by Mina Carter
No one did. Most humans couldn’t tell a paranormal unless one came up and bit them on the ass, which was actually a possibility with some of the demon-kind, so she was fairly safe.
A shudder racked her at the thought of what would have happened if Merilea had still been in the net when it had reached the surface. The men on the boat had seen her for what she was for all of a second before she’d managed to shift. Her tail had become legs while she was still in the water. It was something only an adult mermaid could accomplish, which was why they kept youngsters like Merilea away from shore.
Dualla’s lips compressed as she skirted a pile of crates. Halfway around she stopped and ducked back. Tall, blond and grouchy was heading down one of the docking piers. If he looked back, even for a second, then he’d catch sight of her. Crouched behind the crates, Dualla risked a peek just in time to see him climb gracefully into a sleek motorboat and cast off with a negligent flick of his wrist.
The engine roared to life. Dualla expected him to speed out of the dock with the typical live fast, die young mentality most human men seemed to adopt anytime they got near anything with a powerful engine. He didn’t though. After starting the engine he settled back and the powerful, expensive craft chugged gently out of dock.
“We’re up, Levi,” she said as she emerged from behind the crates and headed down the same pier. It rocked under her feet and the clear turquoise waters visible through the wooden slats called to her. Nearing the end of the pier, Dualla looked around. There were people moving around on the main dock so she knelt down and pretended to check one of the mooring ropes. Hopefully no one glancing her way owned the ship the rope was attached to, otherwise she’d have some explaining to do. The last thing she needed right now was to spend a night in a cell accused of trying to steal a boat. Wouldn’t that be ironic, a mermaid accused of stealing a boat she definitely didn’t need.
Waiting until no one was looking, she dropped Levi quickly in the water and followed him into its embrace moments later. The cool waters closed over her head as she sank under the surface without a ripple. Her lungs shut down as her gills, almost invisible behind her ears when on land, fanned out and took over.
Levi darted around her as she sank to the soft sand, his antenna waving as he waited patiently for her to shift the legs for her tail. Dualla reached inside herself, into the place that made her mermaid. She concentrated on the feel of her tail as she swam, on the feeling of water against her scales and the sheer exuberance of swimming through the depths… a freedom she could only think was near to flying for land dwellers… and allowed it to fill her heart.
Pain arced through her body. Her legs fused together and scales raced down to cover the skin that had been there a moment before. Within a few heartbeats, her familiar silver and purple scaled tail had replaced the human legs that were useless in the water. Pushing her loose hair back again, Dualla grabbed Levi, tucked him under her arm, and then set off after the speedboat.
The speedboat was pretty easy to keep up with, which meant Dualla didn’t have to half kill herself to follow her quarry. Lazily, she rode the currents as she kept the hull of the Lisander’s speedboat in sight. Every so often she would switch currents, going deeper or coming closer to the surface, picking one that would allow her to follow.
An hour later she surfaced behind a rock near the shore. The boat was moored on a small jetty nearby, but empty, it didn’t hold Dualla’s attention for long. No, her eyes were fixed on the figure of the man it had contained as he made his way slowly along the jetty to the beach.
His shoulders were bowed, sorrow and pain radiating outwards. Dualla didn’t need to be psychic to see that. His limp was more pronounced now, his foot dragging a little on the sand as he walked up the beach. Dualla’s heart wept as her gaze dropped to the vivid scars across his back. They only covered one side, the other taken up by the heavy dragon tattoo that marked him for what he was -- a dragon.
Just the sight of the marks made her wince. What had happened to him? What would scar a dragon so? Dragons were nasty as hell when roused and damn near impossible to kill. They could heal most injuries during a shift. So what creature could injure a dragon so badly that he was still scarred in human form?
On the beach Lisander paused and looked out to sea. Quickly Dualla ducked behind the rock and held her breath…
Chapter Five
What was it with women and scars?
