Just Breathe (48 page)

“Gavin?”

His heart caught in his throat as Zoe came down the hall. She paused a moment, smiled, then leapt into his open arms. So many shades of blue in her aura, he couldn’t decipher where her emotions were.

“Damn it, I thought you’d left.” He pressed his nose to her hair and breathed in the safe, flowery scent that haunted his memories.

But, why couldn’t he hear her song?

She pulled back to look at him, tears sparkling her eyes.

His lungs caved in. So, she
was
leaving. He smoothed the blond waves falling across her shoulders and sighed.

“I couldn’t leave without saying goodbye to Lily.” She turned away and slid a wisp of hair behind her ear. “I…gave her my translating ability.”

“What?”

“She needs to communicate with her fellow Wæters, and I can’t be with her twenty-four/seven. It was the least I could do.”

That explained the silence.

“Zed, that was an incredibly selfless act. I know how much you love the whales and how hard it must’ve been to give up your gift.” Fuck, if it didn’t make him love her even more. And plunge the goodbye knife deeper into his heart.

If you love something, set it free…

“I promised I’d take you to the airport, but before we go, there’s something I want to give you.”

Crushed by the sudden, suffocating weight of despair, he slipped his shaking hand inside the pocket of his jacket and pulled out his lucky bird. He held it out to her. “This is for you.”

Zoe gasped as he dropped the toy falcon into her palm. She pressed twitching fingers to her mouth. Her face crinkled into a mess of anguish, and she burst into tears. Bawling, she closed her eyes and curled her quaking body into his unsteady embrace.

“You have no idea, do you?” Her sobs muddled the words. The rich, pure blue rippling off her was dazzling.

Why was she getting so worked up about the stupid bird when everything they’d built together was about to crumble to dust?

“No idea about what? Tell me, Zed.”

She wiped her eyes and stared at him, turquoise hope edging out the navy sadness in her aura. “This bird.” Lifting it up, she shook her head.

“What about it?”

“Where did you get it?”

He shrugged. “I’m not sure. I’ve had it since I was a grub.”

Her aura intensified, scattering moonbeams of every shade of blue in the visible light spectrum and beyond. His Dreamsense vibrated to life.

A slew of shimmery, translucent lines sprouted along the bird’s edges and extended toward Zoe. Another bunch of threads headed for Gavin.

Songlines?

The iridescent threads played tag with the last of the sun’s rays beaming through the window. They twinkled as half of them alighted over her heart, the other half on his.

“Oh my God,” she said.

What the fuck? “Can you see that, too?”

She smiled through her tears, ran her fingers through the strings, and nodded eagerly. Gavin brushed them, too. It was like touching sunlight. Sparked a memory of something…

Zoe’s racing breaths slowed, and the colors in her aura settled into slow-moving ripples dancing over her skin. When she held up the creature, the pull of those magical threads between them was palpable.

“You may not remember where you got the falcon, but I do,” she said. “When I was twelve, I came to Australia with my mother. We were walking down the street one day when a man—Yileen—stopped us and handed me this bird.”

“What?
Yileen
gave it to you? Then how did I—?” Shock slammed Gavin’s head like a needle to the brain and injected it with pieces of a forgotten memory. Fucking gods. “It was
you
.
You
gave me the bird!”

She laughed and nodded. Blue jetted through the ocean of emotion swelling and dipping around her. With a finger, she followed the trail of one of the threads from her heart to the bird to Gavin’s chest.

The falcon linked them. Through time and space, against all odds.

Gavin’s tattoos itched, and he rubbed his arm as the details came rushing back. “I was at a restaurant with my family…upset and crying about something…I saw the bird on your table and came over…” Warmth flooded his limbs. No way. “Zed, I played with the falcon for
years
after that. My brothers were always trying to steal it from me, but I defended it with my life. It was my most prized possession.”

This was too much. Fuck. Just,
fuck
.

“And now, decades later, here it is again, bringing us together just as it did back then.” She marveled at the wooden figure and returned her gaze to his. “This bird binds us, Gavin. I never believed in magic until I met you. How can I deny this—or you—any longer?”

“I don’t reckon you can.” He blew out a long breath. “Why didn’t you tell me about the bird when we first met?”

