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Another perfect consummation.
Chapter Forty-Seven
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Aslan
*
(Moon in Samoan: Masina)
IT WAS OFFICIAL.
Neri had collared, leashed, and made me hers to the point of embarrassing domestication. I couldn’t imagine living a single moment without her by my side. I didn’t want to be apart from her. I slept on a damn beach for her, covered in horrible sand, and highly aware that as dawn crept closer, people would encroach on our little slice of paradise, and our wedding night would be over.
She’d not just broken me last night, she’d broken me all over again this morning when she cuddled into my side, kissed me good morning, and murmured, “You turned the worst night of my life into the best, Aslan. No nightmares. Only dreams come true.”
I’d rolled on top of her.
I’d been so fucking close to slipping inside her, sand be damned.
But then the sound of a boat engine growled in the distance, and I reached my limit of beach tolerance.
As much as I still despised the sea, I yanked her to her feet, snatched up her discarded bikini, and dragged her into the ocean.
We didn’t speak as we rinsed away the night and swam side by side to The Fluke. It welcomed us back onboard with an innocent rock as if it hadn’t been an accessory to attempted murder last night. Streaks of Ethan’s blood clung to the side where he’d sprawled. Puddles of darkened crimson hadn’t fully dried from where I’d shot him in the leg, and two morbid fingers floated in a sad ruby puddle.
The plastic ties Neri had cut off his wrists and ankles rested unwanted, and the can of Coke had rolled through another bloody mess, painting its way across the deck before coming to a stop against the opposite railing.
Jack would kill me if he saw.
Then again, he’d never know.
Never know what happened to his daughter or what I’d done in her name.
All it’d taken was a shared look, a raid of the spare clothing box below so we both weren’t naked, and Neri and I got to work. I hauled buckets of seawater to do the initial rinse down while she put on rubber gloves and scrubbed with bleach.
I tossed the fingers overboard.
I tried to take the brush off her.
She shouldn’t have to clean up the blood of her rapist, but she merely pecked me on the cheek, gave me a stern look that gave no room for arguments, and we continued working side by side.
Tourists crawled all over Low Isles by the time The Fluke sparkled, and occasionally a kid would wave at us where we moored off the reef, never knowing what we’d done the night before.
Once all evidence was gone and we’d eaten a couple of muesli bars and a banana from the cooler, I turned to Neri, ready to suggest returning to Port Douglas.
But she’d already unlocked the scuba cage, pulled out one of the smaller tanks, a regulator, mask, and weight belt, then marched toward me.
And that was how I found myself three metres below the surface, sucking on pressurised gas, struggling with the extra effort it took to breathe. Neri had given me a basic lesson. Rushed through the explanations of how to equalise my ears and what to expect when breathing using a regulator. I’d tried to tell her I knew all that. I’d learned from the best, even if all my knowledge was theory instead of practical. But she didn’t stop chattering, keeping me distracted long enough to strap me into the gear, march me to the side of the boat, and push me overboard.
I honestly didn’t know how she got me down here.
But I knew how she stopped me from leaving.
I’d never seen anything so....spellbinding.
This place.
This world.
This hidden incredible existence...
I’d been so fucking blind to it. So coloured by my hate and what the ocean had stolen from me that I flatly refused to see its beauty.
I couldn’t unsee it now.
Couldn’t look away.
All my hate dissolved as colour burst around me.
Death didn’t reign here...life did.
Abundant, swift, vibrant life and my heart ached at the thought of Melike becoming part of this world. She’d love it. She’d love all the jewelled colours and sparkling prettiness. She’d never want to leave after finding this brilliant city of coral with its treasure trove of gemstone fish.
No wonder she didn’t find shore.
Why would anyone want to live in concrete and brick when this existed right below our feet?
I sank to the seafloor, dragged by weights, and did my best not to panic. Reminiscent fear whispered not to trust the beauty. To see danger beneath its façade. To see past the gleaming colours to the dull rocks beneath. Rocks that hid stonefish, eels, and urchins.
But even as I looked for danger, I couldn’t help but be seduced by the shoals of fish flittering in the spangling sunlight.
