by Judi Fennell
Reel patted the spot on Chum’s flat head where his sucker would’ve been if not for that unfortunate boatpropeller incident. “Because life’s an adventure, and I’m the best adventurer you know.”
InOverHerHead.indd 10
3/20/09 1:59:44 PM
In Over Her Head
11
“Idiotic daredevil is more like it, but whatever…
It beats begging for scraps from the lobsters. Talk about humiliating.”
He and Chum had seen each other around the Gulf Stream for moons, but it wasn’t until he’d heard about Chum’s accident and seen the poor guy trying to survive on his own, no longer able to attach himself to the sharks and mantas, that he’d offered him food. Chum didn’t accept charity, but a few practical jokes later, they were friends for life.
“You better cut back on the joking, buster, because you almost lost me that time. Then where would you be?” Chum asked, doing a lazy circle around Reel’s legs.
“Hey, you had a blast springing from that wreck when the girls thought they’d find some forgotten treasure. You can’t tell me you didn’t.”
“You’re right. That was fun. Alana lost a fistful of scales on that one. Has she forgiven you yet?”
Reel shook his head. “No. Just as well, anyway. She’s getting a little too interested in beaches lately.”
“She’s checking out beaches? For your kids? Is the chick insane?”
“Why wouldn’t she want my kids? I’m a good catch.”
“Yeah, especially with a name like Reel. Your dad has a wicked sense of humor.”
“This from a fish named Chum. But I turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself.”
“So much that a normal, attractive Mer is considering bearing your children.” Chum shook his head again.
“You must have sucked out her brains little by little every time you kissed her.”
InOverHerHead.indd 11
3/20/09 1:59:45 PM
Judi Fennell
12
Reel let Chum go on about the Mer. He was as tired of the subject of Alana as he was of her. Now, that Human over there, she was something else.
He didn’t know what it was about her that had caught his attention all those selinos ago, but the fascination had never gone away. She’d been adorable then, as cute as a female could be to him at that age. He’d just discovered the Human land-dwelling phenomenon when his brother had dared him to get close to the beach. When she’d put her head beneath the waves and he’d seen those eyes…
it was as if she’d put the sky underwater. He’d never forgotten them.
Nor the look of terror that had blanked out their crystalline blue when they’d popped out from the breaker. Then she’d started thrashing, turning around…
Kind of like she was doing now.
“Reel?” Chum swam in his face. “Hello? Sea to Reel?”
“What’s she doing?”
“Huh?” Chum turned around. “Leaving, maybe?”
“Not that fast. She’s scared.”
“Maybe she got a glimpse of you. That was enough to scare her once.”
“I’m not kidding.” Reel kicked his legs and headed toward her. “Something’s not right.”
“Uh, Reel…” Chum turned on the speed. “Maybe you better not get close. She could—”
“Can it, Chum!” he yelled back. “If Vincent’s up to his old tricks, I’m going to kill him this time.”
Reel kicked into high gear. That rogue better not have strayed into his territory again. The last time Vincent had killed a Human, Reel had vowed never to permit it InOverHerHead.indd 12
3/20/09 1:59:45 PM
In Over Her Head
13
again. The sounds the victim had made… the mess…
the frenzy in the waters.
His brother Rod, in the South Atlantic, didn’t mind that sort of thing. Let sharks kill there, but in these waters, Humans were safe.
Especially her.
A long shadow had passed over the dive site. The school of sea bass emptied the wreck like horses from a starting gate, aiming straight for her.
Shark!
Erica turned around, kicking as fast as she could. Thank God she hadn’t gone all the way down. Joey’s boat was only fifty feet away. She could make it. Sharks could only swim how fast?
She spit the regulator out, shoved the mask above her hairline, and pushed the hood to her crown as she cleared the surface. “Joey! Help! Shark!” She flailed toward his boat.
He leaned over, scanning the water. “I don’t see one.”
