Read Sea Storm: Children of the Waves Online
Authors: LaVerne Thompson
Sea Storm: Children of the Waves
Sea Storm
Children of the Waves
(Book 2)
By
LaVerne Thompson
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This
book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are
products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance
to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, or other status is
entirely coincidental.
Copyright
2014 by LaVerne Thompson
All
rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof
in any form whatsoever known, not known or hereafter invented, or stored in any
storage or retrieval system, is forbidden and punishable by the fullest extent
of the law without written permission of the author. LaVerne Thompson.
[email protected]
First
e-book edition 2014 Isisindc Publishing, LLC
Lavernethompson.com
Editor- Lara
Parker
Beta Reader-
Wicked Muse Productions
Cover Illustration
by Fiona Jayde
Cover Model-
Shannon Robinson
https://www.facebook.com/shannon.m.robinson.5
Photographer-
Rob Bampton
ISBN- 978-0-9859646-6-5
e-print
Dedication
To
all of my fans, thank you for all of your support and encouragement. It is
truly appreciated. I might write because I must but I thank you for reading my
work.
Acknowledgement
Thank you Shannon for letting me use the
description of parts of your beautiful tattoos. I changed a little the meaning
behind one of them, but I kept the essence that shows your big heart. By the
way I love tattoos, have one myself. *grins*
Prologue
The explosion rocked the waves with a
force strong enough to knock Ezekiel onto his ass, even miles under the ocean.
Agitated dolphins swarmed around him. He wished for his eldest brother’s
affinity. Being able to talk to the sea creatures would come in handy. But he
didn’t need to understand them to know danger existed on the surface. Flames
danced above their heads. Zek followed the dolphins to the top.
The water grew warmer from the fire
fueled by oil and humans thrashed around in the sea. Zek shot straight for the
burning yacht. His muscles strained, fighting against the strength of yet
another explosion, pushing him in the opposite direction and farther from the
people struggling to escape the fire.
He cursed the fact his body physically
resembled a fifteen-year-old human boy, even though he’d lived for almost two
hundred years. His people, the Children of the Waves, aged but remained in this
state of puberty until they came into contact with their mates or brides. Then
the hormones kicked in and they aged again, until they reached their prime. He
might not have the muscle but he sure as Hades had determination to help the
survivors.
When he neared the surface, he counted
four people in the water. While he saw three sets of legs kicking, trying to
remain afloat, one appeared to hardly move and lay on the far side of the
burning yacht.
The dolphins circled the three larger
bodies helping to keep them afloat and guiding them to shore.
Zek headed for the slightly smaller
figure separated from the others. Perhaps a teenager, but the blood in the
water around the body concerned him most. He swam directly beneath the person
just as the body curled into itself and sank down toward him. He grabbed the
slender frame under the armpits and carried it back to the top, in time to see
dark fins heading straight for him.
Chapter One
Xavior
breathed a sigh of relief. He’d gotten through to Aaron by phone, his friend
and prime guard, who’d remained on the cruise ship. “Cori’s been worried about
Des,” Xavior said.
“I’m glad you called, so they could
talk.” Aaron replied.
Xavior understood, Aaron could not tell
Des, Cori was all right. He’d have to explain how he knew that. Aaron couldn’t
tell Des his father was with him and Cori, hundreds of miles beneath the ocean
and a strong telepath, and father and son were linked. While Aaron wasn’t a
true telepath he could receive his father’s projected thoughts and his father
could read his son’s.
Aaron continued to reply, “Des has been a
wreck, worried about Cori too.”
“Yeah, not surprised, since they are best
friends. It’s good Cori could reassure her. Now hopefully, they can both relax.”
“I think so. When Des got off the phone a
minute ago, she was smiling.”
“Is she still in the room with you?” Xav
asked.
“No, she went to her cabin to pack up her
and Cori’s things.”
“Good, Cori just stepped out for a minute
too. So, we’ll meet you day after tomorrow on Ezekiel’s island.”
“Yeah,” Aaron confirmed. “We’ll fly over
this evening on a chartered plane from port when the cruise stops. By the way,
congrats on finding your bride, man. I’m really happy for you.”
“Thanks. You’re next.” Xav chuckled.
Aaron would be aware he’d taken a bride, and ruled the seas as king now. All
the Children knew it, whether they were in the sea or not. Those too far inland
might feel a punch to the gut, an inner burning. Those nearer to the water
would hear the song of the dolphins announcing far and wide to anyone who
wanted to listen. Xavior found his bride and ruled as king beneath the seas.
Aaron couldn’t communicate with the sea
creatures, but he understood well enough. “Yeah, kinda figured it out when a
hundred dolphins ringed the cruise ship earlier,” Aaron laughed. “Pretty cool.”
