Water Games Read online

  “You’re as married as I am.”

  He froze before he shook his head with a half smile. “I’m not the marrying kind. She knows that.”

  I studied him before I shrugged and smiled. “As long as you can be faithful to me, I won’t have to kill you.”

  He laughed. “Junie would kill me first. When are you going to tell Watergirl? You shouldn’t keep things from your wife, particularly the fact that she’s your wife.”

  I looked over at Gen, her beautiful, sweet, optimistic smile. She looked back at me and that smile changed. Her eyes darkened. She was a Siren and I was her mate. She’d taken my throat instinctively. Repeatedly. There was no license that could make me more hers. Still, she thought she was human. Human felt safe to her, familiar.

  “She knows that I’m hers. The name for it doesn’t matter. Until the curse is cured, she can’t feel like she belongs to me. She’ll maintain certain boundaries. So, find a cure.”

  We raised our bottles and drank to that.

  Chapter 2

  My gown itched. I shifted in my place in the first row of the students waiting to accept their diplomas and walk across the stage. The gym was crowded and the air conditioner couldn’t keep up. At least I was on the floor instead of up in the bleachers. I glanced over my shoulder, searching the crowd. Sean stood out even at this distance in his pale blue button-up shirt, broad shoulders taking up more than two of my spaces on the bleachers. He sat beside my dad. Sean gave me a slight nod, either to acknowledge me or to tell me to turn around and stop gawking like a tourist. He was so gawk-worthy.

  I faced front and tried to not feel like an imposter. It wasn’t the human thing, no I felt human about ninety percent of the time. It was the honor’s roll. I was sitting in the middle of the other students who had gotten a 4.0 GPA in the last year. With my mind eaten by obsession, good grades hadn’t been a possibility. Now with a little help from my couch addict, who didn’t spend nearly enough time on the couch these days, I’d joined the front row. Junie hadn’t made it this semester. She shrugged it off, but she definitely belonged here instead of me. I fought off the urge to turn my head and find her in the crowd. Instead, I listened to Dean snort to my right. Yep. Dean Horne was in the honors rank with me. The world must be coming to an end.

  Leslie stood up and walked to the podium to much cheering and chanting. She’d led the swim team to the finals and while no one chanted her to take off her shirt, she was still pretty, smart, likeable: the perfect valedictorian.

  I glanced over my shoulder to check out Sean. Was he super proud of his perfect Soremni successor? Was he thinking how pulled together she looked with her sensible yet adorably short haircut? He raised his eyebrow at me and I turned around quickly. I wasn’t jealous. Maybe a little. I was his fake Vashni wife. I had nothing to be jealous about.

  I was really going to Cierdeep. At first I’d been so excited to be accepted into Gerveeg’s internship program, I hadn’t really thought about everything that would go into it. I couldn’t just live my life in idiotic bliss. I was a weapon of mass destruction. On accident. I’d worked so hard the last few weeks, keeping up my grades and learning Soremni customs and language, and pretty much everything. Spyguy was helping me create a persona, someone like Leslie who had been raised on land and had an excuse not to know the customs, but softer, sweeter, a Soremni female that no one would ever tie to the Cleaver Queen. I had to learn the language. There was no way around that, and I had to act like a Soremni. So much smiling and being charming.

  Like Leslie up there, giving her speech with the perfect amount of power and control. We were all compelled to listen to her in the most gentle and subtle way. She talked about choice and the opportunities we had to create the life we chose. It was a lot like Sean’s speech from the year before, but when she got to the end, it went a little bit differently.

  “This is the time for us to go out into the world and make mistakes. We can’t live perfect lives, after all,” she said, looking directly at me, “We’re only human. If we don’t try anything new, we’ll never be sure that our path is the right one. We can do great things! And we will.”

  Applause, applause, applause.

  I clapped with the appropriate amount of enthusiasm. It wasn’t a terrible speech. It was terribly ironic, though. She thought I was Vashni. She was Soremni like I was going to pretend to be. Bernice had been the real Vashni, Bernice who wasn’t dead. Probably, unless the Queen’s accidental stab had gone septic.

