Brie
Hot, bright, unforgiving sunlight burns through my eyelids. My body feels… shattered–and itchy. Incredibly itchy and dry and…
I open my eyes just enough to feel the grit of sand before I close them again, my stomach rolling and twisting. I cough once–a painful experience that has me moving quickly from lying flat on my belly to my knees where I choke and gag, spilling an exceedingly large amount of water from my lungs. My throat burns like fire. My teeth ache. My lips burn from several splits now packed with… sand.
I wipe my face which only spreads the sand further. I spit more water, gulping down air and choking on it like my lungs aren’t used to breathing anymore.
My hair sticks to my face in wet, sandy clumps. My skin is raw and blistered from the sun.
It comes back to me in fragments. Fractured memories of a fire, of a fight, of death, hurtle to the forefront of my mind. I remember the wave last. I remember wrapping my arms around Logan’s waist and…
“Logan?” I choke, sucking in another breath. His name leaves my lips in a strangled whisper as I look around, the landscape before me coming into view.
It’s impossibly bright. The sun reflects off snow-white sand to the point it blinds me temporarily, and I have to blink repeatedly to adjust my eyes to the sun's assault.
A tattered lump of black fabric comes into view. Logan’s legs are completely free of the armor, which is falling off him in shreds of fabric, the sand around him dotted with those strange, metallic scales. The gentle surf brushes up his feet and calves as he lies face down in the sand, his back bare and vulnerable to the sun.
His skin is red–blistering just like mine, but his wounds are…
“Oh, my Goddess,” I croak, crawling on my hands and knees roughly twenty yards to where he’s lying. My sandy hands hover over his back, which is flayed in ribbons. Even the back of his legs are torn to shreds, like he went through a meat grinder.
A sob works its way up my throat, making it impossible to breathe. I gently take his shoulders, shaking him, but he doesn’t so much as flinch.
“Logan? Oh, Goddess,” I sob, trying to turn him over. A wave breaches the shoreline and rushes toward us, soaking me to the waist with warm, tropical water. The wave retreats, taking streams of Logan’s blood with it, staining the sand beneath a dark, deep red.
“Logan? Please–” I grunt with the effort of rolling him over onto his back, ignoring the injuries that will now be caked in sand.
Water dribbles out of his mouth. I don’t know what to do. I have no idea what I need to do.
“Help me,” I whisper, my hands shaking as I take his face between my shaking hands. “S-somebody h-help me–” I can’t scream. My throat is absolutely wrecked. Every word that leaves my mouth is raspy and dry, broken into pieces.
I turn his head to the side, giving him a rough slap across the cheek. Nothing happens.
I let his face go and lean down, pressing my ear to his chest, and close my eyes.
“Please,” I whisper. “Please–”
I hear a gentle, slow thump, thump.
He’s alive. He’s alive, barely. But he’s–he’s still here, somehow. What do I do?
I kneel, raising my hands and curl them into fists, then slam them down on his chest. Nothing.
I do it again, as hard as I can, then again, and again, until my hands are bruised and starting to swell.
“Come on!” I beg. “Logan, don’t leave me here by myself like this!” I slam my fists down one more time, then lean over him, taking his face between my hands.
I lower my face to his, my eyes wet with tears.
“Come on,” I whisper, brushing sand from his cheeks with my thumbs. “Come on, you stupid bastard! Wake up!”
I do the only thing I can think of to save him. Without a moment’s hesitation, I press my mouth to his, and blow.
His lips are… warm–and soft. He tastes like… salt, which is totally understandable given the fact we’ve just been tossed through the sea like clothes in a malfunctioning washing machine. I rear back and pump on his chest again, then press my lips to his, blowing hard, trying to fill his lungs with air.
I repeat this twice more, and the next time my lips meet his, I feel him twitch.
I don’t stop. I blow more air into his mouth, squeezing his face between my hands. He groans against my mouth, choking just enough to tell me I succeeded. I did it. I did it!
His eyelids flutter while I whisper to him, telling him he’s all right, to just… breathe. To breathe, for Goddess’ sake, but he’s still struggling.
I press my lips to his again, and his hand flies out, clasping the back of my neck and holding me there. I freeze.
He trembles slightly, his lips parting over mine. My heart skips as he takes a shallow breath, sharing the air I’m breathing. I slowly, ever so slowly, lean away, but his hand tightens, keeping me fixed only inches from his mouth.
“Logan,” I say, my voice cracking. “Logan, it’s me. It’s Brie. You’re okay.”
His eyes open to slits, his pupils blown wide. “Brie?”
My mouth moves, but no sound comes out. His fingers drift into my hair, his thumb dragging up my neck like he’s trying to feel me, trying to register that I’m really leaning over him, casting him in my shadow and guarding him from the sun.
My sandy hair falls around our faces, blocking the view of the unfamiliar tropical landscape, but my eyes are locked on his… even while he drags me back down to him and presses his lips to mine… willingly.
I’m frozen solid. My eyes are still open. My mind reels, wondering if he needs… more air, or something. Because, otherwise, why would he be kissing me right now?
