A Mermaid's Ransom

by Joey W. Hill

He considered her, his gaze shifting around the bathroom, to the one window. The brief flash of emotion startled her, so that she put her hand back on his arm. "Dante, I'm safe. No one is going to hurt me here. This world is different. At least here it is," she amended, having a brief thought of war-torn African countries.

  "Someone can hurt you if they wish. I did."

  She met his gaze. "And yet, here I am, back safe and sound. Believe me, being kidnapped through a dream portal was not part of my usual schedule. If I need anything, I'll call out. Okay?"

  His grip loosening reluctantly, he nodded.

  He didn't go far. Dante moved the several steps to the bed, sat down and stared at the door. Distracting himself, he tested the bounce of the mattress, bemused by it, pressing down with his hand. He considered dismantling it to figure out how it came back into its shape that way, but her disappearance behind that door made him too uneasy. He rose, pacing.

  Rationally, he knew she was correct. What little he'd seen was a very different world from what he'd known. Even Hell had been different, as Lucifer said. When the time began to stretch out such that he'd considered tearing Hell apart stone by stone to get free and find her, he'd been allowed to explore with supervision, learn about the workings of the Underworld, gain an understanding of the redemption that the souls there had to endure. Dante found a calm familiarity to the pain and suffering that soothed his agitation to a manageable level.

  He was not soothed now, even though, being inside her mind, he could know everything she was thinking. Any threat to her would be known to him instantly. Yet he'd said it himself. The greatest threat she'd experienced in her short life had been him. He'd caused her the most pain and terror. As such, Jonah and the others hadn't perceived his agitation as a desire to confirm she was all right, that she was recovering properly. To give her blood if she needed it.

  Truth, he couldn't understand his feelings right now, either.

  He'd returned her to her world at a risk to his own objective, in order to preserve her life. That entirely unexpected compulsion had turned him on his axis. Given that, this inexplicable protectiveness was merely a bump on that same road.

  It was also irrational. This was her world. She had powerful allies. Jonah, the seawitch, David. She thought of them as her family. But Dante didn't know about family or allies. He knew about minions, those forced to serve through fear, trickery and threat. Alexis's perception of how he felt to be here had been startling. Yes, no, I don't know.

  In the Dark One world, he'd understood how things worked, and Alexis had been completely his. He'd fought his way up from the bottom, and knowing the road behind and ahead had a comfort to it. From his brief time here, he was uneasily aware this world might require a different skill set than the ability to kill the strongest rival and therefore bring the others into line. If that was all he knew, how was he going to succeed, find a position of strength and hold it? Who would take advantage of his weakness if he couldn't find such a position?

  While he was aware of the metal band on his neck, he also knew the threat of pain would not stop him from fighting or killing if it was necessary. Pain was only a deterrent to someone who feared pain. But he didn't like her being behind closed doors. Where was she?

  The door opened then, and Alexis was there, smiling at him and bringing that unfamiliar warmth into his chest. The warring factions battling in his mind stilled. He could tell she was worried she couldn't stay balanced, help him the way he needed to be helped, because she was too overwhelmed by her desire for him. He had no problem with her desire. It was a weakness he could exploit as needed. The problem was he had a similar difficulty when he inhaled her scent, touched her body, sensed her willingness to be with him. Her openness made him feel . . . not in a cage. After being trapped for so long, it was as if he had wings like the angels, capable of stretching as far as he wished. As far as he dared. Perhaps that was the problem. In his world, only one kind of fear had to be conquered.

  "It's soft, isn't it?"

  He noticed then he had one hand clutched in the quilted coverlet. He glanced down at it, then at the other things he hadn't taken time to notice, too caught up in her body, soft and available to him. Pillows. His mother had given him so many images in her mind, words to go with them, so he knew these things. Things had also been brought to the Dark One world, reinforcing that knowledge before they were inevitably destroyed. But knowing and touching, experiencing, were entirely different.

  "Why does your father call you Seabird?"

