by Rinelle Grey
Climbing up the ladder was hard work. Her body was so heavy out of the water, and pulling it up took a lot of effort, but at least she wasn’t trying to balance on two legs. And once she’d moved up a few sticks, Rowan climbed up behind her, his arms around her. His weight caused the boat and the ladder to dip, but his presence made Cari’s heart sing.
The towel had fallen off her shoulders when she began to climb, and his chest pressed up against her almost bare back. It should have made her burn sting, but strangely enough, it didn’t. Cari felt safe in his arms. Protected. She couldn’t fall if she wanted to, though she had to admit she was a little tempted to pretend to just to feel him catch her.
Don’t be silly, Cari, she told herself. This wasn’t a game. She might be attracted to Rowan, but everything here was foreign. She had no idea what would even happen if a mermaid mated a human. What type of person would she become if she mated Rowan? Would she be stuck as a human forever?
That was a very real risk, although no one really understood how the mermaid mating magic worked. Would it even work if a mermaid mated a human? What if it meant she never became who she was meant to be?
Well, it wasn’t like she’d wanted to change anyway.
Cari’s thought was defiant, but there was a part of her that was a little nervous. Choosing not to become who she was meant to be right now was different than never having that option.
For some reason that possibility made her hesitate over mating him even more than the fact it might mean she’d never see her family again. It was too unknown, too uncertain. And right now she was more than a little afraid of how little control or knowledge she had over any of this.
It was probably a good idea to keep her distance from Rowan, at least until she understood the situation a little better. So when they reached the deck and pulled themselves over the railing, she pulled away a little, keeping some space around her.
“We made it,” Rowan said with a smile. “I told you we would.”
“You did,” Cari agreed. “What now?”
Both of them stared at each other for a few long moments. Cari found herself holding her breath, something she’d never done before. The distance she’d put between them now just seemed like an annoyance.
Somehow she suspected she’d be no better at staying away from Rowan now that she was on land than she had been as a mermaid. She hadn’t been able to convince herself then, and she was pretty sure she wouldn’t be able to now, either.
Her dream, Rowan, was right there in front of her. All she had to do was take that first step.
Cari fingered the dragon’s tooth around her neck almost reflexively. Then she remembered. She lifted it over her head and held it out to Rowan. “Here, I’d better return this. Thank you for lending it to me.”
Rowan stared at it for a moment, then to her surprise, he shook his head. “You hang onto it. You can give it back when we figure out how to return you to your home. It can be my promise to you.”
Cari knew she shouldn’t. She couldn’t help thinking the promise he spoke of meant something different, something more, and taking the dragon tooth would indicate she was interested. She should hand it back and say she didn’t need a promise, that she trusted him.
But she didn’t want to.
Even though she knew this was impossible and she shouldn’t let him think there was a chance for anything more, she couldn’t say no.
As much for herself as for him.
Chapter 7
Rowan let himself into the main house as quietly as he could, hoping no one was around. He didn’t have keen dragon hearing the way his brothers and sister did. If they were home, they’d hear him long before he heard them.
He really didn’t feel like talking tonight. He just wanted to grab some food and spare clothes and be back out on the boat, back with Cari, before anyone saw him. Despite the fact that she had no tail, he was half afraid she’d disappear before he arrived back.
He made it to his room and stuffed a duffel bag with a couple of changes of clothes, and then to the kitchen without seeing anyone. But just as he was standing in front of the cupboard wondering what sort of food would appeal to a mermaid, he heard movement behind him.
He swung around to find Hayrian watching him speculatively. His brother eyed the duffel bag and the seaweed crackers in Rowan’s hand. “What are you up to?”
Rowan’s instant reaction was to deny anything, but the evidence would make a liar out of him.
So instead he made himself consciously relax and give his brother a smile. “I need to get out of here for a couple of days. Too much mating fever going on.”
