by Starla Night
No.
How could he explain himself? What words would make her calm and bright?
Her soul light fluctuated.
It reflected the panic in his heart. “Milly—”
“Go to sleep.” She exited, closing the door behind her. “Goodnight, Uvim.”
She would not become his bride.
His soul contracted with her rejection.
Her footsteps echoed in the dark hall.
Like the hollow in his chest where he was supposed to have a heart.
Because his words would never reach her.
Chapter Seven
Milly’s blood boiled.
She stormed up to the deck. “Turn the boat around.”
“That was fast.” Her boss peered into the darkness, sailing on instruments. “Is your warrior going off?”
“Yeah,” she lied.
He’d called her ill. And yes, she was irritated. Taking offense was an excuse.
In the close quarters, his addictive scent had curled around her nose. Heat had flushed her cheeks and desire had throbbed between her legs. She’d fallen toward him like being sucked into the growing wave of a tsunami. His wave would sweep her away and she would never come up for breath.
She’d had to run away.
He’d called her ill. She was ill. A sick, desperate control freak.
If the Life Tree cured her of being able to control herself, then she wanted nothing to do with it. Not even mermaid powers were worth losing her will.
“He’s impossible.” She waved her fingers.
Her boss lifted one brow. “You didn’t convince him to become the new Sea Festival ambassador?”
“I’ll go to your committee meeting tomorrow and pitch the Snuba experience like you wanted.”
“Milly.”
“What? You were fine with the ‘Snuba experience’ before.”
“Before you dangled a live, muscular, gorgeous merman in my face.”
“I’m not. Not really.”
“Second thoughts about the island?”
“No.”
Her boss quieted for a beat. “Your therapist was a real ding bat.”
“There were no others. And I wasn’t flying to the States.”
She tapped her ceramic mug. “Care for a cuppa?”
“Turn the boat around and it’s a deal.”
“Look in the Esky there.”
Milly opened the portable cooler. Inside was a bag of plastic tubes the width and length of her index finger. Black marker labeled the bag Merman Repellent.
Merman Repellent?
“What’s the story?” she asked.
“Roberto took those off a guest during this morning’s whale watching tour. The guest asked if it would repel whales.”
“Would it?”
“Yes. It’s a stick of dynamite.”
“Dynamite!”
“He bought it, he said, off somebody in the harbor last night. I stayed late to check. They’re selling at a few stalls. I don’t think the vendors have any idea what it is.”
“You called the police?”
“As soon as Roberto confirmed the contents. Pull the fuse. You can deactivate it.”
Milly tugged out the white string. Her boss pointed out the chemical coating that made it burn underwater.
The strange texture felt gritty between her fingertips.
“The powder’s inside. It’s inert until it catches fire. Then, don’t be in the water unless you want your insides on your outsides. Kaboom.”
Oh. Merman Repellent.
Her stomach lurched.
Dynamite fishing was illegal in the Azores. The only time she’d seen it was on TV. Crocodile Dundee II. It was illegal in the New York Harbor, too. Throw a stick in, watch the fish float belly-up on the surface.
The scene didn’t show the fish smashed to bits on the inside. Punctured air bladders, shattered bones.
Explosions underwater didn’t look as serious because the mushroom cloud was invisible. In fact, they were a factor of magnitude more deadly.
She twisted the bag of candles closed.
A piece of paper crinkled beneath the dynamite.
On the paper, a triangle surrounded a fish head with stick legs. X’s showed the fish head was dead. Next to it a meat cleaver dripped.
Right.
“Why would someone do this?” she asked.
“What have the mer got to hide? Secrecy makes people nervous.”
“The mer hid for a thousand years so we wouldn’t hunt them.” She stowed the dynamite. “Apparently they were right.”
“The key is the Sea Festival,” her boss said. “We show them mermen are nothing to fear. They’re only seeking love and a good life and children. Convince your friends.”
“You can’t erase millennia of secrecy overnight.”
“It’s been two years.”
She dropped silent.
“How about that cuppa?” her boss asked.
Milly descended to the galley and brewed a strong pot of coffee. She banged around the small space until she’d made up a tray of sliced tomatoes, soft farmer’s cheese with pimento, and thick bread and carried the whole set up to her boss.
“Ta.” Her boss touched the small hydrangea petals Milly had pinched from a disintegrating bough in a vase and had sprinkled next to the farmer’s cheese. “There’s a nice touch, Martha Stewart.”
“Three-month hospitality internship,” she reminded her boss. One of the many careers she’d tried after losing her way.
She sipped the coffee. “Is your warrior our new Sea Festival ambassador?”
“I didn’t wake him.”
“Go on.”
“He needs his rest. I accidentally knocked him out today.”
“He was clear-headed enough to refuse my first offer. You should have hit him harder.”
She snorted.
“The mer need this, Milly.”
She didn’t fight. Her boss was right.
They had to do something.
The yacht reached Ilha Sagrada. They anchored the boat at a safe distance and sacked out on the deck for the night.
