Mermaid Dreams

by Rinelle Grey

  © 2019 by Rinelle Grey

  www.rinellegrey.com

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design by

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  Fun & Flirty

  About the Author

  Blurb

  A matchmaking human in a family full of dragons. A mermaid searching for who she really is. When she washes ashore while rescuing him and loses her tail, is it a nightmare or a dream come true?

  Having lived with dragon shifters, Rowan's expectations for love are higher than other humans, and at thirty-eight, he’s beginning to suspect he’s never going to find anyone who can live up to them. Maybe that's why he ends up chasing a mermaid near his parent's island resort—and catching her.

  Or rather, she catches him.

  Mermaid princess Cari has no interest in finding her mate and becoming who she is meant to be. She likes who she is now. That could be why she’s more fascinated by the human man she watches on the island than one of her own kind. But when she finds herself stuck in the human world with a pair of legs instead of a tail, she faces an impossible choice.

  Cari is fast falling for Rowan's gentle nature, but if she stays on shore, the mermaids face a slow extinction. Can Cari give up her one chance at true happiness to give her people a chance at a future?

  Mermaid Dreams is a standalone paranormal romance about finding out who you really are and how much you're prepared to risk for love. If you love mermaids, dragons, and magical romances, then you'll love joining Rinelle Grey's growing clan of satisfied readers.

  Mermaid Dreams is the final book in the Escape to Dragon Island series.

  Join Rinelle's Dragon Clan and be the first to hear all the latest news - new books, freebies, exclusive scenes, updates, and more, including a free copy of the prequel novella to Return of the Dragons, Loyal Dragon Shifter.

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  Prologue

  “I can’t believe you disobeyed me. Again.” Cari’s father sailed back and forth in front of her, his long grey hair and beard billowing in the water behind him. He didn’t even deign to look in her direction. “Not only that, but you put yourself in danger. When are you going to stop playing games and become who you are meant to be? You’re thirty-three years old. That’s well past mating age. You should be ready to rule Laquaria, not risking everyone’s life lusting after some… human.”

  The way he said the last word, with such derision, pulled Cari out of her self-imposed silence.

  “I haven’t put anyone but myself at risk.”

  “Of course you have,” her father insisted. “By going up to the surface you risk us being discovered. I’ve told you that for years. If the humans realise we exist, everything we have down here is at risk.”

  “And yet, no one has discovered me,” Cari said flatly.

  Which wasn’t quite true. She’d been spotted a couple of times over the years, more frequently of late. But that was her fault. She’d grown careless. She would be more cautious in future.

  Stopping completely wasn’t going to happen. She’d tried before, and more than once, because deep in her heart, she knew there were risks. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t stay away.

  Not that her father would ever understand. His frown told her that. “Do you care for our people’s safety and happiness at all? You are supposed to be queen, Cari. How can I retire if you’re not ready to take my place?”

  His argument did nothing to sway Cari’s feelings. “What if I don’t want to be queen? I’m not interested in taking a mate, and I’m certainly not interested in being anything other than who I am. I like who I am.”

  Despite her bold disobedience, Cari couldn’t stop her voice shaking on the last sentence.

  Deep down, when she wasn’t watching the human man, she’d questioned whether remaining the same might be the true reason behind her obsession. Was it really less about the handsome human, and more about avoiding taking a mermaid mate and succumbing to the mermaid mating magic that would change her forever?

  The tiled walls of the throne room, where her father summoned her every time he berated her, felt like they were closing in. The looming threat of losing the very essence of who she was seemed to increase the overpowering darkness.

  The light emanating from the plumes of lava behind the glass panels barely seemed to make a dent in the blackness threatening to swallow her. And the heat from the molten rock seemed suddenly distant. It made her want to rush straight back to the surface and the warm sunshine.

  And him. He would be there, waiting to catch a glimpse of her, just like she wanted to catch sight of him. When she was there, she didn’t even think about home or her future. All she could think of was him.

  “You like who you are? You? Can you stop thinking about yourself for one minute and consider our people? They need you, Cari. They’re counting on you. I’m counting on you.”

  For the first time, Cari heard a note of desperation overcome the anger in her father’s voice. That scared her more than any of his threats. When she’d been younger, he’d been exasperated and frustrated, and over time he had escalated to angry and bitter as she became an adult and continued to disobey him, but this was the first time she’d ever heard desperation in his voice.

  Yes, she knew that Laquaria was facing more than its share of problems. With nearly ninety percent of the births being female, there just weren’t enough mates to go around anymore. There hadn’t been for a long time. And that percentage dropped more and more with each generation.

  Many mermaid women would never have a mate or would have to share. Even Cari’s father had mated three women in an attempt to father a male heir. And instead he’d ended up with thirteen girls.