That wasn’t too far from the truth. With his two dragon brothers and his dragon sister all having been mated in the last few weeks, he was sure there was mating going on in every room of the house. Well, at least Mora spent a fair bit of time on the mainland with her policeman mate. But Damrian and Hayrian extruded enough testosterone to make up for her absence.
And if he was being honest, it did kind of bother him. Not in an annoyed way, but in a vaguely jealous fashion. It had reminded him of what he could never have. Or at least it had. For some reason, he didn’t even care anymore.
But it was a good excuse, one Hayrian would believe judging by the look of sympathy in his eyes.
At least he could rely on Hayrian not to shower him with compassion or kindness. His eldest dragon brother had always been the sarcastic, hardline one. Or at least he had until he’d been mated.
“Look, I’m sure there’s someone out there for you.” Hayrian shuffled his feet a little, indicating he wasn’t really comfortable with being more understanding.
Rowan took advantage of his discomfort. “Yeah, I’m sure there is. But right now, I just need a couple of days away. Can you take care of things here?”
“Of course we can,” Damrian’s voice boomed from behind Hayrian. He stepped into the doorway and clapped Hayrian on the back. “I’ll just give Hayrian all the crappy jobs.” He made a face at his brother, and Rowan couldn’t help laughing.
Hayrian shot Damrian a scathing look back. “You should have more respect for your older brother,” he said. Then he looked back at Rowan and his expression grew more serious. “Don’t worry. Dam and I will take care of it.”
“Take care of what?” his sister Mora said, strolling into the kitchen through the other door, opening the fridge to grab a pink frosted cupcake.
Rowan eyed it. Cari would probably like one of those.
“Rowan is being overwhelmed by your mating fever,” Hayrian teased. “So he’s running away for a few days.”
Mora eyed Hayrian for a few minutes, then turned to look at Rowan. “Really? I’m heading back to the mainland to stay with Finn once it’s dark anyway, so don’t leave on my account.”
“It’s not just you,” Rowan insisted, feeling a little like he was being dragged in deeper and deeper. “I just need a bit of a break.”
“Dam, what are you doing?” Zara’s voice joined the chorus. She slipped an arm around her mate, the crumpled, oversized resort t-shirt she wore indicating she hadn’t been wearing it a short while ago.
Rowan winced. He should have just grabbed some food at one of the resort kitchens and not risked even entering the house. He could have lived in board shorts for a couple of days.
Damrian slung an arm around his mate’s shoulders and gave her a kiss that went on for a bit longer than it needed to, at least in Rowan’s view.
Audrey appeared next to Hayrian, and his normally teasingly abrasive brother smiled at her as though butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.
Then he looked over at Damrian in exasperation. “Come on, that’s exactly the sort of thing Rowan is trying to escape,” Hayrian protested. This time, his thump on Damrian’s shoulders was a little less friendly and more of a reprimand.
Though his arm didn’t move from around his mate’s waist.
Damrian grunted, gave Zara one more kiss, then stopped. “Fine,” he grumbled, but
his smile took the sting out of his words. “Sorry, Rowan. I know we can be a bit overwhelming. We can keep it out of sight, if it helps?”
Rowan felt bad for even bringing it up. He waved his hand dismissively. “It’s fine,” he protested. “I just need a bit of a break, you know?”
“Sure,” everyone chorused at once.
“Except… Mum called, and she wanted to speak to you. Maybe you should call her back before you leave?” Mora said through a mouthful of cupcake. She swallowed, then looked a little abashed. “I think she’s a little upset we’re all mated and she hasn’t been able to get back here.”
Rowan winced. He’d forgotten he had to call his mother back. She was counting on him being the sane one around here. And now he was shirking his responsibilities at the resort, ignoring his newly mated brothers and sister, the bookkeeping on his desk that was already a week behind, and even the calls from his parents, all to chase after Cari.
He really should do it all before he ran off. Responsibility weighed heavily on him as it always had.