“There!” she gasped. “At the reef. Big.” A mouthful of water went down her throat as she tried to get the words out, breathe in, and heave herself toward the swim deck. “Help me aboard! Quick!”
Joey’s eyes narrowed. “Nice try, Erica, but you’ve got another fourteen minutes. Get back out there.”
“Didn’t you hear me? There’s a shark!”
He arched what she could swear was a recently waxed eyebrow. “I don’t think so. I need those diamonds, and we aren’t leaving without them. I don’t care how scared you are. It’s your fault we’re out here, so get moving!”
InOverHerHead.indd 13
3/20/09 1:59:45 PM
Judi Fennell
14
The gun made a reappearance. “Take your pick. You can be bloody shark bait, or non-bloody shark bait. It’s your decision.” He waved the gun toward the dive site.
“For God’s sake, Joey, let me up! I’ll buy you other diamonds. Bigger!”
He leaned over the platform, the gun almost touching the water. She stopped moving. “You don’t get it, Erica, I need those. My future—and yours—depend on it.”
“But. There’s. A. Shark. Help me up!” He wouldn’t do this to her. He wouldn’t leave her here. She’d done what he’d asked. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t tried—
The click, roar, and splash happened so fast she reacted before she knew anything had happened. Unfortunately, she reacted in the direction of the bullet, taking a searing bite of blistering metal to the scalp. And now, ohmygod, there was blood in the water. She was going to die. Simple as that. Mauled to death in the jaws of Jaws, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.
From somewhere above… beside… around her… she heard a slew of curses followed by the boat’s engines starting up. Yep, all three, churning the water where she was sinking.
Once more victim of Joey’s betrayal.
Her head hurt. She tried to open her eyes, but what was the point? She didn’t want to watch the shark coming. Better to go when she wasn’t expecting it. Why not just swallow enough water to drown before she felt the crush of the eighty-thousand teeth of a forty-foot killing machine?
No freakin’ way! She tried to force her eyes open. She wasn’t going to die like some sitting duck. She InOverHerHead.indd 14
3/20/09 1:59:45 PM
In Over Her Head
15
wasn’t going down without a fight, and Joseph Domenic Camparo sure-as- HELL was not going to kill her and get away with it!
She tried to kick her legs, but the fins felt like they had cement in them. If the dull, throbbing, numbing pain in her head would only stop. She tried again, but her body refused to cooperate. How was she supposed to save herself if she couldn’t move? Man, if she could just get her eyes to open… see which way was up… find her regulator… take a breath…
Then, just before unconsciousness took her away, she felt it. The thwump of the shark as it hit. Damn—instead of proving her brothers wrong about Joey and the marina, she’d just reinforced their beliefs. She was as helpless as they claimed. And she was going to die because of it. InOverHerHead.indd 15
3/20/09 1:59:45 PM
Chapter 3
“Get out of my way, Vincent.” Reel looked beyond the great white to where the woman floated behind him, a thin trail of blood leeching toward the surface.
“No way, Reel. Our deal was I
wouldn’t kill a Human in your waters. This one’s been killed for me. She’s mine. I found her first.”
“Like Hades you did. I’ve been watching her since she jumped in. Now get out of my way.”
“You think you’re the only one to see her? I had to threaten Harry off your shelf. He’d been following the boat since the harbor.”
Reel had had plenty of dealings with Hammerhead Harry. Harry wasn’t the kind of shark to follow rules. To him, they were more like guidelines. Reel was actually grateful for Vincent’s intercession—but not enough to hand her over.
“Yeah, well, I appreciate that, but we don’t know for sure she’s dead.”
“Are you kidding? A minute or two more without air, and that’ll secure it. She’s mine, Reel. Go find yourself another playmate. After all, you’ve got your pick of every fish in the sea.” Vincent turned around faster than an old white had a right to, especially one with that many scars. Vincent was a wily old shredder and knew how to get his way.
