Hyacinth, Scarlet - Craving Owen [Tides of Love 2] (Siren Publishing LoveXtreme Forever ManLove)

Tides of Love

SCARLET HYACINTH

Copyright ©

Chapter One

Owen scanned the expanse of the desert in front of him in dismayed frustration. Two months of efforts finally led him into The Silent Zone, where his friend Connor had disappeared. He was here at last, and he didn’t know what to do now.

He recalled his last conversation with the official in charge of Connor’s case.

“What do you mean you’ve given up on the investigation?” Owen fumed, glaring at the police officer in front of him. “You can’t be serious.”

The man sighed in a mix of exasperation and tiredness. “And we’ve told you before, sir. We’ve combed the entire desert to look for your friend. Beyond the tattered clothes, the camera, and the vehicle, there’s no trace of Connor Spade.”

“But surely, there must be something you can do.”

The police officer shook his head. “I’m sorry, sir. We can’t help you.”

The man had not cared enough to persist in the search, but Owen knew somewhere in this godforsaken place, he could find a trace of Connor. Something in his gut told him, and he always followed his instincts—except when it came to men, and his stupidity always led him to abysmal relations. But his love life or lack thereof didn’t matter. Connor meant more to him than anything else in this world. The other man was Owen’s only family, his only friend, and Owen would rather die before he allowed Connor’s disappearance to be swept under the rug just like that.

Angry and frustrated, Owen began walking forward through the desert. The sun scorched him, even at the early hour, and the sand seemed to glow with an unholy light. It was just an illusion caused by the heat, Owen knew, but it didn’t make him feel any better.

“Connor!” he shouted at the nothingness. “Connor!”

He didn’t get any reply, and he squashed his irrational disappointment. He knew better than to believe it would be so easy. If only he could get one lead, one single lead…but the desert did not answer, and the smoldering heat mocked him. How would he possibly find his friend here when the police had failed?

Cursing, Owen trekked forward, clinging to his resolve to eliminate the physical discomfort caused by the high temperature. The authorities were hiding something, he just knew it. They’d refused to show him any of the things left behind by Connor and to return them, even when his friend had been declared dead. Owen did not know the policy in such cases, but something didn’t feel right about all this. He could tell.

He’d asked around in the city, and he’d found out Connor had intended to go to the ruins in The Silent Zone the day of his disappearance. Owen meant to do the same, except he couldn’t find enough funds to rent a car. With Connor gone, it had become increasingly difficult for him to keep the apartment and continue paying the rent by himself. The travel expenses also cost him quite a bit. He hoped he’d still have a job when he came back, because otherwise he didn’t know what he would do.

But none of those glum thoughts deterred him. Onward Owen went, seeking his friend, calling out his name. The sun continued to relentlessly attack him, and Owen felt certain his light coloring would cause him to look like a boiled crab the next day.

Perhaps for that reason, when he first saw the clouds gathering over the horizon, he let out a sigh of relief. However, when the sound of thunder reached his ears, he realized randomly strolling through the desert while a storm raged would be even more dangerous than doing so during a sunny day. True enough, he hadn’t managed to come up with an alternate solution when he’d first come here, but he knew better than to stick around with the ominous darkness looming over him.

He decided to backtrack and return once the storm passed, but then he realized what he was doing. He couldn’t abandon Connor to his fate, not even for an hour, let alone a day, or whatever time it took for the storm to end. Then again, if Owen got lost or killed, who would help Connor? It was impossible to decide, at least until Owen spotted something ahead of him he hadn’t originally seen.

The ruins he’d heard so much about, the same ones Connor supposedly intended to visit, appeared in his line of sight. He was pretty sure the police must have investigated them—locals did know how to get there after all. But the desert seemed so deceptive and tricky. Owen couldn’t risk losing his chance.

The storm clouds seemed to gather above them in an unnatural manner. Light crackled around the ruins, manifesting in a weird, bright whirlpool. Anyone in his right mind would have turned tail and run for his life. Owen didn’t. Something in the sight called out to him in a strange way, and he found himself walking forward.

In spite of it all, he might have still changed his mind if the storm didn’t suddenly burst into a full-blown hurricane. Owen froze in his tracks, unable to move a muscle. He could no longer see a thing. Sweat trickled over his spine as the temperature increased more and more, energy sizzling over his skin. Owen could swear he caught sight of some of the sand turning into bright, silver glass.

But before he could compute the mind-melting idea, the desert disappeared into an overwhelming mass of white. Owen cried out, and to his dismay, he didn’t even hear his own voice. He felt himself falling, falling, the choking void swallowing him whole. There was no up, no down, no true sense of reality, just the falling, absurd and illogical.

He didn’t know how long the torment lasted. The world materialized again, and Owen found himself falling into a swirling abyss of water. Desperate, he tried to struggle against the current that threatened to drag him to his doom. The storm continued to rage around him, wicked and fierce, and Owen’s arms were getting weaker and weaker.

Just when he thought things could not get any worse, lightning flashed against the sky, illuminating the dark waters, and Owen caught sight of a nightmarish image. A large, snakelike neck appeared from the water, two heads looming over at the other end. The creature let out a roaring screech, revealing sharp fangs that looked like they could tear a man in half—in both its mouths. Owen tried to swim away, but a thin paw wrapped around his waist, lifting him from the water as if he were nothing more than a toy.

