Claimed by the Alpha Dolphins: Part One: Bound to the Sea (a BBW Paranormal Romance)
Page 6
Lucan grabbed a leather belt and whipped it through the air. The buckle caught the other Mordentes in the eye. He howled, clutched at his eye socket, and lunged forward. Lucan made an amazing move and somehow managed to wrap the belt around the forearm of his attacker, immobilizing the creature’s knife hand. The Mordentes tried to grab him, but Lucan then finished off his riposte by ramming his forehead into the creature’s nose with stupendous force. The Mordentes slumped to his knees and a final blow to his face by Lucan’s knee knocked him senseless.
Mona marveled at the grace with which the Dolphinae defended themselves. It was if they practiced a type of martial art she had never seen before. She heard the faint wail of a siren. Finally! The police will be here any minute. Even though there was only one Mordentes left, she preferred her Dolphinae to have all the help they could get.
Now that Lucan had finished off his attacker, he turned to help Dario who had been backed into a corner. The Mordentes alternated his swings trying to trick the first Dolphinae to move into range. He made a slash at Lucan, giving Dario an opening.
Dario broke the chair over the Mordentes’ back and the creature faltered. But now that Dario was defenseless. The creature grimaced victoriously and slashed furiously at him. Dario dodged back and the knife’s tip raked across his chest creating a long, bloody gash. However, the swing was so wide that Lucan was able to grab the creature’s knife arm. Unhindered by his injury, Dario leaped on the other arm.
Together, the two Dolphinae wrenched both arms behind the Mordentes’ back. Then they rammed him head first into the wall like a battering ram. The third time they slammed him into the wall, his body went limp. They let the creature fall to the ground. The wail of the siren was growing ever louder, and the curtains were illuminated with hints of blue and red light. Now that the fight was over, Mona ran from the bathroom to check on Dario’s wound.
Her attention to Dario grated on Lucan, who said angrily, “You called the police? We don’t like to involve humans in our affairs.”
“Yeah. I was afraid for you.” She didn’t know why she should be on the defensive for doing something so logical, but added, “Hey, now these Mordentes will get tossed in jail. It should keep them out of your hair. That’d be a good thing, right?”
Lucan harrumphed as Mona verified that Dario’s chest wound was only superficial. Judging from how Lucan had healed, he probably wouldn’t even have a scar in a few weeks.
Dario had little patience for Mona’s fawning over him. He ignored the syrupy blood trailing down his chest. “We can’t afford to be lost in human affairs,” he concluded. “Who knows how long the police inquiry will take. After tonight, I’m certain that the Mordentes are joining forces to annihilate our people. They have never been so coordinated. Grab your affairs and we shall leave out the back. If the police follow, we can still escape by the waterway.”
“If it’s going to be our escape route, thank god the channel has some flow at this moment,” Mona said. “There are times when you’d be crawling on concrete.”
Dario then turned to Lucan, “We can settle our affair after we’ve taken the Descendant to the Orcae. It’s only right that we should have our duel in the Mediterranean. The elders of my clan will thus be given the joy of watching me kill you. Perhaps our pact was made to be broken.”
Lucan’s ire was rising as the two faced off. “There can only be one ruler of the Dolphinae. And Mona will be at my side as queen of the Mediterranean. I pity you for your misplaced arrogance.”
Mona found the posturing of the two Dolphinae disturbing. There was little doubt that the friendship they had built over the past years had evaporated with their revived rivalry. However, she was even more concerned by their planned destination.
“The Mediterranean?” she asked. “You plan on swimming all the way to the Mediterranean?”
Lucan smiled. “Of course not. To swim there would take weeks. Being able to take human form does have some advantages. We’ll take the plane.”
“I can’t just run off to the Mediterranean. My sick days have run out and I need to go back to library tomorrow. I have responsibilities. I have my job and my life here.”
“You are destined to be a queen.” Dario said looking at the tiny apartment with disdain. “You call this a life?”
Looking over the destruction from the fight, Mona agreed it didn’t look like much. All the same, my life isn’t so bad. Perhaps it looked dull and trivial to a Dolphinae prince used to fighting shark-shifters, but she lived comfortably. Of course, the trip sounded tempting, but she couldn’t help being apprehensive. Even more frightening than the thought of further attacks by the Mordentes, was the monumental decision she would be making to change her whole life. Moreover, it appeared to be a change that wouldn’t allow her to return. Getting the job at the library hadn’t been easy. The Dolphinae took normal human existence to be banal, and they had no idea how she had struggled. Deep down, she knew she was equivocating. But that was because this was all so sudden. She hated snap decisions and really just wanted the time to think things over. Maybe with time, she would want to go. But her mind operated on building roadblocks to change, and it kept tossing out excuses.
“And I’m completely broke,” she blurted out. “I can’t afford to buy a plane ticket to Europe at the moment.”
The squad cars came to a stop outside the building. Mona’s curtains flashed with red and blue light. Her broken front door allowed all of the accompanying sounds of a crime scene to filter into the apartment. She could hear the car doors opening and then the police radios within.
Lucan grabbed his knapsack. He reached in, extracted some small yellow objects and then tossed them to the table where they landed with a couple of dull, metallic thuds. “You can use these,” he said. “The ocean floor is littered with such trifles. The Dolphinae never have to worry about human money.”
Mona looked at the yellow coins. They were antique gold doubloons. More than enough to buy a plane ticket.
Lucan tugged her arm. “Come we must leave before the police get to the door. Grab your passport. We may have to use the river, but I have zip lock bags in my backpack.”
Mona dug her passport out of a desk drawer and also remembered to take the document she had printed containing the ‘Fragments from the Papyrus of the Dolphinae’. She had only begun to read through them and thought they might still prove useful. Turning to follow the Dolphinae out the sliding glass door, she froze again.
What am I doing? This is my last chance to say no. If I go with the two Dolphinae, I may have to watch one kill the other. She hadn’t been able to come up with a plan to make both of them share her as their queen. Moreover, thoughts of the Mordentes and the unknown dangers lurking in the sea still swirled through her mind.
While she hesitated a moment more, a warm gust of wind blew through the balcony door. The white curtains billowed apart creating an opening onto the starry sky. She understood it to be a sign that her destiny was beckoning.
AFTERWORD
THANK YOU for reading the first serial installment to Claimed by the Alpha Dolphins. To hear about when the next installments will be released and also keep informed of giveaways or freebies, you can sign up for my ‘New Release Newsletter’ at LyraFawn.com.
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