Page 73 of Echoes of the Tide

“There used to be massive creatures who laid on top of these,” he told her, tilting to use his arm and webbed fingers to paddle them closer. “They weighed more than even one of my own kind. They were loud and constantly jostling to get on the floats.”

“What happened to them?”

“The same thing as the rest of the warm-blooded creatures who couldn’t live in the sea.” He grabbed onto the edge, helping her to the float and then palming her bottom to throw her up onto it. “They died. The storms made it impossible for them to find places to rest. I used to find their bones as a child.”

“Morbid.” She rolled onto her back, staring up at the bright blue sky and breathing a long sigh of relief. “I understand their need for rest, though. This is nice.”

“Your body is not built for swimming as long as mine is.”

Ace tilted her head to the side, watching him where he also rested. But his version of resting was letting the sea hold on to him and coiling his tail underneath the float. It was so easy for him to wrap himself around the worn wood and not move. For her? It was taxing on her body just to hold on to anything and not float away.

Still, she smiled at him. A soft expression that barely reached her eyes, but it was a start. “No, I don’t think my body will ever be as good as yours at swimming.”

Some soft emotion passed between them. She turned her face back to the sun, and he cushioned his head on his arm. Just watching her.

The sun played across her features, giving her natural warm glow a more earthy tone. The soft rounded edges of her cheeks made her look a little happier than she was. He could tell there was still stress straining her mind. The tightness at the edges of her eyes gave that away. But as he watched, the wrinkles on her forehead eased and her breathing evened out.

They were all good signs, but still not perfect. He was struggling to come up with a way to help her, a way to make it so that he could prove how much he wanted her to be happy.

Then she spoke.

“I still can’t believe that you don’t have someone waiting for you back at home,” she said quietly. “You have taken better care of me than anyone else in my life ever has. You give a shit about people. You make it seem so easy to just... do it.”

“Do what?”

“Take care of others.”

He breathed out a long sigh. “You don’t think you’re good at taking care of others?”

“It seems like everywhere I go, people die.”

Ah. That was the problem. Not that those people had lost their lives, or that he had killed them. She was afraid because she had been in the room, and everyone constantly seemed to die around her.

He reached out with one hand, catching hers in his. He held onto her, trying to thread his fingers through hers and only stopping when the pinch of his webs hurt. “You did not kill them.”

“If I didn’t walk into that room?—”

“He had the key, Ace. He was the person you were looking for, and you would have had to find him no matter what. If you hadn’t walked into that room, perhaps you would have found him elsewhere. He might have been surrounded by other people and forced to blend in again. He might never have gotten the opportunity for you to see how kind he was, and that he wasn’t the monster the others had become. There are so many other outcomes you are ignoring.”

A tear escaped her eye and trailed down the smoothness of that cheek he so adored.

“I know that,” she croaked. “Logically, I do. But it feels like everywhere I go, no matter what I do, I mess everything up.”

“I know that feeling.” He drew himself out of the water, enough so that he could look at her and not just her profile. “I have spent my entire life hiding who I really am. I have been the loudmouth. The male who goes out of his way to annoy everyone around him, because while they still like me for it, it keeps them all at arm’s length.”

She opened those gorgeous brown eyes again. Their gazes met, locked, and then she asked the question that nearly shattered him. “Why? Why do you think we do that?”

“Because we’re afraid if anyone sees who we really are, that they won’t like us. And what greater wound is there than to show someone who you really are and have them like you even less than the person you made up?”

She squeezed her eyes shut even harder. “Yeah. That would be terrible.”

No, that wasn’t the answer he wanted. He didn’t want her to retreat into her mind like this. Not when there was so much more he wanted to say.

With a flick of his tail, he landed on the float next to her. The entire thing tilted toward him, rolling her in his direction until he crawled up higher and slammed the whole thing back down into the water. A giant splash covered them with icy seawater, and she let out a little shriek of anger while sitting up.

Good enough. He’d wanted her full attention, and now he definitely had that.

Glaring at him, she crossed her arms over her chest that was once again covered in clinging fabric and far more distracting than she had any right to be. “Maketes!”

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