The Reef

witchcraft and murder. Her final promise that any who profited from her death would pay in kind.
    The doom and despair that had followed the path of the necklace for two centuries. The greed and lust that had caused men to kill for it and women to plot.
    He might even believe the legend, but it meant only that the greed and the lust had caused the doom and despair. A priceless jewel needed no curse to drive men to murder.
    That he was sure of. That he knew, too well. Angelique’s Curse had been the motive behind his father’s death.
    But it was a man who had planned it, executed it.
    Silas VanDyke. Matthew could conjure up his face if he needed to, the voice, the build, even the smell. No matter how many years passed, he forgot nothing.
    And he knew, as he had known as a helpless, grief-ravaged teenager, that one day he would find the amulet, and use it against VanDyke.
    For revenge.
    It was odd, that with such dark and violent thoughts hovering in his mind as he drifted to sleep, he would dream of Tate.
    Swimming in impossibly clear waters, free of weight, of equipment, slick and agile as a fish. Deeper and deeper, to where the sun could no longer penetrate. The fans waved and toothy clumps of colors gleamed like jewels and carried bright fish in their pockets.
    Still deeper, to where the colors—reds and oranges and yellows—faded to cool, cool blue. Yet there was no pressure, no need to equalize, no fears. Only a bursting sense of freedom that mellowed into complete and utter contentment.
    He could stay here forever, in this soundless world, with nothing on his back, neither tanks nor worries.
    There. There below him, a child’s fairy-tale image of a sunken ship. The masts, the hull, the tattered flags waving in the current. It lay tilted in the bed of sand, impossibly whole and impossibly clear. He could see the cannons, still aimed against ancient enemies. And the wheel waiting for its captain ghost to steer it.
    Delighted, he swam toward it, through swirls of fish, past an octopus that curled its tentacles and ballooned away, under the shadow of a giant ray that danced overhead.
    He circled the deck of the Spanish galleon, read the proud lettering that christened her the Isabella. The crow’s nest creaked above him, like a tree in the wind.
    Then he saw her. Like a mermaid, she hovered just out of reach, smiling a siren’s smile, gesturing with lovely, graceful hands. Her hair was long, not a flaming cap, but long, silken ropes of fire waving and swirling over her shoulders and naked breasts. Her skin was like a pearl, white and gleaming.
    Her eyes were the same, green and amused.
    As if a tide had swept him, he was helpless to do anything but go to her.
    Her arms went around him, satin chains. Her lips parted for his and were sweet as honey. When he touched her, it was as if he’d waited all his life for that alone. The feel of her skin sliding under his hand, the quiver of muscle as he aroused her. The drum of pulse under flesh.
    The taste of her sigh was in his mouth. Then the slickand glorious heat enveloped as he slid inside her, as her legs wrapped around him and her body bowed back to take him deeper.
    It was all dreamy movements, endless sensation. They drifted, rolling through the water in a soundless mating that left him weak and stunned and blissfully happy. He felt himself spill into her.
    Then she kissed him, softly, deeply and with incredible sweetness. When he saw her face again, she was smiling. He reached for her, but she shook her head and danced away. He gave chase, and they frolicked like children, darting around the sunken ship.
    She led him to a chest, laughing as she tossed back the lid and revealed the mountain of gold. Coins spilled as she dipped her hand in. The glint was like sunlight, and scattered with it were jewels of great size. Diamonds as big as his fist, emeralds larger than her eyes, pools of sapphires and rubies. Their color was dazzling against the cool gray of the world around them.
    He dragged his hand through the chest, spilled a shower of star-shaped diamonds over her hair and made her laugh.
    Then he found the amulet, the heavy gold chain, the blood and tears that studded the pendant. He could feel heat from it, as if it lived. Never in his life had he seen anything so beautiful, so compelling.
    He held it up, looked at Tate’s delighted face through the circle of the chain, then slipped it over her head. She laughed, kissed him, then cupped the pendant in her