Milly awoke with the sun.
Tiredness scratched at her dry eyes and nerves buzzed in her guts. She skipped her contacts for glasses, fixed a quick breakfast in her boss’s galley — more coffee, canned ham, buttery sourdough toast and macerated strawberry jam — and ate with Nicolette on the deck.
Ilha Sagrada appeared at the edges of the morning mist. Sharp white cliffs. Dense, leafy green concealed the dark interior.
Her stomach knotted.
Uvim climbed the stairs to the deck.
He nodded to her and followed her gaze to the island.
A shaft of sunlight burned through the morning clouds and caught his hard jaw. The tattoos shimmered, iridescent, like gemstones beneath his dark olive skin.
The toast stuck in her dry throat.
She washed it down with coffee.
He padded to the table and sat across from her. Studying her, he constructed a similar breakfast although he used the jam knife to serve everything.
“You’re looking better,” she said, not commenting on his table etiquette.
He nodded.
“Glad I didn’t kill you.” She said it under her breath but he still glanced over.
Pressure to apologize about her shortness the previous night expanded her tongue.
She took another bite of toast.
Her boss joined them. While Milly cleaned up breakfast in the galley below, Uvim transferred Milly’s scuba equipment to the island. She finished and joined him on the deck.
His orange swim shorts hung on the deck.
He stood on the island.
Her boss grinned. She’d enjoyed an eyeful.
Milly stripped, including her glasses, and dove in. Warm summer water splashed across her body, saturating her tight black swimsuit and dive shirt. She put on her prescription mask and carried the rest of the gear to the steep, unde
rcut shore.
She climbed out and waved. “See you in an hour.”
Nicolette waved back. “I’ll be waiting!” She lay out on the deck with a book.
Milly turned to face the greenery. The edges fuzzed. Uvim climbed out next to her.
Now they were alone.
She swallowed.
This island starred in her nightmares.
But facing her nightmares — and her past — was necessary to become a mermaid.
The powerful warrior at her back filled her with calm.
She glanced back to talk to him and soothe her nerves. A flash of amethyst below his shorts line drew her eyes to his massive, erect—
She jolted away.
Licks of arousal fire coursed through her body. Her pussy throbbed. She tightened the muscles in her thighs, squeezing them together. Stop.
All that rippled, corded muscle was a reason to stand proud.
Don’t drink in his masculine contours. Control. She needed control.
“I will find the church.” He bent his knees to dive into the water.
She lifted her vest and tank. “This way.”
After a slight delay, he followed her through the foliage. She parted it and skidded down a slick path into a familiar cavern.
Weather-smoothed columns held up a ceiling cracked by age. She strode to the back. The cavern widened into a rounded chamber with a central pool.
Acid burned the back of her tongue.
She swallowed.
Ghostly voices echoed in her skull.
You owe us. We helped you. Don’t be so ungrateful.
Milly dropped her scuba equipment, ripped off her mask, and fought to control her nausea. Uvim would not understand if she threw up.
Even now, he was eying her. “Milly.”
“I’m fine.” She tried to manufacture a smile.
He frowned. “Your illness?”
Mermaid powers. Focus on the mermaid powers.
“Fine.”
“You are not fine.”
A sob bubbled in her throat.
She gritted her teeth. “Ignore it.”
He stood a respectful distance from her. But he would not leave. Not until she explained.
“Four years ago I stood here when Elan emerged from that pool and selected my sister, Zara, for his bride.” She swallowed again. “It was supposed to be me.”
He frowned in surprise. “You desired First Lieutenant Elan?”
“Desired? No, I was terrified.”
“Terrified?” His frown deepened. “Your mother … prepared you.”
“Uh, no.”
“Grandmother? Elders?”
“My parents had heard about a mysterious ‘Sea Lord’ giving out Sea Opals and decided I would be his next bride. So they forced me here. I assumed it was human trafficking.”
He tilted his head. Human trafficking?
“Traffickers buy and sell slaves.”
Slaves?
“People who have no choice.”
He growled.
“I know decades ago sacred brides competed for the honor. Zara’s still researching. But the most recent former brides were in her position. Taken by accident or escaping a prior abduction.”
He growled with horror. “Accident or abduction!”
“That’s why none of them have returned with her. I think some — maybe all of them— want to, but it means returning to the darkest places in their lives. And it’s not easy to do that.”
She was living proof.
He still looked shocked.
“Anyway, since I was expecting a human trafficker, I was even more terrified when a merman actually emerged from the pool. Then, he stole my sister.”
“Queen Zara resisted!”
“No.”
“But — Elan stole—”
“I misspoke.” Milly had been terrified of the strange male but even more afraid of her parents. “Zara fought our parents and lost. My dad nearly killed her. Elan saved us. Then, he proposed. She had to decide right here,” Milly pointed with her toe to the spot on the chalky ground, “whether to go with Elan. If she refused, he would descend alone and that would be the end. She gave me his Sea Opal and together they left.”