InOverHerHead.indd 16
3/20/09 1:59:45 PM
In Over Her Head
17
But Vincent didn’t know a determined Reel. That one time Reel had laid down the no-Human-poaching ultimatum, he’d surprised the big fish. Maybe earned his respect enough to try it again.
It didn’t matter, because, even if the woman was dead, he wasn’t going to let Vincent tear her apart. Reel kicked his legs. He may not have gotten the Mer tail, but the strong leg muscles definitely came in handy as he sped under Vincent’s belly, popping up in front of his scarred nose.
“Back off, Vince.”
“Make me, Spare.” All three-thousand serrated teeth showed in his grin.
The shark knew how to hit below the scale line, that was for sure. Well, if he’d had a scale line. Spare. His nickname. As in, The Heir and The. The unnecessary one. The backup. The one not destined for great things. That was him. His life in a conch shell.
“I’m not up for the chumming contest, Vince. I want to make sure she’s all right. You’re not getting her. Not this one.”
“This one? As in, there’s something special about her?” The shark snorted. “Come on, Reel. She’s a Human. They’re like bottom-feeders. Let me have her.”
“If she’s so disgusting, you don’t need her.” Reel took a chance and turned his back. Not that he really thought Vincent would do anything. Family bloodlines—
especially when your ancestor was a god—had to count for something.
He kicked out, aiming for the ocean floor. She’d been out for a minute or two. She couldn’t last much longer. Hades, it might have been too long already. InOverHerHead.indd 17
3/20/09 1:59:45 PM
Judi Fennell
18
“You’re lucky you’re in the royal family, kid,” was Vincent’s parting shot.
Reel caught her just as her flippers reached the reef. They looked grotesquely out of place on her shapely limbs—even covered as they were in the rubber suit. Her cheek was soft as it slid against his when he caught her behind her air tank and knees, cradling her against his chest. She weighed next to nothing, unlike the muscular Mers he’d dated. Her hair, though, was every bit as silky as it floated around them.
“Sweetheart, wake up,” he said, shaking her gently. Her head listed from side to side. He shook harder. She wouldn’t wake up. Damn it—she had to wake up. She couldn’t be dead.
He let her legs drift as he freed one hand to search through her billowing hair for the air hose. He found the mouthpiece and tried not to yank it through the strands tangled around it. He had to get it in her mouth, but how to do it without letting more water in?
He flipped his legs in front of him and laid her across them. If he could open her mouth with one hand and put the mouthpiece in with the other in a single movement, perhaps…
His finger snagged in the tubing. He turned it over to find a pearl-sized tear.
By the gods! He put his thumb over the small hole, but it crushed the flexible tube. He looked around. Kelp, starfish, something to wrap around it, to seal it. Son-of-a-Mer, Vincent had scared every creature into hiding, even the ones he wouldn’t eat. Reel was running out of time. He checked her pulse. Humans had them, just like Mers. He’d never InOverHerHead.indd 18
3/20/09 1:59:45 PM
In Over Her Head
19
felt one before, although he was fairly sure the sluggishness in hers was not a good sign. He had to get her out of here.
He looked up. Ninety feet of water drifted between him and the surface. Now or never.
He kicked and shot up ten feet—right into Chum’s gut.
“You can’t take her up that fast!” Chum shouted, fins gripping his hair. “You’ll kill her.”
“Get out of my way.” He tried veering around him, but Chum wouldn’t let go.
“You don’t understand. If you bring Humans to the surface too quickly, it destroys something in them. They call it the twists or the turns. Something like that. Whatever it is, they die.”
Those magic words stopped him. He tried her pulse again. It was barely there. “But she needs air. She doesn’t have long to live.”
“Use her tank.”
“There’s a hole in the tube.”
Chum released his hair and did figure eights over Reel’s head. “Well, that’s that. If you take her up, you’ll kill her—and if you keep her here, you’ll kill her. That leaves only one choice.”
“Chum, look, I—and she—don’t have time for your riddles. Move out of the way, or I’m going through you.”
He kicked again, intending to go right to the surface. He’d risk the injury.