  After that were a few more remarks and then the awesome moment came when they had us all stand and proceed to the stage. I followed the guy with the itchy gown, like they all weren’t. Hadn’t he been in my Calculus class? Apparently he’d gotten a 4.0 in it. Good for him. Good for me. I stood in line, went down the aisle, up the steps until I was walking across the stage and smiled at the principal who frowned as he looked down at the diploma to make sure me and it were connected. You know, me and the honor roll were not tight.

  I shook his hand, took the diploma then remembered to turn and smile at the audience in case my dad wanted a picture or something. That’s when the row behind Sean stood up, whipped off their shirts and started chanting something unintelligible. I stared at Sean for a long time before he cupped his mouth and yelled my name and then a bunch of other hooting noises. I stood there staring at him, completely mystified until he shook his head and gestured with his hand for me to keep walking. Okay. I gave the principal a shrug and another smile then kept going. That had been really, really loud. Where had he gotten that many guys to strip for me? And why? His chest was the only one I wanted to see. Still, it was super sweet.

  I stopped at the bottom of the steps in front of the blue screen for the photographer to take my picture then headed back to finish the loop to my seat. The guy next to me leaned and whispered, “You aren’t a swimmer. Why are all the greatest swimmers in the history of our high school here for you?”

  I thought about that for a long time. “It must be because while I’m not a terribly good swimmer, I am the biggest fan of the best one in the world.”

  “So, you’re still dating the Captain?”

  I beamed at him. “I think so.” I turned to face front and cheered as loud as I could for Dean. He grimaced as he took the diploma, leaning away from our principal like being caught doing something so responsible hurt him. Junie whistled somewhere behind me, really loud and for a second he grinned before he slouched off the stage. Flop came up then, wearing flip-flops with her gown. He read her name, “Florence Luciana Ophelia Patrick,” and I got her nickname for the first time. I’d thought it was flip-flops. She smiled sweetly and Fred hooted for her. It was very sweet, but not nearly as sweetly strange as Sean’s thing. Was he going to take me to the ocean after this? We could drive to that one beach and then spend a few days eating clams while I stared at his chest. I sighed and almost missed yelling for Junie. She would have been an awesome valedictorian. Way better than Leslie. More human and earnest when she talked about changing the world. Cole winked at me when it was his turn to get his diploma, and the majority of the audience cheered for the star quarterback.

  After that, we threw our hats in the air. I didn’t. My hat fell off right before and was somewhere under a hundred stomping feet. We made it! We did it!

  By the time I made it out of the crowded auditorium I was tired but happy. I went over to where Sean had parked, leaned against the passenger door and soaked in the sun. The breeze made the sunshine delicious. All the stress of the last few months dissolved for a few minutes as I relaxed there, eyes closed.

  Getting straight A’s had taken a lot of effort, but it was effort I could give when I had Sean in my life, taking the obsession and leaving me my brain. He leaned against the car beside me, and I felt his arm brush mine. I shivered at that delicious contact. Sean. He was my whole world.

  “When do I get to see you without a shirt?” I asked, turning to smile up at him.

  His mouth twitched. “Is that what you w
ant for your graduation present?”

  I nodded and took his hand, strong, callused, so enormous that it swallowed mine. “That and a beach. Are we going to run away for a few days?”

  He inhaled deeply before brushing my nose with his. “Don’t tempt me. We have to pack up for Terramore. You still have a lot to do before your internship.”

  I pouted, but it was a waste of time. My pout wasn’t anything close to as affective as his. “But you’re so stressed out. You need to relax on a beach somewhere.”

  “Relax? You think I’d be relaxed with you on a beach? Maybe after you raised a tidal wave and got it out of your system.” He brushed my cheek with his fingers before he bent down and slowly, softly, brushed his lips across mine. My skin prickled all over as he pulled away and gazed into my eyes, his own pale blue eyes growing darker as his pupils expanded. “I cannot guarantee a whale free beach.”

  I shivered while his hands brushed up and down my arms before taking my hands. “Maybe I want a beached whale in my life.”

