A faster post! I think I'm in a groove. Ah, the wonders of coffee. And finally! We get a tiny bit of background on the Tobins before they moved to California. Thank you everyone for the encouraging reviews. I love reading them.
Sarina dragged her feet all the way up to the apartment. She knew she was behaving like a petulant child throwing a fit, but she didn't care. Felix Webber might be a creep of epic proportions, but she was certain she wasn't in any immediate danger.
"Take only what cannot be replaced," Isaac instructed. "Everything will be provided at the new house."
Michael nodded and began filling a duffel bag with the family pictures on the walls. Sarina marched to her room and closed the door behind her to keep Isaac from following. She jammed some dirty socks under the door as well to keep him from sneaking in. She could feel the warmth around her ears that told her that her father was shielding her in his unique way. It probably didn't bother Isaac much, since they could still speak mind to mind, but maybe, just maybe, if she didn't think too hard about what she was doing, she could get away.
She tried to keep her mind on other things while she prepared for her escape. First, she pulled out some Ziplocs and stuffed a clean change of clothes into them, sealing them tight for travel. She slipped them into her backpack. The keepsakes she inherited from her mother would have to be carefully wrapped before they were packed. She pulled out some tissue paper and started to wrap them. Then she pulled out hard-sided suitcase to pack them in. Half way through, she changed from her casual clothes into her board shorts and a rash guard shirt.
She couldn't bear to leave anything of her mother's behind, so she went back and finished packing. She made sure to include her mother's favorite silk fans and rice paper parasols. Over her swimming clothes, she put her regular clothes back on. She pulled out the customized red and gold kimono her mother had been married in. She put that in the suitcase as well. Finally, she wrapped her hand carved jade and ironwood jewelry box in an old sweatshirt, and put that on top.
Turning back to her backpack, she grabbed her cell phone and quickly texted Mark with a short message: mayday. meet me aotp asap. As soon as the message was sent, she deleted it from her outbox. Then she packed another bag with her art supplies. She slipped her feet into her ugliest pair of flipflops, shouldered her backpack, and picked up her two bags. She barely spared a glance at her wigs or her makeup as she left her room.
Her father was also done packing the few things, pictures mostly, that he could not leave behind. Isaac quietly and gracefully took the hard-sided suitcase from Sarina. He looked at her face, and his eyes narrowed suspiciously.
Do not run from me, mein liebe, he warned. No matter where you go, I would find you.
I know, she replied coolly. She led the way out the door and to the elevator. Michael and Isaac followed her with stoic efficiency. She paused as the elevator doors opened and passed her art supplies into Isaac's free hand. "I forgot something. I'll just be a minute. Go warm up the car. I'll take the next elevator down."
"Sarina," her father started warningly.
"I'll be fast," she promised and ran back to the apartment to avoid further protests. When she reached the door of her apartment, she glanced back and saw the doors slide closed. Her last glimpse had been of Isaac's green eyes, hard with concern for her. Then she sprinted for the stairs. She impishly sat on the rail and slid down flight after flight of stairs. She reached the ground in record time and ran out the back door of the apartment building.
Isaac and her father were likely stuck in the elevator until they reached the parking level, but then Isaac would likely be right behind her with his inhuman speed. She just had to make it 3 blocks to the ocean. She'd be safe as soon as she touched the sea water.
Sarina raced down the street, her pounding heart pushing dangerous levels of adrenalin through her system. Her backpack was light, and didn't imped her running. One block down. She could feel Isaac's rage as he realized what she was doing. He tried to slow her down, but her father's shields were still in place. Either Isaac hadn't told her father what she was doing, or her father was aiding her momentary escape. Nearing the two block mark, she could feel Isaac racing towards her, his body oddly immobile but his speed was a blur.
She crossed a small street and sprinted down the last block towards the beach. So close. So close.
Isaac was right beside her now, easily pacing her. He glared at her as he ran. She ignored him. She filled her mind with thoughts of the ocean.
I warned you not to run, he growled. Do not force me to restrain you.