“I was scared of what it meant. Worried maybe Fate really did have a hand in our lives. I wasn’t willing to accept that. I believe we make our own choices. Nothing is set in stone. We have free will, and we’re allowed to change our minds.

“I’ve waited for years to get this promotion, yet I’ve felt nothing but dread since I accepted it. I knew it wasn’t right all along, but I didn’t want to admit that I let something—some
one
—come between me and the whales. I
do
want to be with you, Gavin. More than I want the job. More than I love the whales. If it means we have to sleep in separate rooms, I’ll do whatever I—”

Gavin’s pulse pounded through his tingling veins. The blue of his tattoos brightened. “You won’t have to. I changed my mind about some things, too. I spoke with the Council. As of tomorrow night, I’ll no longer be a Sentinel.”

“What? You gave up being a Sentinel for
me
?” Her eyes somehow widened more.

He smiled. “Are you joking? I’d give my left
nut
to be with you. Anything—”

Something snapped behind Zoe’s teary eyes, and she froze. She held up an arm and stared at it. The tan of her skin faded into weak aqua. The bird fell to the carpet.

“What’s wrong?” He reached for her, but her body lost its solidity. Almost like she phased out of existence…

His Water tattoos shot out high intensity blue beams that lit up the ceiling with dazzling twinkles. What the
hell
? He squinted against the blinding brightness, then looked to her.

She met his gaze. Her lips parted. She inhaled a quick breath. A wave of sapphire luminosity saturated her skin. It rolled down from head to toe, highlighting bones and organs with light and dark contrasts like a watery x-ray. The wave surged back up and wiped out her face’s features. Down it went again. Ebbing. Flowing.

A light rain began to fall inside the house.

Holy. Fuck.

Bubbles shimmied up Zoe’s now-translucent insides. Her limbs shook, shoulders heaved with violent coughs, but no sound came out. After a moment, her movements became less jerky, more fluid, as if she were submerged under water.

The rain increased its tempo to a full-blown shower. The loudness of its pings drowned out all other sounds. Furniture and carpet got drenched. Electronics shorted out. The hall light flickered and died.

The human woman he knew and loved dissolved into a shapeless, liquid sphere hanging in the air before him, and a storm kicked up around her in earnest. Gavin shielded his eyes against the spark of lightning snaking down the backbone of the ceiling fan and leapt out of the way when the crackle nearly zapped him.

“Zed!” When he tried again to grab her, his hands passed through water. His heart caught in his throat. Gods, it couldn’t be…

Currents swirled, zigzagged, and reshaped into a delicate blue form—tall, leggy, and intimately familiar. Hips rounded out, breasts swelled. Aqua strands of hair sprouted from her scalp and slid down the sides of her head, past her shoulders. Cool cerulean rays of light shimmered off her skin, illuminating the falling raindrops, and rolled into him like a tide, knocking him backward.

She relaxed into the blue light, which seemed to hold her up. Her hair splayed out, floated around her, and her body levitated. Head tipped back, she waved her arms and kicked her legs slowly.

Thunder. Lightning. Pouring rain.

The house darkened as the last of the electricity fizzled out.

Like their first meeting in the Dreaming when he’d rescued her so many weeks ago, her blank face blossomed into the beauty he’d come to love: pencil-thin eyebrows, softly sloping nose, high cheekbones, kissable pouty lips.

The downpour stopped as suddenly as it had started.

When her lids slid open to reveal the purest blue he’d ever seen, Gavin reckoned he could die a happy man. Limbs trembling with disbelief and love and wonder, he grinned.

Yileen, the old bastard, had known this would happen. That’s why he told Gavin to wait to make his decision.

Zoe—his Wyldling muse—had evolved into a Wæter Elemental.

Chapter Fifty

Zoe was a dam on the verge of breaking. So much blue. So much love. So
full
.

She felt as if she were drowning in emotion, swept out to sea where she’d always belonged. Nothing aside from Gavin and the whales had ever felt so right.

“Gavin?” She lifted her hand and stared at it. “I think I’m—”

“—a Wæter Elemental.” He tackled her into the dripping wall with his lips. Strong, wet hands pinned her arms to her sides. His hips pressed hard against hers, and an overdose of blue spilled from her center. New nerve endings pulsed at the erotic sensation of sharing her Element with him on a deep, intimate level. It was like sex, magnified a million times—pure, complete, committed emotion.

