“I’m here.” His voice was a broken growl against her wet hair. “Papa’s here. You’re safe. You’re safe.”
“There was water everywhere.” Lilani was crying now, great hiccupping sobs that shook her small frame. “And dark, so much dark, and I couldn’t find you, I couldn’t?—”
“I know, little one. I know.” He rocked her in his arms the same way he’d rocked her when she was an infant and nightmares would wake her screaming in the dark. “But you’re here now. The Star Lady found you. She brought you back.”
Lilani’s tear-streaked face turned towards Ariella, who had collapsed on the sand beside them, her bioluminescence fading to a dim, exhausted glow. The girl reached out one small hand and touched her cheek.
“You saved me.”
It wasn’t a question.
She managed a weak smile. “I couldn’t let the sea have you. Your papa would never forgive me.”
His free arm shot out and pulled her against his side, his grip fierce enough to leave bruises. She didn’t protest. Instead, she collapsed against him, her body trembling with exhaustion.
They sat there in the rain, the three of them, tangled together on the storm-lashed beach. Lilani’s sobs gradually quieted, her small fist clutching Ariella’s tattered sleeve as if afraid she might disappear. He held them both, his beast finally, finally settling into something like peace.
Alive.
They’re both alive.
He pressed his face into Ariella’s wet hair, breathing in her scent—cold sea and warm honey, now mixed with salt and blood and exhaustion. His mate. His chosen. The female who had turned her back on everything the human world had offered her, who had dived into the darkness to save a child that wasn’t hers.
“Merrick?” The name tasted like ash in his mouth.
She was quiet for a long moment before she spoke. “He’s gone.”
She didn’t elaborate, and he didn’t ask. Some things didn’t require explanation.
“The shuttle went down.” His voice was rough. “I watched it sink. I thought…”
“I know.” Her hand found his in the darkness, their fingers interlacing. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I scared you.”
A broken laugh escaped his throat. “Scared? I was?—”
Terrified. Destroyed. Ready to walk into the sea and never return.
But the words wouldn’t come. They stuck in his throat, too raw, too real.
Instead, he pulled her closer.
“We need to move.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “There will be search parties. Merrick had people. Powerful people. If they find us?—”
“They won’t.”
The certainty in his voice surprised even him. But as he looked down at the two females in his arms—his daughter, finally breathing steady and deep, and his mate, glowing faintly in the darkness—he knew it was true.
He had failed to protect them once. He would not fail again.
“Can you walk?”
She tried to stand and immediately stumbled. He caught her before she hit the sand, his arm banding around her waist.
“Never mind. Take Lilani.” She didn’t argue, gathering Lilani against her chest before he wrapped his arms around both of them and rose, lifting them as easily as if they weighed nothing at all. “I’ll carry you.”
“Both of us?” Despite her exhaustion, there was a note of amusement in her voice. “I’m not exactly?—”
“You’re mine.” The words came out as a growl, his beast rumbling beneath the surface. “Both of you. And I carry what’s mine.”
