by Starla Night
She was limp. Unconscious. Thin fabric floated around her lax body like the skin of a jellyfish.
No air bubbled from her mouth.
That was bad. Humans required air. Why was her soul so bright?
He reached for her.
I must not touch her. She is not my bride. A mer must only touch his bride.
Faier shoved off those useless thoughts and hooked an arm around her midsection. I apologize for this touch, human female. He lifted her toward the surface.
Her soul brightened.
Strange.
When humans or mer were fearful, their souls dimmed. Death carried the lights away entirely. He had seen it in his rescues, above and beneath the waves, more often than he wished.
This female seemed asleep rather than dying.
Asleep? No. His senses must be mistaken.
Faier broke the surface.
Rain smashed the moving mountains of surf. White cracked the sky.
Faier lifted the female’s mouth above the surface. She coughed, spluttered, spasmed. Her soul light flickered like a small candle.
Where were the—ah! In the distance, the Coast Guard cutter chugged after the smugglers’ damaged yacht.
Between them, a mountain range of water boiled with fury.
And the surface current dragged him into the heart of the storm.
He kicked to the first valley. They had to reach the cutter.
A large wave plunged them both under. Seawater lodged in his throat.
Caught between worlds, he struggled to hold one form.
She thrashed. Again, her soul light brightened.
Stranger and stranger.
He struggled to bring her to the surface once more. His right leg screamed. Surface waves, like large palms, slapped and plunged them under once more.
He shoved her head above water and dove into the rollicking waves. His right leg trembled. It would fail.
He stopped and went limp, resting it, while the current dragged them both away from the boats and deeper into the storm.
Faier could drop under the swells and follow the cutter.
But she couldn’t.
The woman needed shelter. Driftwood. A surface boat to collapse in and rest.
He tried to hold her above the deadly surf.
She shoved him off and paddled for—a miracle! A raft of salvaged materials the captain had called a cut-rate lifeboat; one of the early things the notorious gangster had thrown off his yacht. It still had survival materials lashed inside. She could live well on this shelter.
Faier pushed her onto the wood and grabbed the ledge. The waterlogged wood broke off. A dangerous hole gaped.
Curse it.
She heaved herself onto the rotted ledge. Half-in, half-out of the lifeboat, she scrabbled for a cable. Her hand hooked it. She pulled hard and thrashed, almost rescued. The cable released, dropping her lower body back into the water, and she collapsed.
The waves broke over her, dragging her farther backward.
“Female!” He tapped her. A mer must not touch. “Enter the boat!”
She did not respond.
“Human female!” Faier used his shoulder to roll her in.
A wave smashed the other side.
His momentum pushed their side down.
The entire life raft lifted. Important materials—flashlights, jugs of drinking water, rolls of fishing line—rolled out from under the unhooked cable and disappeared into the sea. The life raft capsized.
She followed the supplies into the depths. Her soul darkened. She’d given up in her mind, body, and soul.
No!
He dove after her and secured her to his scarred chest. Her heartbeat steadied to match his. He heard and felt it. Strange warmth filled the water. Her soul light brightened.
Strength filled his limbs.
He kicked for the surface. With one hand, he threw the life raft into the wind and current, righting it. Water had swept the inside clean. He kicked hard and launched the female into the center of the raft.
It creaked.
She spewed out the liquid in her lungs and collapsed on the floor with ragged breaths.
He had done it. Saved her.
Faier’s right leg cramped.
He slipped off the raft and clenched the waterlogged edge while his body folded in half with blinding pain.
His injuries made him unfit to claim a bride. Traditional mer warriors had long ago determined his sad fate.
Only King Kadir had given him new hope and responsibilities. “Go to New York. Find your bride and become the first warlord of Atlantis to fill your castle with young fry.”
But Faier had not found his bride in New York. Not even with the help of the newly established mer dating website, MerMatch, dreamed up by modern brides Queen Lucy, Queen Elyssa, and Queen Aya.
The traditionalists had been right. No female, sacred bride or modern human, could bear to look on Faier’s damaged body. If he could not find a bride in a surface city as large as New York, he must be the one mer whose soul had no mate.
He should have died years ago.
Why did he carry on?
Faier slogged through his joint pain and dragged himself onto the raft to check on the female. His gills expelled water and sealed to human lungs. His long fins shrank back to ordinary toes.
She curled into a fetal position. A wave crashed over the side and filled the life raft, floating her. She spasmed and moaned.
He broke the waves with his shoulders, sheltering her, as much as he could, from the wet and cold.
She clung to him and nestled into his chest.
Her trust, as she curled against him, gave him new strength even when he thought he’d reached his limit.
The storm howled. Rain pounded. Waves rolled and tilted the raft, threatening to tip them back into the surf. The boats grew distant. The Coast Guard light disappeared, plunging them into darkness.
While he rode out the storm, tensing his muscles to hold her to the raft, her trust warmed him like the sun. His heart beat faster. His body thrummed with awareness.
He had always defended his city, protected his fellow warriors, fought for his king. But protecting a female? Never.
