Blue Abyss: Timewalker Chronicles, Book 3 (The Timewalker Chronicles) (13 page)

Yes
, Mari thought.
I will kill them all.

There intense exchange lasted no more than a few seconds as the shark swam by. The shark glided just out of reach, swimming around for another pass, confused. Considering.
Thinking
. Mari listened to the shark’s mind as the alpha tried to decipher the mysterious human fish hiding in the rocks. To the shark, she was an irresistible mystery. The female nearly burned with excited curiosity. Human blood smell, human energy…but different. No bubbles. No air. No scales. No fins. Strange creature.

The shark slowed to a near crawl and sent Mari an image of her fragile human body holding on to a side fin, like an oversized Remora fish along for the ride. This image was immediately followed by a feeling of multiple energies, movement, splashing in the shallow water of the beach. Humans on a beach.

Thank you.
Mari wasn’t sure the shark would understand her gratitude, and she knew this wasn’t the most brilliant idea she’d had in her lifetime, nonetheless, Mari motioned to Raiden to swim out from the cliff and join her. She reached for Raiden’s mind.
Grab on to the side of a large female. They have agreed to take us back to the island
.

She didn’t wait to see if he’d argue and didn’t waste time worrying how much air he had in the rescue tank. Nineteen cubic feet of air. Well over three hundred breaths for an average diver. It would be enough. It had to be. There was no other option.
Raiden, if you run out of air, head for the surface and I’ll try to get the sharks to pull us up there.

She swam straight to the cold killer as the alpha passed close by and slid in along her massive body, imagined herself as a suckerfish attached to the shark’s sides. She flattened herself to the cold flesh of the most feared predator in the water and hung on for dear life where the shark’s side fin attached to its body. The shark was enormous, much too large for her to reach across.

You sure about this?

Just do it. We don’t have a lot of time, or any other options. We’re twelve miles out. I don’t know about you, but that’s farther than I feel like swimming.
Raiden followed her lead when the alpha female’s sister, a colossal animal all on her own, swam to him and allowed him to attach himself to her side.

Crazy. Bat-shit crazy. It was now official. No one would ever believe this.

Mari willed herself to relax as the silent and deadly hunter, her unexpected ally against the Triscani, began the unhurried swim back to the main Bermuda Island. Raiden was awake. He would live. Once she got him to land, her job would be done.

World saved?

Check.

Closing her eyes, Mari clearly heard the alpha female’s telepathic call to her clan. They followed without hesitation, an honor guard for a water-breathing human and an alien prince. Mari was humbled, awed, and so damn scared she held on tight and told her brain to shut the hell up.

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Mari’s hands cramped with pain and her neck ached, exhausted from battling the water. She’d long ago tucked her head down as close to the giant shark’s body as she could, not caring to watch were the beast took her. Still, exhaustion and cold ate away at her sanity. When the shark sensed her waning, the fierce predator stopped and swam to her sister shark’s side, to Raiden.

Mari’s hold on the shark broke and she would have floated free in the current if not for Raiden’s quick reflexes. In moments she was tucked safely beneath Raiden’s chin, his larger frame blocking the drag of the water on her exhausted body.

The giant alpha female instructed her sister to move off and Raiden let go of the smaller shark before grabbing on to the alpha, who took over towing both passengers toward land. Mari’s back bumped the shark’s side and she sensed the alpha’s thoughts regarding the two human creatures.

Mate.
It made complete sense to the shark that her new little human friend would have a mate.

Mari wanted to choke. Had she been able, she was afraid the sound could have come out more sob than scorn. Raiden? Personally interested in her?

When hell froze over. He was an alien prince. She was a college dropout from Santa Fe raised by a depressed French doctor for a father and a crazy Catholic from Mexico City for a mother. And now, she was an orphan. Her parents’ had died in that car crash a few weeks before graduation. Her baby brother had already been addicted to heroin, and she’d had to leave school to take care of the estate. Then the dreams had gotten worse, consuming her mind during both her waking hours and her sleep. She’d never gone back to school. And she’d never forgiven her brother’s successful attempt to escape, his suicide, six months later.

Yeah, she was perfect princess material.

She was a mutt and a hot mess, even by human standards. Sure, she had her daddy’s family money, over a century of surgeons had amassed wealth not just in money, but in knowledge. Money? Her father’s family had made plenty of it, but Raiden had spaceships and royal blood. Hell, he was probably betrothed to some stupid alien princess back home who wore a flowing white gown and thought cinnamon roll swirls attached to the side of her head were the height of fashion. Or the perfect princess might receive him in her private quarters wearing chains and a gold bikini. That would be worse. Much, much worse.

Sadly, it was much more likely that the princess was some petite, ethereal beauty like Celestina. No chance she could compete with that.

A sadistic twist of jealousy rose within her at the thought, and Mari squashed it down. Raiden was hot. And he wasn’t hers. Could never be hers. That kiss? Never happened. Just ask him. He wouldn’t remember it, because for him, it never had.

She was beginning to wish she could say the same. Doing without would be better than longing for something she could never taste again. Kind of like milk chocolate. If she’d never eaten the darn stuff, she wouldn’t constantly crave it.

Mate. Hunt.
The shark was insistent on both counts, so Mari didn’t argue.

Yes.
Mari agreed and she hung on to Raiden the best she could despite the fact that her hands were as hard and frozen as steel clamps.

As she clung to Raiden beneath the cold shark’s body, Mari needed a distraction from the heat and power of the male who held her. God, if she’d thought she was obsessed before, she was in seriously deep now. She’d never get the feel of his touch out of her mind, or the memory of his hand in her hair, or the taste of his lips.

