His nearness disconcerted me, so I moved farther inside, not daring to look around, afraid he would change his mind about my presence. He placed the bottle on the counter and dropped his fedora beside it.
“What about my confession?”
He eased the hatch closed behind him and then turned toward me. “Well, there is that.”
I twisted my fingers together in front of me. “That has to count for something.”
“You didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know.”
“But I knew that the Boss sealed my memories of her, knowing that Jane might see them otherwise.”
He sighed. “You raise a good point, but then I have to ask.” He crossed into a kitchen, opened a wooden cabinet, and retrieved two short glasses. They clinked as he placed them on the counter.
“Ask what?”
“Why?”
“Why?” I hazarded a glance around the warm room. A fire blazed in an inset, tiled fireplace, a wrought iron arm held a black kettle over the flames. It reminded me of a country cottage. It didn’t look anything like a warship. It was like stepping inside of Lev’s dream of perfect.
“Why would you entice us into a trap and then confess?” He tapped his chin. “What would be the reward that you’re hunting for here?”
Just like that…
Lev handed me the opportunity to talk about Shannah. My throat closed and tears flooded my eyes. I could kiss him. If I didn’t dissolve in a weeping mess.
“She has my sister.”
He froze. “Your sister?”
“My sister, Shannah. The Boss has her in a cave. It’s how she coerced me into doing what she wanted. I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
He smoothed his hand over his chin, his expression thoughtful. “A cave? Do you know where the cave is?”
I shook my head, slowly. “I’ve seen the place before, but I can’t remember.” I sniffed. “There’s so much I can’t remember.”
He poured something amber-colored into both glasses and handed one to me. “You talk. I serve.”
I took the glass with a small nod.
He raised his beverage and clinked it against mine. He took a drink, deposited his on the table, and then moved to the kettle over the fire. When he removed the thick lid, a fresh wave of savory deliciousness filled the air. He took a pot holder from the mantle and lifted the pot, carrying it carefully into the kitchen.
“What did you make?”
“Soup.” He pulled two round loaves from a different cabinet, and the crust crinkled as he pulled out the insides.
I took a sip of my drink. My eyes bulged when the burn splashed against the back of my throat. “I wasn’t expecting that.”
“She has a bit of bite at first, but most good things do.” He ladled thick liquid into each one. “We had a deal. I serve. You talk. Tell me about Shannah.”
“I don’t live on Unseen Street.” I bit my bottom lip. “I only knew where the apartment was because she planted the map in my brain.”
He added salt and pepper to each bowl. “Go on.”
I took another drink, but the burn was a little less than the first time. “That’s why I don’t smell like magic. I’ve never been there before. I don’t know who it belonged to before we got there.”
“But you knew where the toy would be?”
I tapped my temple and tilted my head to the side. “Implanted.”
Lev placed each bowl on a small china plate and set them at the dining room table. He filled two goblets with water, placing one at each seat. He pulled out a chair and gestured to the empty seat. “Come. Eat.”
As I settled in the spot, he handed me a cloth napkin and a carved spoon, fashioned with the same level of attention that every other item in his quarters displayed.
He took his seat and leaned toward me. His gaze dipped to the bowl. “Please.”
I dipped the utensil in the thick, white soup, savoring the scent of it. So many seasonings that I didn’t recognize. Blowing on the thick soup, I asked, “What is it?”
“Clam chowder.”
The bite melted over my tongue, buttery and liquid velvet. “I’ve never tasted anything like it.”
“Is that good?” He cared what I thought.
“Yes.” I think I would have told him that whether it was true or not.
“You can use the bowl to dip in it, too.” He reminded me of Shannah’s son, showing his newest underwater talent. Endearing.
Trusting Lev wasn’t a mistake. Jason might be a different story. Same for Woe and Vic. But Lev was a man worth betting on. I could tell that much. This moment could have been so different if we’d met on a beach somewhere. So… better.
“Go on,” he said, and took his own bite.
I sighed and closed my eyes to replay the memory. “I woke up on a rickety dock near the water, trapped in a see-through box. I could see New Haven City in the background. A woman was there. I couldn’t see her face well. She created a portal and showed me Shannah.”
The image clouded out everything else in my mind, replaying, stirring the same horror I’d felt back in the glass coffin. Convulsions rolled through me, and an abyss circled my thoughts. I wouldn’t be able to save her. I wouldn’t be able to do what I had to do. I might lose Shannah forever. My nephews would never see their mother again.
Warmth wrapped my hand, providing an anchor in the emotional hurricane. The sensation pulled me back from the edge. I opened my eyes to find his hand on mine.
My chin quivered, but now that I was telling him the story, I had to finish it. I needed Lev to know. “Wherever Shannah was—a cave somewhere—she was terrified.” My voice cracked. “Her captors torture her. She’s in pain.”
Lev pursed his lips, studying my face.
I shifted in my seat and broke a piece from the bread bowl. His scrutiny made me uncomfortable.
“May I ask a personal question?”
I smiled at that. “Aren’t we past that? I think everything is personal now.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “What are you?” He asked without preamble.
“I am a mermaid.”
