Ture duplicated Maris’s yawn. “No wonder I’m so tired.” Getting up, he groaned.
“Are you all right?”
Yawning again, Ture nodded. They had spent the entire night talking about everything and nothing. Maris had definitely kept his promise to distract Ture’s thoughts from his sister. “Thank you, Mari.”
He inclined his head to him. “Any time.”
Ture kissed his cheek then he headed to his own room.
Maris didn’t move as his cheek tingled from those lips. Lips he wanted to taste with a madness that made no sense.
Why am I always attracted to what I can’t have?
And he had no idea what it was about Ture that fascinated him so. Well, not entirely true. There was something about him that Maris found easy to talk to. He didn’t feel like Ture judged him. Rather he seemed to be fine with all of Maris’s quirks.
It was enough to make him reconsider his vow of solitude. But dreams were for fools.
And Maris was through being hurt.
CHAPTER 4
“Push yourself harder.”
Ture paused, mid stroke to glare at Maris as he coached him from the side of the large pool deep inside the Caronese Winter Palace where he was still recuperating. “I’m pushing as hard as I can. If you think you can do better, I defy you to crawl in here and try.”
Maris flashed a charming smile at him. “I’d hate to show you up, love. This is about your progress, not my greatness.”
Unamused, Ture rolled his eyes at the pomposity. That was the one thing that could get irritating about Maris. His ego was as vast as the universe. But Ture also knew it was a front. For all his bluster, Maris was actually quite insecure and bashful. Preciously so at times.
For almost a month now, Ture had been in physical therapy as his body healed, and he learned to use it again and rebuild atrophied muscles. Oddly, these sessions seemed to be getting harder instead of easier.
And right now...
Ture gasped as his leg locked up. Because he had so little body fat, he sank to the bottom of the pool like an anchor. He tried to swim up, but couldn’t get his body to cooperate. His heart pounding, he knew that Maris couldn’t swim. It was why he’d never joined him for any of the water exercises.
If he didn’t get to the surface...
He panicked even more.
All of a sudden, someone grabbed him from behind and pulled him up.
Ture coughed and choked as they broke the surface. He glanced around for Maris. His jacket and shirt were where he’d been, but there was no sign of him.
At least not until the man holding him lifted him out of the water with an ease that was terrifying.
Maris?
Still choking, he turned back toward the pool.
“Don’t look at me,” Maris growled. He held himself below the edge of the pool so that all Ture could see was his hand.
A hand that now held a strange translucent silver color and long fingernails that were more claw-like than Maris’s flawless manicure...
“Mari?”
“I’m all right, Ture. Just don’t look at me.”
But he couldn’t help himself. His curiosity was too great. Before he could think better of it, he inched his way toward Maris and peeped over the edge. His eyes widened at what he found in the water.
Gasping, he stumbled back as raw fear gripped him. What the hell?
Maris flinched at the look he’d seen on Ture’s face. With the exception of Darling, humans didn’t handle seeing Phrixians in their natural state gracefully. Who could blame them? His species was repugnant.
Oh well...it wasn’t like there could ever be anything between them anyway.
Suddenly, Ture was back at the edge, leaning over it. His eyes guarded, he reached down to touch Maris’s wet hair.
“I know,” Maris sighed. “I’m disgusting.”
“No. You’re very beautiful like this.”
Stunned, Maris looked up, unsure of what to expect. But he saw truth in Ture’s eyes, not horror.
Ture cupped Maris’s cheek as he stared in awe of the man’s current appearance. He’d never seen anything like this. Mari’s skin reminded him of a sleek, silvery fish’s. Only it wasn’t scaled and it was as soft was warm velvet. Even his eyes were now an eerie glowing silver color. Not their normal dark chocolate. The neatest part was the beautiful design that was now visible around his eyes. Like someone had used dark gray and black eye shadow and liner to draw an intricate flowing scroll pattern.
He placed his hand over Maris’s as he studied its differences, too. His nails were a bit longer, coming just over the end of his fingers, and he now had webbing between the phalanges. “Do your feet do this, too?”