by P. Jameson
Mansen gave a short nod. “Third of his line it looks like.”
Which meant on top of all his sordid family past, he was a freak of nature… time… whatever.
It made the drunkenness and womanizing his family was known for seem silly in comparison.
“Vada knows.” It hit him like a brick to the face. He didn’t know how she knew, but she did, and it was keeping her from him. And Huran. That total asshat. He also knew. Why didn’t he mention it?
Jase’s back hit the wall and he realized he had to go. If they couldn’t tell him how to find Vada, he’d have to figure it out on his own. Lure her to the surface somehow. Even if she couldn’t leave the lake, at least they could talk.
North Shore.
He would go to the North Shore, where humans weren’t allowed, and call until his mate answered. He’d do it everyday if he had to. Because Vada knew something about his grandfather, and that something was keeping them apart.
It was time to clear the cobwebs of the past so they could have a future.
Chapter Eleven
Vada swam in circles—the mermaid equivalent of pacing—around the grotto. Without legs, it was the best she could do.
Would he come today? Would she see him again? Would he tell her more stories?
She’d spent a lot of time at the grotto behind the falls lately, contemplating the past… the future… how they coincided with one another. On the worst days, the serpent with her. But the other Mer no longer bothered her.
Only one person was still looking for her.
The first day Jase came to the North Shore he had called for her until his throat was hoarse, but she didn’t show herself. Instead, she’d hidden behind a rock, watching him as her godsforsaken tears mixed with the water of the lake.
Not very brave of her. Not brave like her rekkr.
When he returned the next day, he didn’t call out. He just started talking, telling her stories of his childhood. Maybe he knew she was nearby. Maybe he could feel her. Or perhaps he was just throwing it all onto the wind hoping the breeze would carry it to her. Either way, she learned a lot.
He told her of his mother and how she’d endured ridicule for marrying his father, the town disaster. The man was as cruel as his father before him, and Vada couldn’t help wondering if some of that was her fault.
Over the next few days, the stories continued. The time his father, in a drunken rage, beat him because he’d stayed up past his bedtime. The night he found his mother crying after catching her husband with another woman. The day his mother left to move far away to Florida, a place where no one knew her. The day he got the news his mother had died.
So much bad had come to her mate and if she’d had legs, she might have left the water to comfort him.
He told Vada of his decision to stay in Aurora Falls. He’d wanted to prove his worth to the people he grew up with. Not for them, but for himself. He wanted to change the way the McCarthy name was viewed in his hometown. Turn it into something respectable, and pass it on to his own children someday.
And she thought that was a damned noble thing to aspire to. It made her proud.
He made her proud. Proud to be his mate.
She wished she could tell him.
Vada dove beneath the water to wet her face and when she came back up, she heard Jase’s familiar footfalls as he approached the grotto. This time he didn’t start talking immediately. He walked around, stepping from boulder to boulder until he was just on the other side of the falls. If he stepped through the thin sheet of water cascading down, they would be face to face.
Vada held her breath. Could he see her? The grotto was darker than where he stood in the light, so she didn’t think so.
“Are you there?” he asked. “I think you’re there, but I don’t know. Have you heard me? Or am I talking to the water like an idiot?” He laughed but it was small and sad. “Huran thinks I’m an idiot.”
Huran was stupid and didn’t know a thing. Jase was the best male she knew.
“In case you’re there, I want to tell you the rest.” He cleared his throat. “I met a woman.”
Vada’s heart sank faster than a stone to the bottom of the lake. No, no.
“She’s beautiful and strong, and makes me want a future I was never sure I’d have. A family,” he murmured. “A place that feels like a home instead of a bachelor pad. A dog in the yard, kids running through mud puddles while we walk hand-in-hand down Main Street. She makes those things seem possible, and… I like that. I like it a lot.”
Hot tears pricked her eyes as she listened to him describe his perfect life with his perfect woman. Jealousy flared inside her. Mine. My rekkr. Followed by something else that tamped it down.
Love.
She loved Jase. Which meant above all, she wanted him happy and healthy and safe. She wanted his heart safe. Wanted him to have all he ever dreamed of. And if she couldn’t give it to him…
“But see, I don’t know if she wants the same thing. I don’t know if she thinks I’m good enough.”
Of course he was good enough. He was a fucking treasure. Better than anything that lay at the bottom of Sapphire Lake. Was this female short on brains?
Vada swam the grotto faster and faster, frustration making her want to scream.
“Hell, I don’t even know if I’m good enough. She’s… one of a kind.” His voice took on a sense of awe that twisted her stomach. “When we touched—”
Vada let off a whimper at the pain that struck her center. She wanted to scream at him not to touch this woman. She wanted to take back every moment she’d kept herself away from him, forgetting all her reasons why in the first place. They didn’t feel important now.
“When we touched, I knew she had the power to change my life. And when we made love…”
No, no, no. Gods, no. She couldn’t listen to this. How could he come here everyday, searching for her while he was with someone else?
Swim away. Go deep. Get out of here before you do something you’ll regret.
