by Judi Fennell
“But you wanted to get back at The Council! Wanted to teach Fisher a lesson. You can’t quit now. Rod’s almost done for.”
JR’s grin was so big it was sinister. Drake had never heard of an albatross attacking a Mer, but he didn’t want today to be the first time.
He ducked as the bird zoomed toward him, before veering off at the last second.
“You don’t get it, Drake. I did do all of those. I have the diamonds from The Council. They now know they’re not invincible. And Fisher has been sufficiently worried by the threat to his son.”
“But we’re so close. It won’t take long to get Rod out of the way, then—”
“You’re assuming I want you on the throne, Drake.”
“I—what?”
JR coasted past him again, close enough that Drake felt the draft from his wings, but too far away to make a grab for him.
“You’re assuming I was doing this so you could ascend the throne. I wasn’t. I wanted them—Fisher especially—to know that being an anointed ruler doesn’t make him an all-powerful being. I’ve done that. The Mer has finally realized his mistakes. It won’t bring Margot back to me, but I can go to her with a clear conscience.”
Drake flicked his tail to spin in a circle. “Go to her? You mean…”
“Of course, Drake. What else do I have to live for? Certainly not to help you. No, I’ve got a little trip planned to go see Zeus, and that’ll be the end of that.”
“Zeus will never go along with this, JR.” Drake splashed the ocean again, frustrated at the bird’s stupid reasoning. They were so close! “He certainly won’t thank you. Fisher is one of his favorites. How do you think he’s going to react when he learns—”
“Oh, Drake, you really are simple, you know that?” JR flew over him and tapped him on the head with his last wing feather. “All this talk about being ready to take on the leadership and you haven’t figured it out yet.”
“Figured what out?”
“The reason you got those diamonds so easily. The reason I even deigned to help you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know. And that’s the sad part.” JR circled higher, his voice resigned. “You see, Drake, I’ve been helping you at Zeus’ request.”
“What?”
“You heard me. He let you set this up. I can’t believe you’ve forgotten that the gods know everything. That they control everything. They let you get away with this to teach you—all of you—a lesson.” JR flapped his wings once and turned east.
“Now, if we’re done here, I’ve got a meeting with the head god I don’t want to be late for.”
Chapter 31
Rod held her hand and led her to within three feet of the water.
He’d asked if she was ready. Val honestly wasn’t sure of the answer.
Then he smiled, the warmth in his eyes taking away her anxiety as the waves whispered behind him. She looked at the water, following its path up the beach.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he asked, and he wasn’t looking at the water.
But it was. Truly beautiful and grand and, humbling, really. “It is.”
“How’s your breathing?”
She looked at him then, a smile teasing her lips. “Fine. And you know it.”
“True.”
“So what is this big mystery you’re going to share?”
He exhaled then linked their hands, his thumb rubbing the back of hers. “About Atlantis, Valerie. It really does exist. It’s not something I believe to exist, but…” He looked down where their fingers were intertwined. “I did lie to you.”
She held her breath. That, alone, was shocking.
“The thing is…” He squeezed her fingers before taking another deep breath. “Atlantis isn’t in the Caribbean. It’s near Bermuda.”
He’d lied to her? Why would he do that? Caribbean Atlantis or Bermudian Atlantis… After everything else she’d had to believe, what was the difference where it was located?
Except…
“Exactly where near Bermuda is this island, Rod? Last I checked, there isn’t much near Bermuda except Bermuda.”
His smile was short and thin and didn’t reach his eyes. “That’s true. Atlantis is…” He cleared his throat. “It’s under it.”
Val blinked. “What?” She took a step back, but he didn’t let go. “Under it? Under Bermuda? What do you mean?”
“Just what I said. Atlantis exists beneath the island of Bermuda.”
“Under it?”
“Yes.”
Okay, this made no sense. “How can anything exist under an island? It’d be under water.”
He watched her.
And didn’t say anything.
Another wave hissed onto the beach. “Wait a minute. You mean, it’s under water? The whole island? You’re not talking about a cave?”
“There are caves under Bermuda, but, no, we don’t live in them.”
“But under water? You live under water? That’d mean… that’d mean you can… that you’re…”
“Mer.”
Val had no idea what was going on here. Mer?
“As in mermaids?”
He arched an eyebrow. “Do I look like a Mer maid to you, Valerie?”
Well, no, obviously. That was silly. He wasn’t a mermaid. So he’d have to be a…
“Merman?”
That sexy, cockeyed smile kicked back one side of his mouth. “It’s actually two words. ‘Mer’ and ‘man,’ though we don’t use the gender tags. Humans added them.”
“Humans?”
“You. Well, not you specifically, since you’re a Hybrid, but the people you live around. They’re Humans.”
“Okay, I’m freaking out now.” She needed to sit down because her knees just lost their ability to lock. “What do you mean ‘hybrid’?”
“You, Valerie. Half Human and half Mer.”
