by Ruby Raine
“We’re not going to let the ocean claim her, Michael,” Melinda comforted. He glanced at her, she saw no hope in her brother’s gaze.
Is this all love could do? Hurt, crush, and squeeze your heart until there’s no breath left. She started to wonder if it was worth it. “C’mon. Let’s keep feeding the suckers.” She tossed another bloody chunk over the side of the rocking dinghy.
CHARLIE DUCKED UNDER the water, casting his breathing spell and followed Emily. What he saw impressed him. Hundreds of mermaids all gathered, joining hands in a large circle, surrounding the fury of bloodsuckers feeding on the bits thrown into the water by his siblings. He knew there were many mermaids in the area surrounding The Demon Isle, but had no idea just how many there truly were.
The two mermaids that had tricked him earlier that day swam closer, looking forlorn. Their hair didn’t look so vibrantly blue under the water. And sparkly scales covered their nakedness in all the necessary places. He was glad for that, more so for Emily’s sake than his own. At least in the water they had some natural coverage.
“We are sorry, Charlie, who is Howard.”
“Yes, sorry,” the second one sang.
Their voices were musical, yet as clear to him as though speaking on dry land.
“We do not like hurt.”
“No. Not like. The mean one.”
“Forced us.”
“It's okay,” Charlie spoke into his air bubble. “I get that it wasn't your fault.” He was still not entirely clear on what had really happened, but it did at least seem clear that these two mermaids did not wish him any harm. They approached, one on each side, and kissed his cheeks. This made it hard to stay angry, or on task. They giggled and swam away, rejoining the line their sisters were creating around the bloodsuckers.
Once the line was completed, Emily gave Charlie a nod.
He cast his spell. The barrier started as a glass-like shimmer forcing its way from the ocean floor, up to the surface. It surrounded them in an impenetrable bubble.
“You must get out of the water,” Emily sang. “The sonic call will kill you, too.”
Charlie wondered if his ring would protect him, but decided not to test it and surfaced immediately, swimming toward the dinghy, his body thumping against swarming bloodsuckers.
Michael pulled him into the dinghy while Melinda plunked her last bloody chunk into the water. They paddled into shore, escaping the dinghy, feet back on solid ground. Charlie explained what the mermaids were planning and warned them to stay out of the water.
“Brilliant idea.”
Charlie turned to see William behind them. The vampire’s eyes danced with wild abandon.
“Sonic call should make fast work of it.” William spoke as though they’d already won the battle.
Charlie choked out a laugh as he looked over the beach. “Looks like you had some fun yourself, William.” Melinda turned to look. Michael kept his gaze across the water, for any sign of Emily.
The beach was a bloody massacre. Torn apart sucker parts strewn everywhere.
The vampire craned his neck and stretched his arms. He toyed with licking his bloodied hands, but decided against it. “I had a little energy to burn.”
Charlie reached out and patted his shoulder. “William, if you’ve got that much energy to burn, you seriously need to find yourself a girlfr...” William cut him off with a cutting glare. One that said the consequences of finishing that sentence would be severe.
Charlie sucked in through his lips, keeping his smug reply to himself. He’d seen William do some frightening things, but this took the cake. He joined Michael watching out over the ocean.
William licked across his teeth. His tongue collecting the smallest taste of spattered blood, reveling in the fine mist of it spread across the beach. Unseen to the human eye, or even a vampire. But the essence of blood was thick around him. His gaze found and stuck on Melinda. Covered in bloodsucker bits, and blood, from head to toe. Her new beige dress soaked in rusty stains, and ruined.
A desire pushed to the surface. The darkness he carried longing to be set free.
His tongue craved to bathe in the mixture of blood and warm skin. His fangs ached to drop. Red splotched her thighs. Her arms. Her heaving chest.
His eyes rose upward, freezing on her wide gaze pinned firmly on his.
Her body shuddered, a swallow stuck in her throat.
Melinda was pretty sure William had just mind-licked her entire body.
A day like any other her heart stammered. Right...
There was no going back to the way things had been. They could pretend, but they could never go back. Not for real.
The vampire tore away his gaze, his desires disgusting him. And the fact that she’d shot that flutter at him when he looked at her like she was dessert.
Melinda blinked.
William vanished.
Nowhere to be seen.
She let out a quick exhale and looked across the beach. He’d fled. Again.
“It’s starting.” Charlie called out. His wolf could hear the sonic call.
Michael frowned. He heard nothing.
Melinda sucked in her unraveled nerves and joined her brothers. Glad that Michael’s empathy could not pick up on the vampire’s feelings, and was too overwhelmed with panic because of Emily to pick up on hers.
She listened, but heard nothing either. The sonic call was not within her range to hear, but the results of it came quick. Ripples tickled the surface. They expanded, widening across the water.
Melinda jumped, startled, when an unpleasant screech exploded out of the water.
“The bloodsuckers,” mumbled Charlie. “They’re dying.”
It was difficult to see exactly what was happening under the water. But they did see shadows swarming, and their ears stung from the hideous screeching. Thumps and thwacks tested Charlie’s barrier. It held firm, keeping the suckers from escaping out to sea or back onto land.
