by Judi Fennell
Livingston flew back to the rear seat, leaving feathers scattered in her lap and one sticking to her bottom lip. Val overcompensated for the heavy wrench of the steering wheel to the left with a sudden swerve to the right, spitting the feather out as she tried to look out her window.
Incoming what?
A huge splat! on her windshield answered that question.
What looked to have once been a fish obscured her view and left a lovely spider vein across the glass to match the diamond’s. Val rolled up her window, then groped for the windshield wiper while Livingston screeched from behind, giving a whole new meaning to the term “backseat driver.”
“Go left!”
Rod twisted the wheel that way before Val had a chance to process the directive. Another fish ricocheted off her side mirror.
“Right!”
Rod turned the wheel right as Val finally switched the windshield wipers on. The next fish bounced off the fender, followed by the mess of the first one.
“What’s going on?” Val hollered.
“He’s trying to run us off the road.” Rod’s voice was tight. “We’re too open. We need cover.”
“No way,” Livingston directed. “If we stop, we’ll never get rid of him. You’re going to have to do some fancy driving, Valerie.”
“I’m trying,” she muttered, zigzagging the car back and forth across the road. Thank God there was no oncoming traffic, a plus to living in the middle of nowhere that she’d never appreciated until right now, but she wouldn’t mind a tunnel or two.
“How long can he keep this up?” she asked, dodging yet another fish bomb.
“JR can fly for hours, but I can’t imagine he’s got too many missiles left. There’s a limit to how many he can carry.” Livingston hopped from one side of the backseat to the other, his beak pointed northward, scanning the sky.
“You’ve done studies?” Rod asked while she veered farther right, dodging another pothole and a few dozen cornstalks that had probably been plowed into the road by teenagers on a late-night joyride.
Stupid kids… didn’t they know she’d have to dodge an angry albatross?
“Not studies. Personal experience.” Livingston glanced out the back window. “He’s got two, maybe three left.”
Number five hit the road ahead of them, jarring the car as the tire flattened it into the asphalt.
“Son of a Mer!” Rod said. “We’re sitting ducks on this road.”
“Son-of-a-what?” Val asked, her fingers wrapped so tightly around the steering wheel they were starting to ache. “What do you suggest I do? Drive through the corn?”
Rod opened his mouth, but Val cut him off. “No way. The shocks could never take it, plus I’m not about to plow through someone’s livelihood. I’ll see how fast I can get her to go. Maybe we can outrun him. At the very least, his aim should be off.”
Wait. Had she really just said that?
She worked the car into fifth gear… and another fish bounced off the trunk.
“One left, if he had the energy,” Livingston reported from the backseat.
Val maneuvered the car back and forth across the yellow lines in no discernible pattern, hoping to prevent her windshield from cracking. Well, any more than it had. That spider vein had meandered across her line of vision.
“I can’t see him anymore.” Livingston sounded out of breath. “Rod? You?”
Rod peered through the raindrops on the windshield, then out his side window. “No. Too many clouds, but that doesn’t mean he’s not there. We have to find some way to lose him until we get to the airport.”
“Um… Rod.” Livingston hopped up to resume his feather-tip hanging position beneath the back window. “About that. I’m not so sure we want to go that route.”
“I thought the way a crow flies is the quickest way to the coast?”
“Crow, yes—especially if it’s being chased by an albatross. But people…? JR’s going to expect it, and with his state of mind these days, who knows what he’ll do?”
“State of mind? What are you talking about?” Val interrupted. Could an albatross even have a state of mind? Another feathered ability she didn’t want to contemplate.
Rod leaned toward her to look out the driver’s side window. “JR hasn’t been himself since he lost his mate in a trawling incident.”
“Trawling incident?” She tried not to take her eyes off the road to look at him—and was proud of herself for almost succeeding.
The pothole she hit signified she hadn’t completely succeeded. What did municipalities do with tax money anyway? Road repair didn’t seem to be on that list. It burned her up that the money she was racing off to get wouldn’t even benefit her.
“After that incident, JR snapped,” Livingston said. “Like a sailboat mast in a hurricane. Now he does whatever he feels like doing and doesn’t care who he hurts.”
“He’s a mercenary?” Val asked, dodging another pothole. And what was wrong with that question?
Rod, fully upright in his seat (damn), covered her hand on the stick shift (yay) and nodded. “Among other things, Valerie. He’s smart, he’s wily, and he’s got nothing to live for. A dangerous combination.”
“Which is why we can’t put anything past him.” Livingston huffed, dropping back onto the seat. “He set up an impressive network in a short time. I’ve got to come up with a way to outwit him.” The bird started pacing across the backseat and muttering to himself.
Biologists, bird experts, Darwin… they’d all have a field day with what was happening in her backseat. Her? Not so much.
You know, she’d come home to escape the drama. To stop running from a situation the minute it wasn’t to her liking. To settle down and get her life in order.
Some order. A talking seagull, an angry albatross, and a prince—of all things—who could kiss like nobody’s business.
Somehow this settling down thing wasn’t quite what she’d expected it to be.
