Bloody Kisses (23 page)

E
dythe Carson resisted
the urge to tuck her short blonde hair behind her ears and blow her bangs out of her face. She gripped the podium with both hands and leaned forward, staring at each member of the planning commission.

“The saltwater marsh is essential to protecting the coast. I understand that tourism drives this town’s economy, and that you believe the site to be perfect for a hotel, but if you fill in the marsh, the next time we have a super storm or a hurricane, there will be no buffer between the sea and the town.”

She intercepted a few glances between the committee members and resisted the urge to stomp her foot and demand they listen to her.

“Miss—”

“Doctor,” Edythe interrupted.

“Dr. Carson,” the chairperson corrected. “We understand your opinion.” She held up the thick document Edythe had submitted as evidence against filling in the marshes. “We’ve read it, and we appreciate the time you took away from your lab to come here and voice your opinion.”

She could feel the brush-off coming. The big
but
discounting everything she said, and putting the town on a path where all the natural beauty was eclipsed by high-rise hotels and casino boats.

“But,” the chairperson went on, pushing her glasses up on her nose. “We must balance the good of the town against the marshes. The marsh, as you pointed out, stretches for ten miles. The section of marsh Sunrise Hotels proposed filling is merely half of that.”

“It doesn’t take into account infrastructure!” Edythe argued. “Roads, run-off, drainage, seawalls, breakwaters. All of those things change the ecosystem. It’s five marsh miles, but what about the road to get there? What about parking?”

A buzzer sounded, indicating her time to speak was over. She noticed the chairperson sighing with relief as she leaned back in her chair, but Edythe wasn’t done. “Your town will not be the same if you allow this hotel to be built. I promise you, you’ll come to regret it.”

“Are you threatening us, Dr. Carson?” A man who’d gone unnoticed by her leaned forward in his chair, steepling his fingers and watching her with interest.

She shook her head, tucking her staticky hair behind her ear quickly. “No. Of course, not. I am merely warning you of the ecological disaster that awaits—”

“The buzzer sounded, Dr. Carson. Your turn is over. Please step aside, or Deputy Minor will remove you.”

“Wait”—she saw the county sheriff, a stocky, sweaty, anxious-looking man, start toward her so she held up a hand to ward him off—“Just listen.”

“Deputy.” The man gestured with his fingers toward Edythe. The deputy stepped forward eagerly, clearly excited the boring planning commission hearing generated a problem for him to solve.

“This way, Miss Carson.”

“Doctor,” Edythe said under her breath, but she gathered her things. She barely had time to stuff them in her bag before the deputy grasped her arm and pulled her away from the podium. “Hey!”

“Your time is up. Let’s go.” His voice was deep but affected. Edythe thought he probably practiced his cop voice in his cruiser every day.

“I can walk by myself, thank you very much.” She tried to jerk out of his grip, but he dug his fingertips in harder.

“Now, don’t give me any problems, missy.”

“Missy?!” she squeaked.

He pushed her out of the town hall, and she tripped, dropping her bag. The deputy didn’t wait to see if she was okay, merely shut the door behind himself, leaving her alone on the old stone steps of the hall. She bent down, collecting her bag. She swiped her hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ears and wiping her arm across her forehead. She made sure to flip her middle finger back at the town hall before starting down the steps and walking across the parking lot to her car.

In the years since she’d left, the town had changed. It used to be rundown. There had been one drugstore, a few gas stations, and a seasonal store that sold prom dresses in the spring. The downtown of her childhood was boarded up and broken.

Not anymore.

Now it was the perfect beach town. The sidewalks were laid with cobblestones and the storefronts shingled and painted. Along with the tourist traps selling overpriced t-shirts, there was a sweets shop, a clothing boutique, an art gallery, and a coffee shop. Fifteen years was a long time away.

Edythe was glad for her hometown. It was a beautiful spot.

For other people.

For her, each spot was tinged with sadness and fear. When she passed by the library, she remembered her mom hefting a tote bag full of mystery books to tide her over for the week. At the bank, she remembered getting a lollypop after each deposit her mother made.

Her drive from her job in Woods Hole, up Route One into Maine, and her hometown had given her a lot of time to think.

And she thought about Linc.

After her mother and father’s death, she’d moved in with her great-aunt, a kind older woman with grown children, who really didn’t care what she did, as long as she was quiet.

“I’m tired, Edythe,” her aunt had said. “I’ve already raised four boys. I trust you to do the right thing.”

She had, for the most part. She was too late an addition to her classes to make many friends, but middle school and high school weren’t bad. No one was mean to her. She was just lonely and confused.

The police said both her parents died in the fire that destroyed her home; her father rescued a sleeping Edythe, but was overcome with smoke and died when he went back for her mother.

There were explanations for everything. The cage in the basement had been for the wild animals in his experiments. They said the fire burned so hot, so quickly there was nothing left of her parents to bury.

When she swore up and down her father had kept a boy in the basement and tortured him, the police dismissed it. It was impossible.

When she’d claimed the boy had scales her father ripped off, they looked at each other and nodded, as if there was their explanation. She had a nightmare; she was traumatized. None of it really happened.

