Each Step Like Knives Read Free Page B

anything else. The ache inside him was a hunger
that could not be assuaged by food, or by sex play. Not even by
battle. He'd tried all those things: stuffing himself to nausea,
fucking his way through every revel two and three times over,
heading out to fight the neighboring pod of Carrageenai. Nothing
satisfied him like the sight of her.
     
    He'd seen her first by accident. A skirmish had left
him wounded, far from home, and he'd floated to the surface,
delirious with pain. He'd come out against the nighttime sky and
heard the sound of her singing.
     
    Now, he swam the great distance back and forth from
his territory to hers as often as he could.
     
    Seeing and hearing her was no longer enough. He
wanted to touch her. He wanted to mate with her, stay with her,
which was ludicrous and should make him feel ashamed for even
desiring such perversion.
     
    Yet as he floated and heard her voice across the
water, Jeenai didn't feel ludicrous or perverse. He only felt
sorrow he couldn't reveal himself to her. He let the tide sweep him
uncomfortably close to shore, just beyond the edge of breaking
waves. Sand scraped at his tail, but he barely noticed the
abrasion, so caught was he by the sound of her voice.
     
    And now, what was she doing? She was entering the
water. He heard the splash of her inadequate fins --her legs--as
she moved them in the sea. She stopped singing, and after a moment,
Jeenai realized he could no longer hear her at all. She had gone
beneath the water.
     

The wine
had made her warm and the water had looked so appealing, Helena had
no compunctions about diving in. She hadn't counted on a riptide.
The forceful water had grabbed her legs and pulled her under. She'd
come up, spluttering and coughing, and when she put her feet down,
she felt nothing but water beneath her.
     
    Stupid! she berated herself. Stupid for swimming
alone, at night, without even a bathing suit. She'd seen the movie
Jaws. Naked, drunk swimmers always got eaten at night.
     
    She kicked as powerfully as she could and tried to
find the shore. There...a glint of light, left from a burning
candle on her deck. She focused on it. How far out was she? The
light seemed as far away as a star.
     
    The water closed over her head again and this time
she didn't fight it. She drifted. She was drowning, but wasn't
afraid. Funny. She'd always thought she'd fight death when it
came.
     
    Something bumped against her trailing legs and
Helena screamed. Thoughts of sharp teeth and giant dorsal fins
filled her as the water rushed into her throat and lungs. She was
under the water! She pumped her feet, moved her hands, but which
way was up? Drowning hadn't frightened her, but being chomped by a
shark did.
     
    Hands. She felt hands on her waist. Arms curled
around her and she was pressed against a bare, male chest. A face
swam before her. A human face. Lips pressed to hers and gave her
air to breathe. She didn't know how, but could only be grateful for
the breath. They surged to the surface, where she gasped in a
breath that burned like fire. She caught a glimpse of streaming
dark hair, dark, fathomless eyes, and strong, broad shoulders.
     
    He pulled her toward the shore. In the back of her
sea-soaked brain, Helena waited for him to carry her onto the sand
like the hero from a romance novel. Kiss her back to life, then
perhaps make passionate love to her on the sand without either one
of them getting chafed.
     
    Instead, she felt his muscles bunch and roll as he
lifted and tossed her as hard as he could. She didn't quite make it
all the way to the land. Helena landed with a thud in the shallow
waves. She sucked in air, not water, and she turned to look with
bleary eyes for her savior.
     
    He wasn't there.

"You stink
of split-tail." Krall made a rude gesture to emphasize what he'd
just said.
     
    Jeenai was too tired to care. He shoved past his
brother and went to his chambers, where he curled on his bed of
cultured seaweed and tried to rest. He had