by Mina Carter
Edan gritted his teeth until his jaw ached with the pressure. He could see numerous weres and several variety of fae. Nothing too powerful of course… certainly nothing like him. A dragon would take this place apart in seconds if anyone was stupid enough to even try and put a collar on it.
“And the winner is… Edan Lisander!” The announcer’s voice rolled around the small room.
Mac, Edan’s owner, ducked into the cage to grab Edan’s wrist, shoving it into the air in the traditional winner’s salute. “Good job, big guy. Thought you were a goner at one point.”
Dark haired and lean, Mac appeared human. Especially next to Edan, who looked like he could break the smaller man in half. Nothing could be further from the truth. In Mac’s case, what walked and talked like a duck was anything but a duck.
Edan knew if he tried anything, he’d just end up bruising his knuckles. Mac was a gargoyle; one of the only creatures who could suck up more damage than a dragon. Which made them perfect partners -- a deadly duo in their bloody little game.
“Pfft, to him?” Edan nodded at the crumpled figure of his opponent. “You’ve gotta be kidding me. He couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag, no matter how much Fairy-dust they pump into him.”
Like his contempt, Edan didn’t bother to hide his disgust. The guy had been high before he stepped into the cage, and there was nothing that pissed Edan off quicker than a user. Particularly one who thought he was the biggest bad-ass out there. Of course, there had been nothing else for it… Edan had been forced to introduce him to the mesh of the cage several times.
“Oh yeah?” Mac threw back, “I suppose hitting his fist with your face was part of you wearing him down then?”
“Behave.” Edan bit out while Mac paraded him around the cage like a good little pet. “Or you’ll end up as a garden ornament. A butt-ugly one.”
“Yeah, yeah, you and whose army, scale-boy?”
Edan just shook his head. Mac had the gift of the gab for sure. “So, how’d we do?”
Mac’s grin was quick, the look in his silver eyes almost feral. “We got him bang to rights. Bastard was counting on his boy winning this fight and for you to take a fall in the fourth. Right about now he’s making a run for it with the takings.”
“We’ve got all his escape routes covered?”
Edan ducked out of the cage, slipping a little on the blood and snot by the hatch but recovering within a second. He slanted a look over his shoulder in the vain hope that Mac wouldn’t notice it and go arse over tit. No such luck. For a creature made of the biological equivalent of granite, the gargoyle was damned light on his feet.
Mac threw a towel around the dragon’s neck as Edan flopped into a chair near their “corner.” “Of course, what do you take me for? No matter where he runs, Steel and Reese’ll track him down.”
Edan used the edge of the towel to wipe the sweat from his face. They’d spent too long tracking Carmicheal down, put in too many man hours getting their ducks in a row, for it to all go to shit now. With heavy hitters like Steel and Reese on the case though -- both of whom had more than enough reason to hate Carmicheal’s guts -- Edan didn’t have to worry about anything. Well, other than the two weres ripping each other to pieces.
Edan’s eyebrow arched. “You sure it was a good idea to put those two together?”
Mac shrugged. “They’ll either work out their differences or kill each other. Either way, I won’t have to put up with their bitching and bellyaching about each other anymore. I call it a win-win situation.”
Edan snorted a laugh and reached up. Gathering his hair at the nape of his neck, he snapped a band around it.
“What the fuck? What do you mean he’s gone? I put good money on this fight and I want my damn winnings!”
The shrill voice of complaint was just the first. Before either Edan or Mac could turn and identify the speaker, more voices had joined the fray. The noise in the room increased as the crowd realized there might be a problem.
“Looks like the peasants are revolting.” Mac threw the bigger man his shirt and grabbed Edan’s bag. “Come on, big guy, time to haul ass before things get ugly.”
The shirt hit Edan mid-stomach as he rose to his feet, his movements graceful even after seven rounds and a pounding in the cage. His attention wasn’t on Mac though. Instead, it was riveted on the other side of the room where a fish tank covered the wall. In fact, it was the wall, he realized, now he got a good look at it. There was something in there, something big.
