Read Online Descend (Awakened Fate Book 2) by Skye Malone - Free Book Online

them. “Where are you from? No one’s told me anything beyond, you know, the weird water thing.”
    I hesitated. “Kansas.”
    Her brow furrowed.
    “It’s one of the middle states,” I supplied.
    The confusion became skepticism. “Seriously?”
    I nodded, and then looked back toward the door. Zeke was nowhere to be seen.
    “He’ll be fine,” Ina assured me. “So how’d you deal with being so far from the ocean?”
    I shrugged.
    “Did you, like, make saltwater in a bathtub or something so you could change shape or…”
    I shook my head. “I never needed to. I just found out about dehaians last week.”
    She paused. “Ah.”
    “What?”
    “Oh, nothing.”
    I glanced to her. She rolled her eyes.
    “Really,” she acquiesced. “It’s just… well, that explains it a bit.”
    My brow furrowed incredulously. Of all the responses I’d gotten so far – including being flat-out called a liar – I hadn’t expected anyone to say that. “Explains what a bit?”
    Her mouth tightened as we headed up toward the level where they’d given me a room to use. “You’re just not very… dehaian.”
    I tensed. “What do you mean?”
    She didn’t answer, swimming on till we reached the room. At the door, she paused, glancing to the guards. “Guys, hang out here, eh?”
    Without waiting to see if they agreed, she tugged me after her into the room. On the other side of the plants, she released me and slapped a hand to a small discoloration on the stone doorframe. The leaves stilled, taking on the texture and solidity of wood.
    “Let me guess,” she pronounced. “My suddenly and inexplicably conservative brother knows you’ve somehow managed to be new to all this, but in spite of that, he didn’t tell you anything about us. About what we are or what we can do.”
    I gave a small shrug. The room had seemed big before, but it felt the size of a matchbox with her in it now.
    The girl was like a force of nature when she wasn’t distracted by her family.
    Ina sighed, rolling her eyes again as she started to swim back and forth, almost like pacing. “It’s fine. It’s obvious. I mean… maybe you’re just modest as hell or reserved or something but…”
    I looked at her in confusion.
    She gestured to me. “You’re so quiet. And then there’s the scale thing. I mean, you know we can do what we want with that, right? In the water, out of the water…”
    At my silence, she shook her head. “Okay, listen. One, you’ve got to loosen up. Dehaians… we know how to party. It’s kind of our thing. Topside and inland? Yeah, they can be all uptight. But here?” She grinned. “Life’s too short for that. We live longer than humans, but it still is.
    “And two,” she continued, “we can control these things. The scales. Out of the water, they can become like human swimsuits. Help you blend in till you can find some clothes since, you know, folks tend to frown on the whole public nudity thing, typically speaking. You can even change your feet to handle the terrain till you find shoes, because let’s face it, rocks, hot sand, and whatever just aren’t that fun. And in the water…”
    She paused, and the skin of her torso changed, the vaguely tribal markings from the back of her faux-bikini suddenly growing and twisting across her stomach and arms like vines.
    “You can get creative,” she said as the shapes faded back into skin. “And trust me, the boys find it all kinds of sexy.”
    I could feel a blush creep across my face.
    Her grin widened. “Come on, give it a shot. I mean, honestly. You look like you’re in some kind of scale apron.”
    I hesitated, irritation taking the place of my embarrassment. I’d known I was dehaian for less than a week, and already I was getting criticized over their version of how I dressed?
    Zeke’s sister or not, it was suddenly very hard not to start disliking her.
    Ina’s eyebrow rose as she waited.
    I drew a breath and attempted to concentrate on making the cream scales