I'd always loved this song. It made me feel less alone, somehow. Like someone out there might be listening. Like my voice could carry across the water and find another lonely soul who understood. I sang quietly at first, barely above a whisper. The evening was still, and my voice carried further than I intended, drifting out over the water like smoke. I closed my eyes and let the melody take me somewhere else. Somewhere safe. Somewhere I wasn't prey being hunted by everyone around me.
The song had six verses. I sang all of them, letting each one build on the last, letting the emotion swell and fade and swell again. By the end, my voice was breaking, and there were tears on my cheeks that I hadn't noticed falling. I let the last note fade into silence. Kept my eyes closed for one more moment, holding onto the peace of it, the brief escape from everything.
Then I opened my eye. Someone was there.
Four shapes in the water, just below the surface. Watching me.
My breath caught. My heart slammed against my ribs so hard it hurt.
Four.
The one I'd seen before, I recognized him instantly, even in the dim light. Dark hair drifting like smoke, pale skin luminous in the fading sunset, that particular stillness that seemed carved from stone. He was there, watching me with those dark, dark eyes.
He wasn't alone.
One was huge. Broader than any man I'd ever seen, with wild auburn hair and a tail the color of dried blood—deep crimson that caught the dying light like rubies. His skin was bronze, marked with pale scars that stood out even from this distance, and his eyes glowed gold like a predator's.
One was beautiful. Impossibly, devastatingly beautiful, in a way that made my chest ache just looking at him. Silver-white hair floated around him like moonlight made tangible, and his features were so perfect they seemed almost unreal, high cheekbones, full lips, eyes that shifted between blue and green like the sea itself. His tail shimmered with colors I couldn't name—pearl and lavender and seafoam, iridescent and ever-changing.
One was warm. That was the only word that fit. His skin was sun-touched gold, his hair honey-brown, his features gentlein a way that made me think of safe harbors and soft blankets and the feeling of coming home. His tail was green and gold, like sunlight filtering through kelp, and his amber-brown eyes watched me with something that looked almost like wonder.
Four of them. Four impossible creatures, floating in the water below my ship, looking up at me like I was something worth looking at. I should have run. Should have screamed, or hidden, or done literally anything other than what I did.
I waved.
That same silly, ridiculous wave I'd given before. Like they were friends. Like this was normal. Like my life hadn't just gotten exponentially more complicated and dangerous.
The beautiful one—the silver-haired one—smiled. It was a sharp expression, too knowing, showing teeth that were definitely not human. But something in it made warmth bloom in my chest instead of fear. The big one, the scarred one, bared his teeth. Not quite a smile, more like a display, a show of what he was capable of. But his golden eyes were bright with something other than hunger. Curiosity, maybe. Or amusement.
The warm one lifted his hand from the water and waved back. I laughed before I could stop myself, a startled, delighted sound that escaped without permission.
He'd waved back.
The creature with the kelp-colored tail had waved back at me like we were children playing a game.
The dark one, my dark one, the one I'd given the pearl to—he just watched me with those bottomless black eyes, and I could have sworn I saw something shift in his expression. Recognition. Acknowledgment. Something that said:You came back. I wasn't sure you would.
I wasn't sure you were real, I wanted to say. I wasn't sure any of this was real. I couldn't speak. Could barely breathe. I just sat there on my coil of rope, hair loose and tangled from thewind, staring at four impossible creatures who had apparently come to find me.
We stayed like that for a long moment, me on the ship, them in the water, the last light of sunset painting everything gold. No one moved. No one spoke. The only sound was the waves against the hull and the distant noise of the crew on the other side of the ship.
Then, as one, they sank beneath the surface and disappeared. I stared at the empty water until my eyes burned. Until the last light faded and the stars began to emerge. Until my body reminded me that I was cold and cramped and had duties to attend to. They were real. All of them. Four beautiful, impossible creatures who had heard me sing and come to find me.
My dark one wasn't alone. He had others—a pack, maybe, or a family. And they'd all come to see me.
Why? The question echoed through my mind as I pulled my hair back up, stuffed it under my cap, and crept back toward my duties. Why would they come? Why would they watch me sing? Why would one of them wave back like we were friends?
I didn't have answers. But for the first time in three days— maybe for the first time in months, —I felt something other than fear and exhaustion.
I felt hope.
That night, I lay in my hammock and stared at the darkness and let myself imagine impossible things. Four creatures in the water, waiting for me. Four pairs of eyes watching me with something other than hunger or cruelty or cold assessment.
Wonder. That's what I'd seen in their faces. The same wonder I'd felt when I first saw the dark one in the blue depths.
They thought I was wonderful. Me. The runaway omega, the prey animal, the property that had escaped its cage. They looked at me like I was something special, something worth watching, something worth coming back for.
I pressed my hand to my chest, feeling my heart beat too fast, and I made myself a promise.