But, according to Celestina, he wouldn’t even remember kissing her in the first place, because that had been in the old time line, the one where both she and Raiden died in that stupid cave. And, also according to Celestina, now that she’d saved him, Celestina wouldn’t remember saving her, or altering her DNA, or giving her the super laser in her hand. She also wouldn’t remember that there was a traitor on her ship.

Mari, are you well
? A steady flow of heat poured into her from Raiden’s body. It felt wonderful, and made her want to sleep, to trust him to take care of everything. The sweet concern in his voice must be a trick of her imagination, because she’d swear not that long ago he was wondering whether or not she was in league with the monsters. His mind had been working faster than her muddled brain could follow, but she’d gotten the gist of it. He didn’t trust her.

She didn’t blame him. He’d known her all of twenty minutes. So, why did it hurt?

I can make it. I’m fine.
Mari wanted to reassure him, but the truth was not going to change. She was in pain, exhausted, and scared. Her blood burned and it felt like she was being simultaneously burned from the inside out and drained of strength. If not for Raiden, she wouldn’t be conscious. His arms around her and his heat were the only two things holding her together. She felt like a puzzle that had been undone and left with all of her pieces disconnected and shaking around in the box.

But she couldn’t tell him that. She was pretty sure he couldn’t talk to the sharks. He wasn’t from this world. He’d need her help, no matter how pathetic that help might be, from here on out. And once they reached land, who knew what they’d run into? She had money, vehicles, and connections to people who could help him. Sure, most of them were crazy, conspiracy-chasing lunatics that she normally avoided, but they’d jump at the chance to meet an alien if she called them. And some of them were engineers, scientists, public figures and people with military connections. He needed her.

You lie.
His arm tightened around her waist, pressed her cheek and chest more deeply into his heat. Hmmm. Hot man pressed to her front and a cold, great white shark at her back. Not a boring day. But she was lying. She felt like hell.

She smiled.
Just a little.

I won’t let go. Sleep, healer. I will protect you.

I’m the one rescuing you, remember?

Yes. I can see that
.

Mari ignored the little tumble in her stomach caused by his teasing tone. What she needed was a distraction.

The shark. Mari was fascinated and curious about the creatures she traveled with. So intelligent. Shockingly intelligent, with a deep connection to the energies of the Earth itself. Every living creature sent out energy signals to the shark. The glide of the ocean and water currents were like the blood flows of a sentient being to the shark’s acute senses. In the shark’s view, the Earth itself was alive, a living, breathing entity. Home…

Protect
. The feeling sent by the shark was unmistakable.

Got it.
Mari shuddered. The shark’s single-minded focus on the Triscani had begun to unnerve her. The shark must’ve sensed her reaction because the female sent her more images, great swaths of ocean gone silent. Darkness. She showed Mari places where there was a distinct absence of life, a black void of energy where no void should exist. The shark had heard many screams as the “others” had killed thousands, perhaps millions of living creatures, absorbing their energy and leaving sections of ocean silent, even to the sharks ultrasensitive abilities. There was no life left in those deep-water voids. Nothing moved, not even bacteria.

The shark’s hatred of them wasn’t hot and wild as a human’s would’ve been, but it did hate. This female shark deeply respected all life and was very aware of her place in the balance of the world. Her feelings toward the invaders were cold, logical, brutally honest, and without fear. Mari absorbed the shark’s fierceness, drew strength from the predator’s absolute conviction that the Triscani would be eliminated. Either the Triscani died, or Earth would die.

Such simplicity left little room for fear. Hunt. Kill. Protect.

Hide.

The shark sensed Mari and Raiden not just as mates, but as
one being
, one energy sharing a vibrational pattern and frequency. Seeing that connection in the shark’s mind unnerved Mari. His power had summoned her to that cave in her dreams. Celestina said that if Mari were not successful in saving him, no one else would ever find him.

Was it because they were somehow linked? Was she supposed to believe that it was just a bizarre cosmic coincidence that their personal energy patterns were so similar? And if they were, so what? What did that mean?

Mari’s musings were interrupted as the juvenile sharks darted excitedly, crisscrossing in the water around them. Mari felt the change in energy as they approached the beach. Boats buzzed overhead. The currents became more turbulent, layered and faster as the water made its way to pound against the shore and flow back to the open ocean.

The female was aware of her size, and did not want to get any closer. The water was too shallow here and would leave her and her family vulnerable to human hunters.

Mari tried to loosen her hold on Raiden, but her hands refused to unfurl completely.
Raiden, it’s time to let go. We have to swim from here
.

Raiden released the shark fin and she and Raiden were adrift in the current. She tried to express her gratitude, but the shark was already turning away with the same repeating message to her human passenger…
Hunt. Kill. Protect.

Mari shook her head and let her hand trail along the shark’s long body as Raiden loosened his hold on her. She sent one final message to the shark as her fingers lingered on the tail fin.
Find them for me, and I will
.

The shark’s mind hummed with satisfaction and determination. The human hunter needed to know where to find her prey? It would be done.

Mari felt the shark’s command go out to every living thing within the shark’s telepathic range, the great white shared Mari’s energy signature, so other sea creatures would recognize her. She also conveyed that Mari would hunt and destroy the “others”, and that Mari could destroy the Triscani and allow the ocean to return to life.

The entire ocean seemed to hum in response, passing along the information like nerves inside a single entity, a single mind.

What if every living thing in the ocean were part of a giant oceanish version of a Borg Collective mind? Freaky.