This must be why the traditionalists ruled never to touch a female.
He never wanted to let her go.
Faier kept his rescued female safe in the raft through the long, stormy night.
In the dawn, the wind calmed and the rain abated. The swells flattened.
He shuddered, releasing his stuck muscles, and sat up.
His rescued female was asleep.
The rise and fall of her chest was so…so…human. She was a tan beige. Human skin came in many colors.
But what was this?
A darker bruise swelled her forehead. A sticky red scab marred the back of her head. Both sets of lashes creased in puffy black eyes. Her soft lips had swollen and split.
The wreckage continued.
Long purple bruises the size of a man’s fingers closed around her throat. Greenish black and painful yellow splotches marked her skin beneath the edges of her dress. Small nicks and cuts abraded her knuckles, elbows, forearms. Yellow finger marks encircled her wrists.
Had the storm done this? Or was she a warrior? Humans had warriors. Like the Coast Guard captain.
He stroked a new scar. A pink line creased her damp cheek. Her skin felt so different from his. Soft and female.
She moaned and tilted her head to follow his touch.
Faier curled his hands into fists. He must not touch her. The captain had called her the girlfriend of the gangster. He must have lost his senses to throw her over the side of the boat. Had he given her this beating?
Anger stirred Faier’s heart.
He turned the helpless feeling into a useful channel.
She would be hungry when she woke. Her body was malnourished.
Faier dipped his arm in the water, feeling the currents. He crouched to dive in.
Sh
e moaned. Her lashes fluttered.
He stopped.
She struggled to rise. “Lif…Lifay…”
Life?
He leaned close and spoke in English. “You have your life.”
“Sorr…so sorry.” She sucked in a shuddering breath, and her lashes opened to reveal stunning gray-green eyes the color of a lagoon kissed by sunlight. “Oh. You’re not Lifet.”
“No.”
“Coast Guard?”
“They chase your drug smuggler, Lifet.”
She closed her eyes and smiled. Her soul light burned sharp white with relief. She laughed. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”
“You are wel—”
She threw her arms around his shoulders and covered his mouth with her lips.
Kiss.
She kissed him.
Her lips were cool and thick and expressive. She sank into his embrace. Her tongue teased his seam.
He opened to her.
She tasted like freedom and abandon, sunrise and sunset and every hour in between. She tasted like new endings and old beginnings. She tasted like female.
Her tongue slipped between his shocked lips and delved into his mouth.
Heat.
His cock flooded with pounding heat.
She sucked on his tongue. Nibbled his lips. Teased his teeth.
Everywhere she touched, fiery hunger erupted.
More. He needed more.
She consumed his mouth, drinking the safety he represented just as he drank in her feminine wildness. She was every unpredictable thing, every wild current, every beautiful flicker of a distant fin.
And then she released him and collapsed on the raft, limp. Her soul light dimmed. She fell unconscious with sleep.
He gripped the edges of the raft so hard, the wood cracked and his knuckles whitened.
A hard erection stiffened his thick cock.
She was his bride. His one and only mate. Mine.
He would protect her with his life. Challenge monsters above and beneath the waves. Behind his shield, her bruises would heal and her skin would smooth with health. He would wrap her in his faithful protection, and she would never hurt again.
Never.
Awe mixed with his fierce protectiveness.
She had kissed him. Faier. This small female who had lured a notorious gangster to justice and survived near-drowning in a storm. She had braved Faier’s appearance and…
Wait.
His stomach lurched.
Had she? Her eyes were closed. Had she braved his appearance?
Had she seen him?
Faier’s heart thudded out of rhythm. A sour taste threatened his tongue.
Had this female—his mate—truly witnessed his monstrous form? His scars and slashes? His wreckage?
Had she understood who she was kissing?
Or, when she awakened, would she fear him and cry at her mistake?
Chapter Three
Present Day…
Harmony screamed again.
The monster at the other end of Lifet’s life raft shrank back. His muscles bunched like coils of wire. Even if he were the size of Evens, he could kill her with a thought.
He’s the monster. The monster. She was alone on a raft in the middle of the ocean with a Sea Lord monster.
She sucked in a huge breath and screamed.
He dropped the fish and covered his ears.
Hurt. Her screams hurt him.
She didn’t want to hurt anyone. Not even a monster.
Her scream died.
He kept his distance. As much as one could on a raft made of old crates salvaged from the docks, hammered together with prayers, designed for six comfortably and fourteen uncomfortably.
Monsieur Joseph had dreamed of stealing this raft from Lifet and sailing away back when he and Harmony had spent hours fantasizing how to escape the slums of Haiti together. He’d imagined teaching his brightest and most vulnerable students how to sail. She’d promised to lead them to the shores of freedom and beg for asylum.
Now Monsieur Joseph was an enemy of Lifet’s gang and gravely injured. And Harmony was…Harmony was…
She struggled with control. Her dry, ragged throat hurt. “Who are you? What do you want?”
The monster flinched.
Did he not speak English? She didn’t know Taino. Or Kreyòl. Or French or even Spanish.
She gulped a dry, choking swallow. “Are you…?”
