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The following afternoon, Skye stepped around fallen boulders, into a dark rock archway. The rock floor and walls were slick from the previous tide, and she walked carefully. Beside her, Hunter dislodged a stone, skittering it across the rock floor to ricochet off the wall. A few steps more, and she stepped down into Ciarlan Cove, blinking against the light, Hunter with her.
The brooding, hidden beach was achingly familiar. This is where it had all begun. For her father and mother, and for her. For her with him. She turned to the compelling boy beside her, and her heart did a double thump. She would never get used to this. To those eyes that looked at her as if she was...everything. The way he was to her.
Did he know what she was thinking? His eyes crinkled as they smiled into hers, suggesting that he did, setting her insides somersaulting. She looked out across the small enclosed cove to compose herself, smiling so widely that her cheeks hurt.
Across the shingled sand, pillar-like rocks jutted from the surging water, and long rock outcrops tumbled unevenly into the sea at each side of the cove. The air was rich with the scent of kelp and barnacles. Still the perfect setting for fairy tale creatures. She used to imagine them here, shadowy shapes moving through the rollers on wild days. ‘Mermaid weather’ she’d called it. She didn’t have to imagine them anymore. A fairy tale creature – the fairy tale creature – walked beside her.
The mid-afternoon sun was golden and warm, blue sky arching above the hidden beach. Not mermaid weather. It felt symbolic. Sunshine and warmth for this boy, after his long cold imprisonment. And for her with him.
“I feel I’m on stolen time, out here with you like this,” he confided.
“You’re not banned from Bliss anymore, and I’m not grounded. Why would you feel like that?”
They dropped their towels on the sand, and she noted his pleased expression: a towel, to dry himself with after swimming. She smiled.
“I know. I’m back in the studio, and your father looks me in the eye without flinching. And Mike doesn’t look like he wants to punch me...much.”
Skye laughed, “I think that’s an Uncle thing, not an ‘are you a magical creature’ thing. Don’t you think that’s really good, them accepting you?”
“Not flinching and not punching are not exactly accepting.”
“But it’s a massive improvement. Especially my dad.” She was silent. “How much do you think he remembers? How much does anyone remember?”
“I’ve wondered about that. I think stories heard before I joined you on land, those remain. But any contact with Nemaro, anything to do with them since, is gone again. Like them. Forgotten.”
“For now. Memories have a way of resurfacing.”
“I know. And I also know that although I can’t sense them anymore, my clan are out there.”
They both searched the waves beyond them. “It’s not really over is it.” Hunter’s voice was low. It wasn’t a question.
“The piece of you that made them present is still with me,” she touched her chest.
“And part of you is with me now.” He mirrored her movement.
“That’s got to affect the Nemaro somehow.”
“Perhaps the balance is restored? Or was it the stolen lives in you that made them present? How can we know? Amber and Ethan don’t remember seeing people underwater or walking out of it. Mike doesn’t remember seeing them on the beach.”
“True. Everyone near the beach had collapsed by the time you made the water rise. And from what we’ve heard, the people that left the sea don’t seem to have any recall, probably from being mesmerised. The Nemaro are safe for now. I think.”
“But you’re right,” Hunter said quietly. “Memories have a way of resurfacing.”
They stared at each other, Skye trying to work out her mixed feelings about Hunter’s clan, yet again. “Let’s just have today?” she whispered. “Can we just be us, just for today? Let’s pretend there is such a thing as happy every after”
Hunter’s eyes were solemn as he searched her, then his mouth began to curve in a smile. “My clan are not the only thing everyone forgot.”
“Huh?” As his smile widened, she groaned, putting her face in her hands. “You mean my birthday yesterday.”
“I mean your birthday,” he grinned.
“What a way to celebrate. Genuine memory loss for that one, but who can blame me?”
“At least it means I got to share your birthday party with you this morning.”
“Got to share my cupcake breakfast.”
“Cupcakes...” Hunter looked bemused. “They did seem very small cakes for such a special occasion, although there were a lot of them. Eighteen, with a candle in each. Does the quantity make them better than one splendid cake?”
