Page 35 of Adonis (Salt and Starlight #1)

Connor woke up in someone’s arms. His salty ocean smell, his burning heat, the way his face nestled into the back of Connor’s neck—there was nobody else that made him feel this peace.

Connor’s mind was fuzzy, his throat painfully dry, and his body—oh hell, was his body in pain. Dulled pain, like he’d taken painkillers to take off the sharp edge, but pain nonetheless. He pressed his hand to his stomach where the scalpel had been. He found a bandage.

Connor opened his eyes but it was dark. He was lying somewhere comfortable—the pillow and the mattress were a million times softer than anything he’d ever lain on—and the air was fresh and crisp. He suspected the room would be cold if Adonis wasn’t at his back, and a heavy blanket of soft fur wasn’t covering him.

His last memory of falling into the dark ocean played out in his head.

They’d gotten away, clearly.

Connor’s thoughts jumped to Trevor and Laurence. To the cry of pain Laurence had let out. He’d been hurt or worse. He’d pushed aside his fear for them in the moment, focusing on Adonis’s captivity, but worry for them swarmed his mind now.

Connor turned in Adonis’s arms. Adonis grumbled, but when Connor stilled, he went quiet, his breaths regular. Adonis was sleeping. Heavily, too, for Connor not to wake him.

Connor twisted until he was on his side facing Adonis. Pain pricked through his stomach, and he lay still until the waves of aching passed. He leaned in, touching his nose to Adonis’s cheek. “Adonis,”

he whispered. Behind Adonis, there was a ripple of light. And Connor heard gentle waves lapping a few feet away. Light reflected off water.

“Adonis?”

Connor pet his hair. The silky strands were bone dry. Worry flitted through Connor. Adonis hadn’t ever slept like this—so unaware, so unresponsive. “Are you okay?”

Maybe they were in a cage. Maybe Adonis was drugged and—

“Connor,”

Adonis breathed out. He rolled onto Connor, careful not to put any weight on him, and nuzzled his cheek against Connor’s. “Pain? I can heal more. I had to rest, but I am ready now.”

His voice was low and came out smooth and unhindered.

Connor blinked. “You’re very talkative.”

Adonis pulled back allowing Connor to see his shadowed face. There was a click and a faint blue light illuminated their surroundings. Adonis gazed down at Connor, his eyes hooded but alert, adoration and relief written into his features.

“I can speak here,”

Adonis said. “Are you in pain?”

Connor examined his surroundings in the new light. To his right, opposite the water, was a wall lined with stacks upon stacks of books. They were several rows thick, reaching taller than Connor, possibly even taller than Trevor.

“For you,”

Adonis said. He touched his nose to Connor’s cheek. “Are you in pain? Answer. Please? Pain?”

“I feel fine, Adonis,”

Connor reassured him. “Did you heal me?”

Adonis’s gaze lingered on Connor’s face. Not quite on his eyes, but on his nose and just underneath his eyes.

“I’m bruised?”

Adonis’s eyes darkened. “Yes. Bruised. Everywhere.”

His gaze darted down to Connor’s body. Aside from the bandage on his stomach he was without clothes. And yes, he was bruised. But that wasn’t what caught Connor’s attention.

It was the two thighs parted around his legs, the knees sinking into the mattress on either side of his thighs. The skin was silvery and blue, but it was still very much— “Since when do you have legs?”

Connor demanded.

Adonis’s head bent down, his gaze darting to his own form. His expression grew uncomfortable. “Do you like them?”

he asked, nervous.

Connor dragged his gaze from the legs to Adonis’s face. His mind jumped to when they’d met. When Adonis had been showing off his scales and gotten embarrassed that they weren’t clean. He cupped Adonis’s cheeks and kissed his cheekbone. “I love them. As much as I love your tail.”

There was also the matter of his dick no longer being hidden on the inside, but Connor was far from able to explore that. “Can you tell me… how you have legs?”

“Power here,”

Adonis told him.

Right. Okay.

“And here is your home?”

Connor asked, looking around again. They were in a cave, where water lapped gently against a raised cave floor. A strange blue light strung from the ceiling lit up the room. The bed they were in was large, heaps of furs and blankets stacked on one another. There were the piled books in the corner and then a wooden door. Connor saw light peeking through it and guessed it led outside.

Adonis watched his face as he looked around, a nervous expression on his own.

Connor tried not to smile. “It’s very nice.”

Adonis’s face lit up.

“Who is that bed for?”

Connor asked, spotting another smaller mound of furs and blankets a few feet over. “Does someone else live here with you?”

