An Elemental Tail (9 page)

All she could think about was the envelope in
her satchel and the drawings of Nik it contained. She sighed and
put aside the book. Maybe she couldn’t have a new idea because she
couldn’t complete the old one.

Maybe now was the time to open the envelope
and to let the idea go. To let Nik go.

She slid her nail under the flap. Three
thick, translucent pages fell out on to her lap. The pictures
blurred as she sniffed and blinked back tears. She traced over the
lines, imagining the feel of his muscle, not the paper. A teardrop
spotted the page and streaked through the pencil, ruining the
sketch but not erasing the memory. Only time would soften the
jagged edges. She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. Nik
loved to travel. She looked up at the river. She’d send him off on
a final voyage.

Isla folded each sheet into a little boat,
portions of Nik revealed on every side. An arm, a leg, his face.
She walked to the edge of the river. It was better this way—she
would move on the way he had. Wherever he was, she wished him well
and hoped that when he slept at night he occasionally dreamed of
her. With a final thought of their time together, she dropped the
little boats into the river. The current snatched at the pages,
twirling them out of reach, and out of sight. Her heart lurched as
all traces of Nik were washed away like he’d never existed.

****

He was water. Other water Elementals had
welcomed his return as if he’d been away only days, not centuries.
He passed his time in a swirl of chatter and games. And he was
bored.

Bored of the female Elementals who would kiss
him and then expect him to chase them across the globe to prove his
affection. Bored with thrashing shores with storms that swept cars
out to sea. They only made the tension in his fluid body swell.
Even riding the tidal wave that drowned an island had failed to
raise a thrill.

Nik shimmered, water becoming the body of a
merman. He flicked his glistening crimson tail in self-disgust at
how human he’d become and swam deep to where the only light came
from luminescent creatures that never saw daylight. He was more
comfortable with skin and scale than as a drop of water. He lay on
the floor of the ocean and watched the edge of a continent being
birthed. The magic of the elements working together didn’t move him
as it once had.

His ocean had changed. Even this deep, he
could taste the bitterness of pollution. See the change in the
creatures. The ocean was emptier. But it was more than that.
He
had changed. He shot up through the water, his body
unaffected by the change of pressure. He skimmed the crests of
waves until he reached the sandy shore of what had been his
favorite island. It was now a tourist resort.

Nik walked out of the ocean as a man and sat
on the fine sand that glittered like powdered moonlight. The full
moon hung in the sky like a white pearl, scattering light over the
sea. He took a breath. Air filled his lungs with a familiar and
welcome stretch of tissue. In his human body the gashes in his skin
wept. The wounds were raw from the sea salt. They refused to heal,
but he liked the sting. The pain made him remember his life as a
human.

Coming back here the first time after getting
his tail back had been almost as bad as the time it had been
stolen. Once again he was crippled, only this time it was by four
hundred years’ worth of memories. And Isla.

He dug his fingers into the cool sand. Had he
spent longer as a human than he had as an Elemental? It didn’t seem
possible; he’d watched empires rise and fall. Sank ships and
changed the course of history, and yet those memories didn’t fill
him the way his short time with Isla did. Their moments together
filled his thoughts—not even he could out-swim them. What had he
done for millennia?

Nymphs tickled his toes, giggling, trying to
lure him back to the sea to play. He scowled at them. He didn’t
want what the nymphs were offering. His emotions ran deeper. He was
able to think beyond himself, of the suffering caused by his storms
and of the lives lost in shipwrecks. Destruction wasn’t a game
anymore. It had consequences.

Nik tried to dredge up a memory that gave
meaning to his life as an Elemental. One encounter merged with the
next, an endless frittering away of an eternal life on
self-indulgent revelry and lust.

It wasn’t lust that had made him sacrifice
his flesh for a woman. It was love. A surge of loss threatened to
crush the human heart in his chest. He closed his eyes and tried to
swallow the ache.

As the sadness passed, his skin healed. The
missing pages of the book had been returned to the sea.

Isla had let him go.

He knew it would happen one day, but the open
wounds had never stung as sharply as being whole and forgotten. The
sorrow that made it hard to breathe was his own. He didn’t want
Isla to let him go. He should never have let her go. His body
melted back into water and he drowned in the tide that would take
him back to Isla.

The woman he loved.

****

With the pages gone, Isla felt emptier. She
stepped away from the river and gathered up her things. She didn’t
need a man. And she didn’t have time to pine over one. Rain
splashed her skin, washing away the aching malaise that had taken
over in Nik’s absence. She tipped her face to the clouds, a shadow
of a smile on her lips.

“Isla.”

Invisible ropes pulled her around to face the
owner of the voice before she could resist. Seeing Nik broke her
heart again. He hadn’t changed. His crimson hair whipped around his
face like kelp in a storm. She turned away, forcing her feet to
walk and her ears to ignore him. She was free.

“Isla, please wait.”

She shook her head but paused, allowing him
to catch up. “Why did you come back?”

Why now?

“I need you.” He took her hands and kissed
her like he’d been gone hours, not months.

She opened her mouth to speak and found
herself kissing him back. Craving his touch like the earth needed
rain.

He cupped her face with his hands. “You don’t
need me. You have no place for me in your life. But I want to be
there. I want to be with you.” Nik stepped back, his hands falling
to his side. “If you’ll have me.”

Isla drank in the sight of him. Six months
ago she would have said no. Now…she didn’t need him, but she wanted
him with every cell in her body. “I don’t have time to date, and I
don’t know when we’d see each other. But I want you.” She threw her
arms around his neck.

He swung her around, her feet never touching
the ground until she was dizzy and breathless.

Nik set her down, still holding her close.
“We’ll make it work.” His eyes were dark, filled with a sincerity
she hadn’t seen before, or maybe she hadn’t wanted to see.

She nodded. “We can make it work.”

As she spoke, the clouds opened. Water poured
out of them like the gods were emptying buckets. One bright red
scale fell to the ground and melted in the rain as two humans ran
for shelter, holding hands and laughing.

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Shona Husk lives in Western Australia at the
edge of the Indian Ocean. Blessed with a lively imagination she
spent most of her childhood making up stories. As an adult she
discovered romance novels and hasn’t looked back. Drawing on
history and myth, she writes about heroes who are armed and
dangerous but have a heart of gold—sometimes literally.

With stories ranging from sensual to
scorching, she is published with Carina Press, Ellora’s Cave,
Samhain Publishing and Sourcebooks. You can find out more at

www.ShonaHusk.com

www.twitter.com/ShonaHusk

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