The knees gave out and she hit the sand, jarring her spine on the landing, her skin taking the bite of surf-crushed shells. “Half human?”
Rod hunkered down next to her and picked up her hand again, patting the top of it. “Stay with me, Valerie. You’re doing good. You can handle this.”
She shook her head. Handle it? She didn’t even want to hear it. “What do you mean, half human, Rod?”
“Your mother, Valerie. She was Human.”
“So that means my father was…?”
“Mer.”
A few more waves stroked the beach while she digested that.
And it still made no sense.
“Rod, I’m sorry… but this…” She pulled her hands from his and wrapped her arms around her knees. Amazing how cold that little ocean breeze could make her. “There’s no such thing as merpeople.”
“You’re right, Valerie. There aren’t.”
She exhaled. Okay. That made her feel better. But what the hell was freaking her out like this all about?
And then he spoke again.
“We aren’t called ‘merpeople,’ Valerie. It’s just Mer.” He stood up. “I’ll prove it to you.”
“How?”
“When I step into the water, my tail will appear. And when you follow, you’ll get a tail as well.”
“I’m not following you in there. I’m allergic to the ocean, remember?”
He smiled again. “No, you’re not. A Mer can’t be allergic to the ocean.”
“Rod, please. Enough with the tail. The mermaids. Men. Whatever. Let’s just go inside and forget this ever happened.”
A tail. He actually thought he would have a tail. And that she would, too!
Ya know, she was sure she’d know if she had a tail or not, and for her entire twenty-nine years and three months, she’d had legs. She even had the baby pictures to prove it.
“We can’t
leave the beach, Valerie. This is too important. I’m a Mer and so are you. So was your father. And to claim your inheritance, you’ll have to come in the ocean with me.” He held out his hand to her.
She didn’t let go of her knees. “Oh, no. That was never part of our bargain. You might believe what you’re saying, but I remember, Rod. I remember the one time my mother put me in the ocean. There was pain. Burning, searing pain. That doesn’t sound like something an aquatic creature should feel.”
“Hey, no need to get insulting. I’m trying to help you.”
“Insulting?”
“The ‘aquatic creature’ line. We’re people, every bit as much as Humans. And you get to be both.”
She didn’t want to be both. She wanted to be her. Valerie Hope Dumere. And she wanted to be sitting at the desk in the back corner of Mom’s shop, trying to figure out how she was going to save the store or if she should sell it to the developer, or, hell, if she should run away again, but she did not want to be sitting here on this beach, listening to him spout off fantasy as truth.
“I told you that you wouldn’t believe me without proof. Now do you understand?”
No, she didn’t. She didn’t understand one damn thing. “But Rod, mermaids, men, whatever, are the stuff of myths and legend.”
“Valerie.” He knelt down next to her and cradled her cheek in his hand. “Think about it. About all of it. Talking seagulls, the albatross on our tail, the oil…” He brushed his thumb along her bottom lip. “None of that exists in the Human world. Oh, the birds do talk, but not around Humans. They know better. Your scientists dissect anything odd they come across, so the birds have learned to keep quiet.”
He brushed his knuckles against her cheek. “As have we. Humans don’t know about our world because they’d destroy it. Hades, they’re doing that now. We’ve learned to keep ourselves hidden.”
“So explain to me how my mother met my father and didn’t notice something like a tail?” Now, see? That argument made sense. In some weird, alternate-reality way.
She scrambled to her feet. “And you keep talking about a tail, Rod. Why? You’ve got legs.” And pretty darn nice ones, especially in those shorts. Or sprawled out, as they’d been last night, with nothing but a towel over his groin—
Back to what’s important, Dumere.
“I don’t see a tail and haven’t seen one on you—and we’ve spent the past two nights together.” One more together than the other, but again, mind on the moment…
“That’s why we had to be here before I could tell you this, Valerie. The ocean will turn my legs back into my tail. Your legs, as well.”
“Rod, I… You’re asking a lot.”
“I know. But I swear to you, I’m not making this up. You saw what the oil can do, Valerie.” He took a step toward the water. “Just watch.”
Rod took a few more steps, and the water slid over his toes as he finally rejoined the ocean.
Valerie nibbled on her lip so much that he worried she’d make it bleed.
“Valerie, it will be all right.” He took another step in, the water caressing his ankles. Gods, it felt so good to be going home. He wanted her to join him, but he could understand why she was nervous. Once she saw his tail, however, she’d believe.
She’d have to.
Another wave crashed over his shins.
But… he still had shins. Why?
He took another step into deeper water and looked down. The waves caught his knees.
He still had knees.
Something wasn’t right.
He should have his tail by now. One drop of seawater started the change, and he had more than a drop trickling down his legs—yet he still had legs.
“Rod? You still have legs.”
“I know.” Why did he still have legs?
His chest tightened, and he sucked in huge gulps of… air.
He still breathed air.
Maybe he had to immerse himself. That had to be it. Perhaps staying out longer than the allotted time made it necessary to submerge all his cells in the healing water.