Damrian must have caught his expression because he looked sympathetic. “I can call Mum. You deserve a break. You’ve been holding everything together while we’ve all been going crazy. I’ll take a turn.”
His brother’s sudden generosity made Rowan’s eyes a little misty. He looked around at all of his family, ready to do anything they could to support him, and he felt a little bad for lying to them. They’d help him, no matter what. Was it wrong of him to want to keep this to himself?
But the crowd in the kitchen was an indication of what would happen if he admitted the truth. They’d all want to see her, to meet her. And he couldn’t subject Cari to that, not when she was already struggling so much. If, by some miracle, she was still around in a few days, he might consider it.
Right now though, despite the crowding and the banter, he was very glad they were all here. They were reminding him of what was important. He always knew he loved his family, but it was moments like this that made him realise how much. He knew he could count on them to be there when he really needed them. He wasn’t sure what he’d do without them.
Rowan looked around at all of them. “I’ll be back in a couple of days. Think you can handle things until then?”
“Sure,” Hayrian said instantly. “We all owe you. I’ll make sure everyone pitches in.”
Damrian nodded as well. “Of course we can.”
Their mates both nodded too.
Mora gave an almost imperceptible sigh. “I suppose I could come back early tomorrow and help out too.
She didn’t say what she was probably thinking, that they wouldn’t have to run the show while Rowan was in a mating frenzy, so this was his equivalent.
For the first time, Rowan didn’t care. He was far more interested in spending time with Cari than in a mating frenzy. If his family’s guilt that he wasn’t a dragon had gained him that, then he’d take it.
“Good,” Rowan said firmly. “I expect this resort to be in one piece when I get back.” He looked around seriously at all of them.
That thought seemed to give Hayrian pause. He hesitated for a minute, then said, “Where will you be, just in case something goes wrong?”
Rowan laughed. “Really? You think you can’t handle things for a couple of days?”
“Well, Mum and Dad are off discussing the future of dragons in Australia. You never know what is going to come up,” Damrian said reasonably.
He had a point, much as Rowan didn’t want to admit it. No matter how much he wanted to spend uninterrupted time with Cari, he didn’t want to be unavailable if a real emergency came up. Still, he hesitated. It wasn’t just his own privacy he was protecting. It was Cari’s too.
Mora looked at him, her expression growing suspicious. “Is there something going on, Rowan?”
Rowan had to think fast. “Of course not. I’m just looking forward to some peace and quiet, and I don’t want to be interrupted at the first problem. I’ll have my phone. If there’s a problem, you can call me.”
Hayrian’s eyes narrowed. “And what if you’re out of range?”
Rowan sighed. He couldn’t deny the reception around the island was spotty at best. He couldn’t guarantee he’d be reachable.
“Look, I get it, you don’t want to be disturbed,” Damrian said. “Just let us know where you are, and baring an emergency, we’ll stay away.”
Still Rowan hesitated. What his brother said made sense, and if he was just looking for a few days of peace and quiet, he’d agree without reservations. But this was different.
And the longer he hesitated, the more likely it was his family would guess something was up.
“So you aren’t going to call me the instant there’s a mix-up in a delivery or the kitchen is out of milk?” Rowan asked teasingly.
Hayrian sighed. “The milk thing might be a bit of an issue. You know how I hate it when I don’t have milk for my cereal…”
Rowan stared at him, then caught the twinkle in his brother’s eye.
“Hayrian’s teasing you,” Damrian said firmly. “I promise I won’t let anyone come searching for you unless there’s a real emergency, and I’ll try to call first. How’s that?”
It would have to do. Rowan gave a sigh. “I’ll be in Calm Water Cove,” he told them, hoping he wasn’t going to regret it. “And if I see any of you without a good reason, I’ll…” He searched for a threat strong enough to tell his family he meant it. “I’ll make you do all the bookkeeping for a month.”