Edan cursed and looked down at the water lapping around his feet. His human skin itched, burning as it stretched too tight across his bones. The water looked so cool and inviting. For a second he allowed a daydream of what would have happened if she hadn’t seen the marks on his back to fill his mind.
He’d have taken her back to the boat, to the tiny cabin below decks. A cabin barely big enough for the double bed crammed in there but more than enough for what he had in mind. He’d start by stripping his shirt off her, and then watch those expressive eyes darken with pleasure as he worked his way down her body…
“Ack, no use wanting what you can’t have,” he told himself firmly and stepped into the water. He wriggled his toes in the sand as the cool water swirled around them. His eyes half closed in pleasure. It felt good, so good that in the next heartbeat he was wading -- no, running -- further into the coolness.
He plunged onwards and relief washed through him as the blessedly cool water enveloped his feverish body. Small waves swelled about his thighs and then his waist as he walked further out.
As soon as it was deep enough, he dived under the water. Bones popped and cracked. His skin melted and slid, stretching as his body changed. His spine elongated even as his arms and legs changed shape. Joints popped and changed configuration as a pair of leathery wings burst from his shoulders.
He broke the surface, fully shifted into dragon form. Spreading his wings he roared his defiance at the sky, trumpeting the full throated roar of a dragon in his prime to the sunset. Then he slumped, his useless left wing slapping against the surface of the water.
Edan turned his wedge shaped head and regarded the damaged wing. Broken and tattered, it would never bear his weight in flight, and injured, he was useless, just half a dragon… less than half a dragon.
Less than half a man.
A failure.
Secure in his solitude, Edan dropped his head. The mournful cry rumbled in his large chest and rolled up his throat. Dropping his head under the water, he warbled his sorrow into the turquoise depths.
* * *
Tears filled Dualla’s eyes as he sang his sorrow to the deep. It was the most beautiful sound she’d ever heard. All the beauty and strength of the dragon rendered into a sound so heart-rending, she felt her own heart ache in response.
Wide eyed, she peered around the rock. He was still there, lying on the surface of the water, spread out like a huge, draconic swimming pool float. Even though his song near broke her heart, Dualla couldn’t stop the slight quirk of her lips.
She wondered what the grumpy as all hell dragon would do if a bunch of kids decided to jump all over him. Given his attitude earlier, most people would say toast them all to crispy critters, but Dualla knew better. She’d seen the look in his eyes. There was bitterness and pain, but no malice.
“He’s hurting,” she told the lobster clinging to the white shirt she still wore. His shirt. “We have to help him.”
Levi gave her a look and waggled his antennae.
“Oh, hush you. You’re just a grump.”
Dualla sank back under the water and rounded the rock. Caution running through her, she swam slowly toward the dragon. His bulk shadowed the golden sands beneath him. His belly scales were light in color like a shark, dark on the top so it couldn’t be seen from above, and light on the underside so it was difficult to see from below. The same evolution seemed to have occurred amongst dragons.
The closer she got, the unhappier her crustacean passenger got, until, when she was almost directly underneath the dragon, he jumped ship, letting
go and seeking the safety of the sea bed.
“Traitor.” She shook her head at the scurrying lobster then turned in the water to study the form above her.
Now she could understand the terrible scars down his back. His body was marked by violence. One wing was a torn and tattered mess, the remains of the flight membranes clinging to the bony struts that had supported them. Once she’d absorbed the horror of the damaged wing, she noticed other things, like the fact the scales along his sides were torn, leaving deep, gaping wounds between the ripped edges.
What on earth could have done this to him? What kind of creature could wound a dragon so badly the wounds didn’t heal properly?
She flicked her tail and ascended, concern in her eyes as she reached out a hand. Any worry for her own safety was forgotten as Dualla inspected the wounds. It didn’t occur to her that she was approaching a dragon, one of the world’s apex predators, blindside. Or, if it did, it was lost under her healer’s instincts as she inspected his injuries.
