He paused for a moment. “I was born here.”
“You what?”
“Leave it, Annelise.”
But how could I? He might as well have just told me he was from Mars. I held his gaze, trying to read the truth in his eyes. He’d mentioned once before that he was from here and that his sister had died here, but I’d just assumed he’d meant they’d come later. Not that he had relatives here.
Did Amanda know that about him? But of course she did. Maybe he’d even snuck her home to meet the folks.
I couldn’t wrap my mind around it all. “Your family is here? Do you…Do you, like, go home for Christmas and Sunday dinner and stuff?”
Pain flickered in his eyes.
I’d hit a nerve, and I regretted it. “I’m sorry.” A sizable swell rolled under us, and I had to grip the edge to steady myself. “But…” I knew I shouldn’t press the issue, but I had to know. Questions hurtled scattershot into my brain. “If you and your sister are from here, and she was an Acari and you’re a Tracer, then are there vampires from here, too?”
“Naturally,” he said, his voice clipped.
Naturally. There was nothing natural about it. He’d expressed wariness about the vampires before. But if there were some he’d known growing up, some with his same accent, who’d had the same friends, the same neighbors…“Do you trust them more than the others? I mean, if you’re all from here…”
“Those I knew did not survive the change. Although folk have talked of one…an elder, of clan McCloud…” His expression shuttered, as if only then did he realize he was telling me these things. “No more questions,” he told me in a flat voice. “We’re here for a purpose. If I’m to get you back in time for your next meal, we’d best get to it.”
Ronan set about giving me deep-water instruction as though he hadn’t just dropped a bomb on me. I mean, people lived here. Like a community. Among the vampires and Draug and whatever other beasties that lay in wait. How did they stay safe… or did they?
I shivered.
“Dive in before you get too cold,” he ordered.
“Huh?”
“You’re not getting out of this. So get in and get it over with.” He’d stowed the oars and sat there, looking all business, arms folded across his chest. “Remember what I told you about treading and rhythmic breathing techniques. It’s different in deep water.”
I glanced over the side of the boat. “Yeah, there’s, like, one-inch visibility.”
“Just because you’re not seeing the stripe at the bottom of the pool doesn’t mean you can’t do it.”
He’d sounded so stern, I had to laugh. “Jeez, it’s as though you’re mad you told me about your childhood.”
“You’re unbelievable.” He shook his head, softening. “I haven’t even begun to tell you about my childhood. And I never will.”
“Unless I get in the water?”
He narrowed his eyes at me, but it didn’t hide the humor I saw there. “Are you afraid you can’t do it?”
I looked over the edge again. Was it possible for water to look cold? “I didn’t say I can’t do it. I said I don’t want to.”
“I’m not giving you a choice.”
I talked all brave, but secretly I did worry I couldn’t do it. As I remembered our earlier conversation, an idea struck me. “Maybe you could, you know, use your trick on me. Make it easier for the both of us.” I gave him my best winning smile.
“My trick.” His flat tone matched his irritated look. “This again?”
“Yeah, do the trick. Please? Convince me to get in the water.” I was actually excited now. Maybe hypnosis would make me want to dive into a black, fathomless, frigid sea. “Do it. Give me the googly eyes.”
I’d expected him to laugh, but instead his smile disappeared, his whole expression shutting down. “I will not. And I am certain the vampires would not look kindly upon your speaking so freely of my gift.”
I peered hard at him, trying to detect a conscience at the bottom of those deep green eyes. “You don’t like doing the trick, do you?”
“I don’t. And stop calling it that.”
“Can the vampires do it?” I recalled Alcántara, and how my thoughts had gone to such unsettling places the last time we were together.
“The vampires can do many things.”
And how, or so I’d learned at lunch. “Yeah. Who knew girls were also on their can-do list?”
“Annelise.” He spat out my name in a scathing, chastising tone, and it made me feel like a disobedient child.
I swung my arm, gesturing to the wide-open sea. “It’s not as if anyone’s around to overhear us. Anyway, don’t act so innocent. I can tell you and Amanda have a thing.”
A dozen expressions crossed his face, but the clearest were shock, then discomfort, and finally anger. “That’s complicated.”