Uvim clenched his fists. “Corrupted. The sacred ceremony.”
“Elan was also furious.”
“Furious?” He shook his head, so angry he could barely speak. “Sacred brides are honored. The highest… Many snuck. Hid. In our church. To increase the mating. They want to unite. Many times. Warriors come many times every year.”
“This island has been empty for decades.”
“Yes, this sacred island,” he agreed. “Sank. Generations ago. There are — were — others.”
“The Azores had natural disasters. Eruptions. Migrations. Traditions were lost.”
Uvim’s jaw clenched. “Your parents faced punishment?”
“Elan avenged your honor.”
He did not look reassured. “Where are they?”
“My parents? Jail. Unrelated charges.”
“Human justice.” Uvim’s fists flexed. “If they walk free, they will answer to me.”
It was funny but his protective rage made her feel a little better.
“Thanks.” She unwrapped her BCU and attached its hoses to the oxygen tank. “You know, I came back. Sacred brides return after a year. Zara was early.”
Uvim said nothing.
“I guess you know.” Milly focused on her equipment to keep her hands from shaking.
To expunge the memories of blood and tears.
She’d be fine once she got under the water. Everything would be different. New. Unfamiliar.
She’d be a whole new woman and these nightmares would no longer plague her.
Uvim toed the edge of the pool. “I will return.”
“Return?”
He folded over and disappeared.
Now she was alone in the cave of nightmares.
Distant wind shivered through the island foliage. The fuzzy walls closed in. Just like—
No. She was fine. An adult.
Milly backed into the wall and slid down it, wrapped her arms around her knees, and stared at the fuzzy outline of the stilled pool for the third time in her life. Like all the other times, willing someone to come out of it and rescue her.
This time was different.
“I’m fine. Totally fine.”
Chapter Eight
Milly was clearly not fine. Her illness grew with every passing moment.
You know, I came back. Sacred brides return after a year. Zara was early.
Shame tightened his throat.
Yes, Queen Zara had returned early. Against her will. Ruined in body and in mind.
Milly must not learn his role in her return or she would change her mind and refuse to be his bride.
Uvim dropped into the narrow hole to the ocean beneath the island.
As the salty liquid embraced his body, he shifted from human form into mer.
Darkness fled, exposing the rock and sea creatures in brilliant light. Their melodious songs vibrated in his chest, painting an audible picture of the surroundings. His lungs vented air through gills in his back. And his feet transformed at the ankles, unfurling into fins.
He bent his right knee, then his left. Shifting thickened his skin to rubber. The humans had a mythical image of mer with their legs fused together but that was a strange mistake. His legs remained separate, same as in human form. The balls of each foot elongated into fins.
He kicked, descending.
The path split into two. One descended to the open ocean. The other ended in the lair of a scratchy, off-tone cave guardian.
Promising.
He kicked toward the jarring squawks and squeaks.
The path split again. Off to his right, the noise became horrendous.
Giant cave guardian.
Uvim had no wish to be crushed to death. He kicked to the left. An air pocket appeared.
He
rose from the pool and measured his steps up stairs to the inner pool of mating gems. They had lain here, undisturbed, since the sea levels had risen and storms had closed off the old entrances.
The cave guardian was dangerous.
But he craved to make Milly his. Now.
Before she knew the full truth.
Before her illness grew any worse.
He had seen no person, mer or human, so severed from their soul. She insisted she was fine when her soul light darkened to black. She could not live this way. She would collapse.
He returned to Milly in the upper chamber.
She was sitting cross-legged, hugging her arms around her knees, glaring at her cell phone.
His movement drew her eye.
She shoved the phone into a plastic bag and left it on the ground. “Well? Did you find the elixir?”
“This way.”
Her light flared. “Let’s go.”
Already she felt better.
Good.
She shouldered her vest and tank, cinched on a belt threaded with stones, and staggered to the pool. She strapped a glass mask around her eyes. Two plastic fins dangled from her fingers.
“I wish you’d put on shorts,” she muttered.
“No.”
She removed the hose she’d been biting. “No?”
“Shorts restrict movement.” He must protect her and maneuver well. “Follow me.”
He dove to the first junction.
She hovered at the surface.
He ascended with a fin-flick. Even when he was right in front of her face, she looked past him.
He touched her face.
She jolted and oriented on him.
Human vision was bad under the water. That was how the mer had avoided detection for so long.
She fumbled with a small black cylinder. A weak light flattened the narrow walls. She accepted the touch of his hand guiding her, and she shone the flashing light over the walls and bounced from one to the other. Her big silver tank scraped outcroppings with a hollow metallic twang.
Her soul light darkened.
The flicker of her confidence sliced into him like a knife.
Soon the water would be the most pleasurable experience. He swore it.
He kicked at the pace of a sea slug.
Despite her light cylinder and him drawing her the correct way by the hand, she veered toward the cave guardian.