by Kelly, Holly
***
A whispered breath against Sara’s face let her know that someone was very close.
“Sara. You’re safe now.” Xanthus’s voice, so terrifying just a moment ago, was now feathery soft.
Against her better judgment, Sara’s fear turned to relief. A sob shook her chest as Xanthus’s arms surrounded her. Her hands clawed their way around his neck as she clung to him and cried.
“Shh. It’s all right. You’re safe.” He stroked her hair.
What was she thinking? This man was dangerous, a murderer. Still, she couldn’t seem to help herself. Even though he’d just killed three men, in his arms she felt safe, protected.
Sara was obviously just as crazy as he was.
“Come on. Let’s get you out of here.” Xanthus slipped his hand underneath her and lifted her off the rocky ground. She kept her arms tight around his neck and tucked her head in the crook of his shoulder.
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t here to protect you,” he said. “I never should have left you. I won’t make that mistake again. Tonight you’ll stay at my place and rest. Then I’ll decide what’s to be done.”
“Your place?” Sara’s head shot up. “Please, Xanthus, I want to go home. I’d just like to climb under my blankets and try to forget what happened here.”
“Sara.” Xanthus frowned. “Since I found you, I’ve spent day and night watching you, worried about you. And if you think I’d take you home and leave you unprotected after you were nearly murdered… Great gods of Olympus. I leave you for a short assignment and look what happened.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but you have to see this from… wait a minute. You went on an assignment? Why didn’t you tell me? I thought you were angry with me, that you weren’t talking to me.”
“You thought I was angry with you?”
“Yes. Well, if you weren’t angry, why didn’t you call me? Or tell me where you were going?”
“I… I didn’t think of it. I’m sorry if you were upset.”
“I didn’t say I was upset. If you want to leave without a word, it doesn’t mean a thing to me. I mean, it’s not like we’re in a relationship.” Sara felt as if she might start crying again.
“Oh Sara, I wasn’t angry with you, I was angry with myself. And I’m sorry I didn’t call you.”
“Wait a minute.” She whipped her head around. “We passed my wheelchair.”
“I’ll come back for it later.” He shrugged, heading in the direction of the parking lot.
“Oh, no you won’t. I can’t leave it out here. Someone will steal it.”
Xanthus sighed, turned back, and stepped toward the chair. Blue lights flashed through the trees.
“Is that the police?” Sara asked.
“Looks like it.”
“Of all the times for them to show up in this neighborhood. They never have before. Oh no, they’re going to arrest you for murder, aren’t they? I mean when they find the bodies.”
“There are no bodies.” Xanthus said.
“Then you didn’t kill them?”
“No, I didn’t.” He sighed.
Sara was elated. “Then where are they? Maybe Slink called the police. But that’d be stupid. They were the ones trying to kidnap me.”
“Sara, as much as I’d love to continue this conversation, I think we’d better get out of here. I’m supposed to keep a low profile.”
Xanthus sat her down in the wheelchair, lifted both her and her chair off the ground, and headed back toward the beach. “Hey, where are we going?”
“We need to get out of here.”
“But this path leads to the ocean.” Sara’s heart started pounding.
“Exactly.” Xanthus’s eyes focused on her, his voice firm. “I’m a very strong swimmer. And I’m sure you’ll find you are too.”
“Oh no, I am not. Listen, I don’t know what you think I am, but I definitely don’t swim.” Sara looked down at her fin in shock. She curled it under the chair, trying to hide it.
“I know exactly what you are and you are built to swim.”
“No, I am not. I have a deformity…”
Xanthus’s growl stopped Sara mid-sentence. “Don’t ever say that again. You are perfectly formed.”
The man was insane. He really was.
Xanthus and Sara reached the shore. Sara’s eyes were wide as she gulped in gasps of air. The surf looked like a great beast that threatened to devour her. Xanthus strode toward it, fearless.
