Page 65 of Jewel of the Sea

He encircled her with his arms and turned her away, shielding her with his body. The tenseness in his muscles quickly faded.

“It is all right, Aymee,” he said gently.

Heart pounding, Aymee peered around him.

A skeleton lay face up on the floor. Bones yellow with age, its empty eye sockets stared blankly at Arkon and Aymee, and its dislocated jaw hung open in an awful grin. Its uniform, though intact, was filthy, and the floor beneath it was stained dark. One of the skeleton’s arms was outstretched, fingers curled over the grip of a pistol.

Slowly, Aymee crept from behind Arkon and walked around the skeleton, gingerly avoiding the stain — she knew it was blood, even if it wasn’t the right color anymore. By the uneven lay of the skull, she guessed the back had been shattered by an exit wound.

“He killed himself,” she said.

Arkon clicked off his flashlight and set it on the console beside hers. He lowered himself near the remains and reached out with a hand, delicately turning the skull to get a better look. “Is that normal for humans to do?”

Aymee pressed her lips together and furrowed her brows. “Sometimes…”

He lifted his gaze to her, tilting his head to the side. “Why?”

“I mean, it isn’tnormal. Self-harm is often a result of mental illness, distress, or extreme fear…” She glanced around the room before her eyes settled back on the skeleton. “Do…the kraken know of this place?”

“Jax, Dracchus, and myself, but only the main chamber. If our people knew of it before, that knowledge was lost before I was born.” Arkon rose. “Is there... something we should do?”

Aymee shook her head. “For now, no. We can take him to sea later...and hope there are not others.”

“Your people give your dead to the sea, also?” Despite the morbidity of the situation, there was unmasked curiosity in his voice.

She carefully returned to Arkon’s side. “We do. Families take their loved ones out for their final goodbyes.”

“We do not have families in the same manner you do, but the hunters carry our dead away from the Facility to be reclaimed by the sea. It is symbolic of the cycle of life — the sea provides for us and sustains us, and in the end, it claims us all.”

Aymee took his hand and traced a fingertip over his knuckles and down to the webbing between his fingers. “I wonder what things would be like now, had our people lived together peacefully.”

“No one can say with any certainty.” He raised a tentacle and brushed its tip across the back of her hand. “But, selfish as it may be, I would not wish to change any of that history.”

Aymee tipped her head back to look up at him. “Why?”

Arkon smoothed his palm over her hair. “Because I would not want to place the chances of us meeting in jeopardy.”

Warmth blossomed in her chest as she stared into his otherworldly violet eyes; they were layered with color and emotion, and she wasn’t sure there were enough shades of purple to encompass their depth.

Her hand tightened over his. Perhaps her earlier fears were unfounded; how could he say such things if he didn’t desire her? He showed it in his every gesture, his every touch, word, and glance. Whatever had happened between them that morning on the beach, there’d been good reason for his retreat. Arkon would never purposely hurt her.

She stood her toes and placed a light kiss on his lips. “Me too.” Smiling, she released his hand and stepped back. “Let’s see what we can find on the console.”

“Yes,” he said distractedly.

Aymee touched the main screen. The projection presented a variety of choices; she perused them slowly, not sure what she was looking for.Maintenance, Temperature Control, Core Monitoring, Surveillance, Personnel Records. She tappedOperations Logs.

“Please enter your access code to—” the computer said, and then the screen — and all the others around it — flickered. “Computer security systems have been rebooted. Welcome back, Captain Wright. Please create a new access code.”

Aymee looked at Arkon.

He leaned forward and entered a series of numbers. “Zero eight one three zero five,” he said.

“Access code reset.” The projection displayed a series of still images, each with numbers at its bottom, arranged in neat rows — five across and five down, with an arrow at the bottom indicating more. All the images were of the same man, though the background and his clothing differed in some of them.

“That is the same code we use to enter the Facility,” Arkon said. “I didn’t know what any of these symbols were until Macy taught me.”

“The kraken can’t read?” Aymee asked.

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