  He snorted. “Now you’re calling me a beached whale? You are so terrible for my ego. No wonder I love you so much. Come on, Gen. We’re going to miss your dad’s barbecue.”

  I beamed and got in the car, because he loved me. Also because I wasn’t going to blow off my dad.

  Chapter 3

  The barbecue was in the backyard. Lucien’s big hole had turned into a rather nice pond. He shook my hand and gave me an envelope. My mother stayed in her tub, keeping Sean’s aunt company no doubt.

  Okay, so the thing about his crazy Vashni aunt was that she didn’t want to leave. Apparently the Queen had kept her captive, and she really liked Morganagh and the plan to overthrow the Soremni government. Yeah. I’d talked to her a few times, making sure I kept my awesome accent in place. She hated humans, so she didn’t want to walk around our town, and she hated Soremni’s, so she didn’t want to stay at Fielding House, and she didn’t want to go away and live on her own, not when we were the center of the action. What the crazy dark-haired woman did was write on the walls of the bathroom in sharpie. Yeah, she was crazy, maybe from so many years sniffing markers. I don’t know. At any rate, it wasn’t as simple getting rid of her as I’d thought. She definitely wasn’t coming to Cierdeep with us. She was a traitor to her country. It wouldn’t be good for image to consort with people who were supposed to have been executed. We definitely weren’t leaving her with my dad.

  I sighed as I sat down, my hotdog perched on my knees.

  “Princess,” Spyguy said, taking the lawn chair next to me. He had a hamburger, nice and bloody.

  I wrinkled my nose. “What is it with you people not cooking your food? Never mind. Don’t give me a lecture on Soremni culture. Hey, what are we going to do with Sean’s aunt?”

  He raised an eyebrow and took a big bite of hamburger, chewing for a long time while I watched Sean flip burgers, the veins in his forearm extremely attractive.

  “You mean while you’re in Cierdeep? We treat her like a prisoner. If we stopped, the Queen could call Sean a traitor. That would be inconvenient. Of course, she’d been harboring the traitor herself for years, so she probably won’t say anything. I know an island where she can live in blissful wall-writing. It’s a paradise, but also very well-guarded. Do you want me to take care of it?”

  I glanced at him. “You’re saying that Sean doesn’t have a private island somewhere?”

  He shrugged. “I’m saying that my island isn’t connected to anyone you know. I’d take Lucien to do the transfer. Shall I take care of it this week?”

  I sighed. “I’ll have to talk to her.”

  “She wants to stay close to you, to Takeo, to Morganagh. She smells a revolution. We don’t actually want that, so having her planning all the ways we can slaughter the opposition might not be entirely helpful.”

  “She’s crazy.” I grabbed his hand. “Are you sure she’ll be happy on the island? I’ll have to visit to make sure.”

  He shook his head, pulling his hand away then took another bite. “You can’t visit. You can have a live chat with her, but the island stays off the beaten path. By that, I mean no one knows about it who isn’t me.”

  “And Sean’s crazy aunt.”

  “And Sean’s crazy aunt. This is good. Your dad has some extraordinary talents.” He got up to get another hamburger.

  Sean dropped down into the seat a few minutes later, his own hamburger slightly less bloody. “This is nice. In a few years, when the trees have gotten established, it’ll be quite lovely. I didn’t know that your brother was so talented.”

  I slid my fingers over his forearm and shivered from happiness. I could touch Sean any time I wanted to. The pond and the surrounding beds of riotous plants was a vast improvement to the formerly desolate yard we only passed through to the dojo on the other side of the block.

  “His garden in South Carolina was really beautiful. It’s a really healthy outlet. Like you working on machines.” Sean had a new project, a big metal something with whirring parts that he kept next to the couch, tools spread over the coffee table. He’d resisted the impulse to work on anything besides toasters, but eventually the truth will out.

  He gripped my hand. “Gen, what is your plan?”

  I glanced at his fingers, tan, strong, so extremely difficult to ignore. “Plan? We’re going to Cierdeep. You’re going to be in the games and I’m going to do an internship with Gerveeg.”