Sara’s chest squeezed the breath right out of her as panic set in. Xanthus lowered her and her chair down to the sand. He stripped out of his clothes and stepped into the lapping water. It was a testament to how terrified she was that she didn’t give his amazing body a thought as she sucked in air and tried to wheel through the thick sand, attempting to escape.
The water began to churn and bubble. “You might want to close your eyes. You don’t want to see this.”
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she heard what he said, but she didn’t pay much attention to it. She was too busy trying to get away. All she could think about was the thundering sound of the surf and the giant, threatening waves. Sara started to sob as her chair refused to budge. In desperation, her eyes locked onto Xanthus as she sat, petrified.
Xanthus bent forward, groaning in agony, and squeezed his arms around his chest. His growl increased in volume and then turned into a shriek as the skin on his legs ripped open, peeling back to expose slick, red muscles and white tendons.
Sara gasped in horror at the grotesque sight, the ocean waves suddenly forgotten. Each of Xanthus’s muscles pulsed and throbbed as they grew and morphed. Muscles and tendons snaked around Xanthus’s exposed legs, wrapping them from front to back as if they were tying his legs together.
Gray skin rippled down from his waist, covering the exposed flesh all the way to his ankles. Below his ankles, the white bones of his feet had torn through his skin and stretched like skeletal branches. The bones were soon connected with white elongating tendons and then covered by the advancing grey skin forming a great fin.
When the transformation was complete, Xanthus’s head flew back as he shouted in triumphant. Shock-driven adrenaline jolted Sara’s body. Xanthus looked magnificent and ferocious. It was like coming face to face with a vicious shark.
Sara opened her mouth to scream but the scream choked off when the recognition hit her. She sat frozen, her mouth agape. Xanthus’s fin was much like her own deformed legs—the same shape, the same form. The only difference was that hers was flesh colored and his was grey. He must be… a merman? And if that were true, was she really a mermaid?
Sara sat stunned.
She’d never known a merman could look so deadly. Sara’s eyes rose to his face. Xanthus looked apprehensive, as if he sensed her alarm. When she saw his trepidation, her fear melted away. This was Xanthus, the man who had been watching over and protecting her since the moment they’d met. He might look lethal, but he would never hurt her.
Sara shut her mouth and swallowed. Her eyes, burning with curiosity, brushed over his body in a careful examination. Xanthus was amazing. The skin on his upper body was tanned, muscled, smooth, and hairless. His lower body was dark grey, almost black. His fin looked long and muscular. It fanned out darkly in the sandy surf. He was wearing a wide, gold belt at the waist that matched the gold armbands around his biceps. However incredible his form may have been, what was even more amazing was the fact that he was suspended in the air.
This merman could fly.
“Are you a…?” Sara licked her parched lips.
“Dagonian. We’re both Dagonians. Well, you’re half. But you’re the perfect image of one, except for your blue eyes. Dagonians only have dark brown eyes.”
“So I’m not a mermaid?”
“No, you’re not. The children of Triton are extinct—killed off two thousand years ago at the command of Poseidon, Triton’s own father and King of the Greek sea gods. You’re a descendant of the unlikely union of the
gods Dagon and Calypso. Dagon is a sea god in the Sumerian pantheon. Calypso is a sea goddess of the Greek pantheon.”
“Oh, well that that clears everything up,” she said.
Sara’s heart took off in a sprint when Xanthus approached her. She guessed her heart hadn’t yet gotten the news that he wasn’t a threat to her. Xanthus leaned down, wrapped his arm around her waist, and lifted her out of her chair. Her tail brushed his for a moment. His fin felt rough like sandpaper, where hers was soft, smooth, and no different in texture and color from the rest of her skin.
In one quick move, Xanthus flung her beloved wheelchair a mile out to sea. Okay, maybe it wasn’t a mile, but this Dagonian had incredible strength.
“What did you do that for?” Sara asked, breathless.
He put his hand under the backside of her fin and lifted her into a cradle hold. “We can’t leave any sign that we were here.”
“Xanthus, please. I really can’t swim. In fact, I’m terrified of the water.” Sara realized where he was about to take her.