“Sorry.” I felt stupid for pushing as I had. I hated when we argued. I hated that I was having these feelings of inferiority when I’d known from day one there could never be anything between Ronan and me. And, at the moment, I mostly hated that he might take his mood out on me while in deep, freezing seawater.
He nodded curtly toward the water. “You’ve postponed long enough. Get in.”
“Okay, okay.” I rose to a squat and sat on the edge of the boat. It wobbled and bobbed with my shifting weight. “I’ll get in without the trick.”
Before he could scold me one last time, I rolled backward into the water.
The cold was a fist seizing me, tightening across my chest, and stealing my breath. A sharp ache shot from the soles of my feet up my calves. I began treading water at once. Ronan was right—deep water was very different from any pool.
Swells that’d seemed small from the boat felt huge to me now, splashing water in my face and whisking me away from him. The sea was so totally vast around me. And—oh God—beneath me. Panic kicked in my chest at the thought of the terrifying things lurking below the surface, eager to take a bite out of me. I was dangerously close to hysterical, and it came through in my voice. “Are there sharks?”
Ronan, however, was as maddeningly calm as ever. If this was his way of getting back at me, he was doing a bang-up job. “You’re on an island with a bunch of vampires, and you’re worried about sharks?”
“You betcha.” I scissor kicked wildly, operating on pure instinct.
“Quiet yourself. Slowly now.”
I didn’t listen. My body apparently had the notion that if I kept moving, I’d be safe. And currently, I was only too happy to cede control to my animal instincts.
He leaned his elbows on the edge of the boat, considering me. “Truly, Annelise. I promise you. No sharks will be attacking today. You’ll tire out far too quickly moving like you are.”
His words registered. He was right—I was feeling winded already. I tried to lengthen my strokes. To slow my breaths to match.
“That’s it,” he said. “You can move more slowly than you think. You’re lucky it’s not windy today. Not much chop on the water.”
The swells had seemed alarmingly huge, but I saw how really they were gentle rolls. It calmed me a little.
“Imagine yourself a part of the sea. Imagine it’s not your enemy, but an extension of yourself. That swimming is a return to your true nature. You’re a creature made mostly of water, after all.”
His words became a dull hum in my head, soothing me. I pictured a globe of the earth, and all that blue. I imagined myself as an impossibly tiny speck somewhere in the North Sea—alive and vital, not yet defeated, not drowned. My heart rate began to normalize.
“On your back now,” he said.
I relaxed, and I felt my belly slowly float to the surface. Floating on my back, I longed for those swells now, for the feeling of bobbing up and dropping down. I spread my arms out from my sides, imagining myself like a starfish.
“Slow your breath. Exhale slowly and hold. Inhale from your belly.”
I did as he told me, not opening my eyes. My stomach rose with each inhale, and that part of my wet suit grew cool. I became calmer still. Distantly I wondered if it was my own doing, or if he’d somehow used his powers to lull me into this state. But really, it didn’t matter. I was languorous now, a creature of the sea floating without care. Perhaps this was how I’d escape—I’d simply drift away.
A hand wrapped around my ankle. I felt a tug. My relaxed arms whooshed over my head as I was pulled closer to the boat. I’d been floating away.
Ronan’s hand lingered on my calf, cupping it from below. Was he reluctant to let go, or had my perception of time simply slowed?
Or maybe he was just using his trick—I was so tranquil now, so composed. My breathing was so slow, I thought I might fall asleep. I knew then I could hold my breath for a very long time.
He let go, and there was a clattering and a splash. He’d set the oars.
I blinked the water out of my eyes. The gray sky was a fraction darker than before. How long had I been floating there? With a shake of my head, I righted myself and grabbed onto the side of the dory.
He gave me a knowing smile. Once again, he’d known I could do something, and once again he’d been right.
I glared, reluctant to give him another victory.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“You’re smiling.”
His eyes wrinkled, making him look perplexed. “And that’s bad?”
“It makes you look like a pirate.”
He laughed. “Just get in the boat.”
I wanted to coax one more laugh from him. I wanted to erase the discomfort of our earlier conversations. I wanted to make it all okay. “Does that mean you forgive me?”
His eyes rested on me for a long moment. “It means I knew you could do it.”
I took that as a yes.