She learned quickly to keep her mouth shut. No one wanted to hear her story, they just wanted to move on. She made it worse with make-believe.

Linc was the reason she went into marine biology, and the reason she returned here, after all this time. Because she was afraid if they destroyed the marshes and the beach, it would be the end of him.

She knew he existed. Sometimes, she even thought she could feel him, a tiny glimmer in the back of her mind that, try as she might, she could never grasp.

Linc’s words continuously echoed through her mind,
“I can’t leave.”

Somehow, she knew it was her fault he’d stayed in the cage, and her fault he was hurt so badly. Memories of his torture kept her from returning. She couldn’t risk coming back, finding Linc, and someone seeing him like her father had. She couldn’t risk someone experimenting on him, testing the limits of his pain and healing.

He was safer without her.

So Edythe mourned her mother, and she even mourned her father, but she grieved for Linc. She longed for him with her entire soul, even though, in the fifteen years since that night, Edythe hadn’t been back. His absence was an ache which never seemed to go away.

But tonight she’d failed him. In a week, dump trucks would trample the delicate cordgrasses and sea lavender. The birds would fly away, and the crabs would suffocate. He could be discovered.

Her heart pounded, and she hurried to her car. If he was there, she would find him, and she would warn him. She turned the key, the engine grinding, and she threw the car into reverse, squealing out of the parking lot. Her brain yelled at her, and it threw her back in time.
Hurry, hurry, hurry.
They were the same words she spoke to herself the night she helped Linc escape.

S
omething was different
. It started with the tension easing from Linc’s shoulders, his fingers unclenching, and his jaw relaxing. He hadn’t felt the pain in his body ebb in fifteen years. He was perpetually ready to fight. As the hurt drained away, a hum filled his body, and the voice he’d never thought to hear again pounded in his brain.
Hurry, hurry, hurry.

She was coming.

Linc swam toward shore, his body diving through waves, catching the current and riding it to land. He crept onto the beach, grateful for the cloudy night and the mere sliver of moon in the sky. Once, he’d been able to morph and hide the scales on his body, but not anymore. They were ever-present. He no longer bothered to cover himself in human clothing. He was more Aegean than human now.

She wouldn’t recognize him.

Her presence built in his mind, like the sunrise. She was just a small shaft of light pouring into him until she was everywhere, flooding him.

Edie?

The name slipped out of him, and he felt her startle before her aura grew brighter and warmer.
Linc?
A moment later,
where are you?

He hesitated, and she felt it. He felt her frustration and growing irritation. Amusement flowed through him, and her irritation spiked.
Stop being a jerk, and tell me where you are!
she demanded.

He grew serious quickly.
Where you left me.

A sigh crossed the distance between him, tinged with regret and guilt.
I’m sorry, Linc.

No, Edie.
Linc answered quickly.
It was what I wanted.

A question seemed to float to him, unformed, but he interpreted it.
Do you want me to leave you alone?

NO!
he replied. Everything inside him wanted her return.
No,
he repeated.
Never.

Linc hurried to the marshes, Edythe’s presence a constant in his mind. He waded into the water and then stopped. What would he tell her about his form? What if he scared her?

He’d grown so used to being alone, he was shocked when she answered him.
You could never scare me, you big dope. And if you look different, who cares? I do, too.

Her voice was friendly and teasing. There was still a hint of her younger self in her words, in her spike of annoyance, but there was another note. She sounded more mature and a little weary. The Edythe coming to him tonight would be a woman.

He heard her slogging through the marsh but held back. She was tired; he could feel how her muscles burned and her frustration because she never worked out. Linc laughed.

Chuckle all you want. This water is deep to short people like me.

Her description of her body urged him forward. He had to see her, had to have his eyes on her again. With much more alacrity, he hurried toward her. He didn’t bother with being silent, he was just as noisy as she was.

“Where are you?”

And then there she was. The same Edythe, grown up, but still short.

She snorted. “Nice.”

She was beautiful.

She snorted again. “Better.”

Linc stepped forward, out of the tall grass and saw the moment she recognized him. At first she was confused, and his heart sank. But in the next second, all doubts swept away. Her face split into a grin, and she took one giant step toward him. She caught her foot on a weed and fell face first into the water. For the first time ever, he laughed—out loud. The look Edythe gave him when her face lifted out of the water was part mortification and part resignation.

He was there in a heartbeat, lifting her out of the water and pushing her hair back from her heart-shaped face. He loved her little pointed chin, and the way her mouth bowed, the lower lip pouting.

“Hi.” She held tight to his hands. Every pain, every ache Linc had felt for fifteen years was forgotten.

“Hello, Edie,” he said.

Her eyes widened. “You can talk?”

He nodded. “This is the first time I’ve ever spoken aloud.”

Her head canted to the side, the water rolling down her face and dripping off the tip of her nose. He swiped it with his fingers and stopped. He was used to seeing his hands covered in glossy, black scales, but the hand touching Edythe’s skin was smooth and pink: flesh.