When she was working, Dualla tended to lose all sense of personal danger, a fact proven by the scar near the bottom of her tail. She’d been trying to patch up a small shark which had gotten in a tussle with a larger shark, and in her haste to help the creature, had forgotten it had teeth -- large, rather sharp teeth. She’d been lucky to escape with just a scar rather than losing a fin.
That was the trouble with being a healer. She couldn’t turn it on and off at will. Even now she could feel the magic that made her what she was, welling up inside her, reacting to the sight of injuries which needed to be healed.
Her attention focused on his injuries. Her surroundings -- the crystal clear water, the slight pull of the surf toward the shore -- all faded into the background. She frowned as she studied the ragged edges of the wounds. His skin was torn between the scales. If she could just push the edges together…
The instant her hand touched his scaled skin everything went wrong. With a roar the dragon roused from his slumber, far more agile than Dualla had thought possible. He was an air dragon, not a water dragon, so he had no right to move so fast in the water.
His tail whipped around with the speed of a striking stingray, slammed Dualla into the sandy seabed and pinned her there. Self-preservation instincts kicked in and she struggled, but she was fighting a battle on two fronts. The weight of his tail held her immobile so only the barest trickle of current washed water over her gills, cutting off her oxygen supply as darkness threatened to overwhelm her.
Then, thankfully, the crushing weight on her chest lifted. A pair of huge, cat-slitted purple eyes dominated her vision before she lost the second of her battles and succumbed to darkness.
* * *
Holy shit.
The instant Edan whirled around in the water and felt his tail impact something, he knew he’d made a terrible mistake. For one, the touch that had sparked his violent reaction had been soft and gentle. It had made no difference. Edan’s reactions were on a hair trigger, and gentleness had been at a premium in the last couple of years. Had he really sunk so low he assumed any touch was an attack?
He turned in the water again, but this time, instead of his wing catching the water like a paddle, the bony struts of his damaged wing sliced through it. Forgetting he wasn’t a fish he lurched forwards and tried to breathe water. Coughing and spluttering, he righted himself and then looked around in the water to see what he’d hit.
The slender but curvaceous form of the mermaid wasn’t hard to spot. The water was too shallow to hide anything, let alone a mermaid, or the gigantic lobster scurrying toward the deep as fast as his legs would carry him. Edan ignored the creature for the moment, then his large draconic eyes narrowed as he realized the mermaid wasn’t moving.
His eyes widened, following the furrow in the sand, one which ended under the mermaid. Crap, his tail was pinning her down. Edan moved, lifting his tail as he shoved his head under the water to look at her in concern. He couldn’t see any blood and… mermaids couldn’t drown, could they?
At least, he didn’t think they could. She was basically a fish, wasn’t she? A very sexy fish with a rack he’d give his eye teeth to get his hands on, but a fish nonetheless. Whoever heard of a fish drowning?
He lifted his tail but she lay motionless on the white sand. Edan’s heart stilled in his chest. She looked way too pale to be healthy, even for the slightly blue tint of mermaid skin. Had her lips been blue before? Damn it, his first aid courses had only covered heart attacks and knife wounds, not what to do when you accidentally crush a mermaid.
She opened her eyes and the unfocused look in them made Edan’s decision for him. If she couldn’t drown, then she could at least suffer a concussion, a concussion he’d caused, which meant he was honor bound to look after her until she was better.
Yeah, right, the little voice in his head replied. So it’s got nothing at all to do with the fact she’s female with a figure that would tempt a saint?
Edan ignored the quip, his concern increasing as her eyes fluttered shut and her body went limp. Shit, shit, shit! She’d passed out. That wasn’t good. Worry filled him, overruling all else as he scooped her up in a large taloned paw and hauled ass.
The surf frothed about him as he clambered up the shore out of the water and onto the beach, the unconscious mermaid cradled in his arm. The subtle buzz of magic rolled over his skin. As the air hit her tail, the scales tightened then split up the centre, rolling back to reveal a perfect pair of legs.