“You go on. I’ll be out in a moment.”
* * *
If she heard one more “ooooh, he’s so manly,” Dualla was going to throw up. Lounging on her favorite rock to one side of the village’s communal area, the mermaid closed her eyes and basked in the weak sun as it filtered down from the surface. It wasn’t as good as sunbathing, but down here, it was the best she could do.
“Melody, tell us again how he rescued you!”
Merilea’s high-pitched demand broke through her older cousin’s tranquility. Dualla’s brow pinched. Inner happy meal, she thought in determination, reach for the inner happy meal. I am a chicken nugget, a happy chicken nugget. One who doesn’t give a damn about daring rescues and handsome bloody heroes.
“Oh, he was so brave… and handsome. Did I mention he was handsome?”
Only about a million times.
“Ohhhh, was he big and strong?”
Dualla’s tail swished in irritation as she fought to control her annoyance. That was the trouble with her tribe… with mertribes in general. They were mostly female and tended to be isolated. She’d say inbred -- what with the women around her acting like complete ninnies over her aunt’s rescue -- but inbreeding relied on there being some men around.
Mermen were rare these days, and those who were left had banded together into all male groups. Hunter groups. They roamed the oceans without regard for tribal territories and offered their services -- hunting or more… intimate services -- to the tribes. Arrogant and violent, they were the main reason many mermaids went to the surface for their lovers, returning to the sea pregnant. Some, like Dualla’s mother, spent their lives between land and the sea while their kids were growing up. It was easier than contracting with a merman.
“Oh, yes… and handsome --”
Dualla cracked an eyelid and treated her aunt to a glare. Older than Dualla by ten years, although no one would have guessed with Melody’s delicate beauty, she was sitting like a queen on the speaker’s rock, winding strands of golden seaweed through her dark hair. If she mentioned the word handsome one more time, Dualla was going to throttle her with it.
“ -- he was tall and so muscled… I nearly fainted when he scooped me out of that filthy tank…”
I wish you’d faint now and spare me. Dualla wasn’t ungrateful to have her aunt back. Not at all. Like the rest of the tribe, she’d been beside herself with worry when Melody had been taken -- kidnapped by fishermen and sold to a surface dweller like some kind of goldfish. Just… there was a limit on how many times she could hear the same story over and over again before she snapped and tried to beat Melody to death with a cockle.
“His hair was like spun gold.”
“Ohhhh…”
Dualla kept her eyes closed, zoned the chatter out and tried to doze. A healer like her long dead mother, she was often plagued with dreams that disturbed her sleep. Unlike her mother, she only ever had the one dream.
The same dream over and over again. A dream of a man… a surface dweller, dark and dangerous despite his blond good looks, with the kind of darkness that came from the soul. A dream of a dragon with purple scales to match the line that ran down Dualla’s own tail, and who breathed fire and set the sea alight.
She had no idea what it meant. As dreams went, it was the smallest snippet, no more than a few seconds. A man with long blond hair swirling around his shoulders turned toward her and pinned her with those intense eyes. Then the dragon opened its maw to burn her up.
&nb
sp; “Huh!” Dualla jerked awake as high pitched laughter broke through her doze. She’d dropped off for a second. Her sleep last night must have been more broken than she’d thought.
Sitting up, she pushed the mass of long, dark hair back from her face. Once again it had escaped from its binding. She grabbed a piece of Melody’s seaweed as it floated by and re-braided it with quick, economical movements. As she did, a young mermaid on the edge of the group caught her eye.
Merilea was one of the youngest women in the tribe, no longer a child but, in Dualla’s opinion, still too young to be properly an adult. Innocent and naive, her eyes still reflected wonder at the world around her. It was an innocence, Dualla knew without question, those outside the tribe, be they two-leggers or hunters, wouldn’t hesitate to take advantage of.
Merilea looked about, a quick check for anyone watching. Dualla shifted her gaze and fixed her attention on Melody as though she was enthralled by the sixtieth retelling of the daring rescue and its handsome hero. All the while she watched Merilea out of the corner of her eye.