Skye smiled, “No. That was just fun. Rowena remembered first, and got up early to bake them. But I have a feeling she has something bigger planned for tonight. Why do you think she looked so excited when she sent us away, far away until at least 7 o’clock? And I think I overheard Morgan talking to Ethan on the phone about his brother’s band. So...we might be dancing together again sooner than you think.”
“Dancing...” Hunter smiled, sliding his arms along hers, then around her back, beginning to move with her in a slow sway. “Dancing, I like. Music, I like. Dancing with you to music, I love.”
“Me too, I can’t wait. I had to pretend I didn’t know, I didn’t want to spoil their surprise. But...” she stopped swaying and looked out at the waves. “Celebrating my eighteenth birthday with cupcakes and surprise dancing is great. With you, it’s wonderful...”
“But?”
She met his charcoal eyes again. “I had something bigger in mind.”
“Such as?”
She turned her head again to the surging surf, the lace foam, the deep blue of the horizon. “I want the whole ocean. The one I shared with you.”
He frowned. “You can’t mean you want to join the Nemaro. Leave your family and friends? Your life here?”
“No. Do you remember you asked me once, why can’t we have what we want, what we really want, or as close to it as we can?” He nodded, searching her eyes. “Well...why can’t we have it all? Did you sleep last night?
His eyebrows rose. “Yes, actually, a little. And you?”
“A little, not as much as I used to.” She laid her palm on his chest, knowing that beneath his T-shirt his skin wouldn’t be as cold as the ocean to her touch anymore. “I’m colder, or you’re warmer. I’ve realised I don’t see the dark the way I used to. Part of me, part of my spirit, it’s in you. And part of yours is in me. We are...altered. Whatever this is, we’re joined even more than when Thea tried to drown me and I survived, breathing water.”
“Breathing water and forgetting everything.” She could hear Hunter’s tension, feel it through her hand.
“I think you were right about the stolen lives keeping me alive since Jarrod nearly drowned me here. And I think I know why I didn’t drown when I poured the stolen lives back into you.” She stepped back from him, turning to the waves. “I want to try something. I promise I won’t breathe water in. Yet...”
Without waiting for him to agree, she slipped off her cut-offs and pulled her sleeveless hoodie off over her head. She had come prepared, and faced the water in the teeny bikini she had borrowed once more from Morgan. This was more than full circle. She was a different girl than the one who had shivered and trembled from both fear and cold, separated from the sea she yearned for by nightmares that haunted her and hid her own secrets from her. Now nothing stood between her and the truth, or between her and freedom.
Glancing at Hunter she caught his dazed expression as he watched her.
“Ignore me,” he managed, “just having a ‘guy moment’.”
She laughed, pleased at the effect she had, somehow reducing this perfect specimen to utterly human. He grinned, sheepish.
“Okay, sea-boy, watch and learn.” She strode over the shingled sand to the water’s edge, through arcs of foam that hissed over her feet and swallowed her footprints. Deeper, through the spent waves that impacted her ankles, her knees. Deeper still, into the shallow swelling surf and on, to the calmer water beyond where the surface tickled her midriff.
The water felt...not exactly warm on Skye’s skin. But not cold. Pleasant. It shouldn’t have in the normal scheme of things. Normally her breath would have been sharp, her skin a rash of goosebumps, managing the dramatic change in temperature.
Waves swelled around her like liquid breath in rhythm with her own, passing by to wash hissing over the shingle. This was...so right. So right.
She pushed lightly off the seabed, leaning into the embrace of the sea. It was like immersing herself in silk. Focusing on its touch, drawing into her mind the memories of moving through the ocean as if she was part of it, she moved forward. Fast. Faster than was humanly possible. Like when Hunter had spiralled her through the deep waters of the Bay. Heart pounding, still holding her breath, she dove, keeping her eyes open.