Chum didn’t move. “Hello? Royal bloodline ring any bells? Your great-great-whatever grandfather is a god?
Is any of this making any sense?” The remora writhed back and forth so fast he could have substituted for a flag on a speedboat. “You have to turn her.”
InOverHerHead.indd 19
3/20/09 1:59:46 PM
Judi Fennell
20
“Turn her? Are you out of your mind? I can’t do that.” He kicked, ascending three feet. Again, into Chum’s gut.
“Reel, I get it. But if you don’t, she’s going to die. You can’t get her to the surface in time without killing her. You don’t have any choice.”
It did have a certain appeal. But… turn her? That would mean… “Chum, if I turn her, she can’t…”
“What? Return home? No kidding. She’s not going to anyway.”
“Yeah, but then I—”
“So you’ll have to placate the Powers-That-Be?
Big deal. What are they going to do? Cut off your legs? You’ve got to, Reel. There’s no other option.”
Chum tapped his fin against Reel’s head. “Time’s a-wastin,’ bro.”
As if to clarify that statement, the woman shuddered in his arms. Her head drifted back, and one tiny air bubble escaped her lips. Reel pressed his fingers to her neck again. Her pulse was gone.
His decision was made. Reel pulled her against him and kissed her. Long, hard, driven to compel his own life force into her lungs.
To adjust her breathing.
To turn her.
InOverHerHead.indd 20
3/20/09 1:59:46 PM
Chapter 4
Reel carried the woman toward his home. Had he done the right thing? The Powers-That-Be were not going to be happy. There was going to be Hades to pay.
“So where are her fins?” Chum swam up on his right.
“I told you. She doesn’t get any.”
“But I thought when you turned a Human, they—”
“Their lungs are able to breathe oxygen from water, Chum. Just like me and the rest of the Mers. That and they get the ability to see, speak, and hear underwater. But she doesn’t get fins.” If he couldn’t have them, it’d be really unfair for turned Humans to get them. Reel blew through a school of herring, their silver scales sparkling like a burst of moon-gl
ow around them.
“Seems kinda unfair. They can’t keep up with the rest of you if, say, Harry gets a hankering for a tasty meal.”
“Harry’s going to keep his rectangular head out of my territory, if he knows what’s good for him.”
He angled down to a lower trench, skimming above a family of starfish out for a slow slink across a rusted ship anchor.
Those earlier Humans hadn’t been too bright about sailing. His great-great-grandfather had told him hundreds of stories about drowning people being saved by dolphins. Well, what they’d thought had been dolphins.
“So, now what are you going to do with her? When she wakes up, she’s going to have a ton of questions.”
InOverHerHead.indd 21
3/20/09 1:59:46 PM
Judi Fennell
22
“And whose brilliant idea was it to turn her?” Reel glanced at her face, now restful in sleep rather than death, her chest rising and falling like his own. Her lungs were working perfectly.
“Hey, don’t look at me. You could have let her drown.”
“Like that had been a choice.” But, oh, was he in for it when The Council heard about this. Turning a Human was expressly forbidden. No one had turned any since the massive sea-serpent hunts two hundred selinos ago. A Human had changed his mind about living under the waters and told his kind about Mers, which caused the Great Exodus from coastlines. Before that, they’d enjoyed hanging out on nice sunny beaches among the seals, swimming in the surf, and passing themselves off as dolphins for the local legged folk, but that mass hunting of his kind had sent them to the ocean depths. Then Humans had come up with all sorts of gadgets for exploring the sea bottom. Massive trolling nets, submarines, sonar, scuba gear… it was difficult to live a normal life anymore. No late-night jumping contests in the shoreline surfs—not unless they were uninhabited islands, and where was the fun in that? And even though he physically looked like a Human, his parents had grounded him for risking such exposure at their crowded beaches. And for good reason. No Human could know Mers existed, or they’d be out on their ships in no time. With the technology they had today, an intensive hunt could lead to an intensive slaughter.
