A light.
A shimmer of blue-violet, soft but impossible to miss even amidst the chaos. It moved through the water with a speed that made no sense, cutting across currents that should have dragged it under, heading towards?—
Heading towards the small figure caught in the rip current, limbs loose, hair like a tangle of dark seaweed, golden eyes closed.
Lilani.
He changed course, but the light reached her first.
He saw hands, pale, webbed, and impossibly graceful, close around his daughter’s small body. The shimmer of light flared brighter, like an array of underwater stars, and he saw the creature—a female, his brain supplied through the haze of terror—turn towards the shore and begin to swim.
She moved through the water like she was part of it, gliding through currents that should have torn her apart, finding paths through the chaos that shouldn’t have existed, and he did his best to intercept her. The light from her body illuminated the water around her, giving him glimpses of a pale human face. Beneath the sparks of light, her pale skin had an opalescent sheen and her dark hair floated around her like a living shadow.
His beast should have been roaring about threats and predators and unknown females near his child. Instead, it went utterly, dangerously still. He ignored it. His daughter was limp in a stranger’s arms, and nothing else mattered.
They reached the shore at nearly the same moment—the female emerging from the surf with Lilani cradled against her chest just as he dragged himself onto the rocks with claws that gouged trenches in the stone. He was still half-transformed, fur bristling, fangs extended, every instinct screaming at him to grab his daughter and run.
The female stopped at the water’s edge.
She was breathing hard, gills fluttering along her neck, and the shimmer of her skin had dimmed to a pale, exhausted silver. Up close, she was smaller than he’d expected. Slim but strong, her body clearly built for the water. Her fingers, long and webbed, held Lilani with a gentleness that made his chest ache.
“There’s a cut on her head, but she’s alive.” The female’s voice was soft and melodic despite her exhaustion. “She needs warmth. Get her inside.”
He reached for his daughter, and their fingers touched.
The world stopped.
Her scent hit him like a hammer to the chest. Cold sea and warm honey, brine and sweetness, something so right that his beast let out a howl of recognition.
Mate.
He didn’t believe in mates, especially not after his first disastrous experience with a female. But now this strange female stood before him with his daughter in her arms and her scent burning through his blood like wildfire, and his beast, who had barely acknowledged Tabitha, was howling,
Protect. Claim. Keep.
The female’s eyes, a blue so pale it was almost crystalline, widened. The tiny specks covering her skin flared purple, and she took a sharp step backwards. Her feet slipped on the wet rocks, and for a moment she looked like she might bolt back into the water.
He grabbed her without thinking, afraid that both she and Lilani would disappear beneath the waves again. Her skin was like cool silk beneath his hands, and her scent shifted, honey warming towards something headier, something that made his beast rumble with satisfaction.
“You’d better take her,” she whispered.
Enough of his control remained that he managed to release her arms and gather Lilani close.
“I—I should go.”
Her voice had changed, high and uncertain as she took another step back.
“Wait.”
The word came out as a growl, and she flinched. A stab of something unfamiliar, regret perhaps, shot through him and he forced his beast back. Not completely, his control was still too fragile, but hopefully he looked less like he was about to tear her throat out.
“You saved my daughter.” Better. Almost human. “Thank you.”
Her gaze darted from his partially-transformed face to the small child in his arms, then back again. She was clearly terrified, but she didn’t run. Lilani stirred in his arms and let out a small whimper. The female’s expression softened instantly, the fear in her eyes replaced with concern.
“She’s waking up. The cold…”
She was right. He needed to get his daughter to safety, away from the storm and the salt and the lingering scent of blood. But the thought of letting this female walk away, of returning to the silent caves with only a fading memory of her scent, was unacceptable. His beast wouldn’t allow it.
