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I needed a fantasy because I could no longer survive in reality.
Aslan twisted to look at me as I slowed The Fluke even more. I followed the picture of the reef, bouncing from echolocation waves into tangible pictures, steering the boat carefully through the channels in the reef.
When I’d sailed as shallow as The Fluke could go, I cut the engine, dropped the anchor, and...cried.
I pressed my forehead against the helm and let go of the filthy mess inside me. All those neat little boxes that my mind had compartmentalized threatened to tumble and spill. The implosion would be impossible to clean up...so I fortified their stacks. I let my light glow from one and allowed my newly formed shadows to churn in another.
One day, I could unpack and be free.
But not tonight.
Raising my head, I swiped at my tears and turned to face the love of my life as Aslan padded into the captain’s cabin and gathered me in his strong arms.
I didn’t break down again.
I didn’t cling.
I merely soaked up the comforting energy and tingling hum of home.
Had Ethan survived the fall into the sea?
Was he swimming, even now, to shore?
Or was he already dead? Floating to the bottom of the ocean where crabs would crawl, starfish would smother, and sharks would tear into his skin.
I waited for guilt.
I paused for the awful feeling of wrong.
But...nothing.
Ethan had made a choice to rape me.
I’d made the choice to tell Aslan.
And Aslan had given his choice to the sea...survive or die...it wasn’t up to us. It was up to the ocean I loved so much.
Pulling away a little, Aslan caught my stare. “Iyi misin?”
I smiled as much as I could and nodded. I loved that he slipped more and more into his own language. It made me feel privy to the parts of him that he kept hidden. I’d been learning on the same app that my mum had. I’d mastered simple sentences and questions like the one he’d just asked. But I wasn’t fluent enough to keep up with him when he spoke with such ferocity and passion. His voice thick. His depth of feeling turning every vowel into a weapon.
“I’m okay,” I whispered.
And in some small way, I was.
I’d reclaimed some of the power Ethan had stolen when I’d cut off his wrist and leg ties. I’d released him...just like he’d released me. I’d given him the same kindness after being brutally hurt. He knew what it felt like to be given freedom after pain.
“You brought us to Low Isles?” Aslan asked quietly. “It’s a tourist trap. I thought you wanted to go somewhere private and...” His cheeks pinked, swelling my heart with just how perfect he was.
He’d done things tonight that would paint him as a monster. Yet the mere mention of sleeping with me...? He suddenly looked so shy.
I’ll be his first.
And he’ll...he’ll be my last.
Never again would I be with another.
Tonight was the first night of all our nights.
The night where no other nights existed.
“Only a skeleton staff sleep on the island to man the lighthouse and other facilities,” I replied. “They won’t see us. We’ll be alone.”
“You want to go ashore?”
I nodded. “I want...I need to feel the sand. I need to wash away what he did.”
Fury mixed with agony in his dark stare. “Lead the way. I’ll follow wherever you go.”
Taking his hand, I led him to the side of the boat and opened the small partition where the staircase unfolded and slipped into the black sea. Grabbing the hem of my father’s baggy hoodie, I tore it over my head.
Moonlight kissed my skin and turned my red bikini a darker shade of blood. I shivered as the warm night air caressed me. I waited for fear at being so bare. I braced myself for the freedom I’d always felt in my own body to be taken from me after what Ethan did.
But...Aslan made me feel so safe.
He didn’t touch me, almost as if he waited for me to break. He kept his eyes on my face as I turned to look at him. His gaze didn’t linger on my breasts or drop between my legs. His stare gleamed with moonlight, and it was my choice to step into him. My choice to stand on tiptoe. My choice to press my mouth to his.
He sucked in a harsh breath as I kissed him.
He shivered as I licked his bottom lip.
And when I pulled away, his chest rose and fell with feeling. His face twisted with tightly restrained affection. “I love you, Neri.”
“I know. I feel it. All around me. In me. Through me.” I tapped my heart and laid my other hand over his. “I feel it. Right here.”
“Me too,” he breathed. “I think I always have.”
Standing beneath the spritz of stars and listening to the gentle hish-hish of lazy waves on island sand in the distance, I could almost believe Ethan hadn’t happened.
