Page 11 of Song of the Abyss

If they’d been in the air, she would have muttered something about how the droid was doing fine underwater, which she didn’t think Bitsy’s model was rated for. And yet, the deeper she dove, the more it seemed like her heartbeat stuttered.

Because there was something in the darkness of the pipe. Even as her ears popped and her tinnitus screamed so loudly it made her wince, she could only focus on the shadows that moved in an undulating pattern.

First came the clawed hand. The red-tipped fingers that curled around the edge and then... then it was the rest of him. Or at least, the rest of him that she’d already seen.

The broad shoulders that barely fit in the pipe. Those soulless black eyes, and the terrifying grin that made her think of monsters in her closet when she was a little girl. He was everything that she’d been terrified of when she was a child. Right here. Right in front of her.

“Oh,” Bitsy said, the word even wobbling in her vision.

But then the undine reached out that hand. The light played through the webbing, and she realized it was very delicate and thin between those deadly fingers. Delicate and so... pretty.

Maybe he was magical. Maybe he cast a spell on her. Because the only logical thing to do in this moment was to kick back off the floor and run. Or maybe to scream so hard that bubbles came out of her mouth, obscured her vision, and then he drowned her.

Instead, she reached out a shaking hand and mirrored his movements. Her fingers gently skated over his. She could feel the claws that could tear through her flesh. But he stayed eerily still as she traced her fingers down his, to the webbing that felt like velvet, to his broad palm that was dotted with so many scars she couldn’t begin to count them.

He was warm in the cold water, when she could have sworn he’d been behind her and radiating an ice cold sensation down her spine. But he didn’t move now. He just watched her, his eyes shifting to look at her hands. At least, that’s what she assumed he was looking at. It was hard to tell with that otherworldly gaze.

Black eyes. Completely black without a hint of white.

He was here. And she was touching an undine. Her hand looked so small next to his.

He was patient with her, just letting her stroke him while his fingers remained spread wide. But when she looked back at him, she could see that the gills around his neck had flared out wide. They shuddered in the water, gently fluttering with movement that made them look almost graceful. She hadn’t thought she’d ever describe an undine with those words. And, she supposed, her first impression had been terror.

But now, she looked at his face and wondered if there might be some beauty in those angles after all.

Her lungs spasmed, and she curled in on herself with the sensation. This was her last moment before she didn’t have enough time to get to the surface. Looking up, she moved to kick off from the bottom only to feel a clawed hand palm her waist.

Eyes wide, she looked down at him to see he’d come partially out of the pipe. His hand was so large it spanned her waist from the middle of her ribs all the way down to her hip bone. Those claws were delicate though, carefully making sure not to break her skin as he palmed the curve just under her heartbeat.

Then, when her wide gaze flicked to his, he pushed her up. Toward the surface. A powerful shove that had her rocketing toward air. Spluttering, she looked back down to see that he had really disappeared from the pipe this time. At least, she thought.

An undine had helped her swim. He’d potentially saved her life.

“What the hell was that?” Bitsy asked.

Anya really didn’t have an answer.

5

Daios

Why hadn’t he grabbed her? She was right in front of him. She’d touched him.

He could have grabbed onto her at any point, yanked her close to him, and then dragged her into the pipes. It would have been easy. Too easy, the more he thought about it. She was so weak compared to him.

But her fingers feathering over his had made him feel... something. Daios wasn’t sure what that meant. His hearts had slowed down for a bit. All that rioting chaos calmed. He’d held his breath while she touched his fingers and he swore there was something going on with his gills that had never happened before.

There was no chance that he’d fluttered for her. He’d seen Arges doing it for Mira. It was always embarrassing to watch his brother so affected by the woman’s mere presence. It made him uncomfortable.

No female had ever wanted to pick him. He was too large for their offspring to be easy births, and too aggressive to battle in the mating dance. He had already resigned himself that fluttering was foolish for anyone.

Daios had fluttered only for two other women. One of them, Melete, had saved Mira after she’d been taken by Beta. The other was a female who had left their pod a long time ago for another, much smaller and more manageable male. She had proven to him that he was unwanted and could not change the physical state he was in.

And that state had only gotten worse in the recent months.

Scraping the stump of his arm perhaps a little too hard against the piping, he paused at the opening to the sea. Something in him screamed that he had to go back. Some primal part of his brain shouted and raged against the cage he had tried to put it in. He had to return. He had to make sure that she was safe because no one could keep her safe better than him.

But that primal part of his brain had been the one to lead him to trouble before. That was the same part of his mind that had said he should protect his people. The achromos were easy targets. He could take down their city if he just attacked it the way he had planned.

---