The mermaids held their line, tightly, with mouths open wide. A human ear could not hear their sonic cry. But Charlie could. Even with all the screeches from the dying suckers.
“It's remarkably beautiful as it is haunting.” William spoke it, his voice giving Melinda a start. He’d returned to the beach, standing alongside Charlie. She kept her gaze off the vampire, and out across the water.
Within minutes, bloodsuckers floated to the surface, dead. It had worked. The mermaids had succeeded.
Michael searched for Emily, hoping she would reappear when it was over. There remained just a couple short hours until sunset.
“She'll come back,” insisted Charlie.
“I don't even know how to feel right now. I'm freaking out that she won't come back. I'm freaking out that she will, but I won't have any way to undo what happened. And... I'm so wickedly proud of her. She was a bad-ass today!”
“She was definitely that,” Charlie agreed with ease.
A moment later, the sonic cry stopped. He released the magical barrier in the water, freeing the mermaids. Bodies of the bloodsuckers started to sink, waterlogged and heavy.
While Michael waited near the shore for his girlfriend, Charlie, William, and Melinda filled in the gaps of their day.
Melinda played her part well. Kept it simple. Professional. Like it was any other day...
William did the same.
When finished, she stepped into a clean section of water and rinsed as much blood off her body and dress as possible. No sense in torturing William any more than necessary. Plus, ick! Covered in bloodsucker bits now topped her least pleasant memories list.
Something nagged in Charlie's mind when it came to the vengeful mermaid that had wanted his ring, but he did not dare say it aloud; his theory would have to wait for a better moment to explain. He wished he could speak with the mermaids again, to clear up a few questions he had about the one that had wanted his ring.
A vehicle pulled onto the edge of the beach.
“It's Mr. Jordan,” noted Michael, his
voice anxious.
The sheriff walked down behind him.
“Seeing as he’s trying to help ya, I let him through. Deputies are here now, keepin’ the reporters and camera-happy’s at bay.” She caught her first glimpses of the bloody beach. “Whoa, would ya look at that! What a frickin’ mess. Still blows my mind really. Standing out there by the road, didn’t see a thing. Didn’t hear a thing. And then...” she raised her hands and aimed them at the beach as if words could not express what she was trying to say.
“Yay magic,” jested Melinda weakly. “At least it worked.”
“That it did. So is it done?”
“Yeah, Mack. It's done.” Charlie wished it were all finished. They still needed to find a way to save Emily from turning into a mermaid, permanently.
“I'd better call the cleaners,” Mack announced, disappearing to make a phone call.
“As hard as my job can be,” said Melinda, “I don't think I'd want the cleaner’s job.”
“Our jobs would be so much harder without them,” Charlie noted. “Can you imagine if we didn't have professional cleaners, willing to keep what they do a secret?”
“It comes to mind that I would most likely do the cleaning up.” William grinned smugly.
“Well, you are the fastest,” Melinda returned.
“And the best,” William confirmed. They kept their banter light.
Michael's attention was on Mr. Jordan.
“I am afraid I have found nothing new since our last conversation,” Mr. Jordan was saying.
Michael's hope was fading. There seemed to be no solution to returning Emily to her human status.
“Perhaps I should return to my study,” offered William. “There's still a couple hours until sunset. We are not yet out of time.”
Just then, at the water's edge, a mass exodus began. This time, however, it was not bloodsuckers, but mermaids. They stayed near the only section of beach not covered in dead bloodsucker.
Michael raced down searching for Emily. He found her lying in the water and fell into her arms. She laughed and kicked her flipper around. “I told you I’d come back.”
He kissed her, caring less about his soaking wet clothes. Her kiss left a pleasant numbness buzzing into his lips. The blood from the suckers washed off his body, floating away in the water. She batted her eyes at him. If he hadn’t been so worried he might lose her again, he might have dried her off and made love to her right here on the sand.
She reached up and caressed his face.
“C’mon, Em. Let’s get you dried off.” He lifted her out of the water and onto the sand, now crowded with mermaids drying out.
“They all wanted to come ashore,” Emily explained, while he patted her dry. “Some of them have not been on land in many years.” Michael grasped Emily's hand, unwilling now to let go. She was back on her human feet again, and totally bare ass naked he realized.
His eyes widened and narrowed. He wanted to take her in, from head to toe. Instead, he darted to get the dress she’d torn off before diving in earlier. He slipped it over her head in a jiff.
“Oops,” she pouted, tossing him a playful shrug.
“Oops? That’s all you have to say for yourself?” He grinned.
“How about, let’s try that again later. When we’re alone.” She leaned in and grabbed hold of his lips, intent heavy in her attack.
“You are so gonna get it later,” he groaned.
“Is that a promise?”
Michael had never seen this side of Emily before. He yanked her body into his. “You’re driving me crazy, and you know it.”
“I guess being a mermaid all day has made me see things from a different perspective.” A freeing one. One that made her want to claim what belonged to her.
But there it was again. The awful truth. She was still a mermaid.
Michael wondered, if they were not able to save her, if she’d forget about him. She had one day a month to come to dry land. Would he even get to have her for that long? Or would the ocean steal her from him completely?