He’d never asked if Adonis had a family before.

“Laurence,”

Adonis said.

Connor’s gaze snapped to Adonis. “My Laurence?”

he asked, surprised.

“Yes.”

“You made a bed for him, too?”

Connor smiled. “I didn’t realise you liked him so much.”

Adonis snorted. His expression said he didn’t like him. “For when you bring him.”

Ah. Because Connor had brought Laurence into the water several times now. Even if Adonis had snorted like Connor was stupid for thinking he liked Laurence, it was still sweet. But Connor’s worry came back as he thought of Laurence.

Connor moved to sit up, squeezing his eyes shut as his body protested savagely to the movement. Everything hurt. Everything ached.

Adonis made an alarmed noise—even though he could speak, the cat-like sounds remained. “You lied! Lie back, I will—”

“No, thank you, but no.”

Connor caught Adonis’s hand. He knew that he was going to use his healing ability on Connor, and he’d said that was what had Adonis passed out next to him. Connor worried that if Adonis used that bone-numbing ability on him, he’d sleep for days. And he couldn’t do that. He’d healed Connor’s stomach enough to keep him alive and moving, and that would have to do.

“Can you take me to the dock?”

Connor asked Adonis.

Adonis shook his head. “Rest. Until you are healed.”

“The men who put you into that tank were there. They hurt Laurence. I need to see that he’s okay.”

Connor gritted his teeth and got himself sitting up fully. Adonis leaned back onto his heels and held Connor’s shoulder to steady him.

Worry lingered in Adonis’s eyes, but he nodded. “I understand.”

He stood up and crossed the room, letting Connor observe his naked legs. It was… strange. The skin wasn’t quite human, but it wasn’t exactly scales either. He shimmered and caught the light as he walked. Adonis picked up Connor’s grey sweats from the cave floor.

Connor scrunched his nose as he pulled on the damp items. He took a second to observe just how bloody they were. How much of him had bled out before Adonis had stopped it? Connor looked up at Adonis, meeting his worried gaze. “I’m glad you’re okay,”

Connor said, his throat tight. “You were hitting your tail against the tank really hard. Are you sore?”

Adonis shook his head, but Connor didn’t believe him.

“I don’t want to ever see you in a cage like that again,”

Connor said. His heart squeezed as a flutter of panic filled his chest. Adonis was out. He was safe—but Connor could still feel that icy dread of when he’d been trapped.

“No.”

Adonis brushed Connor’s cheek lightly with his palm. Anger swarmed his gaze. Not meeting his eyes, but levelling on his nose, the bruising under his eyes. “Never again.”

Connor let out a steadying breath. “That means if I’m used as bait, you don’t bite, alright? You ending up in a tank is literally the worst-case scenario.”

“You are not bait.”

“I was a pretty effective lure, though, wasn’t I? You swam right into that trap.”

A rising wave of anxiety seized Connor’s lungs. “Just—you know—let’s both make sure that doesn’t happen again.”

Adonis nodded. He approached the pile of books and pulled out a large paddleboard from behind the stacks. It was as big as Connor’s, yet Adonis had no difficulty lifting it under his arm and placing it into the water. Connor walked along the cave’s slope and examined the cave in greater detail. The light he had seen earlier came from a gap in the cave wall, a half circle where the cave led to open water. Only a few inches of the gap was above water. Just enough to slide the board under and maybe lie flat and paddle through.

Adonis stepped into the water, disappearing into the deep pool. Connor stepped to the lip of the cave floor as Adonis resurfaced. He took hold of the board and held it steady as Connor stepped on. With a pained breath, he lowered onto his stomach, but as he dipped his hands into the water to paddle, Adonis leaned in, rubbing his cheek to his.

“No,”

Adonis said, placing Connor’s hands on the board. “Rest, I will do it.”

Connor didn’t object. If he had to find his way home alone, with his body in this state, it wouldn’t happen.

“Head down,”

Adonis instructed. He slipped to the back of the board and they moved forward through the water. Connor flattened as he passed under the gap in the cave; he just about fit.

The ocean opened out in front of him. A shoreline of thick trees lined either side of the cave, packed to the very edge of the waterline. There were no golden shores, sharp cliffs, or beaches, but flora that Connor had never seen in Ireland before—not even in their bio-diverse hot spot.