The Sea Lord raised his head.
He was more human than she’d feared. His face was obscured by dripping hair but he had a nose, mouth, and jaw. His skin was lighter than most Haitians, and darker than the Panamanian sailors who delivered drugs to Lifet’s harbor. Purplish gray marks colored his body. No, not marks. Intricate mauve tattoos crossed by nasty, painful-looking scars.
She sucked in a breath.
His gaze fixed on the water as though he was afraid she would scream again.
She let out her breath and focused. No sudden moves, no sudden screams.
He watched her.
She watched him.
Neither moved.
His chin lowered. “Am I?”
The sea monster spoke English. Good English. Accentless, fluent, American-movie-star English.
She didn’t know how to complete her question.
He lowered his shoulders as though to approach.
Fear stabbed her in the throat. He would consume her soul.
She squished into the corner, bruised knees braced in front of her chest, trying to make herself a smaller target. “Where am I? Where’s Lifet? And Jean-Baptiste?”
“The Coast Guard pursued your boyfriend. He is surely in custody.”
His soft voice was filled with masculine assurance. He could command an army with a whisper. Goosebumps stood up on her arms. His timbre was strangely enticing.
She pushed the feeling away. “What about Evens?”
“His companions on the yacht are in custody.”
“Evens is my cousin. Back in Haiti. Lifet’s gang kidnapped him to punish me.” She rubbed the old yellow bruises encircling her wrists where Lifet had grabbed and shaken her. “I was supposed to tell the Coast Guard.”
“You fell overboard and were swept away.”
Now she was on the raft alone. With him. A Lord of the Sea.
She studied him carefully. Her life depended on it.
Ropes of muscle bound his biceps and bulged in his powerful thighs. Hard forearms and broad pectorals promised his ability to carry her to safety.
The skin she’d thought rubbery was merely dotted with sea spray. As the moisture dried in the sun, he looked more and more ruggedly male and human. She wanted to slide her fingers across his skin and confirm the texture for herself.
Harmony curled her hands around her dress hem.
He raked his hair out of his face so he could fix his unnerving gaze on her more directly.
A long scar crossed his forehead and underscored his deadliness.
His jaw was hard, implacable, and yet the slash of his full lips was oddly gentle. Firm power wrapped in a velvet glove, which somehow she held the strings to unbind. He’d kidnapped her for his own purposes and yet his calm demeanor soothed, entreated her to trust him against her will. His steadiness pointed to a great deal of well-earned confidence. He silently assured her that he could move the entire world for her if only she pointed where she wanted it.
His dark hair was shorn at the back of his neck. The ends twisted into an innocent ducktail that invited her come over and curl it around her index finger. He would let her approach and touch him. Not only would he let her, but he would turn the rest of the way to face her and then trap her in a hard, pleasurable, unyielding kiss.
A tiny thrill ran up her spine.
Not of fear.
Desire.
Her heart beat hard in her chest. Pleasant heat pinched her sensitive nipples and stirred her womb. A sensation of liquid readiness opened her body to this confident stranger�
��s mastery. She welcomed, wanted, hungered for him.
His mesmerizing gaze intensified. As if he could see her desire.
Could he?
The feminine heat in her belly suddenly struck her with terror. She tried not to feel it radiating into her veins, opening her chest, tingling in her fingertips.
Was this how he tricked her?
One foot—human, masculine foot—slid across the wobbling raft. He lowered his center of gravity, half bent, and held out the fish. “You must—”
No.
She crammed herself into the corner.
He stopped.
Then he leaned toward her. “You—”
She held her breath.
He stopped again.
How much would it hurt? Would he suck her soul out her mouth like in a horror movie? Or would it be much, much worse?
His brow wrinkled. Disappointment emanated off him in a wave. “You fear me.”
She shook her head as much as she could with every muscle in her body paralyzed. She mustn’t upset him. Upsetting powerful men only hurt her in the end.
He stared at the dead fish in his hands. “I want to give this to you. May I?”
Strange feelings pulled at her like warring tides.
Fear and desire. Desire and fear.
This Sea Lord didn’t seem dangerous. He was gentle. Kind.
That must be how he got her. As soon as she relaxed. As soon as she lowered her guard. Bam. Lost soul.
Keeping his gaze averted, he gestured at himself. “Do not fear. I will not cause harm.”
Just give in. Close your eyes. Accept the inevitable.
Because apparently, this destiny was inevitable. From the hour the old tribal priestess, her great-grandmother, had uttered the prophecy.
“You belong to the Lord of the Sea. He owns your body. Your womb. Your soul.”
She’d even schemed with Monsieur Joseph—poor Monsieur Joseph!—and led Lifet to the wrong place. And yet, she begged for mercy from this Sea Lord.
“Believe me.” The monster’s aura darkened. He reached for her once more.
Her soul!
Harmony heaved herself over the side.
Salt water crashed across her. A welcome relief from the beating sun. Bubbles flurried around her. The yellow sun shone overhead, marking the barrier between sea and air. Water flooded her ears with cotton. Her own heartbeat filled her mind.