Page 61 of Call of the Fathoms

The space reminded him that he was alone. No, that wasn’t even right. It wasn’t that he cared about being lonely, because he didn’t. He cared that he wasn’t with her. He liked spending time with her. He liked pushing Alexia’s boundaries and talking with her.

Fortis hated that. He was most upset that he couldn’t talk with her more and tell her more stories. The sound of her laughter had been so enjoyable.

And now she was swimming away from him. Heading off into the sea where he could not protect her, or even make sure that she actually made it. So he swam behind her, hoping that she wouldn’t notice.

Until she turned with all that rage floating off of her and coating his gills with a metallic bite.

“Fortis!” she shouted. “I need space, for fuck’s sake! Get off my ass and go do whatever it is fish do. I’ll meet you back at the ship.”

“It is dangerous to go alone.”

“It’s the ocean! There’s nothing here.” She gestured around her. “Nothing but my own thoughts. So please, for the love of god, fuck off.”

He supposed he had no other choice than to honor what she wished. Even though he had no idea what had gone wrong.

Twenty-Five

Alexia

Some part of her knew she was overreacting. Fortis had wanted to explain, and she should let him. After all, maybe that was a normal encounter for his kind. Maybe males were supposed to leave after all of... that.

But for the first time in her life, she had felt connected with another living being. So much so that it had been hard to see him leave. She’d seen men do that to Harlow. She’d been there every time the Original had gotten teary eyed over yet another man leaving after sex, telling herself that it wasn’t because she wasn’t as pretty as the other Originals or that they found more pleasure in one of the reborns than her.

It seemed to be a universal fear with women, even if Alexia hadn’t had sex yet. If she had learned anything from watching Harlow, it was that men left after they got what they wanted. A part of her mind screamed that Fortis had left because he hadn’t actually wanted her.

No one could want her. It was foolish to even entertain that someone might. Alexia was a scarred woman. Her body wore themarks of years of mistreatment and she was too big, too much, too everything. She was barely even a woman, as many of the Originals had liked to remind her.

Fortis didn’twanther. He was just frustrated, lonely, and anything vaguely female would do.

She was an idiot to get wrapped up in all this. No man should ever be able to affect her, not while she was struggling so hard to even understand emotions. Let alone know what it was like to lean on someone else. He was... frustrating. Annoying. Beyond enraging.

But also she liked him. As she sank deeper and deeper into the water, she knew that was the truth. She liked him a lot, and that was the hardest part of all this. Fortis had wriggled his way underneath her skin, and she wanted more of that. More of him. She wanted to talk to him about his life, to feel his skin against hers, and all the other ridiculous things that made her want to vomit.

The beacon on her wrist lit up, letting her know she was at the correct depth. Now she just had to find the right direction to go. Turning slowly, she kept her gaze on her watch as it blinked on and off, faster and faster until the signal was a steady light to follow. There it was. She was all turned around, but if she kept swimming in this direction, then she would eventually hit the ship.

Now was the hard part. Sinking into the depths of the ocean was relatively easy. She’d learned a long time ago how to dive. All that training was before she’d gotten her emotions back, though. Now that she was finally no longer moving, her thoughts caught up to her.

“Easy,” she muttered to herself. “The odds of bumping into anything in the ocean are so small.”

She knew the statistics. The ocean was more of a blank space than it was anything else. All she had to do was swim. Evenwithout her flippers, her feet were covered. Her wetsuit didn’t have a single hole in it, and its integrity was stable. All she had to do was kick her feet and not stop moving. Perhaps for a very, very long time. But she was proving a point here.

She didn’t need him. She didn’t need anyone.

Digging deep into her own stubborn pride, Alexia started swimming. Using her arms, she followed her training to maintain a steady movement without depleting too much of her energy. She had learned how to do this from a very young age. She knew how to swim for days on end. She’d trained for this.

Yes, she had also been wasting away on a ship. Weeks on end of not moving made her breathing harder. But she could keep going.

Looking down at the oxygen meter on her other wrist, she realized she was only at half oxygen. That would make things... difficult. She had to control her breathing better, considering she had no idea how long it would take to find the ship.

Maybe this hadn’t been smart. Her mind rolled over all the things that could go wrong. She’d had her own personal undine who could swim her all the way to the ship if she wanted. All she had to do was keep her mouth shut. Now, she might drown and he would never know. A shark could find her, of all things, or an orca.

There were plenty of creatures in the sea that would love to find a snack that couldn’t fight back against them. Not, at least, like an undine could.

Gritting her teeth, she kept going. Fear did not affect her. She was stronger than that. She was strong enough to continue swimming forward, and she would reach her ship. Even if anxiety made her heart skip beats and her breath saw in her chest. She had just looked at her oxygen. There was fifty percent left. She didn’t need to check it again. She was fine. She just had to keep going.

Something glided along her leg. It was a long, slow touch. Hard for her to tell what it was or where it came from. It didn’t feel like Fortis, or anything that she’d felt before.

Frowning, she paused to get her bearings. She was still going in the right direction, and maybe her mind was playing tricks on her. Still, her hand was shaking as she lifted it up to her head and clicked on the light attached to her face mask.

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