She would ask about that, but his hands were directly over her breasts now, and it was all she could do to maintain her composure. Especially when one accidentally brushed across her hardened nipple, causing her stomach to involuntarily contract. Worse, it sent a sharp stab through the center of her body, giving her a sudden ache and hunger the likes of which she could barely understand.
It took everything she had not to rise up on her tiptoes and kiss him. Or, more to the point, grab him and start tearing at his own clothes.
Her breathing turned ragged.
And when he dropped her jacket to the ground behind her, she’d never felt more exposed in her life. Honestly, her white linen shirt might as well be bare skin the way she felt.
By the devilish grin on his face, she suspected he knew as much. Rather than apologize, he pulled her body against his and fell back into the water, through the membrane, with her in his arms.
She gasped as they plunged into the lagoon and the ice-cold water enveloped her whole body and invaded her every sense. But this was unlike anything she’d ever experienced before. The pressure of the water was heavy and thick.
Invasive and dark. She held her breath and still they went deeper into the blackness with no end in sight. Not that she couldseeanything.
Worse, the salt stung at her eyes when she opened them. Her lungs began to burn as the pressure against her chest built even more.
Panicking, she started to flail in an attempt to save her life.
Until Kalder kissed her.
Nay, not kissed…
He breathed air into her lungs. Air that alleviated that pressure and made her feel instantly lighter.
Startled, she pulled back to stare aghast at him and those mesmerizing eyes that glowed mercury silver in the midnight depths.
“’Tis the Adum.” Somehow, she heard him plainly through the water, as if he were speaking normally.
Cupping her face in both of his hands that were now webbed and clawed, he again breathed air into her so that she could live beneath the waves. His tanned skin turned to a peculiar luminescence thatmade his tattoos stand out even more. “Underwater, my people exhale pure oxygen, so I can breathe for us both… if you let me.”
Stunned, she stared at him in his Myrcian body, which was even more handsome than his human one. “Can you understand me?”
“Perfectly.” He kissed her hand while she hovered in the water by his side. “Are you scared?”
A little, but she kept that to herself. “Not when I’m with you.”
His smile warmed her more than anything could. He breathed into her a gentle kiss, then pulled her through the crushing weight of the water so that he could show her a dark, cavernous world unlike anything she’d ever seen before.
But the best part, bar none, were his breaths of life that he stopped to give her every few seconds.
His gaze turned warm and teasing. “I’m right here, Cameron. Grab a nip whenever you feel short of breath.”
Yet as they went on, all the light vanished. It became an endless, oppressive night that began to terrify her with visions of a painful, watery death. “It’s so dark here… how can you see to know where we’re going?”
She’d barely finished those words before the entire area lit up. Gasping, she turned to see that the source of the light was Kalder, himself.
He glowed from the inside out.
Her jaw went slack. Never had she seen anything like this.
“How are you doing that?”
He winked at her. “One of me many talents, me ladyphearse.We’re able to secrete light in the water. I can do it on land, too. But tend not to, as it makes the humans lose all semblance of reasonwhenever they see it. Damn near scared one bugger to death when he caught me lighting up once in the woods. Next thing I knew, he’d written a whole series of stories about a will-o’-the-wisp ghoul over it and turned me into a major villain. Sadly, I was only out to take care of me business in private. Truth be told, I was the one who should have been horrified by the whole, personal encounter, more so than he.”
Laughing, she allowed him to pull her through the heavy water that caressed every part of her body. All around her, the aquatic life seemed to dance to some song only it could hear. Schools of beautifully colored fish swam by them, and some that were so ugly she couldn’t even describe their forms. They twisted out of shape and contorted.
Like the skeletons of fallen Titans, the crumbled buildings spread out as far as she could see. But what amazed her were the creatures who made them their homes. Both plant and animal gave new life to the destruction left behind by war.
Out of devastation comes hope.