Zara made a face. “Good luck with that,” she said good naturedly, punching her mate lightly on the arm. “See you in a couple of days.”
Rowan nodded and then gathered some of Mora’s cupcakes, paused, and then grabbed the cool Aloe vera gel they kept, hoping his brothers and sister didn’t notice. He’d seen Cari wince uncomfortably a few times, even though she hadn’t complained.
Then he escaped his family and headed back to the boat.
It was only once he was heading down the sandy path to the beach where he had left the lifeboat that it hit him—he was going to spend the next few days alone with a gorgeous mermaid.
Chapter 8
“I’m back.”
Rowan’s voice floated over the side of the boat, and Cari was careful not to race out of the cabin too quickly, and not just because she didn’t want to seem overly eager. Her walking was improving, but there was still a risk of falling over if she moved too fast.
Rowan smiled and waved when he saw her, and Cari berated herself for the way her heart leapt when he did. No matter how hard she wanted to deny it, she’d missed him, even though he’d only been gone a short while.
“I have plenty of food and some spare clothes, and best of all, I’ve convinced my family to stay away for a couple of days,” he said with a grin. “So we have plenty of time to figure out how to get you home without anyone knowing you were even here.”
“That’s good.” Cari was relieved at his family staying away. She was sure they were good people, but until she knew if she could get home again or not, she didn’t want to share her peoples’ existence with any more humans than she had to. Rowan was more than enough.
Not only that, but she was a little overwhelmed with this whole being a human thing, and she really didn’t want to meet anyone new right now. Rowan was different. He wasn’t a stranger. She felt like she knew him.
Then she processed the first half of his sentence. Her stomach rumbled at the mention of food, though she couldn’t help being a little nervous. What would human food be like? Did they eat fish? How about sea grapes? Or oysters?
Rowan held out a strange, colourful object. “Here, I have some seaweed crackers. I thought you might like them.”
Cari took it doubtfully. He’d said it was seaweed, but it didn’t look anything like the seaweed she knew. It wasn’t even green. She lifted it up to her mouth and chewed on a corner experimentally, but it had no taste and was too hard to chew.
She blushed when
Rowan laughed. “No, that’s the packaging,” he said. He put down the bag that had been slung over his shoulder and took the object back. He tore at the corner, and it split in two. He slid out another object, some sort of tray, with little round objects inside. He picked one up and offered it to her. “Here.”
Cari felt silly for not realising, even though there was no way she could have known. It just served to remind her that she was an outsider and that she’d never really fit in here on land.
Her head was still a jumbled mess, and she wasn’t even sure if she really wanted to fit in. It wasn’t like she could stay.
Rowan was watching her expectantly, so Cari sniffed the round thing he’d given her. At least this one had a smell, though it wasn’t particularly appealing. But since she didn’t want to disappoint Rowan, she took a bite. It was very hard and crunchy, and though the taste was vaguely reminiscent of seaweed, it wasn’t what Cari would call pleasant.
She must have screwed up her face because Rowan winced. “Not your thing?”
Cari shook her head and handed the biscuit back. “Not really. What else did you bring?” She looked over at the bag. Hopefully he had something more appealing.
“Come on, I’ll show you.” Rowan picked up the bag, and as though it was the most natural thing in the world, he took Cari’s hand and led her into the cabin.
She didn’t pull back. She told herself it was because it would be silly to reject the only person she had to help her. It would be impolite, and a mermaid was never impolite. And really, having someone to hold to help keep her balance was a good thing.
But the real reason, the one she didn’t want to admit to herself, was that she didn’t want to. Holding Rowan’s hand felt nice. More than nice. It made her feel warm and safe and loved. And when she was holding his hand, thoughts of not fitting in didn’t even enter her mind.
Rowan released her hand to pull several more objects out of his bag, the colourful packaging distracting her. Unlike the seaweed crackers, the different scents coming off the food now was amazing.