“You’re going to have to trust me. You can do this.” Xanthus’s confidence was apparent.
Sara shook her head, tears welling in her eyes. “No, I can’t. I really can’t go in the water. I’d rather you make me disappear like you did those three men.”
“Sara, don’t be ridiculous. We don’t have far to go.”
“Please, don’t make me do this,” she said, going into full panic mode. Xanthus raised an eyebrow at her protests.
“Can you breathe underwater?” he asked.
“Oh no, please no. It’s the most horrible thing imaginable.”
Xanthus must have taken that for a yes, because the next thing Sara knew, she was headed straight for the water. Before she could scream, they broke through the water’s surface. It washed over her face and body, enveloping her in a black nightmare.
At once, she was fighting him with everything she had. Bubbles churned around them as she struggled, squirmed, clawed, and ran out of air. In one great terrible gulp, she took in a lungful of water.
Then she fought harder.
Xanthus had a tight grip around Sara’s waist as she battered his chest and clawed at his face. He responded by releasing one of his arms from around her waist in order to pin her arms down. Now all she had was her fin, which she flailed with all her might, scraping it against his sandpaper skin. She was raw emotion, raw terror.
After a long time of desperate struggles, exhaustion eventually wore her out and Sara was left so weak she couldn’t move. Sobs shook her chest as unrecognized tears floated from her eyes into the seawater.
When she’d cried all the tears she had, the haze of fear lifted and she was left feeling drained–emotionally and physically exhausted. Even holding her head in place was too much of an effort and her head bobbed back and forth in time with the strokes of Xanthus’s tail. It was a relief when she felt his hand press her cheek into his chest.
It was a long time before the strained breaths of water began to pass more easily in and out of her lungs. Then a miracle occurred. Her fear melted completely away and she relaxed in his arms.
She could hear Xanthus’s watery breaths. They were smooth, even, and slow. It was pitiful that as hard as she fought, he wasn’t even winded. Or would the correct term be “watered?”
Sara was soothed by the rhythmic stroke of his fin. With her ear at his chest, she heard the steady beating of his heart. Those thump, thump, thumping sounds relaxed her even more. She closed her eyes just to rest them for a moment. Even her eyes were tired.
“Sara?” Underwater, the tones of Xanthus’s voice woke her up. She hadn’t even realized she’d fallen asleep. How much time had passed? It didn’t feel like too long.
“Sara? Are you all right?” He spoke again. His voice hummed in the water and was laced with real concern.
Sara knew he was waiting for a response. Her first instinct was to give him the silent treatment. After what he’d put her through, he didn’t deserve an acknowledgement. However, Sara was curious to see what her own voice sounded like underwater. She wasn’t going to let him off the hook yet, so she settled on, “I’m not talking to you.” Her voice sounded not only weak, but also strange and foreign.
Sara felt his chest shaking and heard a low rumble.
“Oh no, you did not just laugh me.” Anger seemed to give her strength. “You heartless beast. You think my situation is funny? You didn’t even know if I could breathe underwater, but here we are anyway. I could have died.”
“You said that breathing underwater was horrible. That meant you could do it. I would have never…”
“Did I say I could?” Sara interrupted. “You assumed. Thank heaven you assumed right or I would be dead. And I told you I was terrified of the water. I can’t believe you pulled me under anyway.”
“Sara, I would never have let you drown. I know it was terrifying, but it worked, didn’t it? Are you still afraid?”
Sara couldn’t think of a thing to say about that. She wasn’t about to admit he might be right. Instead, she changed the subject. “Where is your house? It’s in the Pacific ocean, isn’t it?”
“Actually, it’s in the Mediterranean Sea. Remember?”
“What? We aren’t swimming there, are we?”
“No, we aren’t swimming to the Mediterranean.” She heard the smile in his voice and was angry all over again.
“Ouch,” he said.