Dualla was just a healer, yes, but a healer had to read between the lines sometimes to find out what was really wrong with their patients. There was nothing better for that than reading body language and good, old-fashioned women’s intuition.
Right now, her intuition told her to watch Merilea like a hawk…
Chapter Two
He turned, his mass of golden hair swirling about his shoulders as he looked at her. His eyes were purple, a purple so dark it was almost the color of the midnight sky. He didn’t speak, just looked at her, and she felt her body respond. She sashayed forward with a seductive sway in her hips, her feet bare against the cool marble tile of the floor.
A cool breeze filtered through the open window beyond him, lifting the voile curtains even as it ruffled the edges of his hair. She reached for him, sliding her hand over the heavy muscles of his back and shoulders. Her fingertips played in his hair as she pulled his lips down toward hers…
He moved above her on the bed, his arms braced on either side of her head, and his hair surrounding them like a silken curtain. Anticipation rolled through her as he parted her thighs with a hard knee and settled between them. The broad head of his cock brushed against the wet lips of her pussy and pressed against the entrance to her body. A soft moan escaped her as he rotated his hips, pressing against her in all new and interesting ways.
Lifting her arms she wound them around his neck to pull him down for another kiss. Their lips met, clashing in a torrid embrace that stole Dualla’s breath. She wanted him, needed him. He was more essential to her wellbeing than her next breath.
“Please.” Her voice was a hoarse whisper of need. She needed him to fill her, to fulfill the promise of the thick cock pressed against her. Her pussy clenched hard. Just the thought of him sliding into her caused liquid heat to slip from her, soaking the head of his cock. He rumbled deep in his chest, a sound of pleasure and need. It was a sound she liked, a sound she wanted to hear and be the cause of again.
“You… feel amazing.” Whispered against her lips, his words were a verbal temptation as he pushed forward. Dualla’s body yielded, stretching to accommodate him. She wasn’t an innocent but she hadn’t had many lovers. None of them had ever touched anything more than her body… never her heart.
He lifted his head and gazed down into her eyes as he slid fully into her. White hot desire, need, and love lit his purple eyes. “Mine, my souler, now and forever.”
Dualla woke with a start as a heavy clanging outside her sleeping chamber dragged her awake. “What the f --”
With a swish of her powerful tail, she pushed off from her sleeping pad and swam to the door. Blinking sleep from her eyes, she squinted out into the darkness. Dualla tried to make her fuzzy brain assimilate the shouts ringing through the water as she emerged from her cave.
“Merilea’s gone…”
“What do you mean Merilea’s gone? She was here just an hour ago!”
“Gone. Disappeared. Gone missing. Not here! What the hell do you think I mean? She’s just popped out for a quick swim?” The sharp voice of Danita, the tribe tribal chieftain, burned the rest of the sleep out of Dualla’s brain. A shiver ran through her, from the roots of her hair to the tip of her tail.
Merilea was gone. Dualla’s lips compressed as she turned and disappeared back inside her cave. She knew where Merilea had gone, and if she hauled tail, she might be able to get her back before Danita, Merilea’s mother, blew a gasket.
* * *
“Stupid, stupid girl,” Dualla muttered under her breath as she sped through the night-darkened waters. The further she swam, the fouler her language got. All the time, she kept her eyes peeled for trouble and her wits about her. The night ocean was not a safe place, even for an older mermaid like Dualla, and definitely not for safe for an air-headed ninny like Merilea.
Typical blonde. Dualla gritted her teeth and swam on. In fact, Merilea was so blonde she gave blondes a bad name. Dualla wrapped her arms around herself to conserve warmth. Normally she didn’t swim so deep, but the way to the Lisander island was fraught with perils -- like the shark breeding ground she’d just passed. The last thing she wanted was for the girl’s rescue party to end up shark-food.
Every moment of the way she expected to see Merilea caught by a hunter or, Poseidon forbid, on the surface playing silly sods with the human fishermen. A game amongst some of the mermaids that Dualla and the elders condemned as dangerous. They sang their songs and drew the poor men in so they could flash their tits, then they’d disappear under the waves, laughing when the human men became enraptured.