Tears stung at Emily’s eyes. She was wondering the same thing.
Charlie, Melinda and William, plus Mr. Jordan, helped the other mermaids onto the shore and get dry. Soon, the beach was filled with naked blue-haired merladies. Most barely remembered what it felt like to walk on human legs and none of them cared that they were naked.
The two that had tricked Charlie danced toward him, playfully. He was ecstatic to have the chance he needed, to speak with them again. Equally ecstatic, watching them bounce in his direction. They had a third sister with them, a different sister than the one he had saved from the netting in the cavern.
“This is real sister,” one of the merladies told him.
“She needed saving.”
“The mean one, not real,” the first one said.
“Took our sister.”
“Held her captive,” they took turns explaining.
“Mean one. Not real. Not one of us.”
“Looked wrong when came to us.”
“Wrong?” This is what Charlie needed to confirm. “What do you mean when you say wrong?”
“Fake. Not one of us.” They shrugged, unable to explain it better.
“Wanted ring,” the mermaid pointed to Charlie's finger.
“Used our sister. Took her.”
“Said would kill her.”
“If did not get ring.”
“Are sorry.” They spoke as if using one voice.
“It's okay,” said Charlie, once again. “You did what you had to do. When it comes down to it, family is the most important thing there is.”
“Yes. Yes. Yes.” the three sisters agreed wholeheartedly, jumping up and down.
Charlie’s held his breath. He might have had one hot night with the Guardian, Nina, but he felt as pent up as ever. Dancing, bouncing beautiful women was so not helping him any.
“Cannot live without sisters,” they sang together. “Love sisters.”
“I can see that.” He shook his head as they giddily rejoined the others closer to the shoreline. They had gathered around Emily and Michael. She stood by his side, Michael’s arm around her waist, unwilling to let her go.
His sibling’s angst, layering over his own, sent him over the edge. His grip around her waist tightened. William was prepared to leave at a moment’s notice, should they ask it of him. He’d search for a solution until the very last second.
One of the sisters that had tricked Charlie walked up to Michael and stroked his smooth face. “Don’t be sad. We say thank you now.”
His brow furrowed. He could feel nothing but sad.
“Sister returns to you.” The mermaid shook her head, confounded. “She prefers walk. Not swim.”
Michael just stared, not understanding what she was telling him.
She pulled a necklace over her head, and removed the shell that dangled from it, holding it up to Emily's mouth.
“Sing,” she instructed Emily.
“Into the shell?”
The merlady nodded yes.
Emily sang softly into the opening of the shell.
A bluish light floated out of her mouth and found its way into the shell. The merlady smiled and held the shell up to Emily's ear.
“Hear?”
“Yes, I do,” Emily replied, a huge smile on her face.
“We save for sister,” she said. “One that want swim. Not walk.” She put the shell back on her necklace and secured it around her neck.
“I don’t understand,” mumbled Michael to his girlfriend. “Are you?” the words escaped him.
Emily wrapped her arms around him. “All yours.”
“You’re not a mermaid anymore? You’re human again?”
“Me human. Not mermaid,” she toyed cutely.
Michael picked her up and swung her in a wide circle. “I was really getting scared there for a minute.” He put her feet back on the ground, his hands cupping her cheeks. “Emily Morgan, can we please, please make it
at least an entire week before something else life-threatening happens to you? My heart needs a break.”
She laughed. “I'll do my best. I promise.”
He let go and turned to the merladies. “Thank you. I can’t thank you enough.”
“You save us. We save you.” She came over and kissed Emily on the cheek. “We miss sister already.” She pouted, but it quickly turned to a wide grin. She giggled and raced back into the ocean. She disappeared under the surface in seconds. Her flippers shot up into the air, splashing as she dove, her figure dissolving into the shadows.
Each merlady did the same, kissing Emily goodbye and diving back into the water.
The two that had tricked Charlie kissed Emily and skipped over to Charlie. They each snuggled up to a side and devoured him with kisses.
Everyone tried not to laugh at the two naked merladies almost taking him down. Even William let out a chuckle. They weren’t sure they’d ever seen Charlie Howard’s face so red in his entire life.
“Supernatural women. Right up your...” Michael stopped. Charlie shot him a don’t you dare look.
The mermaids stroked his chest, their eyes swimming in blue. They pushed their bodies into him. Hardened nipples scraped along his sides. He held his breath.
“So strong.”
“You could come.”
“Into water.”
“With us.”
Charlie wriggled out of their grasp. There would be no more mesmerizing taking place today.
“Sorry,” he told them. “I prefer dry land, ladies.”
They pouted. And batted their eyes.
“No more mesmerizing,” he barked in a good-natured manner.
“If you change mind.”
“We find you.”
“You know where we come land.”
“Where dry off.”
“You’ll come.”
“One day.”
They seemed quite sure of this. They left Charlie and bounced back to the ocean. It was all he could do to keep his tongue in his mouth, and not join them in the water. His arms almost left his sides and dragged them back.
Sex with a mermaid. No, two mermaids... curvaceous, toned, and he was turning this down, why? He watched them sink into the waves. He’d never resurface is why.