Page 71 of Call of the Fathoms

“Fun?” Aulax repeated. “I don’t remember it like that. My father certainly embellished that story.”

“I don’t think your father knows how to embellish anything.”

“You would be right in that.” His boy leaned against the edge of the moon pool, looking far too comfortable and flirty. “I didn’t realize you were going to be quite so impressive in stature. The others mentioned you were larger than average, but you look like a match for our people. And beautiful at that.”

“You are far too young for me.”

He was pleased to hear her at least argue with Aulax. Because he was too young for her. That was a better argument than the words that had been boiling on his tongue like, “Get your eyes off her or I will remove them for you.”

Aulax chuckled at her words. “Oh, I don’t think age has much to do with anything. You came here with my father, and he’s an old man.”

“I don’t think of him as an old man.” She looked at him again and his world burst into flame.

Scorching hot heat swelled throughout his entire body. She made him want to grab onto her and see what other passion he could wring from her body.

Every time he thought about it, he knew it was wrong. Devious. He should be better than the others of his people who had fallen under the spell of an achromo. He knew better than to do what he was doing.

His son was still flirting with her. “You should see what it’s like with the others. The People of Water have many kinds, but the depthstriders are the most terrifying of the lot. You’ll find there are a lot of different people under the sea. All of us areslightly different. There are the waveriders, those people usually live in the shallows. They don’t look quite so different from you, to be honest. Although the gills usually give us away. And the tail, of course.”

What was Aulax prattling on about? Alexia didn’t care about the differences between their people. She needed to give her information about Tau and then move on. That was all this conversation was, and it certainly wasn’t an opportunity for her to flirt with his son.

Except, maybe she should meet more of their people. Alexia wanted proof. That was why she had argued with him for weeks on end while he had her trapped. She wanted a reason to go against Tau. And even though she had agreed to help him, that didn’t mean she would continue to do so without needing more proof.

A voice in his head screamed he was just trying to get her alone again, but he ignored it. “That is a good idea, son. She should meet the rest of the depthstriders. Perhaps it would be more helpful for her to explain our situation to them than even our own people.”

Alexia’s eyes nearly bugged out of her head. “You want me to what?”

“Meet the depthstriders,” he replied. “In the fathoms of the sea unlike any achromo has ever experienced before.”

Twenty-Nine

Alexia

It’s an insane idea, but not one she was going to pass up. How many people were ever offered to see where the depthstriders lived? Likely no one, as Fortis had suggested.

She would need to be sure that she didn’t do anything stupid. The depthstriders were notoriously violent, and they hated humans far more than any other of their kind. Not to mention there needed to be some upgrades provided to her because even she wasn’t capable of surviving in those depths.

Alexia might be an upgraded human, but she could still die in pressures like that. There had to be some kind of suit or pod that would withstand the fathoms, but that wasn’t a question she could answer. She wasn’t an engineer.

As she stared at him, she wondered what had gotten into his head. After two weeks without seeing him, she was certain he was only saying this because he wanted to prove a point. Fortis didn’t care about her wellbeing. He’d brought her here, and that was enough for him. He’d done the best thing he could to keep her safe.

But when she’d seen him again, and it was like a live wire had been lit inside of her body. She hadn’t realized just how much she’d missed talking to him. Every cell fired white hot, and she suddenly wanted to taste him again. She’d wanted to leap into the water and kiss him a thousand times until he admitted that maybe he’d missed her a little as well.

A voice came from behind her shoulder. “Do you think that’s a good idea? She could die. Again.”

Fortis huffed out an angry sound that she recognized. “She will be fine. You will make sure she lives.”

Mira came to stand beside her, the top of her head just below Alexia’s shoulder. “I’m not a miracle worker, Fortis. Pressure at that level would need an entire ship to keep her safe. I can build something along the lines of a pod that you could carry with you, but that would take months of development and testing.”

She already knew what Fortis was going to say, and Alexia couldn’t stop the grin from crossing her face when he said what she expected.

“You’ll have to do a lot better than that. She goes soon. Tomorrow, if we can.”

Mira’s face turned almost as red as her hair.

Alexia clapped a hand to Mira’s shoulder. “Now is a good time for me to fill everyone in on Tau. I think that will help settle this situation.”

“You better put a muzzle on that one,” Mira muttered as she turned toward the door. “I’ll get the others, but you need to get him under control. No one orders me around like that. Not in the city I built with my own damn hands.”

---