His lips part, a soft, guttural groan leaving his throat that has my body unlocking places I never knew I could feel.
When his tongue sweeps across my lower lip I… melt.
I lean over him, bracing my elbows in the sand on either side of his head and lean into the kiss. It’s my first. I doubt it’s his because he can do things with his tongue that I haven’t even read about in books.
I close my eyes, a moan leaving my throat against my will as his fingers weave through my hair to cup the back of my head, directing my face to the side to give him better access…
His other hand comes to rest on my back, traveling down my spine to my cup my–
I suck in a breath and lean away, my spine turning to steel. Reality crashes down around me, shattering like someone just hit me over the head with a vase.
I draw my hand back and slap the hell out of him. The sound of my hand meeting his cheek echoes across the beach.
But it doesn’t erase the smug, cocky grin twitching to life on his lips.
“You pig!” I sneer, tears welling in my eyes. “I thought you were dead!”
He tries to take a deep breath, his lips parting with some snarky retort, but goes pale.
“Logan? Logan, are you okay?” Lo–”
He rolls to his side and coughs violently, water pouring from his mouth. His back is so terrible, so raw, blistered, and bloody. The sand has to hurt. It looks like it hurts. It has to–
“HEY!”
I look up, startled, as a male voice rips across the beach.
“HEY!!!” he repeats as two figures come into view roughly a quarter mile down the sand, running in our direction. The sun makes them look like an illusion, their bodies rippling with light.
I wonder, for a brief moment, if they’re even real, but then one of them shouts to us again, and I know, for certain, we’re not alone on this beach… and they’re not from our boat.
While Logan continues to spew salt water, I rise on shaking legs, stumbling forward and snatching a long piece of sun-bleached driftwood from the sand, wielding it like a sword. My nightgown is in tatters. It’s holding on by a thread–one spaghetti strap, in fact, and the hem is frayed so badly I have slits up to my hip bones.
I’m sure my not-so-sexy cotton boy-shorts are on full display as I raise the driftwood and slice it through the air when the two men come into full view. “Get away from us!” I shout, but my voice cracks painfully. “G-go away! Don’t come any closer!”
Logan sputters a rough, gravelly cough behind me, grunting as he tries to rise to his knees. My anxiety flares when I hear him hiss in pain. My gaze flickers to the bloody sand at my feet and back up again as the two men come to a stop, less than a car’s length away.
I hold my piece of wood out in warning. “Get away.”
The man in the lead, the one who’d been calling out to us, raises his hands in surrender, but his pale cornflower blue eyes scan my battered face then my body. He has bright, golden blond hair and a deep tan, but his cheeks are ruddy from the harsh sun. His companion, a man in his mid-to-late twenties, has dark skin and long, softly curling, but insanely thick, black hair he has tied back in a loose bun that brushes his shoulders. His eyes are as dark brown as mine. Both men are similarly dressed in billowing, creamy white poet shirts and snug pants that taper at the ankles.
They look like… characters from a book I used to read as a kid. Pirates.
“Fuck,” the guy with the bun grunts as his gaze flicks to Logan. His eyes meet mine again to ask, “What happened–”
“Back. Up.” I growl, jutting the stick toward them.
Both men take a step back.
The blond man lowers his hands, eyeing us with interest, maybe even morbid curiosity as he asks, “You washed up? Bad storm last night. We hunkered down around the corner–”
I open my mouth to cut him off, to tell them to continue walking backward until there’s a safe distance between us, but Logan sways to his feet, his hand clasping my shoulder so hard I wince as I fight to hold myself up against his weight.
“Where are we?” he asks, his voice etched with pain. I glance at him, noticing how pale he is, how red his eyes are. He looks terrible–on the verge of passing out, actually.
“That depends on who's asking,” the blond man says wearily. “Where were you coming from?”
I know better than to say anything. Logan, too, holds back, but what he says next shocks me to my core.
“My mate and I were traveling to Maatua to visit family,” he says, trying to take a breath between the words. “We got caught in the storm. It was worse than–than anticipated.”
“What are your names?”
Logan exhales, gritting his teeth as he sways.
Alarm bells ring through my head as he starts to lean into me, losing his balance.
I can’t hold him upright. I try to grab him by what’s left of his armor as he starts to fall face first into the sand, his eyes rolling back in his head.
The other men jump into action.
“What’s your name, kid?” the blond one asks with a grunt as he lets Logan fall into his arms.
“Me?” I rasp, unsure what to do and if I should trust them. “B-Brie.”
“And his?”
“Logan,” I say, swallowing hard, still feeling sand on my tongue.
He nods, glancing at his companion. “I’m Alex, the Alpha of Tempest Valley,” he says, then tilts his head to his friend. “This is Sawyer, my Beta.”
I blink at them, trying not to burst into tears. None of this feels real.
“Where are we?” I ask, unsure if I really want to know.
Alex runs his tongue over his lower lip, squinting against the sun. “Welcome to Hell, kid. You somehow just washed up in KiloKilo.”