  "It's a nickname. A term of affection," she amended, "because I'm an angel and a mermaid both. Nicknames come from looking at someone and thinking they're like something or someone else." She gave him a half smile. "Do you look at me and think of something from your world? A marsma, for instance? I can hop."

  "You are like nothing else I know."

  Her cheeks pinkened, and he sensed that had pleased her, but she crossed the room to pick up the folded clothing her mother had left her. "Feel free to prowl around and look at things while I'm getting ready," she said. Rummaging in a dresser, she pulled out some more things. When she went back into the bathroom, she left the door open, so he cautiously did as she suggested, rising and touching the pillow, picking it up to squeeze it, turn it over and examine it.

  "When I was young and stayed over with human friends, what we call slumber parties, we'd have pillow fights." She looked up in the mirror, seeking him, then her eyes widened. She turned. "Wow. So that one's true, too."

  He raised a brow, and she gestured to the mirror. "No reflection. Guess that's why vampires are so good-looking all the time. Since you have no way of checking if your hair is out of place or you have something smeared on your chin, genetics makes you out of Teflon. It all slides off or falls back into place." When she gave a quick, easy grin, the surge of warmth came again, though he sensed something more tentative and wary behind the pleasant facade. He left it alone for now, since he felt a similar way when they were not coupling as they'd just done.

  "Pillow fight?"

  Putting down the brush she'd been working through her hair, she picked up an extra pillow that had been left in the chair by the bathroom door. Clutching the top two corners in her slim hands, she took a swing at him.

  He blocked it, halting her follow-through and shoving her against the wall in the same flow of motion. Taking her off her feet earned a startled cry, but he held her there, searching her mind. What she'd thrown at him had been harmless. Soft. Why would she use that as a weapon?

  It's a game. It's not meant to harm anyone.

  She was trembling. He'd frightened her with his speed. Her hands, so fragile and breakable, were clutching his shirt at the shoulders, her pulse racing. Dante swallowed, brought her back to her feet. "I do not know about games."

  "It's play. Let me show you." Giving him a searching look, she bent and picked up the pillow, holding it out for his examination before she took the open end of the covering over it, twisting the excess fabric into a handle. "See, when you're at slumber parties, you grab up pillows and hit each other with them." She gave him an arch look, still tremulous at the corners of her mouth. "Okay, don't go crazy here, but I'm going to swing it at you, to demonstrate."

  She let it hit him in the side. Then, with an impish grin, she took a stronger swing at his head. Dante ducked it, but she was already turning and managed to hit his hip with more force. He circled the bed, considering, and picked up the other pillow. "What's the goal of this . . . game?"

  "Just to have fun. There's no scorekeeping in pillow fights. Technically. I've known some people who think it should be an Olympic sport." As he probed her mind, she quickly picked up his intent. Images appeared for him, filling in the blanks. Then she decided to hop up on the bed, giving herself a height advantage, and took another swing at his head.

  He dodged it, retaliating with a swipe that hit her thigh and knocked her legs out from under her. He'd attempted to hold his strike, but she landed with a decided bounc
e on the intriguingly springy mattress. "Oof. Good thing I went for the bed."

  He peered down at her, then his gaze went lower, to where her nightshirt had slid upward, nearly revealing her pretty sex. Thinking about the soft give of the mattress and pillows, he recalled the way those tender lips had spread for his cock, taking him in deep. Though his mind was not open to her, Alexis obviously read his emotions, for she scrambled back to the other side, leaving the pillow. "I'll get dressed," she said hastily. "Otherwise, we might never get back to my place today. Have you walked down to the beach yet? Oh . . ." She turned around again. "Can you go out in sunlight?"

  "I was told by Mina that I could, that my Dark One blood dulls the effect that sunlight normally has on vampires. I can't stay out in it long, though, and she recommended something she called sunglasses . Very dark ones," he added.

  "Good point," she agreed. "We'll stop somewhere to get those first thing. You're going to be unsettling enough without someone seeing your eyes."

  "Humans don't know about beings other than themselves. I find that odd."