  Most of Cari’s twelve sisters would never have a mate either, even though they were princesses too. They were already jealous of the fact that Cari could choose anyone she wanted. Cari would happily hand over the benefit if she could avoid the stifling limitations of becoming queen.

  “Make one of my sisters queen,” she offered. “Any of them would welcome the chance.”

  Any of her sisters would make a perfect queen. They didn’t dream of the surface and an unobtainable man. They laughed and simpered over the mermen who visited the court, flirting with them whenever they had the opportunity. Her sisters would have no trouble choosing a mate and becoming who they were meant to be.

  But none of them came to see her sisters.

  They came to see her.

  She was the oldest. By mermaid custom, only the oldest heir was guaranteed a mate.

  And only when she mated and became who she was meant to be would she be considered fit to rule.

  Damn their stupid customs.

  It wasn’t that Cari completely objected to ruling Laquaria. In fact, she’d considered more than a few ways to improve the running of things around here.

  The first thing she’d do was remove the need for a queen to be mated before she could take the throne.

  Of course, to do that, she’d have to be mated first.

  And therein lay h
er problem. She just couldn’t face that. The very thought terrified her. She’d spent her whole life running from it, avoiding mating far past the age when she should have chosen a partner.

  “If you don’t stay away from the island, then I’ll have no choice.” Her father’s words were a threat, but his voice didn’t back it up. He sounded tired. Old.

  Defeated.

  Cari felt guilty for disappointing him. She wished she could see a way to make everyone happy.

  Oh sure, she could pick one of the handsome mermen loitering in the kingdom, mate with him, and then be done with him. She wouldn’t be the first ruler to pick someone based on their good looks, superior intellect, or good nature.

  But how was she supposed to pick the best one? How did one make a decision that would affect the rest of their lives, the very essence of who they were, so glibly? She may be able to shake off a mate, but she’d never be able to undo the effect he would have on the rest of her life. How could she know what qualities she lacked or what abilities she would need to rule her people?

  How could she remain true to herself if she were mated?

  It was an impossible choice.

  Why wasn’t she good enough the way she was? She didn’t need some man to ‘complete her’. She already knew what she believed in and what she wanted.

  And she didn’t want any of that to change.

  It wasn’t like her mating or becoming queen would fix the situation. There would still be ten times as many women as men, and in a few more generations, maybe the men would be gone altogether. What Laquaria would do then, she had no idea, but nothing she did, no sacrifice she made, would change any of it.

  If only her father could see that.

  If only he wasn’t staring at her with a mixture of hope and desperation on his face.

  Cari’s heart sank. She wanted to do what was right. She wanted to help her people. She wanted to make her father proud. But she didn’t want to give up who she was to do it.

  Who was she kidding? It wasn’t just herself she didn’t want to give up—it was him.

  She’d been fascinated with him since the first time she’d seen him, years ago now, walking along the beach, looking so lost and lonely, not even seeming to notice all the other humans around him. He’d been alone in a crowd, and Cari knew just how that felt.

  He was as different as she was. Somehow she just knew that, even though she’d never spoken to him, never really looked him in the eyes. It didn’t matter. Something drew her to him, something stronger than duty, more compelling than being queen, warmer and more exciting than even the sunlight on the surface.

  Exhilaration rushed through her, the thrill of the chase, the tingle that had run through her skin the one time she’d let him get close enough for his fingers to brush the delicate webbed skin of her tail fin. The fascinated expression she’d caught a glimpse of in his ocean blue eyes had mesmerized her.

  “Don’t you see, Cari? It’s impossible. He’s a human, and you’re a mermaid. What could there ever be between you?” Her father’s voice was gentle now, but it was the hint of understanding in his words that was her undoing.

  It didn’t help that her father was right. She couldn’t join the human man in his world, and he couldn’t visit hers. Anything between them was impossible. She wasn’t so blind she couldn’t see that.

  Even her dreams had never gone further than a stolen kiss. She knew anything beyond that was an impossibility.

  She knew she should be able to give up this dream and move on with a reality that was never going to change. She was a mermaid, and her only choice was to mate a merman.

  Or remain alone for the rest of her life and accept that she would never be queen. All she needed to do was say she refused, and the job would fall to one of her sisters instead.

  The choice loomed over her, impossible and terrifying. And all she could see was a gorgeous human, standing on the shore, staring out as though waiting for her. Her heart ached.

  “I can’t,” Cari whispered. She put her hands over her face so she wouldn’t have to see her father’s disappointed expression, and swam away as fast as she could.

  Chapter 1

  Rowan stood on the deck, staring out towards the horizon, a kind of calm overcoming him for the first time that day. His heart filled with a hope he knew he shouldn’t be listening to, but he couldn’t help it. He took a deep breath and dived into the water.