Owen tried to struggle, to break free of the disgusting grip tightening around his waist and chest, cutting his breathing. He clawed at the three-fingered paw, but his fingernails were useless against the armored skin of the beast.

And then, the two-headed animal let out another screech. This time, however, Owen detected an undertone of pain in the banshee-like noise. Another roar joined him, and Owen couldn’t resist the urge to look toward the source of the sound. He realized in horror another beast joined the first one. It was larger than the first, but it only had one head. The second monster attacked Owen’s original captor. The paw holding Owen loosened, but before Owen could even begin to feel relieved, another grip wrapped around him, the one of the second animal.

Completely in the creature’s power, Owen faced the reptilian eyes of the beast and went limp. He could not move. He could not think. He did not understand anything that was happening to him.

And still, the animal did not move, as if hesitating. Perhaps it was contemplating the best way to eat Owen. It turned out counterproductive, as the sound of a battle cry filled Owen’s ears, followed by the swish of weaponry.

The large beast roared again, directing its attention toward the new threat, whatever it might be. In the process, it dropped Owen and he fell and fell, gasping as the dark water approached once again. From the height he’d been at, an impact would be at least unpleasant, if not deadly.

To his shock, the waves caught him in a soft but secure grip. It felt shockingly solid, and Owen remained motionless, for fear that whatever made it appear would dissipate. At the same time, he stole a look toward the snake-looking thing in front of him. The loud screech echoed in his ears when he watched odd arrows shoot at the animal. The two-headed one seemed to have disappeared. Obviously discouraged, the second beast joined its companion and vanished into the waves beneath with a deafening splash.

Owen had the strangest sensation as he watched the animal go. As he processed the events, he realized the second snake actually saved him from the first one. Why hadn’t it eaten him? Something kept the animal from killing Owen, but what?

As he contemplated this, Owen found himself lowered slowly on something that looked like a square boat of sorts. The watery claw holding him up abandoned him on the wooden floor of the sea vessel, and Owen stared up at the man that seemed to be his rescuer.

“What are you doing here, human?” he snarled at Owen. “Do you want to get eaten?”

Owen would have snorted at the ridiculous question, but he couldn’t make himself move or answer. For a few instants, he was too taken with the sight of the man in front of him. His rescuer’s blue-green eyes speared through Owen, their turquoise depths as tumultuous as the sea the man just rescued Owen from. Long, dark blue tresses framed his face, and the wind occasionally brushed through it, making the strands sweep over the man’s high cheekbones and aristocratic features. Owen had never seen a man who looked quite so amazing, and he cursed himself for remaining tongue-tied.

But as the adrenaline and the fear began to dwindle, Owen realized there was something clearly amiss with him. He could not move a muscle, and the paralysis seemed to extend over him more and more with each passing second.

Owen wanted to cry out for help, but no sound came from him. Still, the man seemed to understand, as he uttered an unfamiliar string of syllables which seemed to be a swear word. He looked away from Owen and shouted, and someone answered. Obviously, there were more people there than Owen realized.

Owen felt something vibrate against his back and realized the boat had started to move. The blue-haired man knelt next to him and caressed the side of his face. “Calm down, human. Everything is going to be all right.” His fingers traveled over Owen’s face and to his lips, oddly wet and soothing.

His voice was as gentle as it had been angry, and Owen allowed it to comfort him. But soon, he could no longer hear it, nor feel the other man’s touch. Desperate and afraid, Owen could do nothing but fall into the darkness.

Yane knew the exact moment when the little human surrendered to the dark snake’s spell. Unfortunately, the stranger had not known to avoid the wyrm’s gaze, and now the paralysis was already taking over his body. Here in the middle of the ocean, Yane could do very little about it.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t try, of course. Yane shouted another order at Lyole, directing his second-in-command to lead the group in his stead. He trusted Lyole implicitly and knew the other man would deal with whatever came up. Yane then rummaged through the boat’s supply stash. No nymph went to battle without having some medicine with him, and Yane was no different.

He retrieved the necessary item and took a deep breath. The physiology of earthlings was different from that of water nymphs. Whereas the body of an adult male human contained up to percent water, Yane and his people could reach up to percent. Yan learned that the hard way, through heavy dehydration during his many trips on Earth. However, if he left the stranger to the mercy of the wyrm’s spell, the human would die.

Kneeling next to the stranger he’d rescued, Yane retrieved the vial of medicine. A nymph would just drink it, but at the last minute, Yane decided to pour it on a cloth instead. He pressed the wet cloth to the stranger’s face, adding some of his own body water for good measure. For a few moments, he thought the medicine would not work, but at last, the vapors of the potion snapped the human out of his daze.

Wide blue eyes analyzed him with undisguised panic. “It’s okay, little human,” Yane said. “You’re fine. Now, look at me. It’s very important that you stay awake now.”

He wasn’t sure to what extent the medicine would work, so he needed to keep the human busy, force him to will his own body out of the paralysis. “Now, tell me, what’s your name?”

The human’s lips trembled as if he were trying to open his mouth and failing. His eyes filled with tears, and the human looked so very young and vulnerable a fist clenched around Yane’s heart. He could not explain it. For crying out loud, he had too many problems of his own to worry about a human. But he couldn’t exactly leave the man and abandon him to the sea monsters. The human needed his help.