  "So do all of us. I mean, the nonhumans who live here." Alexis shrugged. "For some reason the Goddess allows humans to decide whether to believe in angels, mermaids or worlds like yours as a matter of faith. After the Mountain Battle, it was weird how many of them rationalized it into something else. They decided they'd imagined seeing angels because of the trauma of fighting off alien attackers."

  She rolled her eyes. "Since then, there've been stories that the Dark Ones were bioengineered soldiers being tested out by some country. I guess it works best for us to hide our identities, except from the few humans who would understand. As a whole, they really don't. They need to control what they don't understand, or they destroy it. Even my closest friend doesn't know what I am, and she's clairvoyant."

  "Yet you prefer to live among them, while your parents do not."

  "Well, Myel has lived among them before, for short periods of time. I just . . . it feels like where I'm supposed to be, for now. I like it. They're very busy, you know? Active. Always something going on. But I do love the ocean and sky. They're active, too, in a different way. Pyel says I straddle the boundary between sky and water because I feel most balanced here."

  After a brief hesitation, she shed the sleep shirt, revealing the fragile slope of spine and sweet curve of buttock. He still saw bruises fading under her skin, the result of the rift energy's bludgeoning, and her fight against the circle's shields in his world. Only a handful of days ago, he'd been in that world, the place he'd been all his life. Now he was here. He was certain in some ways it was a dream, only he could not have imagined some of the things in this dream, having never experienced them. The fragrance of the lotion she smoothed into her hands and on her face. The crumpled look of her clothes on the floor. The smell of salt water drifting in through the open window and the sound of the ocean. Even when he'd had the rift windows, sounds had been muted, distorted, and there'd been no ability to smell, taste.

  She stepped into her undergarment, a quick hitch, then she was putting her arms into the straps of her bra, hooking and working it around to cradle her breasts. It commanded his attention, the erotic movements of her body performing such a simple task, the wriggle of her hips as she pulled on a skirt that hugged them, arching into a shirt that clung to her curves. The V-neck showed the valley between her breasts. He knew enough to know it was not a deliberately provocative outfit, but his palms heated with the desire to touch regardless.

  Alexis twisted her hair up and stuck in a pair of dark shiny sticks topped with glittering sapphire stones to hold it. "All right. Why don't we go to my place, get you settled there? Is that all right, or is there something else you want to do right away?"

  When she turned and faced him, color rose in her cheeks. "Other than that. I'd feel more comfortable being with you where I live. My parents may decide to stay here tonight."

  Her gaze went to the wall behind the headboard. "I'm hoping they'll think they did that. The one advantage to having immortal and amorous parents."

  Clearing her throat, she continued to stare fixedly at the headboard. "Can you stop looking at me like that?"

  "Why? Because it makes you want to do exactly what I'm thinking?"

  She shot him a narrow look. "You get a free pass on comments like that because you don't know what a smart-ass is. For now."

  No image in her mind explained that, so he simply studied the enigma that was her. "Do you want to see my home?" she asked, a note of desperation in her voice.

  "Yes."

  Since he stood by the dresser at the stairs out of the loft, she had to draw closer. When she looked up into his face, touching his arm, it made the nerves under his skin ripple, his body tighten. But because she seemed determined to take him somewhere else, and he was curious to see more, he tried to mute his lust so she would relax.

  "I won't take you to places with lots of people, not until you're used to them. And remember, you don't have to see and do everything at once. Whenever you get overloaded, or tired, just tell me, if I don't sense it up front. You're harder for me to read than most people."

  She was still wondering if that was because of the interference of her own feelings, or something else. Since he had no answer for her and his mind was elsewhere, he put his hands on her hips, drew her closer to him. Her palms settled naturally on his chest as his fingers curved into the shirt, finding the tempting give of her body beneath. Her forefinger moved in a single stroke over the base of his neck. "It's going to be okay," she said.

  "Alexis, I am not a child you need to reassure. Do you understand this?"

  She frowned. "Now you sound like my father."

