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And Mark? Mark didn’t have enough air to get to the surface. And even if he did, it wouldn’t exactly matter. We were in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, somewhere off the coast of Australia. What was he supposed to do if he even made it to the top? Bob around until some passing boater picked him up? And what was he supposed to say? He was far from home with no money, no passport, nothing.
I bit my lip and tried not to freak out as precious seconds leaked away. I’d known all along that I was going to have to make a choice like this one day, a choice between the two of them, but I’d never dreamed that it could be a life or death situation—for either of them, let alone both.
In the end, though, it wasn’t much of a choice. I looked at Kona, waited until his beautiful silver eyes met mine. I’m sorry, I told him. I can’t let Mark die.
I know.
I turned to Mahina. Get him to a healer. Keep him safe. Please.
I will. But you better get moving. She nodded at Mark.
I know. I crossed to Mark, smiled at him. He was amazingly calm considering he was on the brink of death. I didn’t know if that was because he didn’t realize how far down we were or if he was just more stoic than I could ever imagine being. Either way, I wasn’t going to waste a second more.
I pointed up and he nodded. Then wrapped an arm around him and pulled him close, so that our bodies meshed from shoulder to hip. He waved at Kona and Mahina, mouthed the words thank you. And then we were ascending, moving slowly toward the surface. We couldn’t go too fast because we were a long way down and rising too quickly could end up killing him. Decompression sickness was nothing to fool around with.
At the same time, it wasn’t like he had enough oxygen left to do everything we needed to. Which meant, soon enough, we were going to have to make a choice between leveling up and rushing to get him air.
But not yet. For now, we were going to do everything we could by the book. And pray, by some miracle, that it was enough.
I hated that we didn’t have a gauge to tell us how deep we were or how many feet we had ascended. I tried to remember how many feet we were allowed to ascend per second—I think it was somewhere in the thirties. Thirty-one? Thirty-seven? I decided to compromise at thirty-five to be on the safe side. Of course, that was all estimation too.
I counted to sixty, moving up as slowly as I could, trying not to surpass thirty-five feet a minute. After about four minutes, I made him stop. Level out and hang for a while as his body rid itself of excess bubbles from being down so long. Mark was trying not to breathe much, using only enough oxygen to keep himself alive, but after a few minutes of hanging out at this level, his tank gave one long beep right before it shut down.
For the first time there was real panic in Mark’s eyes, panic that mirrored the fear deep inside of me. How was I going to get him up in time? How would I keep him alive? The surface of the ocean was a long way off …
I shoved the worry down, closed my eyes, and tried to think. There had to be a way out of this, had to be a way to keep Mark safe. We hadn’t fought through everything with Tiamat and Sabyn just to give up now. I took a deep breath, blew it out slowly … and that’s when it came to me.
I ripped the breathing apparatus from Mark’s mouth, ditching the oxygen tank altogether. Then took another deep breath in through my gills and placed my mouth over his, creating a seal between our lips, and breathed the oxygen into him.
His hands tightened convulsively on my hips as he took in the first breath, and held it for a few seconds before breathing it out. I shook my head, mimed holding his breath, and he nodded. He already knew what I was trying to tell him. He’d just needed that life-affirming breath to make sure everything was still in working order. I didn’t blame him.
Breathing deeply again, I did the same thing. Leaned over and brushed Mark’s cold lips with my own until he opened them a second time; then I breathed more air into his mouth.
He held the breath inside this time, his brown eyes staring straight into mine with so much love, so much concern, so much awe, that it filled up every empty space I had inside of me. I stroked a hand down his cheek, then wrapped my arms around him and memorized the feel of him for all time.
We started to climb again, slowly and carefully. When he finally blew the air out in tiny bubbles, I breathed for him again. And again. And again.
It took a long time, but eventually we reached the surface. The second his head broke through the water, Mark took a series of long, ragged breaths. Then he cupped my face in his hands and kissed me like it was the end of the world. Like this was the last kiss he was ever going to have. I wrapped my arms around him and kissed him back.
When Mark finally lifted his head to grin at me, he said, “I love you, Tempest. I really, really love you.” And then he kissed me again.
This time when we broke apart, I said, “We’ve got to figure out which way Australia is.”
He grinned and pointed behind me.
“How do you know?” I asked, turning.
“How do you not know? How much time have you spent in this ocean now?”
“More than you.”
“Exactly my point.” He kissed me a third time, and it was so full of joy and happiness and excitement at being alive that I couldn’t help the tears that sprang to my eyes. “I’ve got to tell you, Tempest, you sure know how to show a guy a kick-ass time.”
Kick-ass was right. “I nearly got you killed.”
“You saved my life—and everybody else’s. I can’t believe how amazing you are.”
“Yeah, real amazing. It takes an awesome girl to get her guy kidnapped and nearly murdered.”
“Yeah, well, it takes a more awesome girl to save that guy. And the kidnapping was so not your fault. It was the evil sea-bitch all the way. I can promise that I definitely won’t be fooled by her damsel in distress routine a second time.”
“Is that how she got you? Pretending to need help?”
“Yeah. Said she’d hit her head when her board got away from her. I tried to get her back to shore—”
“Of course you did.” Because that was just the kind of guy Mark was. Decent, caring, always willing to risk his neck for someone who needed it. Especially me. How many times, now, had he nearly died because of me?
The thought made my stomach cramp, so I shoved it aside. “We need to get you to land.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not sure what I’m going to do when I get there.”
“I actually have an idea about that,” I told him. “But it depends on where in Australia we end up.”
“I’m betting on Sydney.”
I smiled. “I can only hope we’ll get that lucky.”
Mark laughed, started to swim toward where he believed land would be, but I stopped him. “Seriously? Like you haven’t been through enough today?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you’re not exactly adapted for this. Settle back and let me do most of the work.”
“Oh yeah?” The gleam in his eye was speculative—and more than a little interested. “And how is that supposed to go, exactly?”
“Like this.” I shifted quickly, tucking my bikini bottoms into the pocket of Mark’s wet suit, then wrapped my arms around him like Kona always did me. The thought gave me pause, but I pushed it aside. I had to take care of Mark before I could get to Kona. Until then, Mahina would have to make sure he was all right.