Sea-god’s trident! She hoped Merilea wasn’t planning on doing that with the bronzed Adonis from Melody’s story. That would be suicide. Melody’s rescuer couldn’t be any other than a Lisander, which made him a dragon. Dualla could see the potential for trouble. Dragons weren’t human, but they sure could be enraptured.
Dualla, for one, never wanted to see an enraptured dragon, especially not if that dragon was a Lisander.
Arms stretched out at her sides, she paused in the water. She was a strong swimmer, but Merilea had a head start on her, and to catch up, she was going to need some help. Current riding would take her close to the surface, but it couldn’t be helped.
A slight tug on her hand warned her of a current just out of reach. Dualla powered forward, straight into the center of it. The fast-moving water grabbed her and pulled her along, whipping around her body and flattening her hair to her scalp.
The seascape sped along at a dizzying rate as she relaxed and let the current do all the work. She didn’t even need to steer much. The merest flick of her tail was enough to keep her on course. The morning sun had begun to light the ocean waters before Dualla admitted Merilea had gotten farther than she’d thought.
Much farther. She had to be at the Lisander’s island by now.
“Stupid child,” Dualla muttered again, having exhausted her vocabulary of swear words a couple of hours ago. Tiredness weighed her fins down, but she pushed on. She had to find Merilea. There was no other option.
A commotion on the surface up ahead caught Dualla’s eye. Squinting, she tried to focus but it was no good. She was too far away. Then a scream echoed through the water and shattered the tranquility.
Merilea.
Dualla’s heart pounded, her gills working ten to the dozen to provide enough oxygen to power her desperate race toward the source of the commotion. She had to be in time, she had to be in time. The litany circled around in her head.
Then, in the blink of an eye, the visibility cleared and Dualla could see what was happening. She paused for a moment mid-current to assess the situation. Just as she’d thought, Merilea had gotten herself into trouble. Stuck in a fishing net, she was tangled up between a bad-tempered lobster snapping its claws at everything within reach and three starfish clinging to her tail in terror.
“Dualla!” Merilea cried as she saw her cousin. “Help! I�
��m stuck!”
“No shit, Sherlock. How’d you get stuck in there?”
Dualla approached the net with caution. Reaching for the shell knife tucked into her belt, she considered how to cut the terrified youngster out.
“Arrrgh, will you just stop it! Look, Dualla’s here, she’ll get us out,” Merilea informed the lobster and knocked its claws away.
Dualla was glad someone had some confidence in her because, right at the moment, she wasn’t sure her crude knife was up to the task. With slender fingers she tested the cord and knots that made up the net. Just her luck, it was a nylon weave. She needed to find a weakness, something she could use, because trying to saw through it was going to take too long.
Finally she found a weak spot down near the bottom of Merilea’s tail. As she pulled there was the slightest give in the net. Spinning in the water until she was upside down, Dualla studied it. The strands were worn and frayed, just a little, but it might be enough. “Okay, hold still.”
Dualla slid the shell blade between the nylon and Merilea’s scales. One wrong move and she’d slice through them. The knife might not be much use against nylon, but it was more than sharp enough to cut through mermaid scales.
Merilea flinched as Dualla sawed at the fibers, but kept still. Thankfully. One less thing to worry about, because blood in the water so near to a shark nursery was never a good idea. Perhaps because she was so intent on making sure she didn’t cut Merilea, Dualla wasn’t paying much attention to the surface. A mechanical whirr rumbled through the water followed by heavy clunks as the net was reeled in.
“Dualla!” Merilea screamed in terror and trashed about.
“Stop it!” Dualla snatched the knife back from the net. “Hold still so I can get you out. I’m nearly there.”
“Ugh… arrrnnnnggggh!” Merilea stopped moving, a new note of pain in her voice. Panic filled Dualla. She looked up expecting to see clouds of blood in the water. Had she cut Merilea without realizing? The water was crystal clear apart from starfish poop. The poor things were shitting a brick from all the thrashing.