Around her, shifting blue water prismed with the light and colour of her dreams, and for an instant her vision blurred with joy. Diving deep, she slowed, and hovered just above the seabed without effort. Every gleaming detail of the clouds of bubbles and sediment stirred by the water’s movement was clear to her fascinated gaze. Ahead, shadows and glints of fish moved through deeper water. Shell and seaweed-encrusted rock formations soared upwards and pierced the glimmering surface, gleaming white where the impact of waves filled the water with air. Close by, shreds of seaweed eddied and tumbled across the bottom, disturbing tiny, almost transparent fish and the archaic scrawl of hermit crabs and starfish. She’d been right. Right.
Skye burst forward, spiralling, soaring. Flying.
A movement above her caught her attention, and she slowed as Hunter’s long form sped past her overhead, arching gracefully through the water to rise hovering before her as she stopped. Her already pounding heart raced. He was truly otherworldly, his hair shifting around his face, his eyes that smiled into hers, not squinting, not blinking. Not needing to, just like her.
She smiled back, and her breath spilled out in shimmering bubbles. She sped up through the cloud of tickling light and broke the surface, drawing in deep breaths of air. Keeping her promise, for now.
Hunter’s arm went around her waist, and she curled her arm across his shoulder, and around his neck, rubbing seawater from her eyes with her free hand – from habit, not because her eyes stung. They didn’t. And she knew she didn’t need him to keep her head above water. She would float free of effort if he let he go.
“I watched, I learned. Impressive.”
“Gold star impressive?”
His face grew solemn at her words. She saw that he remembered the day they had both realised that forever was not for them. Their disparate worlds made it impossible. That even together was fraught with danger and risk of death. Their light banter had masked their pain that day. There was no pain on his face now, and she guessed that his thoughts followed hers.
“I was right, Hunter. I didn’t die when I returned the stolen lives back to you because I can’t drown. I think it’s the part of your spirit in me that has done this.”
His eyes widened. “And you forgot nothing. You were still, you are still – you.”
“Do you think this means I’m...Nemaro?”
Hunter stared at her. Then, instead of answering, he glided with her towards the shore, letting her go when the water was shallow enough for them both to stand. She thought she understood. Feet on the ground.
“You are not Nemaro. Not cursed. But there is something that has haunted me. I need you to know it.”
“What is that?”
“I said that you aren’t cursed. But I am. When we were with Jarrod at Lithus, I realised that along with sharing my spirit with you, I shared my darkness. Do you remember...the dolphins?”
Skye thought, letting her memory tease out those days beneath the sea. That last day. They had been dancing together in light, lost in each other. Swim with me he had asked.
Yes she had replied, knowing what he was asking, wanting it too. Instead, they had...swum. Flying through his world, delighting in all they saw, closer and closer to the surface, until...dolphins had neared, and fled. Returned, and fled again, repelled; repulsed by the darkness in them both. She hadn’t understood it. And she didn’t accept the belief that bruised Hunter’s eyes now.
“Hunter, our choices brought about whatever miracle or magic saved firstly me, here at Ciarlan Cove, and then saved you on Lithus Rock. I’m sorry, but if that is darkness –” she broke off, unable to find words for the insanity. “Hunter, if that is darkness, I’ll take it and be proud. Grateful and proud. To me, you are –” she broke off again, this time at Hunter’s stunned expression as he looked past her to deeper water.
Following his gaze, she was gripped with bone-deep fear, as instinctive as breathing: dorsal fins had broken the surface, and moved in a direct line towards them. Shark.
“It can’t be...” Hunter’s whisper was barely audible. She darted a terrified look at him and then at the water. Did he mean...?
Sleek grey shapes, the smooth curves of a pod of dolphins. It was obvious now at closer quarters. They eased through the waves, curious, playful, coming close. Relief flooded Skye, but when she looked at Hunter his eyes had filled, his face suffused with emotion. He reached out a trembling hand. His breath caught as his fingers touched a dolphin passing close by. The dolphins submerged, then leapt and plunged, circling back, and frolicked around them before moving out to deeper water once more.
“This is impossible,” Hunter’s voice was thick. “It’s impossible. How can they not fear me? How are they...” Then he looked at her, a revelation dawning. “It’s you, Skye. Your light. The part of you that is in me now, you...you’ve balanced the darkness. In both of us. They sense...human.”