“… I touched a part of her no one else can even see.”
Wait.
“I touched her past. But I didn’t see it all, did I? Because she’s still hiding. She still has secrets.”
The woman he described was her? The one who could make him happy and give him the life of his dreams.
“The vision told me a lot, but it didn’t tell me about my grandfather, did it?”
Vada stopped swimming to watch him through the sheet of water.
“Carthaigh of Brigantes. I hear he was brutal. A murderer even. Or at least that’s how Huran described him. So that’s the end of the story. I know. I know my grandfather was one of you. What I don’t know is why that made you run.” He sighed. “Do you think I would be like him?”
No. That wasn’t it. She knew Jase wasn’t cut from the same cloth, and even if he was, he wanted different. That made him better.
“Are you afraid of me? Is there more I don’t know?”
Silence stretched on while he waited for an answer. But she couldn’t make her voice work. How did she explain everything that had happened?
There was one way, but what if it made everything worse?
Jase shook his head, reaching into his pocket to retrieve something. Through the water she could make out a long chain with a dark oblong stone attached to the end.
Her necklace.
“You should have this back,” he murmured. Sadness soaked his voice and made her panic.
Was this goodbye?
Jase squatted to lay the necklace on the rock but didn’t let go of it quite yet.
“Don’t make me do this without you. Don’t run away anymore. The woman I saw in that vision didn’t run away from anything. She ran into battle. Fought for what she wanted.” He stared down at the necklace in his hand. “The question is… the one I need the answer to before I can move on… if that’s what you expect me to do…” The rest of it came out on a whisper that broke her heart. “Do you want me?
Am I good enough?”
She wanted him. Wanted him more than anything in the world. And for him to think otherwise went against every instinct in every fiber of her being.
Enough hiding.
It was time to take the plunge. If her secrets were too much, then at least she would know she’d fought. That she’d been brave. That she was still a warrior, a rekkr.
A brave maiden for her brave man.
With a roar, she reached through the waterfall, grabbing his arm to pull him into the grotto. She didn’t wait for him to catch his breath. She slammed her mouth on his and gave him the kind of kiss that told stories. Stories like the ones he’d been telling her. Stories of pain and love and a future.
She was going to fight for him. Because he was worth it. And he needed to know.
Battle on, rekkr.
Chapter Twelve
Jase tumbled through the falls and into the water, and before he could get his bearings, Vada’s sweet lips crashed into his. His hands found her face to hold her close. Fuck, he was never letting her go.
“I knew it,” he growled between kisses. “I fucking knew it. I knew you were here.”
He plunged his tongue deep in her mouth, dying to taste her. How long had it been? Four weeks. Almost four weeks since the kiss in the woods. He would lose his mind if she made him wait that long again.
He pulled her close, not caring that the water was cold. He just wanted to feel her.
Mine. That same word, reverberated in his head all over again. Now he knew it was because he was always meant to feel this strongly about one woman. Only one woman. It didn’t matter what his lineage looked like. This was who he was.
Vada broke their kiss and he found her gaze. There were tears, and he felt them to his core. “Jase, I…”
He looked her over, thinking to make sure she wasn’t hurt in any way. But his chest locked up when he realized she was bare to the waist. Leaning back, he tugged his soaked shirt off and flung it over a rock, and then pulled her back to his chest. The intimate connection was what he needed to soothe the rough edges of his soul. It wasn’t enough. Not nearly, and wouldn’t be until he could break the curse. But it helped.
He pressed his forehead to hers, breathing her in as the water lapped between them.
“I need you to know the truth,” she whispered.
Jase let out a relieved breath, and nodded. He was ready to hear it. He was ready for whatever she’d throw at him. Nothing, no secret she kept hidden, could make him want her less.
Vada turned in his arms, giving him her back. Near her waist, he saw the beginning of her mating mark. This time, it blended in with the silvery scales that disappeared beneath the water to form her tail.
Damn, she was amazing.
She looked over her shoulder, meeting his gaze with a worried one. “I need you to touch it again.”
“No.” No way in hell. “Last time, I passed out and didn’t see you again for a month. No.”
“It’s the only way to explain,” she argued. “You need to see what happened. I can’t tell you.”
“Vada…”
“I won’t leave,” she said. “No matter what, I will stay with you until you wake.”
Fuck.
“Give me your hand,” he demanded. Because he was going to hold on. He was going to hold on like his life depended on it. Fuck, was he really going to touch the mark again?
She reached back and he twined their fingers together so tight that it probably hurt. With her hand in his, he made contact with the glimmering scales at the small of her back…
This time, when he saw the lake, it wasn’t storming. It was calm. He saw Vada speaking to a man just outside the very same falls they were in now. She was in the water. He wanted her out. Heard the man threaten her, felt the evil on him like a cloak he couldn’t shrug off.
Fury swallowed Jase as he listened to what the man wanted to do to Vada.
The man was his grandfather. He knew it, even though he couldn’t see his face.
Carthaigh of Brigantes. He would fucking kill him if he could go back in time and be there for her.
