And working for some sort of otherworldly god. Would that make up for the disappointment in my variance? My dad would be pissed if he knew I wasn’t doing accounting anymore. He never cared how much I hated numbers, often calling me too flighty to be successful. Xavier paid better than the accounting job, even taking over my student loan payments. There wasn’t much I wouldn’t do for the guy, even if sometimes it felt like I worked for a mob boss. Did that make all shifter variants part of the mob?
A sound cut through my spiraling thoughts. Water sloshing on a shore. I froze, my gaze falling to the painting that leaned against the wall. The sound vanished. Wishful thinking, maybe?
Snow poured from the sky in giant flakes, leaving the fading light of the day filled with bright white mounds. Who wouldn’t want to be on a beach instead of in the middle of a massive blizzard?
I unpacked the groceries, trying to sort everything into my tiny apartment fridge and dialed my mom, heart in my throat. The phone rang twice before my mother’s voice filled my ear. “Luca? Honey, is everything okay?”
Guilt twisted in my gut because it had been a while since I last called. “Happy early Thanksgiving,” I said as I stared at the painting’s cove, its waves frozen in acrylic.
“Thank you. You’re coming tomorrow, right?”
Could I get out of it? “There’s a blizzard.”
“Your sister is driving over from Worthington.” What went unspoken was that I could walk to their house, though it was technically over a mile away. It would be a cold and horrible walk, but even through snow, I could make it. Now that I was a shifter, I might not even freeze to death on the way.
“I’ll bring a dessert,” I said, staring at Xavier’s giant chocolate cake.
“Sure, sweetheart. We’ll eat around four.”
“Sounds good,” I told her, swallowing back a thousand emotions. “See you tomorrow.” We hung up and the silence of my apartment made me tired. Family was hard. People were complicated. Being a cat, that made sense. At least sometimes.
I ate cereal for dinner. The kind with marshmallows, because adulthood had its privileges. The painting taunted me from its spot on the floor, sunset hues deepening as night fell, the apartment light leaving everything dim. Once, while rinsing my bowl, I swore I heard the sound of waves again.
I crawled into bed early, pulling the covers over my head like a kid afraid of monsters. Outside, the blizzard howled, washing the world in white. Inside, the painting’s tide rolled in and out, in and out, a lullaby replaying in my mind. Faintly I thought I heard the sound of singing. A mournful tenor cry that wove through my dreams.
One momentI was tangled in sheets, the next I was choking on saltwater, my pajamas dragging me down like lead weights. The storm had followed me into my dreams with waves as enormous as black mountains, their crests sharp as daggers, slapping me down to spin in bubbling depths of disorientation. I kicked upward, nearly reaching the surface, lungs burning, but the current yanked me deeper.
Panic slid across my spine with the biting chill of icy cold as the water slammed me down over and over until I couldn’t find which way was up.
I caught a glimpse of pale blue, the long fin slipping by me as the darkness threatened to swallow me whole. Pressure built in my chest as I fought the lack of air. My vision spotted and I knew I was seconds from swallowing water, drowning and dying a terrible dream death, which I could only pray wouldn’t translate to real life.
Strong arms wrapped around my waist, tugging me in the opposite direction. For half a second I thrashed, fearing something was pulling me deeper. But we barreled toward a brightness I could only hope was up. I gasped, sucking in air as I broke the surface, gulping air tasting of lightning and saltwater.
For one dizzying moment, I thought the storm itself had saved me and I’d imagined the arms. But as my gaze focused beyond the writhing waves, I saw something human, or close enough.
The man’s torso gleamed beneath the waves, strong and lean. My brain short-circuited. People certainly didn’t have fins where their legs should be, or hair that moved like living shadow in the water.
I choked on seawater while my brain stuttered to memorize him. Storm light fractured through the water around him, turning his skin to liquid sapphire. His hair floated around us like spilled ink, strands glinting with bioluminescent emeraldand teal. Scales shimmered along his collarbones in a shifting mosaic, their pattern hypnotic.
I reached for him as his arms slipped away, needing to save him as much as he’d saved me. But a dark chain ensnared his wrist, the waves dragging me out of his reach as he stretched for me, shackles leashing him into the water, leading down into the void below. A collar wrapped his throat, and his sad gaze followed me as the tide lifted me away.
His glowing green eyes locked with mine, hands reaching as if he could bring me back into the safety of his arms, while I floated helplessly. The storm rose again as he vanished beneath the waves, and I glanced up to find a gigantic tide building to slap me back down, and screamed.
I sat up in bed, cry dying in my throat as I stared at my unchanged apartment. Drenched in sweat, the sheets knotted around my legs, the blizzard still raged outside. I sucked in air feeling as if I’d really been swimming for hours. The scent of saltwater clung to my nose.
What the hell?
I tugged at my pajama top, sniffing it. Not saltwater. Sweat. I groaned, exhausted as if I hadn’t slept at all. Outside the storm raged, snow dropping in endless accumulation. Maybe I wouldn’t have to confront my family tomorrow and tell them about my secrets. As I closed my eyes, I thought I caught the sound of waves again, and jolted up in bed.
The wind whipped outside as I listened hard for several minutes. Nothing else. No waves. Just wind and snow. I settled back down and closed my eyes, hoping for dreamless sleep.
3
The morning arrivedwith little fanfare, as outside the blizzard howled. With a cup of coffee in hand, I studied the painting with fresh eyes, staring at the tide, wondering if there was a beautiful man beneath the waves. I headed for the shower to prepare for the day as if it were any other. If the storm let up, I’d pack everything up and head to Xavier’s. If it didn’t… maybe I wouldn’t have to face my parents.
Steam curled around the bathroom mirror as I toweled off, obscuring my reflection, including my puffy eyes. I didn’t need to see the variance mark glowing on my bicep like some kind of brand. Or that I’d been crying in the shower like an idiot at the thought of my parents finding out I was a variant.
The painting leaned against the wall. The waves were choppier than I remembered, but maybe that was all in my head. The clouds loomed large over the cove, as if they would open up at any moment to a torrential downpour, and outside the apartment, the storm howled, shaking the glass in the window frames.