Chapter 12
“Hello, boys.” Maybelle tried to put as much tail action into her swagger as her sparrow’s body would allow. At times like this, she wouldn’t mind being as svelte as those doves who’d come in from out of town last year for a Human wedding.
The cowbirds stopped pacing along the church’s verdigris roof. “Ma’am?”
She hated that. Made her feel like someone’s doting old auntie.
“Oh, please,” she twittered, affecting the same pose she’d seen that pristine (prissy, actually) dove do that had gotten all the males fluttering after her. “Do call me Maybelle.” She added a little blinking action, going for the dumb and wide-eyed look—also courtesy of that dove.
Either she’d done it right, or these cowbirds hadn’t seen a female in, like, forever. One of the cow-boys strutted past her, leaving the package he’d been guarding unattended.
Success.
“Hello there, Maybelle,” said the avian, “you’re looking quite pretty. Did you just moult?”
Maybelle restrained herself from laughing. Moult. Sheesh. No wonder this guy was ripe for her ploy—no way was he getting any action with that line.
But she played along, hoping the other would find her just as irresistible.
Oh, not for anything remotely physical. No, she needed the cowbirds distracted from the bags of metal tacks they were guarding so Adele could switch them out with the replacement washers and nuts they’d collected. She knew what sharp metal would do to car tires. Valerie and the Mer prince didn’t deserve that and the albatross didn’t deserve to win.
And wouldn’t she be the heroine when the girls on the park bench heard about this? They’d be a-twitter for seasons to come.
Rod couldn’t believe JR had tried to run them off the road. Oh, he understood the anger well enough. Two Mers had gotten caught in the net along with Margot, JR’s mate, and The Council hadn’
t been able to save them either. He’d been there that day but hadn’t done anything to merit the bird’s revenge.
Fishing boats were a risk; every Mer knew that. Just as they knew what to do if the unthinkable happened and they were captured. They turned into dolphins.
Besides the obvious benefit of Humans never learning of Mers’ existence, that mandate had curtailed Human fishing practices over the years, making fishing more dolphin-safe and waters more Mer-friendly. But, sadly, it hadn’t enabled those Mers who’d been trapped in the net that day to free themselves. It also hadn’t helped the Mers who’d only been able to tread water and watch in horrified silence.
JR hadn’t been silent. He’d brayed until he’d gone hoarse, but The Council hadn’t intervened. Humans could not learn of their existence, or the entire Mer world would be at risk.
Rod looked at Valerie. She was going to have a tough time believing him, which was why he couldn’t tell her the truth until he had proof. She’d never believe anything about Atlantis or Mers. Even with the “carat” he’d dangled before her, he could see her abandoning them if he began spouting mythology as fact. With JR on their tails, he couldn’t afford to lose her. Gods knew what that bird had planned.
Or, did they?
According to common theory, the gods knew all. Would they condone something like this?
Rod couldn’t imagine why. Unless they didn’t want him on the throne.
A tremor shook the road. Valerie compensated with a quick jerk of the steering wheel and a muttered curse.
Rod cursed, too, but for an entirely different reason. Was that it? Had he proved himself unworthy with that stupid dare so they’d decided to give Reel the throne?
No. Not Reel. Drake.
Drake?
He didn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe it. Sure as Hades didn’t want to believe it. He’d spent every day—every damn day—making up for his lapse in judgment. Drake, on the other fin, made more bonefish-headed decisions in a single day than he had in his entire thirty-four selinos—even if none were as grave as the exposure Rod had risked. Still, would the gods punish him, and their world, for one stupid mistake?
And why did Valerie think she was allergic to the ocean?
“What’s that truck doing?” Livingston dove from the back window to the dash, interrupting Rod’s train of thought, thank the gods.
Rod looked out the window—and wasn’t sure he should be thanking them.
A truck zigzagged haphazardly all over the road, the sound of squealing tires reaching them from twelve leagues away. “You might want to do something to catch his attention, Valerie.”
“Right.” She pressed the horn and the strident tone tore across his nerves. What he wouldn’t give to be under the sea again where sounds were as soft against the waves’ caress as her skin had been beneath his fingers.
Soon. This would all be over soon.
The truck fishtailed again, the back end swerving almost out of control. The tempo of the rain increased.
Shit! Maybe this would be over too soon. Matter of fact, it looked as if it was on course straight at them.
Valerie blasted the horn again, but the truck didn’t change lanes. And then Rod saw why.
Birds—dozens of them—of every color and size covered the truck’s windshield, their flapping wings obscuring the driver’s view.
“JR.” Rod knew the albatross had staged this as sure as he knew the tidal schedule. “Valerie, we have to get off the road.”
“I know.”
“Now.”
“I know.”
“So why aren’t you?”
“There’s a fence. You want me to go through it?”
“It’s bound to be softer than the grill of that vehicle.”
The truck was mere car-lengths away, and the noise from the flock drowned out hope of further conversation. Damn JR. That bird was too smart to be on the opposition’s side.
Who was he working for? The stakes had to be high for him to go after The Heir.
Valerie shifted gears and the car slowed. She turned the wheel to the left, angling toward the far side of the road.
