Tamira chuckled. "We were sleeping, or rather I was. Elias was keeping watch in case we were hit by a torpedo."
Sarah smiled. "You could always sleep through anything. If I hadn't known you for thousands of years, I would have thought that you were human."
"Shh." Beulah put a finger on her lips. "The crew doesn't know," she whispered. "We need to pretend that we are like them."
Tamira nodded. "My brain is not fully functioning yet. I need to eat something."
"At least you managed to sleep." Liliat raked her fingers through her hair, trying to untangle the mess. "I barely slept at all. Every time I closed my eyes, I was back in that water, convinced that I was going to drown."
The hatch was open and humid tropical air was flooding in. After hours of recycled submarine atmosphere, it felt like breathing pure oxygen.
Yamanu gestured toward the opening. "Welcome to Safe Harbor. Just watch your step. The dock can be slippery."
"I would like to thank the crew," Tula said. "My sisters would like to thank them too."
"I will convey your thanks." Yamanu made an impatient hand gesture. "With how much we are paying them, I'm sure they are eager to get out of here and celebrate somewhere with some drinks."
Thinking of what this rescue mission must have cost, Tamira winced, but then she remembered that they hadn't come to rescue her. They'd come for Tula.
Why?
She had so many questions that she'd hoped would be answered on the way but had been too exhausted to pursue.
They filed out one by one, blinking in the bright morning sunlight. Tamira emerged onto a concrete dock that stretched between the submarine and a sprawling complex of buildings. The place hadn't been built to be pretty. This was either an industrial complex or a military base, and some of the buildings were still surrounded by scaffolding.
"Where are Navuh and Areana?" Tamira asked, suddenly remembering what the impetus behind their rescue had been.
Yamanu turned to her. "They were transferred to the medical center as soon as we docked."
So, he was still alive. Otherwise, they wouldn't have transferred him to the medical center. Unless they had morgue facilities there, but she doubted that they had.
Tamira felt a confusing swirl of emotions. Dread about what Navuh's survival might mean for their freedom, and sorrow for Areana, who might lose her mate. But underneath it all, she felt a hope so great that she was afraid to examine it too closely. Her son was somewhere out there, possibly in New York, and now she could finally start searching for him.
"Safe Harbor," Beulah said. "Is that what this place is called?"
"Yes." The answer came from an unfamiliar female voice with an accent that Tamira didn't recognize.
She turned toward the woman and froze.
The female was a few inches over six feet, impossibly thin, with features that were not quite human. Her eyes were too large for her face, perfectly black with no visible separation between the pupil and the iris. With her olive-toned skin and straight black hair, she could pass for someone of Asian descent, but not with those eyes.
Not human. Not an immortal descendant of the gods either. She was something else.
Tamira turned to Tula, who was standing behind her. "Do you know what she is?" she whispered.
"I have no idea," Tula whispered back.
The tall young woman stopped a few feet away, those enormous black eyes studying them with unnerving intensity. Then another woman joined her, who was equally tall, equally thin, with the same impossible eyes and olive skin, though her features were more mature, and she looked a little more human. Her bearing was authoritative, while the younger version of her held a certain swagger that appealed to Tamira.
Mother and daughter, Tamira realized. They had to be. The resemblance was unmistakable despite the alien features.
"Welcome to Safe Harbor," the older one said in a slightly accented English. "I'm Jade, and I'm in charge of Safe Harbor. This is my daughter, Drova. And this is my partner." She gestured to a tall, muscular man who was standing beside her. "Phinas."
Phinas looked human, or close enough. Tamira was pretty sure that he was an immortal. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with intelligent eyes and an easy smile. He nodded to them. "The dining hall is this way. The first order of things is to feed you."
At the mention of food, Tamira's stomach growled again.
They followed Jade and Phinas along a paved pathway toward a large white building. Drova walked beside them, her black ponytail swaying with her movements. How she managed to affect such a sensual walk with no bottom to speak of was a mystery.
