A sudden shiver wracked my body as we left the sun’s embrace. The shade was cool, and my soaked pajamas clung to me like a second, icy skin. His arms tightened around me, pulling me flush against the solid warmth of his chest. In the shelter of his embrace, the cold, the fear, the uncertainty, simply ceased to exist. Like his arms were where I was meant to be. The tension in my muscles eased, and I rested my head in the hollow of his shoulder, his heat seeping into me, leaving me warm and safe.
“Your kind, however, seems to need protection from both sun and sea,” Skye observed, as he carefully set me on the smooth wood of a bench. He made quick work of my top, freeing me from the soaked fabric. His touch was impossibly gentle. “Your skin is already pinked from the sun, and yet you tremble from the cold. A fragile, fascinating design. But night will arrive soon, as you rested most of the day.”
“You’re absolutely certain this isn’t some kind of dream?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper. A part of me still expected to wake up shivering in my own bed, the storm howling outside my window, all of this just a fevered illusion born of cold and loneliness. Heat flushed my cheeks as his fingers worked deftlyat the waistband of my soaked pajama pants, peeling the cold, heavy fabric away from my skin.
“It seems a rather sad fate for us both to be trapped in the nightmare of my curse,” Skye murmured, his tone laced with a weary amusement. He left my boxers in place, and rose with fluid grace. “I will gather palm fronds. I can weave something to hold the chill and rain at bay.” He glanced up at the sky.
The moment he stepped away; I missed his warmth. My gaze trailed after him, tracing the powerful lines of his body, the defined, swimmer’s muscles, the elegant shift of scale and skin that caught the dappled light. How could something so painfully beautiful be real?
He moved with quiet purpose, collecting broad, fallen leaves, and I watched through half-lowered lashes, afraid he’d chide me for staring.
“How did you end up trapped here?” I asked, if only to fill the silence between us.
Skye’s hands stilled for a moment before he resumed his work, a soft, melodic hum underscoring his words like a sorrowful refrain. “A fae queen came to our shores,” he began. “She claimed a priceless jewel had been lost in the depths of this cove and demanded my people retrieve it.” He paused, staring out into the distance as if he could still see the faces of his kin. The only sounds were the gentle lap of waves and the sigh of the wind through the palms. A profound sadness swept over his features, making him look both ancient and terribly young. “I was the youngest of my kin,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “The easiest sacrifice to make.”
I gaped at him. “They just… gave you to her?”
A humorless, quiet sound escaped him. “It was that, or risk her wrath upon the entire shoal. I was… different. I collected strange, surface-world trinkets that sank from ships. Watched the mortals live their bizarre lives in buildings arching into thesky. Thus, my name.” He breathed out a long sigh. “I appreciated the mortal world. Its fragility. Its fleeting beauty. My kind saw it as a weakness. And so, I was offered. Find her fallen jewel, and I’d have been restored to my kind, but if it were a trick...” Which it had been. “Nothing important lost.”
The injustice of it burned in my chest. Before I could stop myself, I reached out, my fingers brushing against his scaled wrist. The touch was electric, a hum of connection that went deeper than skin. He stilled, his eyes lifting to meet mine.
“After becoming variant, nothing was the same. I got fired from my job, and feared telling my parents,” I said softly. I looked down at our joined hands, the ordinary and the extraordinary side-by-side. “My whole life, I’ve felt like I was wearing a skin that never quite fit. I thought if I was quiet enough, followed the rules—a sensible job in accounting— and kept out of trouble, I could make the feeling go away. I could just disappear into the crowd.”
A hollow laugh escaped me. “But I never could. And now, the variance… it’s not the cause. It’s just the proof. It ripped off the disguise I worked so hard to maintain. Now I’m not just Luca anymore. I’m a problem to be solved.”
“A problem. My difference was a problem,” he repeated. When his eyes met mine again, the loneliness there was a perfect, painful mirror of my own. “Yes. That is the word for it. They brought me here, left me alone, not even a fish for company…” He released a long, weary breath. “I searched for the jewel… I never truly stopped. A fool’s errand, perhaps. I thought if I could just find it, I could prove my worth. That I could be free, and finally… welcomed home.”
Or maybe a home that would sacrifice you was never yours to begin with.The thought was a sharp ache in my chest. “I’ll help you,” I vowed, the promise fierce and immediate. “I’ll do anything I can to free you.”
A faint smile touched his lips, but it failed to lift the grief in his eyes. “How will you free me, when you yourself are now caught in the same curse?” he asked gently, his voice barely above the whisper of the waves. “Sweet words,mikró astéri. But, look.” He gestured toward the horizon. “This space sits the highest on the island. Tell me, what do you see?”
I followed his gaze. My hope, so fervent a moment before, drained away. In all directions, impassable cliffs of dark rock met a furious, endless sea. The waves below weren’t the gentle lapping ones of the cove; they were deep, black, and hungry, vast enough to swallow a city whole. And on the horizon, the once-clear sky was now a wall of ominous clouds gathering with silent intent.
“When night falls, the storm returns.” Skye said softly. “Every night the same.”
As if summoned by his words, the first cold gust of wind whipped through the palms, making the fronds clatter like bones. The air grew heavy with the promise of violence.
Skye moved with a new urgency; his earlier melancholy shed like a skin. “Stay on the bench,” he commanded, his tone leaving no room for argument. He gathered the fronds he’d collected, his hands a blur as he wove them together with preternatural speed. The soft, melodic hum returned to his lips, but this time it was a spell, a ward against the coming dark. In moments, he had crafted a sturdy awning, and strung it securely between two stout palms. The water began to overtake the tiny island as the day darkened.
“Stay here,” he said, adjusting the woven fronds to cover the top of the bench. “The storm will not last forever. It will pass by morning.”
“Skye,” I pleaded, my voice nearly lost to the howling wind. I was afraid of the storm, but more afraid of him leaving me alone in it. The woven awning protected me from the deluge of raineven though the waves rose to the legs of the bench. I watched him as he stood firm against the gale, a solitary figure facing the raging sea. The water swirled around his ankles, then his calves, rising with terrifying intent.
From the depths, iron shackles shot forth with a sound like rattling chains. They were ancient, crusted with barnacles and glowing with angry symbols. They wrapped around each wrist, his waist, and his throat, with brutal force, yanking him off his feet. Skye didn’t cry out. He simply met my eyes, his expression one of resigned despair before the chains dragged him backward into the boiling waves.
He vanished beneath the surface without a sound.
The storm raged, waves slapping at the base of the bench. I swallowed back my fear and sadness, knowing fate could have been so much worse.
7
The soundof banging jerked me out of a fitful sleep. I bolted upright, heart hammering in a frantic beat. Sunlight filtered around the edges of my blinds, reflecting off the snow with an intensity that made me think midday rather than early morning.
The painting sat motionless, unchanged from the day before.
Skye.
Was he real? Had it all been a dream? I swung my legs over the side of the bed, a groan escaping me as every muscle protested. My boxers were stiff and semi-damp made me question my sanity. Hadn’t I put on pajamas before bed?