“I bet.” Xav’s grin remained even after
he hung up the phone. He glanced up just in time to meet the loving gaze of his
bride, Cori. His breath hitched in his throat at the sight of her. He’d brought
her to land, to one of the offices his people maintained on shore in St. Croix.
Since he couldn’t send a message to her friend on the cruise line, the way he
normally would through the dolphins, he required a phone. Also, Cori needed to talk
to her friend. He couldn’t take his eyes off his mate.
The way her slender curvy frame glided
across the floor and then she moved around the desk to him. She sat on his lap.
He opened his arms and encircled her.
“Thank you, Xav,” she whispered and her
lips pressed against his. She opened her mouth.
He needed no further coaxing before he
slid his tongue into her warmth to tangle with hers. “Mmm,” he moaned.
She pulled away from him slightly and
tensed but didn’t try to get up. Nor did he intend to release her. “What is
it?” When she lowered her head and would not look him in the eyes, his heart
paused. “What’s wrong?”
While by the laws of Poseidon they were
mated, until the day they both ceased to draw breath, but she’d also once been
human. He still feared perhaps, she hadn’t come to terms with the way her life
suddenly changed.
When she sat upon the King’s Chair and
the chair accepted her as his mate, her body had been genetically altered. She
could now live underwater. That act also finished binding them, mated them for
all eternity. However, it didn’t mean the same thing in her world…To her.
Which got him thinking about the other
reason they were on land. Xav planned on marrying Cori in a tradition she would
understand. He wanted no doubt in her mind. She belonged to him and he to her.
Besides, he loved her and she loved him.
“I just—I don’t know this happened
way too fast. How am I going to explain this to Des, to my family, my friends?
It’s all so sudden.”
He smirked. “Yes, for you perhaps, but I
have searched for you for the last ten years, and waited for you hundreds. And
under our laws, we are mated. For life.”
“Were we?” She rested her hand on his arm
and tightened her fingers around him. “How do you know for sure? How can I?”
He frowned, trying to put himself in her
place. Understanding not being one of the Children made the concept of a
predetermined mate since birth a strange and scary idea for her. But the
Children believed it. It had been proven time and time again, for their race,
this view of destiny. He had no doubt Cori loved him. “The chair accepted you.
You swam at my side, underwater from great depths to get here and without the
aid of the medallion, I might add.”
The talisman belonged to his family and
each of his siblings had one. It granted the wearer the ability to breathe and
see underwater at the depths the Children dwelled. But Cori no longer needed
it.
“The sea has claimed you as its own. Like
any of its Children, you only have to return to its waters to renew the
connection and stay near water always.”
“Just because a chair—”
“Not just that, Cori.” He took both of
her hands in his and held them over his heart. “You were made to complete me,
as I you. You know this is true. Search your heart. The truth is there.”
She finally looked up at him but tears
pooled in her beautiful eyes.
It momentarily stunned him and he feared
she’d changed her mind. “I know what I feel for you. As a child, I went to the
beach everyday waiting for you. When you didn’t return I cried, even after we
left the beach house. The next year we went back to the same place and
everyday, I waited for you to come, but I never saw you again. After that,
whenever we went to the beach, I always insisted we stay at the same place. I’d
throw a real fit if my folks wanted to stay anywhere else.” She smiled. “It
only lasted until high school, then we went elsewhere. Eventually, I let my
memory of you go. I’ve known you for less than three days but I want to spend
the rest of my life with you.”
Her words calmed his racing heart once
more. He ran his hand over her soft hair. “As I you. And I am sorry. I did not
understand what you were to me then. Otherwise, I would have come back. I would
have been there for you each time you came. But back then, a lot of fighting occurred
over borders and my right to rule the sea. It took awhile before I could
venture onto shore again. I am here for you now.” He gently lifted her off his
lap and once she stood, he dropped to one knee before her, and took both of her
hands again.
Her hands trembled in his, and she
gasped.
“Among the Children we are already mated,
but you are also a landwalker.” He kissed her knuckles. “Cori Daniels, I love
you. Let me spend a lifetime proving this. Marry me.”
Laughing, Cori dropped to her knees
before him. “Yes, yes I’ll marry you. I do love you. Crazy, but true. But no
crazier than being able to live and breath underwater.”
Once more, he joined their mouths, then
pulled back remembering the item he kept in his pocket. He’d taken it from his
mother’s chest. She’d died during a senseless accident and his sire followed
not long after into the depths. But the items in the chest now belonged to him.
Before they’d left for the surface, he decided to ask Cori to marry him in the
manner of the landwalkers. Xav understood she would need familiar rituals, too.
He removed from his pocket a ring with a pearl, the size of a three-karat
diamond, surrounded by smaller diamonds.