Oh, yeah. She pinched him. Hard too, which was about all she could do. It wasn’t her fault he was stronger than she was. Xanthus let the pinch slide without a comment.
“We’re going to my houseboat, near Waikiki.”
“Waikiki? What is taking us so long? We should have been there hours ago,” she said, exaggerating.
“We took the scenic route.”
The faint glow of a boat appeared in the distance. As they got closer, Sara made out more boats lined up in a row. “How are we going to get on your boat without anyone seeing us?”
“I have a hatch that opens up from underneath. No one will see us.” Xanthus swam up to the boat closest to them and farthest from shore. Underneath, she could make out a dark, round door.
He positioned them below the door, pushed open the hatch, and swam straight up. His head broke the surface of the water a fraction of a second before hers. As she breathed out, ocean water poured from her mouth and down her body. The next breath she took in filled her lungs with warm, humid air. It felt so good to breathe air again.
The room they were in was dark with no windows and a sealed door was just ahead of them. Xanthus closed the lid on the hatch they had passed through and turned a handle to lock it in place. The room was now pitch black, but Xanthus seemed to know exactly where to go. Without hesitation, he moved over to the sealed door and opened it.
He reached down under Sara’s fin and once again lifted her up into a cradle hold. In a smooth motion, they were moving through the door. He turned and sealed it shut. They were traveling through what looked to be the main living area, dripping water all along the way. For a houseboat, it was incredibly spacious. Or maybe Sara was just used to her tiny apartment.
It was also very masculine, with dark, knotted, wood-paneled walls. Sconces shaped like old lanterns gave the room a warm glow. The windows were covered with blinds and shut tight. Sparse, oversized furniture was placed randomly throughout the room—a huge leather couch, a large, flat-screen television, a table with two matching chairs. That was about it.
The few items Xanthus had looked expensive and there was not much in the way of a décor theme. It was a typical bachelor pad. Actually, this was the first bachelor pad she’d been in. But it’s what she would have expected.
Xanthus sat Sara down on his leather couch. As soon as he moved away, she began to shiver. It felt a little chilly but she guessed her tremors were coming more from shock than the cool air.
“I’ll be right back,” Xanthus said.
Sara nearly fell off the couch as
she leaned forward to get a better look at him as he moved. Her eyes widened in shock. Instead of the vertical walking movements she was used to, he appeared to swim through the air. It looked surreal and amazingly cool.
Xanthus passed through the door of his bedroom and out of sight. She heard a tortured growl. Again, she leaned forward, clutching the arm of the couch. “Xanthus? Are you all right?” He didn’t answer right away. For several moments, she was worried. When she was about shout out again, Xanthus walked back in the room wearing a plush red robe. His legs were back. How in the heck did he do that?
Sara sure wished she knew. Her heartbeat picked up as she considered the possibility that he might know how she could grow two normal legs. Could it be possible?
Xanthus had a white robe clutched in his hands. Sara slipped her arms in the oversized sleeves and belted the robe around her waist.
Okay, now that she was clothed and safe, she needed some answers. Sara shot a glare in Xanthus’s direction. “All right, Mr. Dimitriou, it’s time for you to answer a few questions.” She had a million. Her first one was a no-brainer. “How in the world are you able to grow legs?”
“They’re a gift from Triton. When I’m on dry land, I have legs. When I enter the ocean, I get my fin back.”
“Triton, huh? You don’t think he would ever…”
Xanthus frowned and shook his head.
That would be a no. Triton would not be giving her legs. Well, that stunk, but it wasn’t like she knew what she was missing. She’d spent her life in a wheelchair. She guessed she would be staying in one. Still, that one glimmer of hope that had come and gone so quickly was devastating.
Xanthus frowned, pity written across his face. Like he cared anyway, Mr. Nice-one-minute-Jerk-the-next.
“I get it, no legs for me,” Sara said. “I do have one question I need to ask you.”
She pulled her hair back to keep it from getting the back of her robe wet. “Do you have a towel?”
“A towel? That’s your one question?” Xanthus smiled.