He wiped his mouth. “But not a siren?”
I scrunched my nose. “I’ve never enjoyed eating raw food.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I hope that’s a joke.”
I shrugged. My appetite dwindling. “Maybe.”
“What about Sushi?”
“I’ve never had it, so I can’t say.”
The conversation went on. Lev asked easy questions and turned the conversation light-hearted. When I leaned away from the table and crossed my legs, my anklet bumped against my chair. A sharp pain shot across my skin, and I hissed a little at the sensation.
Lev nodded toward the anklet. “What’s that?”
“It’s the reason I can’t shift. Why I can’t try to find Shannah myself. After I passed out on the dock, she clamped it around my ankle, and I can’t use magic to shift. I can’t use magic at all. It hurts too much.” I scowled at my ankle. “At least until I healed you.”
Somehow it keeps tabs on me, too.”
His eyebrows climbed his forehead.
I scowled. “Except down here.”
“Vic has a dampening field set up to mask the Cavern and the Athenaeum. I’m sure it interferes with the signal.”
I stuck out my ankle. “It’s the main reason I didn’t throw myself over the railing.” I studied it, once again wondering what the intricate designs meant. “Well, this and…”
“Jason,” Lev said.
“And Jason.” I scowled. “Why does he run so fast?”
Lev’s mouth twisted in a half-smile. “Jason has his own secrets.”
We stared at one another for several minutes. His lips looked so soft. I’d never met a man like him.
“What are you?”
“I’ve been called Leviathan, Moby Dick, and once I think I swallowed a man.” He let out a long, stuttering sigh. “I am a whale shifter that’s lost his shifting magic. The
ocean calls to my soul, but I’ll never again sink beneath her depths to lose myself in her current.”
His sadness permeated the air, and I laid my hand over his, returning the strength he’d loaned me.
We sat like that for a while. Lev, staring at my hand, Me, staring at Lev.
Finally, he drew a cigar from his pocket, bit off the end, and placed it in his mouth. He retrieved the lighter and used it to ignite the end. He puffed, long and slow.
“Tell me about your mad dash toward the water fountain,” he said.
“I wanted to throw myself over the railing. I’ve never been one for leading men to their deaths.”
He chuckled. “Our deaths, is it?” He scooped the last spoonful of chowder into his mouth. “Do you think so little of our skills?”
“Do you think you have what it takes to beat her?”
He pushed his chair back, and the surfaces of his face became granite. “For your sake. For Shannah’s sake. For all of us, I pray so.”
24
Maybe Together
Lev
Our Lady of the Park, Catholic Cathedral, New Haven City
I reached across the table for Mara’s place setting. “Finished?”
Her tongue darted out of her mouth and smoothed over her lips. “It was delicious.”
I had baked two large round loaves of sourdough and meant to give them to Vic when she got back from a planned trip to the Himalayas.
By the time I’d remembered them, they’d turned stale. The oversight turned them into the perfect bowls for the creamy chowder and an impromptu questioning.
I reached for my dish and the serving plate from the center of the table.
“Would it be alright if I had another Sushi roll before we put everything away?” She pointed at the dish in my hand. “They don’t have food like this on Unseen Street.”
I returned it to the table and took my food remains into the kitchen, glad I hadn’t asked her about taking her dishes yet. When I returned, I settled in my chair. Stuffed with lightly smoked fish and rice, I puffed on my cigar. “What do you mean?”
“This tastes like...” She studied the wall. “Home. The kind of food we eat there.”
I handed her the tray with the Sushi rolls. “That’s probably the best compliment I’ve ever received.”
She sat close enough that I could smell her perfume. Though, I wasn’t convinced she wore a fragrance at all. The heady scent belonged to her, made wholly of her.
I didn’t know what to do with her.
The sum of it, all of her… It was more than I knew how to process.
For every question I’d plied her with, she’d answered as honestly as she could. The drink made sure of that. The revelation amplified the guilt of my deception. Jason would understand my reasoning. Vic and Woe would not. I hoped I would never have to tell them.
“Are you alright?” She dropped her gaze toward the plate and poked at the smoked tuna rolls.
My heart swelled. Every word she spoke endeared her to me even more. “Yes, I’m fine.”
She tore pieces off the top edge of the bowl and slipped them between her lips. Her lovely lips.
From a distance, Mara repeated a question, and I cleared my throat, hoping she didn’t see the red that rushed to my face. My musings had turned explicit, and she’d caught me.
I startled. “What did you say?”
She tilted her head to the side, but her silvery eyes twinkled. “I said, did you decorate your home?”
I scanned the room. “Not much like the Athenaeum or the Cavern, is it?”
She shook her head from side to side.
“Through the years, as my memory returns to me, I remodel it to resemble the last time I was happy and the home I lived in then.”
“It’s been a while?” Her timid touch proved to be a solace in a tidal wave.
“Lifetimes.” True or not, it felt that way. Depending on the reference used, it was true. Two mortal lives, and I remained. The whale shifter who couldn’t change.
My room had slowly evolved from the metal deck and bulkhead of officers’ quarters on a warship into a replica of the home I had shared with Anne in New Berm. The one large area comprised a kitchenette, a living room, and a dining room.
