Each Step Like Knives Read online

  "What the hell is that thing?" Howard kicked again. Johnny bent in half to absorb the blow, which rocked his entire body.

  "Stop! You're hurting him!"

  "Him? This is some kind of monster!" Howard backed away, his face a mask of disgust. "Helena, what is this?"

  "It's Johnny," she managed to say as she went on her knees beside her lover. He reached for her, his gaze murderous toward Howard, and she realized that though he was at a severe physical disadvantage, he was still trying to help her. "It's Johnny, Howard."

  "My God, you actually fucked that thing?" Howard came closer and bent low. He suddenly spat on Johnny's face. "It's a fucking freak, Helena. I've never seen anything so nasty in my life!"

  "He's not nasty. But you should see the most disgusting creature imaginable, Howard, every time you look in the mirror," Helena retorted. She gazed into Johnny's eyes, dark with swirling colors. "I'm sorry, Johnny. You shouldn't have come after me."

  His hands spoke to her. "He was hurting you."

  His body shuddered as his mouth opened. The gill slits she'd noticed in the bathtub fluttered. She didn't find them so odd to look at now.

  Howard grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her away from Johnny. "C'mon, get out of the storm! Come with me!"

  She tried to shake him off. "No!"

  He grabbed her harder. "Helena, let's go!"

  "I said no!"

  He still wouldn't let go of her. Helena stood and gave him a roundhouse kick to the midsection that sent him tumbling backward into the sand. She advanced on him, fists raised and her teeth bared. Howard got up and ran without looking back.

  I can't breathe.

  His form had changed. For the first time since joining Helena, his body was without pain. He moved muscles suited to lower gravity and less resistance, but he couldn't push himself far enough into the water.

  Her impossibly beautiful face loomed over him. Her hair hung in wet strings down around them both. He wanted very badly to kiss her.

  "Johnny?" She voiced the name she had given him.

  He used his arms to push against the sand, but it slipped away beneath his fingers and made a deep furrow quickly smoothed by the ocean. He wanted to speak to her, to tell her how he felt. That it had been worth everything, worth even becoming foam on the waves, to have had her in his arms for even so short a time.

  She was not looking at him. She looked past him, at the man running across the sand. She got up. She left Jeenai there, and he fell back in the splashing water and waited to die.

  "Howard! Wait!" She hated to run after him, but Johnny was too heavy for her to move. "Help!"

  He heard her. She knew he did. The bastard just ignored her and kept running. Helena stopped after a few feet and looked back at Johnny. The water pushed and pulled at him. One wave came up high enough to cover his face briefly, and she could see him gulping like a human man would gulp a breath of air.

  She had to move him alone. She could not, would not, leave him there to die. Without another glance at Howard, who was a bastard and always would be, Helena ran to Johnny and lifted him under the arms.

  "You have to help me, Johnny. Push as hard as you can!"

  He moved his tail and pulled with his arms. They moved a few inches deeper into the water. The waves picked him up and lifted him, making it easier for them both to move. Then another, bigger wave pushed her to her knees and rolled him back up above the water line.

  He arched his body, but she could see his struggles were getting weaker. How long had he been unable to breathe? She could breathe. She could move. She bent and hooked her arms beneath his and pulled as hard as she could. This time, she made it all the way down to where the incoming waves met the outgoing ones.

  Johnny was face down in the water. She could see his shoulders heaving. She let him go just as a gigantic wave took her feet from under her. Water went up her nose and down her throat, burning. She choked and flailed, but could not longer tell which way was up or down. She could feel nothing beneath her feet, or above her head, or to her side. Her hands reached but found nothing but water.

  She was drowning again.

  Jeenai gulped the water past his gill slits and instant energy flooded him. He could breathe. He could move. He lived.

  He opened his eyes and saw a glitter of golden hair as Helena sank past him. Small bubbles of air leaked from her mouth. Her eyes were closed.

  He caught her in his arms. She hung there limply. He was too late.

  "I warned you." It was the sea hag. She rose from the depths, her white-and-black hair trailing behind her. She hovered in the water in front of him. She looked up. "There's quite a storm above. She'll never be able to swim back to shore. She's dead, or soon will be, mal."

  "I don't want her to die." He shifted Helena in his arms to speak to the hag. "I love her."

  "Does she love you?"

  "She hasn't said so."

  "She must say so, else you know what will happen. Of course, if she dies, then you will go on as you have always done. You're in your true form now. Let her fall to the ocean floor to feed the crabs and sharks. Join the rest of your people."

  "I can't do that. I have to save her, if I can."

  She gave him a fierce look. "You'd risk your life to save hers?"

  "I would."

  The hag nodded. "Then give her the lifekiss. Take her to the surface. See if she loves you. And if she does not, come back here to die."

  Lips caressed hers. Helena opened beneath them. A soft tongue stroked hers. She sighed and her eyes flew open. She could breathe. She was alive.

  She twisted in his arms. "Johnny!"

  The storm had passed. Now the night sky shone clear, the stars bright. The ocean had calmed. Gentle waves lifted them. Johnny pulled her close and kissed her again. Then he held her firmly and swam with her to the place where the waves began to break. A little further and she could stand in the water.

  He ducked below to breathe before reappearing. He spoke to her with his hands.

  Helena watched his graceful motions. "You have a question for me?"

  He nodded and asked.

  She thought very hard before she gave her answer, but after only a moment she knew there could be only one. She took a breath. She took a chance. She made the leap. "I do. I don't know why, or how, but yes, Johnny, I do love you."

  He put a hand to his throat, his eyes wide and startled. Then he looked out to the ocean and grinned. Far out, so far she could not be certain she saw it at all, a dark figure bobbed on the water's surface. Then, with a splash of silver, it disappeared.

  The surf caressed them. He leaned close, so close she thought he would kiss her again, and then he said, "I love you, too."

  His voice was deep and soothing like the sound of the ocean.

  "You can speak!"

  "I can speak. I can breathe." He moved forward, out of the water, and took her with him. "I can walk."

  She laughed and cried at the same time. Johnny reached for her tears and wiped them gently away. He held her close while the water swirled around their ankles.

  "I don't understand any of this."

  "I think it's a story for another time." Johnny scuffed at the sand with his feet, then grinned at her. "It doesn't hurt."

  She didn't know what he meant, but something distracted her from asking about it. "I think we're going to have to get you some clothes."

  He looked down at his naked skin, at his long, strong legs, and at his penis, which rose at her words. The grin he gave her made a shiver run down her spine. "I have a better idea."

  All at once, Helena discovered she didn't really care about what the future would bring them. She didn't even really care how or why the fairy tale had come true. All that mattered was that it had.

  "C'mon," she said. "Let's walk together."

  And taking Johnny's hand, she led him up the beach toward the house and the bed they would share.

  About the author:

  I was born and then I lived