  "Perhaps he and I agree on one thing, then. If something happens out there, and I feel threatened, you will not be wise to get between me and that threat."

  "It may not be wise, but I'll do it, because nothing you're going to see today is a threat. I don't want you hurt by that collar rebounding, or have you accidentally hurt someone else. You have to trust me." Her fingers dug in a little, with insistence and sharp edges. The sudden set of her jaw was matched by the determination thrusting forward in her mind. "So if you're wise, you'll pull your punches."

  "You will not command me," he said testily.

  "It's not a command." She blew out a breath. "Geez, the testosterone factor. You do realize how much my father wants an excuse to obliterate you, right? We have to show him, prove to him, you can get along in this world without maiming, blowing away or ripping anyone's head off. I know you hate that. I know you're very proud, and you think by trying to get along you're somehow becoming a slave again."

  He stepped back from her then. "Because you know my emotions, do not think you can dictate to me."

  "I'm not trying to do that. Dante, it's going to take time for you to understand." Her fingers curled into tense balls at her side. He saw the jumble of thoughts in her mind, her struggle to describe what was beyond his immediate understanding. "You can be what you want to be here, as long as you don't harm others to be that."

  He hooked the collar with two fingers. "You put this on me, which keeps me from being what I am."

  "You let me," she said, though she flinched at the accusation. "Dante, you remember how you set up the circle shield to keep me in the chamber, until I understood why I couldn't leave it? To protect me when the Dark Ones came in?"

  He nodded, reluctantly. "You want me to believe this is like that."

  "It is." She stepped to him again and the return of her closeness was welcome, despite the discomfort her words were causing. Stopping between his boots, she tilted her head. "I understand about the collar. I know that pain won't stop you. It breaks my heart, knowing why that is. What you've endured. Those emotions are a well inside of you, and that well is way too deep and dark to go all the way to the bottom, even for me. But you worked so hard and long getting here. Can you have enough patience left to trust me a little, enough to get through today? That's n
ot so bad, right?"

  He looked down at her. Pulling those sticks out, he made her hair tumble down onto her shoulders. He framed her face and brushed his mouth over hers, a brief taste. "I like your hair better like this."

  "Then that's how I'll wear it." Her fingers made another shy pass near the base of his throat, a stroking. "Are you ready to go?"

  "I am ready."

  Sixteen

  AFTER classes that day, Clara went to Lex's place, letting herself in with her key. It had become a daily ritual, hoping she was there, and embracing the tactile comfort of being among her things when she wasn't. The clothes they'd picked out together, the ugly footrest shaped like a huggable sea urchin. Lex had fallen in love with it at a dorm yard sale. The food in her cupboards included candy bars she kept specifically for when Clara came, as well as her favorite soda. She got one of each now and wandered back to Lex's bedroom, to the waiting pile of stuffed animals.

  Clara desperately wished Lex had a cell phone so she could call and find out what kind of family emergency she'd had. Lex had always had a habit of disappearing for a few days at a time with no real explanation coming or going, so it wasn't the absence that had caused Clara's worry. Things felt okay now, but for the first several days she'd been gone, Clara had experienced such cold fear, she'd nearly lost her mind. Knowing that the police didn't look for an adult until forty-eight hours had passed, particularly one with a habit of disappearing, she'd had to settle for checking out all of Lex's normal haunts, asking who had seen her and who hadn't. Branson at the Conservancy hadn't, but again, Lex rarely kept a set schedule with them. When she was around, she was as regular as clockwork and immensely useful, so they'd adjusted to her periodic, unexplained absences the way everyone else who knew her did.

  "I don't want to lie to you," Lex told her once. "You know my life is different from most. Please don't ask me to explain what I can't. I'll understand if that means you can't be my friend, but I hope that won't be the case, because I really need you to be."

  The friendship had become a permanent bond, because Clara knew Lex meant to say "want," but "need" was closer to the truth. A lot of people considered themselves Lex's friends because of that vibe she projected, but they were too dazzled by the light to delve below the surface to find out what Lex truly liked or needed.