  His thumb made circles on the back of my hand. “And next year?”

  I swallowed and tried not to notice the tingling from his touch. “I don’t know. An internship is usually a few years, isn’t it?”

  He shrugged. “It can be. I’m a little bit worried that you’re going to burn out. What you are takes a lot of energy, and pretending to be something you aren’t, two things you aren’t, it can get exhausting. At least you aren’t taking college classes at the same time.”

  “College classes?”

  He shrugged. “I’ll be doing classes in Maine with another double this year. That’s what the engine by the couch is for.”

  I stared at him. “How can you do classes using a double? Wouldn’t that be cheating? A little bit like competing in swimming with gills.”

  He snort-laughed. “I do the class work, and for the record, I sealed off my gills every time I got in the pool. My dad offered you a double, but I told him you weren’t interested in playing Vashni princess, Soremni intern, and human student at the same time.”

  I stared at him and felt a little bit sick. “You’re going to do classes and the gladiator thing?”

  He shrugged. “It’s not a big deal for me. I have all these extra brains rolling around doing nothing.”

  “And I don’t?”

  He grinned and leaned closer to me. “I think that your thoughts are quite thoroughly occupied. If it isn’t me, it’s music. If it’s not music, it’s the obsession. Of course you could do it. You’re on the honor roll. You could do anything, but why would you bother?”

  I ate my hotdog. Sean was doing human college while he was going to train for the games? Of course he was. Like he said, why not? Not a big deal for him. At the same time, my internship wouldn’t be nearly as time-consuming as his training, at least not once I’d gotten how to do the whole thing like a Soremni. We were going to a house in Oliver’s realm but not in Cierdeep so I could practice not killing people with the ocean. Also living like a Soremni. And a Vashni. Would I be able to handle living underwater? I was on the honor roll; I could do anything.

  I rolled my eyes and tugged him closer so I could kiss him. Mm. Sean and ketchup. His lips were more delicious than anything, but I somehow managed to not really kiss him with my dad and everyone around. Everyone was Lucien, Junie, Dean, Haverre, and of course, Sean.

  “Are you coming to Ceramic Lake for the party tonight? Flop and Tuba are going,” Junie said, dragging a chair over to me while balancing a veggie burger on her plate.

  “No,” I said immediately.
/>   “Why not?” Sean asked.

  I stared at him. Hello, me and water? A lake? Lots of people? Bad idea.

  He nudged me. “You’re going to live in an ocean. If you don’t think that you can handle a little party with a few teenagers by a small body of water, maybe we should rethink things.”

  “You want me to go? Like a test? Okay. You’ll come with me, right?”

  He shook his head, eyes deceptively soft. “You’re going to have to cope without me.”

  “But you’re my squiggy fish.”

  He sighed and leaned back, facing the pond instead of me. “You have no idea what that is.”

  “It’s like a sea person’s teddy bear.”

  “Close. They’re poisonous vipers that you have to crush the full body of so as to not be poisoned by its fangs or tail.”

  I stared at him. “You’re joking. Aren’t you? Anyway,” I said turning to Junie. “I guess I’m going. Can I ride with you guys?”

  She raised her eyebrows. “I don’t have a car.”

  “Right, I just thought you would go with Dean.”

  “With Dean? You think I’m with Dean in some metaphorical way? He is over there by the hamburgers. He hasn’t asked me to go with him and I’m fine with that. It’s not like I couldn’t bike.”

  I pushed her over a little bit. “Yeah. What’s going on with you? I heard you whistling at him.”

  She stared in utter fascination at her veggie burger. “I was being encouraging. He doesn’t have any real family. At least my aunt was there for me, even if she’s giving me the silent treatment for having the nerve to get hurt while doing good.”

  Junie didn’t have any visible signs of the accident, but along her hairline was a long red mark that would probably scar. The burns were pink, but she hadn’t gotten any on her face. Dean had recovered remarkably well, sitting in the hospital with Junie doing homework that Fred and Flop brought them. It had seemed like Junie and Dean were inseparable, but maybe that was just the hospital thing. He’d saved her life.