The sky was cloudless and white, except…

Connor lifted himself to sitting, staring wide-eyed, uncomprehending, at what lay before him. For a moment, he thought he was looking at a screen or a painting. A projection? Something to explain why the sky had a rip going through it as wide as the horizon, or explain why the sky through that tear was dusk, while here it was broad daylight. Connor stared at the edges of the tear. They moved and shifted like waves.

Adonis had them going right toward it. Across the ocean, several other vessels travelled toward the tear. These were sailboats and thrown-together rafts filled with large figures and small ones—and most didn’t look human.

Connor’s heart raced. Not in fear or anxiety but in bewilderment and wonder.

“This is—”

Connor swallowed. “You come from a different—what? World? Dimension?”

He twisted around to Adonis. His legs had transformed into his large tail.

“I do not know the word for it.”

Adonis shrugged.

“How…”

Connor looked at the tear once more. “How do people not know about this? I mean—this has to be visible from space—look at the size of it!”

“It was smaller,”

Adonis told him.

They slowed, and Connor twisted to look at Adonis again. Adonis let go of the raft to lift both hands out of the water; his fingers joined to form a small circle. “This size? I pushed it open to go through and explore.”

“You pushed it from the size of a plate to this?”

“No.”

Adonis shook his head. “Only enough so I could fit through. When I brought you through it…”

His gaze darted to the colossal tear. “Ripped open.”

He then shrugged like it was no big deal.

“Fuck.”

Connor had no other words for it. He stayed upright and alert. The tear was further than he’d thought, and as they got closer, the magnitude of it was staggering. Connor tilted back his head, trying to spot where the sky changed. It was impossible to set his eyes on a hard border. There was no defined edge. One moment he was looking through to a contained dusk sky, and the next moment it was the daylight that was boxed in. Connor sat backwards to watch the tear as it got further and further into the distance.

When it was a mere blip on the horizon, he looked down at Adonis. “You have nothing to say about that?”

“It is easier to bring you through now that it is above the waterline,”

Adonis said.

Connor snorted. “God, Adonis, you’re so… hang on. Oh, fuck me.”

Adonis paused, eyes darting to Connor. “You are too injured.”

Connor splashed the water near Adonis’s face. Or not Adonis’s face. “I don’t mean literally. I never asked your name. Jesus, how could I call you my boyfriend and not even ask your name?”

“Adonis,”

Adonis said.

“No, that’s what I called you. What’s your name?”

“Adonis.”

Connor blinked, staring down at Adonis’s pleased grin. “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

“I told you. Twice.”

“You’re such a smart ass,”

Connor said. But god, he loved the attitude.

The horizon gave way to land, and as they got closer, Connor recognised the shorelines. His wonder gave way to anxiety as they neared home. As they approached the last bend to the house, Connor gestured for Adonis to slow down.

“Wait,”

he asked. The board was a shining white, a very eye-catching colour.

Adonis slowed to a stop.

“Let’s leave the board here, on those rocks and swim in,”

Connor said. “I’d rather not announce my presence… just in case.”

Connor slipped into the water, his muscles groaning in protest after only a few seconds of effort to keep his head above water. Adonis rushed to him, and Connor wrapped his arms over his shoulders in relief.

Adonis brought them to the dock. Dawn had given way to early daylight, and Connor guessed it was around six in the morning. He kept his eyes peeled as they approached, scanning the water line, the bushes, and the path. He couldn’t see anyone in his bedroom window, the only one visible from the sea.

“Can you sense anyone?”

Connor whispered to Adonis.

Adonis shook his head. He was alert, scanning around them the same way Connor was. Nerves jittered through Connor as they reached the dock.

“Remember what I said, okay? No falling for me as bait again if it comes to that.”

Connor’s feet touched the sandy shore, but Adonis’s grip tightened.

His gaze snapped to Connor, his gills flaring wide. From his expression, Connor guessed he’d just copped to the fact Connor had to leave him for this part. Adonis’s jaw tightened. “No,”

he said. He pulled Connor back to him.

“I’m going up there quietly, and if I see anything off, I’m coming straight back, okay?”

Connor cupped Adonis’s cheeks and pressed a kiss to his lips. “Right back, I promise. I need to see if they’re okay.”

Adonis’s top lip curled back in displeasure. “Laurence.”

“Yes, I need to see that Laurence is okay. Let me, okay? Let me.”

Connor slipped out of Adonis’s arms and floated to the shore. Adonis stayed quiet, which Connor was glad for. He crept his way up the sandy path to the house, pausing for a long time where he was hidden, and peeked through the branches, looking for signs of movement. He saw Trevor’s car parked next to the house. He waited a long time without spotting any movement before he continued his advance.