He lowered his face, pressing his hands over it. Her own eyes welled up, trying to imagine what he must be feeling: his endless darkness – gone.
“Hunter?”
He looked up at her, blinking. “Skye,” he folded his arms around her, “my miracle.”
He drew back to look at her. “What I skewed when I sacrificed myself, my clan, to keep you alive, you brought back into balance when you sacrificed yourself for me on Lithus Rock. And you’ve brought light.” He looked after the vanishing dolphins, his face awed, then looked at her again. “And the void that hurt when we were apart is gone. Have you felt that too? It’s been filled. I no longer feel broken. Do you?”
“No. I feel...whole. You’re right, it’s like balance has been restored.”
He took her hands in his, and pressed them together between his, looking down at them for a moment. “I have wanted to be free of the curse for so long. I know that I’m still bound by it in some way.” He met her eyes, “I know that. But I am unrecognisable from that trapped boy: pawn of those who despised me, cold as water and utterly alone. You have done that. You found me. You’ve set me free. For the first time my future is utterly open and unknown. And it is...frightening.”
“I understand that. It is. But you know what? That’s kind of what being human is,” she smiled. “Knowing that we don’t know. Knowing that our days are numbered, but still feeling like we’re bulletproof. We can’t really seem to understand that our time on this planet is limited, and yet somehow we try to make each moment count.”
He pondered for a moment, then nodded, his face softening. “Humanity is...complicated.”
“Uh huh.”
His silvery grey eyes grew intense. “Make each moment count,” he said softly. “Starting with now.” He swallowed. “We are truly connected, joined beyond anything I can understand.” He cradled gentle hands each side of her head and drew his thumbs along the curve of her cheeks, making her breath hitch. “How could this tiny creature fall into the waters of the channel and create such a tidal wave that I, my reality, are changed beyond comprehension?”
“And how could this wild boy, who shouldn’t even exist,” she murmured, linking her hands behind his back, “save me from the tide and manage to unravel everything I believed? Even about...love.”
He smiled. “It seems...meant. As if we were meant to find each other again. There’s something I realised I wanted, almost from the moment you came back into my world. Something that was impossible. You were human and I ...wasn’t. I have existed for time I can’t measure, and you are practically brand new. And yet – you have made me whole, and set me free.” He took a deep breath. “Nemaro don’t have marriage. It made no sense in the span of our world and of our years. But when we find the one we want to be with, to only be with, we become...” he hesitated.
“Bond-bound.” Her voice was hushed, partly with embarrassment. Thea had taunted her with the words, gloating over her ignorance and exclusion of whatever the word meant to the Nemaro. To Hunter.
“How do you know of this?” he looked startled.
“I heard it mentioned. I haven’t been able to forget it,” she knew her cheeks were pink. “What exactly is it?”
“It’s where we...Nemaro, choose each other. To be ourselves. To be the other person. To be both of us, together. For as close to forever as we can make it.”
Skye’s heart pounded. Hunter took her hand and pressed it to his chest. Beneath her hand his heart pounded too.
His husky voice was soft. “For us, life can be like the sea, taking what it can and keeping what it takes. But when it gives, and you accept with open arms, the gift outweighs anything you can lose.”
“I think I believe that now.” Skye trembled, knowing she was at the brink of a precipice. The one she had seen every time she saw his love for her in his eyes.
“The ocean doesn’t take everything,” his gaze held hers. “Our bond-bound vows, they last until they crumble. From false or weary hearts, like cliffs pulled down by the sea. Or never, like islands that withstand even raging oceans. Like mountains rising from the ocean floor, some things remain.” He took her other hand and held both of her hands in his again.
“We are already joined. Our souls share the same space, and until you saved me, by letting me save you, I didn’t believe I even had a soul. It isn’t possible for us to be much more connected. But there is still this, and I am yours. Will you be mine? Will you be bond-bound with me?”
“Yes.” She wasn’t sure she even said the word out loud. It was like her spirit, her soul, her bones and her flesh – every part of her agreed.