  As soon as he was below the surface, a whole new world opened up. Brightly coloured fish darted in and out of the waving seagrass, and just twenty metres away the coral was teeming with life.

  None of that was what Rowan was searching for though. He’d moved to the island twenty-six years ago, when he was twelve, and he’d called it home ever since. That move had been one of his first dreams come true, but after all this time, the wonders of the ocean were old news to him.

  No, his eyes searched through the water, past the seagrass and the fish, looking for the flash of pink that sent his blood pumping every time.

  But he saw nothing.

  His heart sank even as he chided himself. It was good she wasn’t here. He needed to break this obsession. He should go back to the resort, return the call from his mother, and then finish up the bookkeeping he’d started that morning.

  It wasn’t like he didn’t have plenty of other things he should be doing.

  It had been a hectic month. With his parents away, most of the day-to-day running of Dragon Island Resort had fallen to him. His three dragon siblings should have been around to help him, but all three of them had found their lifemates inside the space of that single month, and they’d become more than a little distracted.

  Rowan didn’t really mind. He loved his brothers and sister, and he’d loved seeing them fall hard for their human mates. He’d even loved giving them that extra shove in the right direction when they’d needed it, just like he had for his mother and his dragon stepfather.

  But there was a part of him that couldn’t help being jealous.

  That part of him worried that he’d never find a love like that. He wondered if it was even possible. Beside a dragon’s mating frenzy, any human expressions of love seemed like a pale imitation.

  Was that why he was out here chasing a mermaid?

  Or maybe he needed a break more than he’d thought?

  Rowan laughed at himself, even while he swam lazy laps, back and forth across the reef, searching. Hoping.

  He saw a giant sea turtle with algae covering its shell. Dolphins danced and played just beyond the protection of the reef, and a spotted reef shark swam between the coral. But there was no sign of his mermaid.

  His mermaid? Who was he kidding? She wasn’t coming here to see him. She ran every time she saw him. He needed to let this go.

  That was what he’d told his brother’s mate, Zara, when she’d been chasing mermaids. He’d even worked with his brothers to keep the mermaids’ existence a secret. And through it all, he’d kept very quiet about the fact that he’d seen a mermaid too.

  And he’d seen her more than once.

  Up until Zara had mentioned her, he’d thought she was his secret. He’d even dreamed she was only showing herself to him. The fact that Zara had seen her too had burst that bubble. Maybe it was just luck she’d shown herself to him so often.

  But no matter how hard he tried, Rowan couldn’t convince himself of that. He couldn’t help imagining that when she stared at him across the ocean, her eyes held the same longing his heart did.

  Any attempt to distract himself from his obsession was pushed from his mind by a flash of pink on the edge of the reef, near where the dolphins played. Rowan’s heart thumped in his chest as he swam that way as fast as he could.

  She danced, her pink tail flicking back and forth in the waves, her hair streaming out in the water. She stayed at that distance, just out of reach, but not disappearing out of sight like he knew she could. It was almost as though she was teasing him, daring him to chase her.

 
; It was the best look at her he’d ever managed to get, and if he wasn’t already holding his breath, he would have sucked it in.

  She was unlike any woman he’d ever seen before. Her pink hair would have hung to her waist had she been walking on dry land, and it was as wavy as her watery home. The only thing she wore was a bright orange bikini top that really didn’t cover very much of her human half, which ended at her waist and morphed into a pink tail from the waist down.

  But it was the brief glimpse of her face that caught his attention. Her expression was haunted, afraid, and yet desperate. It triggered a yearning in Rowan’s heart, causing him to stop mid stroke. Her desperation struck a chord in his own heart and made him question everything.

  He’d spent his whole adult life longing for the kind of relationship his mother had with his dragon stepfather, for the kind of relationship his siblings shared with their mates. And for some reason, his heart was telling him he would find it with this mermaid, even though he had no idea how or why.

  Was it just that she was so unique? So different? So elusive?

  She could never be his, and yet that didn’t even seem to matter.

  Was this some sort of mid-life crisis? Why was he so desperately searching for something he could never have?

  The mermaid stopped when he did, flicking her tail, turning, and staring at him, and every other thought fled his mind. He had to catch her. He didn’t know why, and he stopped even bothering to question the impulse. He just knew he had to.

  Without another thought, he surfaced for a gulp of air, then swam after her as fast as he could.

  As if she’d been waiting for him to chase her, she took off faster than Rowan had any hope of moving. He did his best, swimming until his lungs were bursting and stopping for a gulp of air only when he had to.

  He had no hope of catching her. She was far too quick for him. It would take at least the speed of one of his dragon shifter brothers to get close. Their water dragon powers which gave them the ability to breathe underwater would help too.