“What is happening?” she asked, sensing his confusion and disbelief.

“I don’t know,” he answered, honestly. “I think it’s you.”

She narrowed her eyes, taking one hand out of his and skimming it down his shoulder and arm. “You’re different.”

“I was afraid I’d frighten you.”

There was the snort again. “Hardly.”

She traced his body with her eyes. He could see, in his mind, what she saw, but the vision was colored with her emotions. She didn’t see a monster. She didn’t see a creature driven mad. He plucked the words from her mind:
handsome, strong, smooth, deadly
. The last word hurt, but she tempered it a moment later, as he heard her think,
he looks like a warrior, covered in armor.
She sent the image to him, a human with a sword, clad in plates that looked like scales made to protect him from an opponent’s blade.

He tried to shut off the answer following on the heel of her thoughts. He was deadly, but if she knew he struggled to keep his instincts in check, she might run away. Being without her again would push him over the edge into madness. He had to keep her.

E
dythe shivered
in the chilly air, and Linc narrowed his eyes. The color of the scales on his face only heightened the blue of his eyes. She didn’t remember him being so handsome. She remembered he was tall and strong, but her memory of his face was hazy. It was wrapped up in so many emotions, she could often only recall impressions.

But he was handsome. The angles of his face were hard. With his lips tilted up in a smile, it softened. His hair was light and slicked back from his face. His scales were smaller there, thumb-sized, and caught the reflection of the water… or the moon when the clouds opened for a moment. When he blinked, a clear lid from the corner of his eye moved swiftly across the lens and then back, before his lids dropped down. He was trying to hide it from her, concerned it would frighten her. His consideration for her feelings was too much, she didn't deserve it.

She sighed. “I owe you an apology.”

Linc looked confused. “For what?”

“For leaving you hurt and staying away. I wanted to come back…,” she began.

“I’m glad you didn’t,” he said strongly.

She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Why not? I thought we were friends!”

A surge of affection swamped her. She felt his amusement at the way her emotions swung unexpectedly; apologizing in one breath then yelling at him with the next.

“You’re right,” she groaned. “I’ve never been very good at talking to people. It’s just—I didn’t want you to think I didn’t want to see you. I did! But you were hurt because of me. I didn’t want it to happen again.”

He wanted to hold her, but he stopped, ever-conscious of his appearance. She needed to put an end to his fear immediately.

“Stop worrying about me.” She took her hands from his and stroked his cheeks with the back of her hands. “You don’t frighten me. Yeah, you’re different. So what?”

You’re mine,
she thought but immediately wanted to slap her hand over her mental mouth. God, she hoped he hadn’t heard her. He’d jump right back in the ocean, leaving a wake as he swam away as fast as possible. She couldn’t imagine what she looked like. She wasn’t very fashionable at the best of times, and her curvy figure wasn’t flattered by her now-saturated sweater and jeans.

A denial of her thought resonated through her mind, and she felt her face heat as Linc showed her how he saw her.

She stared at him in disbelief. “I don’t look anything like that!”

“You do.” Linc stepped closer to her. She watched his eyes trace her face, her hair, and body. “Edie, you’re the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen.”

“No, I’m not. I bet you have sirens and mermaids where you are.”

Linc met her eyes, his head cocked to the side. “Mermaids?”

“You don’t know mermaids?”

He shook his head, so she sent him the image. He barked out a laugh, shaking his head. “No. No, mermaids.”

“There’s no one else like you, Linc.” Edythe touched his arm. It felt like his scales shivered under his touch, and she watched in amazement as they faded, leaving his skin visible. He was pale in the moonlight. “If I touch you everywhere, will they disappear?” she wondered aloud.

Oh god, I’m on a roll tonight. Can I sink under the water, please?

Linc tipped her chin back, gazing into her eyes. “Why did you come here, Edythe?”

It took her a moment to collect herself and process his question. “I… The town is destroying the marsh, Linc. I was afraid you were here. I didn’t want anyone to hurt you.”

“You came back for me?” He held onto her chin, staring into her eyes, refusing to let her look away.

“Yes.”
Of course.

The pupils in his eyes widened, darkening the blue to black. “Yes,” he said, leaving her confused.

“Huh?” she asked inarticulately.

“If my mate touches me, my scales will disappear.”

She swallowed, caught in his gaze. She could feel his emotions; they swamped her, and she came to understand everything. Why he never ran away. Why he continued to stay. She understood he’d suffered years of agonizing pain being separated from her.

From her! A weird, chubby nerd, whose idea of a good time was staring at tide pools.

You were made for me, Edie.
She heard him say.
The other half of me. I never want to be without you again.

His arms wrapped around her body, and he pulled her close. He was cold, and she shivered. “You’re freezing,” he said.

It was a chilly night, the end of summer. Her waders, which were now full of icy saltwater, only made her colder.

“Where are you staying?”

She hadn’t thought about where she was staying. Her only concern was to stop the marshes from being filled and to protect Linc. She had nowhere to go.

Linc.
She began to speak to him in her head, the question she wanted to ask too personal to say aloud.
Where do you come from?