“Then say these words after me,” he whispered. “Each.”
She could scarcely find breath, and let her heart speak for her. “Each.”
“Each other.”
“Each other.”
“Together.”
“Together.”
As the last word left her, she felt the bond rippling over her, like tiny bubbles bursting all over her skin, and saw it in his face too, a wave of light washing over them both. She stared at him, trembling.
“I love you, Skye.” he whispered, emotion choking his voice. He swallowed. Then from the pocket of his swimming shorts he drew another shell ring, and held it on his open palm. She saw that his hand trembled, and the iridescent twists of the shell caught the warm sunlight, shimmering like water.
“Skye, I found this in the sea, when we were apart and I was thinking of you. When am I not? This was you. Light through water,” he smiled, the corner of his mouth turning up. “I gave you a shell ring before, an attempt to keep you safe from my clan, to make you part of my world, to be with you always. I did it all wrong, and I nearly lost you. This one is just a shell.” He lifted her left hand and slid it onto her ring finger.
The inner curve of the ring was smooth and cool against her skin. The white blended with mother of pearl gleam was beautiful, like light rippling through rainbow-coloured water. It fit perfectly, and weighed almost nothing. Just a shell. But one she loved. From the one she loved.
“The sea is full of shells, and if this one breaks, I will bring you another, and then another, and another, for as long as we both shall live. Skye? I will never stop bringing you shells from the ocean. The ocean is our forever.” He held her gaze again. “And one day, if you’ll still have me, we’ll do this again the human way, when the people who love you are ready for this.”
Her eyes stung, and she rubbed them clear, not wanting to miss a second of him. This face. This boy. This beautiful soul that she loved more than she had thought possible, more than she had ever thought safe. He was right. Sometimes the sea took what it could and kept what it could. But this time, the sea had given. Given her him. Somehow, in loving him, instead of finding loss, she had found...joy. And she would hold onto this gift with everything she had.
Her arms twined around his neck as he folded his arms about her, pulling each other close. He paused, his lips barely a breath from hers, his charcoal grey gaze as deep as the ocean; as deep as his love that she trusted with every part of her. When his lips touched hers, they were feather-light, soft as water, their exploration so exquisite she felt she had never kissed him before. Her arms tightened around him as their kiss deepened, her insides seeming to dissolve, the liquid honey melting through her. All him. All them. Together.
She felt him go still and draw back, and at that moment she realised it too.
“How did we forget this?” She lifted her hand to his face, touched her palms to his cheeks, feeling the curves of his jaw, his cheekbones. The warmth beneath her palms was... “It’s different.” She mused. “Before, on Lithus Rock, even though your skin felt warmer, my warmth still left me when we touched. This warmth, it’s...”
“...It’s not yours, leaving you. This is...is it...human?”
“Or Nemaro?” she began to smile. “I think this means...” She turned and looked after the dolphins, disappeared into the Bay, then back at him. “Do you think we can catch them?”
“We can try,” his smile widened.
She slowly lifted her hands to his face again, drawing her fingertips lightly over his beautiful features, learning him by touch. His smooth skin was cool, not cold, as if from the breeze across the water. Beads of water still clung to his skin, and ran in trails from her touch, catching sunlight. The arch of his brow, and his dark winged eyebrows, the angles of his cheek bones and jaw. The perfect curving lines of his lips. Her heart hammered as they smiled beneath her fingertips.
“Swim with me?” she whispered.
“Forever,” he whispered back. “Or at least until seven.”
Skye blinked.
“You really want to risk the wrath of Morgan and Rowena by missing your surprise birthday party at Bliss?” he teased.
She was still laughing when Hunter’s smiling lips pressed against hers. Water closed over their heads, soft as air, and colour prismed around them as they spiralled together, entwined, slipping deeper through the teal waves, flying through light.
******
FROM BETWEEN BOULDERS high above Ciarlan Cove, Ethan stared after the tiny figures that had vanished into the waves, waiting far too long for them to resurface. They didn’t. His heart pounded. As horrific as it would have been, that creep Hunter drowning Skye and himself, that would have been the logical explanation for how long they were staying under. But he knew it wasn’t. Something was going on in Bannimor, and logic wasn’t in it. Hunter and Skye were. Right in it.