The truck’s brakes peeled like a harpooned whale as the driver applied them harder, tires still squealing, the smell of burning rubber permeating the air. The monstrous piece of machinery swerved across the road, its front lights aiming right for them.
“Valerie—”
“I see it.” She slowed the car even more. “Come on, come on…”
The truck filled the width of the road, from the cab to the swerving cargo load behind it. There was no way around it.
“Valerie, are you sure—”
“No, I’m not. Do you have any other ideas? I’m all ears.”
Sweat glistened on her skin as she worked the pedals, keeping the car opposite the truck’s path. No, he didn’t have any other ideas. He had no ideas. He’d never driven one of these vehicles.
Livingston flew to the backseat and shoved his head beneath his wing.
Rod braced his arms between the dash and her seat. “You can do it,” he murmured.
She had to do it. The consequences of defeat were too horrific to contemplate. Both from a personal standpoint and a dynastic one.
“Thanks,” she muttered, but he didn’t know if it was in appreciation or sarcasm.
Then, it didn’t matter.
The roar of the birds crested, the truck’s brakes screeching above the din as it came upon them. Dozens of bird eyes honed in on them behind pointed, sharp beaks.
Valerie slammed the stick shift into a new gear with a grunt, her feet stomping the pedals, and she wrenched the wheel so the car jerked to the side. The engine protested, and the smell of the burning rubber filled the interior, but Valerie held the turn as the truck thundered past them so close Rod could feel their little vehicle shudder, every part of it straining to cling to the road and avoid the draft of the truck’s momentum.
The car fishtailed to the right, the back end skidding around with a squeal—or was that Livingston?—so they ended up facing the back end of the departing truck and Valerie brought it to a stop on the yellow lines. Gods, they’d almost…
No. He wouldn’t go there.
“You did it!” Adrenaline surging, Rod ripped off his seat belt and, without thinking about it, kissed her, sliding his hands into that glorious tumble of blonde hair, pressing her face to his, crushing her lips, plastering himself against her as she opened her mouth beneath his. Their tongues clung, teeth clinking, her fingers gripping his shoulders, and Rod angled her head to taste every corner of her mouth, to slant his lips over hers, taking her small cries inside.
He sank against her, sliding a hand down her slim back, his other hand seeking the release on her seat belt. He wanted her closer, needed to feel every inch of her against him, to know she was alive. That he was.
The belt clicked and Valerie slid in her seat, her lips not releasing his, her tongue still where he wanted it, where he could taste it, her, when a nasal cough came from the backseat.
Livingston.
Ah Zeus, they weren’t alone.
Rod gentled the kiss, his hand stroking her cheek, his breath slowing just a little.
Valerie went slack at the gull’s second cough. Her eyes opened—right there, before him, so turbulent and languorous. He would’ve sworn the two emotions could not possibly share the same space, but there they were.
“Um…”
He kissed her again quickly, then dropped a soft peck on her nose. “Don’t say anything. You did a great job. You saved us.”
“Yeah. Not bad for an amateur.” Livingston cleared his throat before wriggling beneath them to hop onto the dashboard. “You gotta give the other guy credit for that maneuver, too. He was trying to stop.”
Rod didn’t want to stop staring at her. She hadn’t l
ooked away. Her tongue made a quick appearance to dart over her lips—swollen and moist from his kiss—and all he could think about was kissing her again.
“So? What are you waiting for?” Livingston gave up coughing to tap his beak on the dashboard. “Let’s get moving, people!”
Right. Moving. They had an agenda.
Too bad it didn’t match his personal one.
Valerie’s cheeks turned pink. She fumbled with the belt and averted her eyes, but only to point at the windshield. “Oh no! The truck driver—he’s going to crash!”
“Valerie, we’ve got more important problems to worry about.” Livingston shrugged and hopped onto the stick shift, forcing Rod to resume his seat. “Let’s go.”
“‘Go’? How can you say that?” She glared at Livingston. “It’s not the driver’s fault a flock of birds showed up. It could even be argued that it’s ours.” She put the car in gear and it lurched forward. “The least we can do is be on hand to pull him out of the wreck.”
Compassion, spunk, and an ability to focus on the matter at hand; you had to love a woman like that.
Love a woman like that? Rod sat back in his seat and shook his head, staring at the raindrops that plunked rhythmically against the window. No. He couldn’t. It was just a figure of speech.
Livingston hopped between them again and stretched his bill toward the window. “Uh, Valerie?”
“I see it.”
So did Rod. About four leagues down the road, the truck was, surprisingly, still upright with the cloud of birds still hovering above it…
No, not above it.
In front of it.
The birds had moved away, in unison, from the truck.
One of the first things Rod had learned in Ornithology 101 was that different species had no instinctual compatibility to flock together. That’s what made this maneuver a surprising and impressive event.
Until he realized the reason for the impressive event was even more surprising.
The flock was now zooming straight at them.
Chapter 13
“Rod made contact.” The low-flying storm petrel gasped the words as it plowed onto the surface of the Caribbean with enough splash to alert the Humans strolling along the quay.
