Page 35 of Echoes of the Tide

“Right.” Maketes tried to find the humor in this. “You could have turned it off since day one?”

Fortis lifted his shoulder in a half shrug. “I suppose I could have. But why should I?”

“So people weren’t scared of you?”

The big male spread his lips wide, showing all those sharp teeth that were far worse than the shark. Speaking of, the big beauty was still around the city. She coasted past them, her blackeyes taking Fortis in and Maketes realized the depthstrider was bigger than the shark. He was beyond massive. He was larger than any male he’d ever seen.

“How did you ever have a son?” he muttered, shaking his head as he turned his attention back to the city.

“Much the same way as the rest of our people.”

“But you’re so big.”

“And she was very brave.” There was another flash, as if Fortis had grinned again. “I might have let her win a few times, but she never held it against me. She gave me a son that I am infinitely proud of, and I have raised him as she wished.”

It didn’t escape Maketes’s notice that Fortis spoke of the female in the past tense. He knew very little about depthstriders, but he knew the dangers of pregnancies and their people. Females of their kind weren’t exactly made for procreation. That was why they chose smaller mates. It made the birth easier.

Their numbers had dwindled in the recent years. Hard lives, seas that weren’t as healthy as they used to be. All pieces of a puzzle that had drawn their kind to warmer waters and ever closer to the humans.

Achromos, he corrected himself. Even thinking of them as anything other than the colorless creatures they were was a dangerous path to go down.

Fortis pointed higher up the building. “Your little one is up there, if you are seeking her.”

“What do you mean, she’s up there?” He glanced up, which was far higher than she’d indicated. “She said she was in this area.”

“You are not very good at following her or at hunting, little brother. She is on the higher levels. I believe she told you she was going in that direction.” Fortis moved in a wave like motion, heading up the building without waiting for Maketes to join him. But his words trailed behind him as though they were rightnext to each other. “Perhaps you should listen to her when she speaks.”

“I do listen!” He was the best listener there was! The women loved him because of it. He listened to everyone that spoke to him.

He just... wasn’t exactly good at letting it all settle before his mind moved onto the next thing.

Flicking his tail to keep up with the much larger male who was already far ahead of him, they both traveled upward. And there, just past another crack in the building, he could see his little kefi. She was rummaging through drawers of a room. There were papers strewn all around her. Obviously not the right place for her to be, though.

There was no key in her hand, and that wasn’t a good sign. She’d already had plenty of time to find it.

He could see her mouth moving. Somehow, she was talking. Not to him, though. But then he saw the little beads of her droid zipping back and forth in the room, as though even the droid was upset.

“Now what?” he muttered. There always seemed to be something wrong with these two. They were terrible at planning anything that worked.

“You were inside the pavilion with her?” Fortis asked.

“How did you?—”

Fortis tapped his gills on his ribs, still not looking at Maketes as his gaze tracked Ace’s movements. “I can smell it on you, little brother. You are coated in blood.”

“I killed some achromos who attacked her.”

“Oh, now they’re achromos?”

“They are when they think they can lay a finger on what is mine.” The snarled words ripped out of him, rage hanging from every single sound. He still wanted to rip into them again. He wanted to tear their flesh from their bones with his teeth,listening to their screams of fear. He’d do it all a hundred times over if they thought he would leave her to their grip any longer than he had to.

“On what is yours?”

Shit. He shouldn’t have said that. Fortis took words far too literally, and everyone else would hear that Maketes was interested in an achromo of his own.

“This is my mission.” He tried to save himself by saying that, but he knew it was a losing battle. “I will not fail it because some simple achromos with tiny weapons attack us.”

Fortis’s lips quirked, just a hint of a smile, before he was back to the stoic rock that he usually was. “Interesting choice of words. Happy hunting, brother. It is good that you killed them. I can ignore the other future you might have swum down.”

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