I'm not forcing you to do anything, she replied as her feet hit the sand. She shed her flip flops while keeping her stride even. 50 feet to the water. Just like you aren't going to force me to break my word.
25 feet to the water.
STOP! Isaac commanded, filling his voice with a terrible compulsion.
Sarina felt the power of his words push through her father's shields just as her toes touched the sea. She stumbled as her body followed his order, even as her spirit reached out for the water. She fell into the surf and felt his compulsion dissolve. She was free.
Isaac stooped to help her stand up, but she rolled out with the retreating waves. He lost sight of her for a moment under the sea foam. Frantically he searched for her, but she was gone. Then she stood up, twenty feet away from him, waist deep in the water. He plunged into the serf, pushing through the water to get to her.
"I'm sorry, Isaac," she called over the crashing waves. "I'm not trading momentary safety for the life of that girl. If you really loved me, you wouldn't ask me to do such a thing."
"I promised you I would take care of her," Isaac shouted back. He was desperate to get her out of the water. "Come back, right now!" He put more power than he had ever dared use on a human into that command, but he felt his power just dissipate into the ocean, absorbed and neutralized. Isaac had never had such an experience in his experiments near the sea. As a full fledged Carpathian, he was supposed to have power over all the forces of nature.
Sarina's heart ached for Isaac. She felt his desperation, his frustration, his overwhelming desire to make sure she was safe. Her defiance shattered the calm he had forged over centuries. "I'll let you know when I'm ready to try again," she tried to assure him.
As an absolute last resort, he broke his promise to himself to wait for her to fully accept him. Isaac screamed, "I claim you as my lifemate!"
Sarina's body jerked. Deep down, she could tell he was irrevocably binding her to him to her. She dove under the water and sought refuge under the waves. His thoughts followed her.
I belong to you, he continued.
Stop it! She cried as she dove deeper. She could feel the ocean accepting her, filling her with energy even as she felt her heart reaching for his. She followed a current farther out to one of the many kelp forests that lined the California coast.
I offer my life for you. I give you my protection...my allegiance...my heart...my soul...and...my...body...
His words finally faded away as she gained enough distance to silence that insistent voice, the peculiar chant that pulled on the weave and weft of her soul. She felt like crying, but she knew her tears would be instantly lost in the sea. She settled on a rock and let out all the air in her lungs.
Then she sucked in salt water, and exhaled it through the razor-thin gill-slits in her ribs. Her shirt got in the way, and she shrugged out of it, letting it drift in the water. It was cotton and would break down in a few weeks. Her rash guard tee had a loose weave on the sides that allowed water to flow out of her body easily. She took another deep breath of water, letting the flavors of the ocean fill her senses and balance her internal chemistry naturally.
Isaac knew she loved the ocean. But he didn't know who or what she was. She hadn't had the strength to tell him, to risk his condemnation, his rejection, of this fishy side of her heritage. Her father was half mage, but her mother had been one of the sea folk.
Sea folk were not mermaids, exactly. Selkies, kelpies, sirens, changelings. All names for the sea folk in other lands. The sea folk traveled alone or in small pods. Many women chose to embrace a human man for a few years before returning to the ocean. They were playful people, as serious as a dolphin's smile.
Her mother had been unusual in that she had truly given her heart to a mortal man, and no matter how many times she'd slipped under the waves, she'd always come back to his arms. True love had bound them together beyond all reason. Perhaps it was because she hadn't been a full blood, but a love child from another frivolous joining of one of the sea folk and a mortal.
While Sarina didn't have all the skills and gifts her mother had possessed, they had both been one with the ocean, able to breath air and water. Sarina's gills only came out when she was deep in salt water. She'd tried breathing fresh water and chlorine water, only to nearly choke to death. The ocean also protected her, with in reason. Right now it was shielding her from Isaac's searching. It wouldn't protect her from a hungry shark who mistook her for a seal. Life and death had equal rolls in the sea. That was why Sarina was staying close to the kelp beds while she caught her breath. It was a haven in the ocean.