As their lips, tongues, and teeth teased in a playful tug-of-war, the tide deepened and turned in her favor. Water flowed out of him and into her. She tentatively tapped into the Element he offered. It bled into her, fed her, energized her. She lapped it up, swallowed him down. God, his Water was the sweetest thing she’d ever tasted.

Tongue. Suck. Gulp.

She swooned, lost her balance. He held her up. Breath and reason floated out to sea. There was only Gavin.

More. She needed more.

She wriggled free of his grip, threw her arms around his neck, and hooked a leg around his thigh. His erection pressing hot against her made her even dizzier. Her mind reeled as life-giving coolness flooded her mouth, infused her with unimaginable strength. She couldn’t swallow fast enough. The high was indescribable. It was sex and drugs and rock and roll. Whales and beauty and love.

More. She needed to quench this terrible thirst for more—

She stepped up the kiss, ground against him as control spun out of reach. Gavin tensed, and she hit a speed bump. He broke free of her mouth. Desperate to grab hold of the Water again, she chased Gavin’s retreating lips, but he cut her off.

“Zed—”

A hurried breath of air shattered the buzz, and she came back to her senses.

“I’m…an Elemental,” she said, her voice a bit raspy. Her chest heaved under the sopping shirt. Drenched hair clung to her shoulders.

“Yeah, you are.” He wiped his mouth. His wet face had paled a little, but desire lurked behind his eyes. “And what a fucking spectacle that was to behold, love.”

The dizziness wore off. Guilt settled in. She bit her lip. “I took too much of your Water. I’m sorry.”

He smiled and shook his head. “I’m fine. It’s just going to take some getting used to. For both of us. Give yourself time to adjust. Once you stabilize, you’ll be able to control the hunger better.”

Man, she sure hoped so. The thought of hurting him crushed her. But even as she worried for him, the blue inside him called to her. Primal thirst taunted her parched throat. She closed her eyes. Yeah, this would definitely be a challenge.

Eager for a distraction, she surveyed the waterlogged room with her strange, new vision. “I did all of…this?” As she moved across the carpet, testing her wobbly legs, water sucked at her feet. “Shit, this is gonna be hell to clean up.”

Gavin laughed. “Don’t worry about that now. How do you
feel
?”

“I feel…amazing. Free.” She turned in a circle. Everything was beautifully strange. “Is this how you see the world? It’s so rich. I can see a million shades of blue.” Something shimmered in her peripheral vision. “Is that…the Veil?” It looked different than it had in the Dreaming. She tentatively reached for it. Her fingers slipped through the glittery membrane. It tickled.

“Yep. That’s the Veil. Now that the Dreaming is open to Elementals, you can come and go as you please.”

So much to learn. She glanced at him. He was staring.

“What?”

He grinned. “I don’t know how you managed it, but somehow you’re even more stunning than before.”

She lowered her head. “Do I look that different?”

He escorted her to the hall mirror and stood behind her, admiring her reflection. “You’re fucking gorgeous.”

The first things she noticed were her eyes, which were impossibly blue. Her skin still held a tinge of it, too, but the color had already faded since the transformation. Her stance seemed bigger, fuller. The woman before her radiated confidence the old Zoe didn’t. She liked that. And perhaps for the first time in her life, she felt it, too. With this man at her side, she could take on the world. Hell, they already had.

Gavin scattered hot kisses along the column of her neck. Man, her skin was super sensitive. She laughed.

Hunger filled his eyes as he swept his gaze down her reflection. He bound his colorful tattooed arms across her breasts and rested his chin on her shoulder. Her stomach constricted. Thirsty again.

She turned her head up and lunged for his lips. This time she concentrated on
feeling
him instead of eating him. Much better.

Turning in his arms, she lapped gently at his tongue, and he returned the gesture. The metal ring through his lip wiggled, and her nipples tightened under her clingy wet shirt. “God, I love that thing.” She bit the hoop and coaxed another kiss from him.

The thirst roared again, demanding another drink. Better back off. She released his lips before she got carried away.