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His light.
She swallowed against the affection that clogged her throat as she held his unwavering gaze. “Thank you for helping me, Zael. And I don’t mean just last night in that alley.”
His mouth curved as he reached out to her and brought her under the shelter of his strong arm. He kissed the top of her head, his heartbeat thundering against her ear as she rested her cheek against him.
He held there for a long while, one arm on the wheel of the sailboat, the other wrapped comfortingly around her shoulders. Brynne couldn’t deny her contentment, the perfect moments of bliss, as they stood together at the helm while the boat rocked over the waves, still chasing that frothy white mass of clouds near the horizon.
But for all of his warmth with her, there was an undercurrent of tension in the sinew of his body. Something troubled him. She felt it even before he spoke.
“When we get to the colony, Brynne, it will be better if no one knows that we’re involved.” When she drew back to look at him, she found his expression grave with warning. “They will not understand.”
“You mean they won’t approve.”
He acknowledged with a slight nod. “Bringing you in as an envoy of the Order is asking much of them to begin with. If they think I’m motivated by my feelings for you, they may be less apt to hear us out.”
“Of course,” she answered, nodding as if she didn’t feel the pang of hurt inside. Perhaps she needed the reminder that he was only bringing her to his people in an official capacity, and nothing more. Better she understand that now, before her heart flitted off any further into fantasies of what it would be like to feel this man at her side for always, not just a few pleasurable hours.
She and Zael came from different worlds; she knew that. Selene’s personally delivered threat had driven that point home with stark clarity.
But hearing him remind her that she didn’t belong with his people—that she shouldn’t expect them to accept her, and particularly not if she arrived there on the arm of one of their own—made all of the contentment she’d felt moments ago dry up and scatter on the warm breeze that blew in off the water.
She used the excuse of a rolling wave to extricate herself from his loose embrace. “How long has it been since you were at the colony?”
He gave a vague shrug. “A handful of years. But time is measured differently by my people. Years pass as days after you’ve lived for many centuries. Or longer.”
“How long for you?”
“My age? I was there when Atlantis fell.” Some of his wry humor returned to his deep voice now. “Suffice it to say I stopped counting the centuries a long time ago.”
“So old,” she said, returning his grin. “You don’t seem a day over a thousand.”
He gave her a sensual smirk that sent a lick of heat through her veins. “Don’t tempt me, or I might change course just so I can make you eat those words.”
She nearly begged him to make good on that threat. But as they spoke, she noticed how the sunshine that had followed them the entirety of their sail had started to become lost amid the curtain of thickening mist they were passing through now.
No, not quite a mist, Brynne realized.
It was the bank of clouds that had seemed perpetually floating just beyond the bow of the boat. They had finally reached it. Sailed directly into the heart of it, in fact.
And now that she was paying attention, she saw that the waves had begun to gentle beneath them. Instead of slicing through the water, the boat had slowed to nearly a stall.
Zael let go of the wheel and stepped out of the cockpit. Brynne followed warily, mesmerized by the stillness of the sea as it lapped gently against the hull. The cloud that enveloped them was cool against her face as she walked carefully to where Zael now stood at the bow of the boat.
“What’s happening?”
He didn’t answer. He glanced at her, no trace of levity or flirtation in his eyes anymore.
Only sober purpose.
Raising his hand—the one bearing the silvery Atlantean amulet at his wrist—Zael closed his eyes and went very still for a moment. As he did, the small crystal on the leather thong on his wrist began to glow.
The foggy mist hanging in the air began to swirl and dissipate before Brynne’s face.
When it cleared, she found herself looking at a gleaming, sun-spangled island paradise.
A pristine stretch of pearly white beach ribboned the perimeter of the land, which was resplendent with soaring, lush green hillsides dotted with flowering bushes, vineyards, and citrus orchards. Staggered rows of snow-white stucco cottages with sunbaked, terra cotta tile roofs overlooked the water as they followed the land’s incline and flanked the narrow passages of meandering footpaths and cobbled streets.
It was breathtaking.
