play along.”

“Stronger,” I manage to stutter. “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

He clicks his tongue. “That’s not it at all.” It seems as if his cinereous eyes might start a fire. “The expression,” he says, his lips near my ear, “is whatever doesn’t kill you,
makes you scream
.”

A branch-like bolt of lightning electrifies the sky. He laughs. “It’s the screams,
during
the screams, that’s when a victim’s breath is sweetest. I love the screams of women—they’re so delicious. But men have a greater lung capacity, so sometimes I prefer them. Men, women, boys, girls—I like to
make
them scream, or”—he tilts his head to one side—“simply
knock
the wind out of them.”

He shrugs. “I enjoy dropping people from high places. When they hit the water, or the ground, out comes the breath—in a big whoosh
.
” He smiles—Logan’s smile—and fingers a lock of my hair. His dark hair is a tangle of wild tendrils, mossy seaweed twisted among the long strands. “Like a seagull dropping a clam on a jetty. You must have seen gulls dropping shells on that seawall of yours?” He looks down past the edge of the platform, then brings his mouth close to mine.
“Smash,”
he whispers. I feel his breath on my lips.

“Do you like watching the gulls, Arion? I used to enjoy watching the birds on the beach by my house, I used to enjoy lots of things—
when I was
human
.” His last words seethe with anger, hatred. It’s obvious he hates himself, hates his “condition,” but most of all
he hates the Summers
, and finally, I truly understand why.
They did this
to him.

“What do
you
enjoy, Arion? Besides cockteasing my brother?” Shock must have shown on my face. “Oh, I know all about you and my twin. But do you know about Logan and
my
girlfriend? My brother’s a charmer, but be warned, he’ll break your heart.”

My entire body is quivering with fear, but I can’t help being fascinated by the number of misunderstandings that have taken place. Does Nick Delaine really think Logan is to blame for Beth falling in love with him? Does he truly believe Bo and his family are responsible for
killing him
?
They saved his life!
I start to shake my head. He misreads me.

“No, you can’t tell me differently; I’ve been listening to you for weeks and weeks. So I know what
you
want. And girls love my brother, same way they loved me.

“But Summers seems to think
he
has your heart.” Nick places a hand on my chest, working his fingers into the loose weave of the wet wool, already stretched far beyond its original shape. “Bo Summers. That voice. But Bo’s holding back, isn’t he? He has to. My brother, he’d give you everything. I know him. But it’s understandable, why you’re—
torn
.” He yanks the sweater until the neckline plunges. Slowly, he trails his fingers up to the hollow of my throat.

His hands are intelligent looking, beautiful, like his face. Logan’s face. Logan’s hands. He brings his hands to my shoulders now—squeezes, releases—
an expression of indecision?
Hope soars inside me.

Then he tugs on the silver chain, lifts the pearl. A strange smile crosses his lips.

“Seems you’ve recently decided on Bo, but you may change your mind. The two of them really are so different from each other.” He stares at me. “But you’re so very different yourself, Arion. Where did you get your Siren Song?”

His metallic gaze moves to my mouth. My hope blows away on the wind.

“You intrigue me,” he says. “When I pushed you from the cliff, were you considering suicide? Hmm? Because you went over the edge so
very
easily—just the touch of a feather, one soft feather of mine.” He brings his wings forward, crossing his arms, running his fingers through the tips of the lustrous feathers. “Just one, against your cheek, a whisper of something silky, and over you went.”

“You—” But I bring my trembling voice up short, because suddenly, Nick’s eyes actually seem to
see
me, and I can see him, the man inside a monster—the boy.

“Your singing was so sweet as you took your little nature walk, then stood atop the cliff looking, and looking . . . but when you fell,
nothing
. I’ve never seen anything like it, not in this entire long year I’ve spent in
hell
!” His eyes seem to catch fire now, burning white hot—and just like that, the man is gone, and there’s only the monster. He puts his hands around my neck.

“No scream,” he hisses. “No cry.” He shakes his head. “Very disappointing. Then your boyfriend leapt up out of the sea, like some damned dolphin. Of course he wasn’t your boyfriend yet, was he? He took his time there, and you
know
why. He was afraid of what he’d
do
to you. Same thing I’d like to do.” His fingers tighten and he scowls. “I had no idea he was nearby that day. You’ve twisted my Siren senses more than once, Arion Rush.

“You—you and Bo. You should both thank me, don’t you think? I played matchmaker—
and now
you both have so much more to lose!
Without my little nudge, your paths might never have crossed. Or maybe they would have. He was listening to you, wasn’t he? Oh, right—that’s why he didn’t hear
me
for so long!” He pushes me away.

I fall—then manage to right myself. But even in my panic, I recognize the truth. Because of me, Bo had been distracted. He didn’t pick up Nick’s Signal until it was too late, until the boys from the
Lucky
were gone, until the kayakers’ dead bodies were left posed like puppets on the Summers’ property.

My teeth rattle like the bones I’ll become. Or will they be smashed in the fall this time? Clearly, Nick intends to drop me from the gallery deck.

“Fortunately for me, your boyfriend’s busy today. So we can try again.”

“Not without a fight.” I clutch my wet sweater to my soaking skin.

“That sounds fun—but slightly unrealistic.” He gives a short laugh. Logan’s laugh, when something isn’t funny. “I want you to try a little harder this time. Just give yourself over, the way you do when you sing, when you play your guitar. Don’t look so surprised. The air current is sweet outside your window. I like to float, and
watch
. So what do you think the big secret is, about music? Can it save your soul? A soul,” he muses. “Do you think I
still have one of those?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer. “I’ll stay close this time, my lips on yours . . . all the way down.” He runs his thumb across my mouth, and his voice grows rough. “A little practice? So we do it right this time.” Then his lips are on mine. My efforts to push him away are nothing. He simply leans in—the weight of his body crushing me against the wet wall. His tongue slips between my lips—

Instantly I feel
the pressure
. A painful sucking, starting in my throat, becoming a terrifying tightness in my chest. I try to kick, move my arms—but Nick has me pinned to the bricks. My eyelids flutter shut.

My heart is racing, my mind searching—

But there’s no answer. Pinpoints of light dart in the dark behind my lowered lids . . .

He jerks his mouth away—sagging against me, his hands still gripping my hips. I gasp for breath.

“How does he do it? How does Summers stop—and leave you with your life?”

My splotchy vision clears and I meet his eyes, the crashing waves of silver and black—

Suddenly he grabs my wrist. “I’m going to take you now—
are you
ready?
”

And, as if I’m as light as one of the feathers from the wings he caressed so sensually, he lifts me high above his head—

And throws me to the wind.

And this time as I fall, I do what he wants.

I scream.