Ethan had left his mum sedated in her darkened bedroom, still traumatised by two of his little brothers apparently dying – dying – yesterday, before coming right. He would have thought she’d been hallucinating if others hadn’t experienced the same thing. Gas leak, my eye, he thought viciously. He knew of two people at least who had checked with the gas company; no leaks whatsoever, thanks for asking.
And all those people, some he actually remembered disappearing from Bannimor, wet from the sea and wandering around like they were stoned. Survivors of a wreck where they’d been held captive? Maybe. The world was messed up, and people did horrific things to each other. But he wasn’t buying it. Something was going on.
Yet again, he tried thinking back over his lost afternoon yesterday. He could trace it to going into the water at Lithus Rock, trying to find... His mind slipped and slid, unable to gip any image or clear memory. Had he got caught in that storm, and blanked out somehow, like they implied? Was this what Skye’s memory blanks had been like? He shuddered. Maybe it was exactly like her memory blanks. Those days she was missing at sea... Something horrifying lay just out of sight, beneath the water. Like those two down there in the bay somewhere. He felt like throwing up.
Maybe he should try getting hold of Liam one more time. He wasn’t answering his phone, or the door. But with the life of luxury that guy had, he’d never be able to stay away from that penthouse apartment of his for long.
He rose to leave, unable to help one last searching glance of the cove, in case he’d simply missed seeing Skye and Hunter coming ashore. He went still. Far below the sheer rock cliff where he stood, a body lay on its side, on the rock outcrop still surrounded by water in the low tide, hidden from the beach.
Ethen spun away and thrashed back down the steep overgrown track, cursing the hindering branches, out onto the hillside of the saddle again, through the archway, and across the shingled sand to the outcrop. Panting from haste and adrenaline, in minutes he was leaping from rock to rock to where the still figure lay. It was a girl.
Her pale skin was covered in welts and bruises, and marks like cruel fingers had gripped her, but any blood must have been washed away by the water that had carried her here. Long auburn hair spread over her face and wet skin, and splayed across the rock beneath her head. She was wearing some kind of white, antique-looking outfit, like a short sleeveless jumpsuit. As he stared at her, something shifted inside him, like a ripple in the air, but in his chest. His pulse thudded strangely though his head. He reached out. His heart sank at her icy skin. Dead.
Then he choked and fell back, grazing his hands on the rocks behind him as she stirred and raised her head, her eyelids fluttering open. When she saw him, she hissed and drew back, coiled and tense.
He let out an oath, gulping and breathing shakily. He tried to calm himself, trying to go into surf rescuer mode. It was just a girl. “It’s okay, I won’t hurt you.” He took off his sweatshirt and held it out for her to see what he was doing, inching forward so as not to startle her again. “You’re alive, you’re safe.”
“I’m alive?” her voice was soft. She looked around, seeming dazed, at the rock, at her battered body, and the water behind her. “I’m alive...”
“Let me help you back to the village,” he said gently, trying to wrap the sweatshirt around her shoulders.
“No!” she fought him off, and he stood up, confused.
“But I have to get you somewhere safe. You need to get warm, dry.”
The girl’s chocolate-brown eyes, compellingly lovely, held his, “Please, boy, I beg you. If you want me to be safe, don’t take me from the boundary of the water.”
Ethan stiffened, his heart thudding with fear. But also with excitement. Unconsciously, his hand gripped the shell swinging from the leather cord around his neck. Her eyes followed his movement, and gleamed.
For just a moment he wavered, uncertain, undecided. But as her dark eyes, so dark they could have been black, held his, his uncertainty vanished, and all he wanted to do was keep her safe. Gently he crouched beside her again, wrapping the sweatshirt and his arm around her, and drew her chilly form against his chest. “It’s all right,” he murmured, “I’ve got you.”
“You have indeed,” Thea whispered, “Golden boy.”