Fascinating, he thought. She shifts without conscious thought, or even consciousness. Handy trick to stop the normals finding out what you are. His claws dug into the soft sand for balance as he stood on one foreleg and watched her closely for signs of improvement. The blue in her lips receded a little, more pink returning to the sexy bee-stung pout, but not as much as he’d like. Her chest expanded and she took a ragged breath, her lungs kicking in to take over from her gills.
Edan waited, silently willing her to open her eyes, but the seconds ticked past, each sounding loudly in his mind, without so much as a flutter of her eyelashes.
Crap, crap and, just for a change, more crap, Edan cursed himself roundly. He had to get her some help. The thought his paranoia had actually hurt someone, hurt someone who was trying to help him, ate away like acid in his gut. He needed to call Mac. The glib gargoyle would know what to do.
Looking up, he assessed the small cliff face in front of him. His villa was perched at the top. For a dragon, it was perfect. He could walk out of his bedroom and, in two running steps, be in the air. Well, he could be if he had wings that worked properly. Grimly, Edan put the thought from his mind, his bitterness at his injuries disappearing under the need to get his little mermaid some help.
Hoisting her more firmly against his shoulder, Edan all but ran over the hot sand to the base of the cliffs, skittering like a desert-lizard. His claws bit into the soft rock as he started to climb. Using the powerful muscles in his hind legs and his free fore-paw, he half climbed, half scrambled up the rock-face.
God, if anyone sees me now, I’ll be a bloody laughing stock. He’d made the climb within a minute, but his haste had more to do with concern over his passenger than any damage to his reputation. Edan’s rep was ferocious enough that even his kinsmen would think twice before making fun of the large purple dragon.
He clambered over the edge of the cliff and onto the large decked area in front of his home. His claws scrabbled against the stone edging before they found purchase on the soft wood of the decking. In one last effort, he pulled himself onto it and, in the next breath, triggered his change.
“Fuuuuuuccccking hell!” he bellowed, venting all the pain of the rapid change into his voice as he forced his body to shift. A normal shift took around five seconds, which allowed his body time to readjust to the difference in mass between his human and dragon form. There was an awful lot of his dragon form to be stuffed back into even a six foot plus frame on a normal shift, but to do it quickly? That damn well hurt.<
br />
He hit the decking next to the prone form of the mermaid with a heavy thud. Sweat beaded on his skin, rolled and dropped to the deck below. He gritted his teeth until his jaw ached from the pressure, holding the pain inside. His bones snapped and reshaped themselves as his skin shrank, absorbing his scales as it tightened around his now human-shaped body.
Chapter Six
“Edan, you know what you have to do.”
The big dragon sighed as he held the phone to his ear and listened to the lecture his former partner was treating him to. A similar lecture to the one Mac had given him every weekend since he’d walked from the game.
How the hell was he supposed to realize his last opponent was an enslaved demon? If there was one creature no one wanted to face in a ring, it was a pissed off demon, especially one from the lower hells. Christ, those things could take on an angel and win, never mind a dragon! No one put a demon in the ring -- not without fair warning.
“Yeah, yeah… I know. Open up, talk about my ‘feelings’.” Edan mimicked his doctor’s voice. He was word perfect on all this now.
Mac snorted. “Actually I don’t give a fuck about your feelings, man. You wanna get all lovey-dovey and new man-ish, talk to a shrink.”
“Well, what are you talking about then?”
“You’re a dragon.”
“Way to go, Captain Obvious. So what?”
Mac huffed in irritation, the sound so familiar, Edan could see the irritated look on the gargoyle’s face. “Well, I read in a magazine --”
“What?” Taken by surprise, Edan’s voice was sharp. “Wait! You can read?”
“Ha. Ha. Very funny.”
“So what did this magazine say?” Edan’s curiosity was piqued, especially since now that they were at the crux point, Mac seemed to be having trouble spitting out what he wanted to say.