By the time I got home, I was buzzing with anxiety, and worried Skye thought I’d abandoned him like everyone else had.
“Okay, painting,” I said, uncertain where the curse began or ended. Was it the frame? The canvas? The paint itself? Or something I couldn’t see at all? “Let’s make a deal. You show me Skye, and I’ll… hang you on display for a god.”
Nothing.
I stared at it, focusing on the memory of Skye’s face, the sound of the waves. I poured all of my will into visually retracing the memory and mentally begging the cove to swallow me whole.
Nothing.
Frustration mounted. Maybe it needed a conduit? Something to bridge the gap between the worlds. I remembered the feel of water, the taste of salt.
I dragged the painting into the bathroom and perched it precariously on the closed lid of the toilet, then filled the tub with a few inches of warm water, dumped a generous helping of sea salt from my kitchen into it, and climbed in, fully clothed. I clutched a backpack filled with protein bars, a first-aid kit, and a flashlight, determined to be prepared this time.
“Alright,” I whispered, closing my eyes and leaning back against the cold porcelain. “Take me back.”
An hour later, I was shivering, pruney, and my back ached from the tub.
Defeated, I drained the tub, changed into dry clothes, and carried the painting to my bedroom, hanging it back on the wall across from the bed. Maybe Sylas was right. Maybe I was just overthinking a cursed piece of art and having vivid dreams.
I sent a text to my boss:
How does magic work?
Don’t think. Be.
“Okay, Obi-Wan,” I muttered, tossing the phone aside. As if it were that easy to just stop thinking. My entire life was about thinking—overthinking how to be what everyone else wanted, not drowning in magical paintings and the dreamy eyes of a supernatural merman.
I collapsed onto my bed, my gaze locked on the painting’s serene cove. “I just want to save him,” I whispered into the quiet of my room, the words sounding foolish even to me. I didn’t know him. I didn’t know his story, his fears, or what he truly was. Maybe it was all a dream.
All I knew was the startling gentleness in his vibrant eyes, the way his voice had woven through my panic and soothed it, and the profound loneliness that mirrored my own. It gave life to something inside me I could only explain as a buoy in a storm. An anchor, perhaps. A deep, cellular ache to return tohim. Like he was a part of me that I’d been missing.
Logic screamed it was madness, but something deeper, something primal I’d inherited with my claws and whiskers, knew it was the only thing that made sense. I fell asleep desperately hoping that I could just find my way back to him.
I woke to the scent of salt and the feeling of warm, solid arms wrapped around me.
The hum wasn’t in my dream; it was real, a soft vibration against my back. Sunlight, warmer and gentler than the winter sun filtering through my blinds, warmed my skin, and beneath me, soft, cool sand.
I blinked open my eyes.
Turquoise water lapped at a shore of white sand. A canopy of lush, green palms rustled overhead. And holding me, his breath a steady rhythm against my hair, was Skye.
His beautiful eyes flew open, the melody catching in his throat. There was a question in his gaze. The feeling that had been a dull ache in my world was now a roaring tide in his. It was all too much and not enough. The loneliness, the longing, the sheer, terrifying relief of being back, crested inside me and broke.
I surged forward and captured his mouth with mine. It wasn’t just a kiss; it was a claiming. A desperate attempt tomemorize the taste of salt and storm on his lips, the shocking softness that gave way to firm warmth. My hands tangled in his hair, sinking into the cool, silk-strand depths, anchoring myself to him as if he were the only real thing in any world.
For a heart-stopping second, he was perfectly still, a monument of surprise carved from sea foam and sunshine. Then his arms wrapped around me, crushing my body against the cool, smooth planes of his chest until I could feel the frantic beat of his heart against my own.
And he kissed me back.
His mouth moved over mine as if he were learning the shape of my soul. He tasted of deep, clean water, uniquely, intoxicatingly Skye. The kiss deepened, a slow, exploring dance of lips and tongue and gentle nips of teeth that spoke of longing and discovery. A low, resonant hum started in his chest, a vibration that didn’t just touch my skin but sank into my bones, settling deep within me like a fundamental truth I’d always been missing. And that truth was him.
When we finally broke apart, gasping for air, foreheads resting together, the world had shifted. The cove was the same, but we were not.
“Mikró astéri,” he breathed. “You came back.” Skye cradled my jaw in his gentle fingers, his thumb stroking my cheek. His eyes searched mine, wide with wonder and a vulnerability that mirrored my own.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to leave you,” I blurted. Sadly, none of my bag of packed supplies had arrived with me. “I don’t know how to free you.”
Skye held me for a long, silent moment, as if memorizing the feel of me in his arms. Then, with effortless grace, he lifted me and carried me across the beach and up the gentle rise to the bench. “It would have been safer for you to never return,” hemurmured, his voice a low thrum against my ear as he set me down. “My fate is cursed, yours need not be.”