Decision made, Rod plunged beneath the surface, only to hear Valerie scream his name.
He kicked those stupid legs and let the water embrace him. It felt so good to once again be cradled in the sea, the weightlessness that accompanied it, the ability to twist and turn, up or down without effort…
Until he tried to breathe.
Then water went down his throat and his lungs seized. Instinct had him pushing off the bottom, propelling to the surface, gasping for air, coughing the seawater from his lungs, his arms working to keep him above water.
“Rod! What are you doing? This isn’t funny!”
She sounded close to tears and Rod could relate.
He hauled himself through the surf toward the beach on the gods-forsaken bipedal appendages, stumbling up the incline. He didn’t know if that was due to instability with the legs or the utterly blinding truth he’d just realized.
It didn’t matter that JR hadn’t followed them. It didn’t matter that he’d brought Valerie to the beach. It didn’t even matter that he’d religiously applied the oil to his legs since he’d arrived on land.
Because he’d obviously done the one thing the gods and his father had warned him no High Councilman should ever do. The very thing he’d studied and practiced and vowed never to do again.
The one thing he could never do again.
Somehow, somewhere, he’d failed.
Chapter 32
Fisher nudged the door to his chambers closed with his elbow, careful not to tip the tray. Nereida, his assistant, had volunteered to go for food, but Fisher had needed a break from their brainstorming so he’d gone, leaving his Olympian Advisor to review the intelligence data. Thank the gods, there was something he could do. Floating around at home had been torture with Kai and the girls looking to him for answers.
He hadn’t had any. So he and Reel had decided to find some.
Armed with a full cadre of dolphin Guards, Reel had set out to trace the origins of those ignition wires they’d found in Rod’s trench. Fisher had sent for Charley to meet him at the office to go over what they knew. He couldn’t rely on the goodwill of the gods to ensure Rod came through this; he had to ensure it.
“Did you come up with anything, Charley?”
“I don’t know.” Charley slid his spectacles from the top of his head to the bridge of his nose and peered at the slate tablet before him. “But we did get another report from Livingston. Rod and the Hybrid got onto an airplane without complications.”
Fisher set the tray down on the edge of the desk. “Thank the gods for that.” Or maybe not. This was their doing. They were allowing it to happen, and he was pissed about it. “So now what? We still don’t know who’s behind this. I’ve half a mind to haul Ceto in for questioning. Drake, too.”
“Ceto might not be a bad idea, Fisher, but Drake? Do you really think he’s capable?”
Fisher swam over to the busts of his ancestors, great Mers who’d come before him. None of whom had lost their Heir.
“Who in Hades knows anymore, Charley? By rights, none of this should be happening. Diamonds, the bomb, now JR. Someone’s had access to our information and that limits the possibilities. I know it wasn’t you or me.”
Charley set the tablet aside and reached under his glasses to rub his eyes, then swiped his forearm over his forehead. “So you’re saying we need to investigate every member of The Council?”
“Do you have any other ideas? Because I’m ready to hear them.” Fisher turned away from the marble statues, those unblinking stone eyes condemning him.
No more than he was.
He never should have sent Rod off unprepared. There were some things people had a right to know, no matter what the protocols decreed.
“Well, we could always—”<
br />
Charley’s words were cut off by the clang of the ancient gong that heralded the arrival of vital intelligence.
Fisher beat Charley to the office door, flinging it open to find a midnight-blue parrotfish flapping his fins so fast they might detach.
“Chipper?” The kid had grown. Gotten braces.
“High Councilman.” Chipper was sucking in water by the quart. “The Portal Sentries show a disturbance in the vortex of one of the top-secret Travel Chambers.”
Fisher floated back to allow him to enter. “Where, Chipper? Which one?” Only a handful were top-secret, although the rest were off-limits to the general population without specific Council permission. The Council controlled every means of magical transportation, so he wanted to know who’d been able to breach their security.
Chipper gulped back another quart of water, the exhalation streaming from his gills in a current strong enough to whip a sea dragon out the door.
But Fisher didn’t need to hear Chipper’s answer to know which one was compromised.
Only one top-secret Chamber warranted this kind of urgency.
“NAL39,” Chipper confirmed.
Even though he’d been expecting it, a knot twisted in Fisher’s gut. North Atlantic, Latitude 39. The portal near Reel and Erica’s home.
Where Rod and Valerie were headed.
Chapter 33
Rod leaned against the deck railing, staring out at the ceaseless waves, each one striking the surf in its own unique rhythm. Each one reminding him he’d never feel it again.
Where had he gone wrong?
He kept replaying the last few days over and over. He hadn’t told her about Mers before arriving here. He’d used the oil each night, including Livingston’s quick thinking last night. He’d brought her to the ocean. What was he missing?
“Rod?” Valerie’s voice, soft, just a whisper above the waves, came through the kitchen’s screen door.
He didn’t want to have to face her. Didn’t know how he could. She must think he was crazy, and, frankly, he couldn’t blame her.