The tiger-striped maple table boasted a pair of matching chairs, which I had built in my excess of spare time. I’d laid a hearth out of brick and fired stone and hung a pot crane, complete with a cast iron Dutch oven. In an unhurried life, I had been able to afford to do things in a way that pleased me and filled me with an abiding nostalgia.
“It’s lovely,” she said, still picking at her food.
“We’ll save Shannah.”
She stabbed the at the bread bowl, and tears clouded her eyes. “You can’t be sure.”
“But we’ll try. It’s who we are. Hope moves mountains, and the Keepers are good at moving them.” Anything could be salvaged. She had to know that.
“Do you ever wonder if you’ve made the right choice, Lev?” She tucked the last roll into her mouth.
“Often.”
“What’s a for-instance?” she asked.
“I should never have gone on the whaling boat, despite Anne’s insistence.”
“Anne?” Mara asked, her eyebrows drawing low over the eyes that reminded me so much of a former love.
“My wife,” I said, drawing my hand back. “She was the only woman I ever loved.”
“Do you regret leaving her?”
“Every day,” I said. “She had a sweet way about her.” So much like you. The words danced on the tip of my lip, but saying them out loud filled me with nerves.
Mara’s chin trembled as she studied her lap. “Not like me, Lev.”
“Stop. It’s useless to go down that path.” I knew it too well. It led to never-ending sorry. “Finished?”
She nodded without looking up. Water droplets fell into her lap. I didn’t know what to do, but she saved me from making a fool of myself. She sniffed and then dashed at the leftover moisture on her cheeks. Then she tipped her chin up and plastered a smile in place. Yet the lines around her mouth were drawn tight as though she was fighting words that needed to be said.
“Are you alright?” I asked.
“I’m fine,” she said, her harsh voice clipped.
I frowned. Definitely not fine.
Softer, she said, “I’m tired. So, tell me, how many rooms are there?” she asked, taking another bite.
Taking another puff of my seaweed cigar, I said, “This one and a modern bathroom.”
She glanced around. “Do you have a bedroom?”
I choked on a mouthful of smoke. It exited my nose and made my eyes water. “Why would you ask that?”
“Do you sleep?”
“Oh.” Sleeping was not what my mind jumped to, and a hot flush crept over my face. Over one hundred and fifty years since I… “Yes, I sleep.”
Mara stood and moved to a bench near the hearth, holding her hands over the warmth of the fire I kept lit. Her hips swayed when she walked, the waist of her skirt accentuating the curves of her body, and I drifted back to wondering what lied beneath her façade. In more ways than one.
“Why else would I ask?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” But I did know what I hoped initially—the desire my thoughts had jumped to, and it shamed me. I didn’t know Mara. I hadn’t known her long enough.
But that was the way it had been with Anne. Love at first sight.
I could love Mara. If I wanted. It was reckless. I didn’t know her at all.
Anne had drawn me onto the land to live as a mortal. I had gone willingly, living as her husband, knowing the risks of leaving the ocean behind. The longer I stayed away from the sea, the stronger the enchantment became. A whale shifter belonged in the water. On the boat, riding beside the school of whales, I couldn’t deny who I was.
Mara twisted in her seat, turning to study me, and I drowned in the depths of her eyes, caught in the undertow of her.
<
br /> My pulse beat a staccato tempo in my eardrum. I had loved Anne in an instant. Mara was so different, but my heart resonated with her as deeply as it had with Anne.
Anne, forgive me. God, forgive me.
I could love Mara without trying.
Mermaid. Not siren. Mara had made the distinction.
She was a mate fit for a whale shifter who could shift. Not me. Broken as I was, I could never join her in her world. I could never swim with her there. I would be confined to the beach, waiting for her return when deep waters called her name.
The revelation doused my hope and aged me a millennia. My shoulders drooped.
Mara frowned. “What is it?”
“Daydreams of an old man. Nothing to worry yourself over.” I sounded weak and thin, emptied out of life.
She didn’t look like she believed me, but she ran a slender hand over her braid. “Do you have a comb I could borrow?”
Not trusting my voice, I nodded and pointed to the small entrance to the bathroom.
“Thank you.” She crossed the room and gently closed the door closed behind her.
Get ahold of yourself, Lev.
I busied myself by washing the few dishes, stacking them on a hand towel to dry. My mind stuck in circle thoughts about Mara. Questions aside, a beautiful woman wouldn’t be interested in an old salty dog like me.
“May I see the rest?”
Mara’s voice startled me. I hadn’t heard her come from the bathroom, and I knocked two plates together in my haste to spin around.
It was an odd question to ask. The only thing left to show her was the bedroom.
She waited on the threshold of the bathroom. She’d loosed her hair, and it flowed over bare shoulders, hanging down to her waist. She wore only a thin-strapped camisole that hid nothing and a pair of thin cotton panties. Her legs were bare, long and lovely. She was as perfect as any rendering of Venus, but beneath the softness, something fierce snapped. And, for a moment, I wished I could see her in the surf, finned and dripping in magic. The image thrilled me, and blood roared through me.
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