Wickedly Wonderful (Baba Yaga, #2)(85)
Beka took a deep breath. “Just a little? Hell, Marcus, it felt like I was missing half my soul.” She felt like an idiot saying it, but at least it was the truth. After everything that had happened, she owed him that.
His hazel eyes stared into hers, as if he could read her mind, or maybe her heart, which stuttered and skipped as if it only half remembered how to beat.
Then he said in a low, fervent voice, “I think I found it for you.” He pulled her into his arms, wrapping her in strength and warmth and longing, tugging her in close until his lips met hers. Soft yet firm, they pressed against her own until she parted for him without thought, his tongue dipping in for a moment as if to taste the words she hadn’t said yet.
He drew back long enough to say, “God, I missed you, Beka.” Then there was only the silken slide of his lips and the glory of his hands and the passionate heat and joy that came from being in his arms once more.
*
MARCUS FELT LIKE he could kiss Beka forever. It was as if the universe had granted him a second chance. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to blow it this time. This time he was going to hold on to her and never let her go.
Or at least not until someone dumped a bucket of cold water over him.
Sputtering, he turned around to see Chewie, still amazing in scales and long, sharp teeth and shining, curved claws the purple-black of mussel shells. And water. Lots and lots of water.
Chewie shook himself again, like the dog he usually was, and doused Marcus and Beka with another couple of gallons of seawater. “Oh, sorry,” he said, glowing golden eyes innocent. “I didn’t see you there. Did I get you wet?”
Beka pulled away, half laughing and half scowling, and leaving Marcus feeling absurdly bereft. He wanted to grab her and drag her back into his arms, but the moment had clearly passed. He’d just have to make sure there was another one. Soon.
She grew more serious as she noted Chewie’s empty hands. Paws. Whatever.
“Weren’t you able to find anything?” she asked, a hint of panic in her tone.
“Oh, I found things all right,” Chewie said grimly. “Lots of things. Silver canisters, just like you said, cleverly tucked into crevasses where no one would ever think to look, and hidden under rockfalls disguised to look old, but actually quite recent. I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to bring one up. They’re slowly leaking whatever’s inside—purposefully, I think—and I’m not sure you want to have one on the boat.”
“Drat,” Beka said. “Maybe I can give you a container to get me a sample in, and you could go back down and collect some for me to examine?”
Chewie shook his huge head, scattering more salty water like teardrops. “I don’t think that will be necessary. All the canisters had the same symbol on them; I can draw it for you.”
He took one claw and delicately scratched a triangle into the wooden deck. Inside the triangle, he added a trefoil design of three cones, their wide ends toward the outside edge, and flattened narrower ends meeting around a smaller circle in the middle. “There,” he said. “It looked like that. The background was bright yellow, and the three inside bits were black. There was a black rim around the outside too. Does that mean anything to you?”
“Jesus Christ,” Marcus said, feeling as if all the breath had been sucked out of his lungs.
“It looks kind of familiar,” Beka said, tilting her head sideways to look at it again. “Do you know what it is?” She glanced back at him, her brows drawn together as she clearly saw something on his face that alarmed her. “What is it? Is it really bad?”
Shit, shit, shit. “That’s as bad as it gets, Beka,” he said, glad beyond measure that Chewie had been smart enough not to bring one of those canisters back up with him. “That’s the symbol for hazardous nuclear waste. And if the water in that trench is full of it, it is no wonder all those poor people are sick. They have radiation poisoning.”
He got a sinking feeling in his stomach, looking at her pallor and shadowed eyes. “And I hate to say it, but I think you do too.”
*
FOR A MOMENT, panic rose like bile in Beka’s throat, but then she got a grip on herself. He didn’t understand how impossible that was; what it meant to be a Baba Yaga. Fear slowly loosened the claws it had tightened around her heart.
“I believe that radiation poisoning is what is causing the illness in the Selkies and Merpeople,” she said, thinking it out. “That actually makes sense with the vague information I got when I summoned some elementals. And it explains why I couldn’t identify what was wrong with the water. I was looking for some kind of liquid or solid contaminant that had been added to the water; radiation is neither, although whatever is in those containers probably is. No wonder Kesh wanted to stop me from diving and finding them.” She sighed. “But it can’t be what is making me sick.”
“But Beka,” Marcus said. Anxiety and concern etched themselves as deep into his face as Chewie’s claws had etched the deadly symbol into the deck.
“No, really, Marcus,” Beka said. “First of all, the ones who got sick were those actually living in the trench. I never got anywhere near that deep. And even then, those affected are mostly the weakest and most vulnerable; the very young and the very old. As a Baba Yaga, my natural defenses and healing ability are much stronger than the average Human’s. A few dives into the edges of the contaminated water wouldn’t have had any effect on me at all. It has to be something else.”