Jase watched in horror as the rest of the vision spun before his eyes. Vada escaping to the deep, the vicious attack on her body, the serpent saving her and then pushing her ashore so she could heal.
It left him fucking murderous. It made him wish the lake serpent had hands so he could give the thing a high-five.
He wanted to pull out of the vision. He could feel Vada’s hand still locked with his. But there was more.
The aftermath all these years later. Her guilt over leaving his grandmother without a husband. Her guilt at Jase’s father turning out just like Carthaigh. Her, finding the old photo after Jase touched her mark for the first time. More shame, more fear. Her watching him outside of The Saucy Wench. Her decision to hibernate. The kiss in the woods that changed her mind. And finally… the stories he told her by the lake when he knew she had to be listening.
He’d been right.
And god, was he glad he hadn’t listened when Huran said he was wasting his time.
When Jase was able to open his eyes again, he was still in the water. Still standing, so he hadn’t passed out this time. And Vada’s hand was still locked in his.
He turned her around, tipping her chin up to stare into her eye. They were a combination of everything he was feeling at the moment. Relieved, concerned. Angry, desperate. Free…
“Let me see what he did to you?” Jase trembled with all the pent-up emotion he held in check.
“Jase—”
“Let me see.”
With a sad nod, she twisted onto her back and let her tail rise above the surface. The beautiful scales he’d been so enraptured by their first night continued downward in a long taper. But at the end, where her flowing fin should be, was a fray of damage that couldn’t be undone. Part of her fin was intact. The other side, was a sharp bone protruding from a forked scar that split the tip of her tail in two.
“Vada, baby…” He reached out to run his hand along her lower body, stopping at the end to gingerly touch her scars. “Does it hurt?”
She shook her head. “Not anymore.”
Goddamn it. His girl had been injured so badly. And by his own flesh and blood. It made him sick.
She tucked her tail back under the water and he pulled her back against his chest. “I’m so sorry. I hate him for this.”
“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t waste your energy. He doesn’t deserve it.”
No, but she did. And now he understood why she’d been hiding from him.
“But he’s the reason you said we can’t be together.”
She nodded, her eyes bleeding sadness, and he had to look away.
“I understand.” Jase swallowed hard to clear the lump from his throat. “I understand not wanting… not wanting to be reminded of that on the daily.” He had to clear his throat again. “I understand.”
But he still wanted to help her. Even if they couldn’t be together, he wanted to break her curse. Free her from this place that held so many bad memories.
“I… I can break your curse, if you can accept it. We’ll break the curse and then go our… our separate ways.” Fucking killed him to say it. And it would kill him to do it. But for her, he would.
Vada frowned, but he pushed forward.
“When the moon pulls you to the shore, meet me at The Wench. Huran says it didn’t work the first time because I didn’t release in you. This time, I will and… and you’ll be free, baby. Free from all of it. The lake, the McCarthys, just… everything. Because…” Shit. He had to say it out loud, just once. He had to get it off his chest. “I love you. I… I love you, and I want you to be free. With no strings attached. Just free. I have the power to make it so. There’s no reason for you to hide anymore. And if it’s too hard for you to live in the same town as me, I will leave. Hell, maybe I’ll just leave anyway. There’s nothing here for me anymore. Not without you. Without you, that future I’ve
been dreaming about is just…”
He pulled away, backing toward the ledge of rock that would put him back on land.
“Will you meet me tomorrow, Vada?”
She shook her head, looking confused.
“Meet me tomorrow, and I’ll… I’ll let you go.”
“Jase, no.”
“Don’t make me beg,” he rasped. “I need this. I need to know you’re free.”
Her mouth opened and closed, searching for words. But finally, she agreed.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I’ll meet you.”
The relief raking his insides should have been all he felt. But instead, he was wracked with despair. Tomorrow would be the last time he touched her. Smelled her. Tasted her.
He closed the distance between them, pulling her near again, fighting the ache in his throat. “If you’re not there tomorrow, woman…” He pressed his forehead to hers, unable to finish his sentence.
“I’ll be there,” she promised.
Chapter Thirteen
Vada fingered her labradorite necklace and took a deep breath as she walked up the street toward The Saucy Wench. She’d agreed to meet Jase here tonight but only because it gave her a chance to prove herself.
I need to know you’re free, he’d said. And it was true. With the sordid family history he spent his whole life trying to overcome, she knew it was important that she choose him.
She already had. He just didn’t know. And telling him wouldn’t matter. When she was free, and still wanted him… then he would know, in his heart, that he was the treasure she’d always been searching for.
Inside, she spotted Jase at the bar. Same stool. Same broken shoulders he’d worn the last time she saw him.
She would fix this. She’d make it up to him by giving him everything he ever wanted in a mate. That would make her the happiest.
She approached, sliding a hand up his bicep, and he flinched.
“Oh. Hi, baby,” he said easily. As if he said it everyday. As if she was just his, and would be always. But the sadness in his tone told her he didn’t expect anything to last past this night. “You want a drink?” He didn’t hold her gaze for very long, instead, darting away to look for the bartender.