Page 44 of Emerald Waves
“What do I tell Alex if he presses for details about what is going on?”
“The truth,” Ionus replied, “While I am hopeful that telling him that I need to leave for a short time to assist Caro with something will be sufficient, if he picks up on any emotions from me he might start questioning things. At that point, explain what’s happened so I don’t come home to a frantic mate looking to descale me with a cheese grater.”
Quint shuttered at that while Odem grinned, shrugged, and muttered “kinky.”
Ionus just cut him a look on our way out of my horde. Only Odem would look for ways to draw pleasure from something like that.
Outside, Ionus, Mattias and I allowed our dragons to emerge and took to the sky, knowing that our home would be well looked after in our absence. The whole time we were in the air, all I could think about was Emerson and the excitement I’d felt rolling through his thoughts as he’d communicated with me. It was the only thing that kept me and my dragon calm. My entry point to the sea was one I used often, its location remote, off an uninhabited island in the Marianas, where the seas were clear and shimmering with green and blue hues. It was calm today, and warm as we landed, the ground shuddering beneath our heavy bodies, sending birds fleeing into the skies as their trees shook.
You truly do choose the most secluded places on the planet to retreat from us. Ionus thought to me as we landed.
I prefer to go where the waters are unspoiled and the risk of human contact is nil, especially if I choose to take to my human form and swim naked or sunbathe on the beach. Unlikesome of our brothers I have no desire to become either a meme or a TikTok video, or worse, wind up on an X-rated website somewhere.
I’m sure the degree of difficulty any of us would have finding you out here has never once been a consideration.
His sarcasm was impossible to miss, and honestly, he’s always known me too well for me to lie and attempt to deny it, so I didn’t even waste the energy. I needed all I could muster to share my land and sea abilities with Ionus for our trip beneath the ocean, to depths that Ionus’ dragon had never experienced before.
You need to communicate if you start to feel spacey or disconnected from your dragon. I will caution you not to descend too fast, but once we reach a certain depth, there will be no turning back, at least not safely.
Understood.
Mattias, do you see that rock formation three hundred feet out?
I do.
That’s where the shelf gets steep. Keep watch over it, if I’m forced to send Ionus back, he’ll need your help.
I will be ready.
I know you will.
Be safe. I’ll be pissed if you don’t return to us. I’ve grown used to your grumpy, illusive ass. Maybe in the future you’ll allow us to spend more time with you. I’ve missed you a great deal these last few centuries.
Now that shocked me for a moment. My only response was a nod of acknowledgement before Ionus, and I flew out to the spot I’d indicated and plunged beneath the waves. Fueled by my concern for Emerson, my dragon and I had little difficulty sharing our ability to breathe beneath the sea with Ionus. Raven’s tutoring had played a big part in that. Once I’d stoppedfocusing so hard on keeping so many aspects of myself and my abilities hidden from my brothers, sharing was easy.
As we descended, I felt brief flashes of wonder and amazement from him, along with soft, tranquil pulses that felt a great deal like the cool currents and slipstreams I loved to drift in. It shocked me. Had I denied him the chance to share in this measure of peace with me by keeping myself separated from him and the rest of my brothers?
In ways, it made sense that could be the case what with how intense his storm element was. In his little ones, especially the twins, I’d been given the opportunity to see how unpredictable it could be, and how difficult it was to contain it, especially in one who hadn’t learned how to control their temper or emotions yet. Let’s just say that saying no-no to excited dragon babies had produced more than one tiny fireball and lightning bolt from escaping as they’d expressed their displeasure at the words.
It was definitely something to think harder on later, as were the rest of the things I’d gleamed from my brothers during our training session with Raven. I had more than one apology to make, that much I knew.
The first, however, needed to be to the ones holding my mate. They deserved that as well as an explanation from me. It had never been my intention to cause such a grievous offense.
How are you faring?I inquired, touching base with my brother when I felt, though our shared magic, an increase in his heart rate.
As if I am being squeezed in a vice while the heat is leached from my body, but it is tolerable.
Ahh, that would explain his accelerated heart rate.
It truly was enlightening to know that it wasn’t just our elements that were different, the way I had always assumed. Our very physiology seemed to vary. Was that to accommodate our own elements? Or perhaps it was because of it. I wondered if myamazing archivist mate had come across research and writing about this very thing in his studies of the different clans. If he had, then I wish to learn more, so that maybe I’d have a better understanding of myself and my brothers in the future.
Emerson was right when he’d made a point about the research I’d been doing as I’d sought to learn about the artifacts I’d come across and who they should be returned to. Working together would not only strengthen our bond, but allow us to learn about one another organically, instead of playing twenty questions whenever we happened upon a topic.
Perhaps, in allowing Emerson to see just how deep into researching my finds I got and how much I enjoyed not only the process, but the side journeys they took me on whenever I discovered a new sea legend or piece of old seafaring lore, my mate would finally be assured that I had not kept my finds to myself as a means of avoiding him, but because they were one of the few pursuits that had ever brought me a true measure of contentment.
The same way they did for Emerson.
The realization smacked me across the snout just as we reached the tunnel entrance to the caverns I’d discovered the day Emerson had taken his fall.