Her heart quieted and then began to ache. She felt incomplete. Dislodged. She wanted to swim back into Isaac's open arms. She could almost see him, fighting the waves and currents, looking for her. Then she realized that that was exactly what he was doing. He wasn't going to let her go that easily. He fully intended to search for her until he found her. Through the water, she could almost hear the beast inside him howling in loss. Even though her skin was used to the cold Pacific waters, the ghostly ringing in her ears gave her goosebumps.
Go back, she thought to him. I'm fine. You'll kill yourself in the open ocean.
Isaac jerked as he heard her voice, but he couldn't pinpoint where it was coming from. It was if the ocean itself was speaking to him. He cried out, Where are you?
Go back, she insisted as she faded away.
Isaac cursed in every language he knew and erupted out of the water. Perhaps her father would know what was going on. In a matter of seconds, he was sitting in the passenger's seat of the classic mustang. Michael was just staring straight ahead. He didn't seem surprised by Isaac's sudden appearance.
"Where is she?" he demanded, his voice soft but filled with menace.
"She's probably at the bottom of one of the kelp beds, catching her breath," Michael replied. His shields were now redoubled and impenetrable.
"That is not funny," Isaac snarled. "She is alive, I know she is."
"Of course she's alive" Michael said. "I never said she wasn't."
"Then how can she be at the bottom of a kelp bed? Giant kelp can root at one hundred feet below the surface. Normal mortals cannot reach that depth without aid, and she is still weak from the cancer," he snapped.
Michael finally looked at him. "In all your little chats, she never mentioned what she was, did she? She never even thought about it, or you would have known. She always had incredible self control."
Isaac's arm moved so fast that Michael didn't even see a blur. Suddenly the Carpathian's hand was clenched around Michael's throat, pinning him to the back of the driver's seat and slowly throttling the life out of him. At the same time, sharp mental barbs jabbed painfully at Michael's mental shields. "Let me see how well you do without air," he spat. "Or perhaps you are willing to enlighten me about your daughter's where abouts."
"Sarina...has gills...like...fish!" Michael gasped. "Her mother...too."
Isaac's eyes widened in astonishment. "Gills," he repeated, disbelieving.
Michael coughed and gasped, clawing at Isaac's unbreakable grip on his esophagus. "She was...from...the islands...south Pacific."
Isaac slowly released his grip. "Go on," he ordered.
Michael wheezed as he dragged air through his bruised wind pipe. "I met my wife when I was on a tour of duty in Indonesia. She said she was a Kiwi—a native of New Zealand. An oceanographer, studying coral death all over the south Pacific. We fell in love almost instantly, and we married six weeks later. Two years after that, Sarina was born. My wife was murdered on our tenth anniversary by one of your darker counterparts."
"How do you know it was a vampire?" Isaac demanded. "And why did I not see this in Sarina's thoughts when she spoke about her mother?"
"I know a vampire when I see one," Michael replied sardonically. "He had a glamor, a mask of beauty, but I could see through it to the real beast. She drew him away so that Sarina and I--" he broke off, reliving the horrible memories in the privacy of his own shielded mind. He had watched his wife die at the hands of the vilest creature on earth so that he and his daughter could escape. "I transferred to Hawaii, and Sarina stayed with my mother while I was on tours. After a month of nightmares, I dimmed Sarina's memories of the incident."
Isaac sensed the painful truth in Michael's words. The thought of Sarina as a child being exposed to something worse than Felix Webber made his stomach knot. He should have been combing the world for her, instead of sitting in the Carpathian mountains, expecting his lifemate to somehow find him. How could he have been so selfish when he didn't have any emotions?
"Where is she going now?" Isaac asked softly, respectfully.
"She wants to help out this girl," Michael reminded him. "So if you want to get my daughter back in a hurry, I suggest you heal the girl, and then grovel."
Isaac shot him a look. "I do not grovel."
"Every man grovels for the woman he loves," Michael replied softly as he finally started the car.
