by Michele Hauf
After taking a drink of her beer, she uncrossed her ankles and placed her bare feet onto the filthy bar floor. She was preparing to stand, to search out this new man, when she saw him crossing the room toward her.
She smiled. This one was coming to her.
As he approached, she studied him, looking for some sign that he was different from the others. She'd tried eight so far, each younger and, from outward appearance, stronger than the last, but none had survived her test. None had lasted the quarter of an hour Sarina considered the minimum she would need to trick the sea hag into thinking she had brought the old goddess what she demanded—a man who could live out his life beside her under the sea.
This man was tall with broad shoulders that tapered to an athletic waist. Trim and fit—neither signs he possessed the talent Sarina needed. He was handsome too, with rugged features and a cleft in his chin. The hag, like all sea beings, appreciated beauty. So, his looks were a plus, but neither that, nor the confident way he prowled forward, were enough.
He had to be able to stay alive in the sea hag’s home long enough for Sarina to swim away with the soul.
As he moved closer, Sarina spun in her seat to face him. "Are you looking for me?"
He paused, surprise registering on his face. Like the others, he'd probably taken her soft features and feminine form as some sign she would be submissive, an easy target for whatever caused him to search her out.
But mermaids, nixies, none of their kind, were submissive or easy targets.
She stood, sweeping her waist-length hair behind her. The long shirt she'd taken from her last failed candidate fell open over one bare shoulder and the dungarees she'd belted at her waist slipped. Annoyed with the human clothing, she undid the belt with one hand and let the pants fall to the ground.
Stepping out of them, she moved forward.
She trailed her fingers over the newcomer's chest as she walked around him, appraising. "What did the bartender tell you?" This man was the first to come to her. The others she had searched out. They had come willingly enough, of course, but they hadn't walked into the bar looking for her, as she suspected this male had.
"I need a guide," murmured.
His chest and back were layered with muscle. She paused for a second to lay her palm flat, over his heart. Its beat was slow, slower than any she had felt before. Her brows pulled forward, and confused, she took a step back to study him again.
He was not a merman come to land, or a selkie. Her fortune couldn't be that great. Or poor—another creature like herself would be harder to fool, harder to mesmerize into thinking he was in love with her, and harder to convince to accompany her on her journey to see the sea hag.
"What type of guide?" she asked, for the moment making no effort to charm him in any way. She wanted to hear the answer he intended to give, not one put into his mind by spell.
"I have business at sea." He paused, and she sighed. Nothing special after all.
"With the sea hag," he added.
Sarina's body stiffened, and she stepped back, studying him again. "You know Melusine?"
"My business is just that...business. I have no prior connection with the hag...Melusine."
Sarina tilted her head. Ordinary humans didn't know of Melusine, or if they did, thought her nothing but legend. But this man before her wasn't selkie or merman, so what could he be? What was his story?
She inhaled, checking for the scent of the sea.
Sadly, or luckily, she wasn't sure which yet, he smelled no more of the ocean than any of the unbathed seafarers seated at the tables nearby. He didn't, however, smell entirely human either. There was something different about him, but Sarina couldn't peg what it was.
"As it happens, I'm in need of a companion myself," she replied, keeping her tone neutral.
He smiled, confident, like a man used to getting his way. "So I heard. That is, then, fortunate for us both, isn't it?"
Perhaps. Sarina still didn't trust that her luck had finally changed. "Can you swim?" she asked. All said they could, but none really knew what they might expect to encounter in a journey to Melusine's home.
Like the others, he nodded his head in assent.
Tired of speculating as to whether her search was finally over, she walked past him and strode to the door.
The mermaid, as the bartender had called her, said nothing to Nolan as she passed. She simply walked toward the door showing not the tiniest amount of doubt that he would follow.
And he would. In fact, he was surprised every man in the place didn't rise to his feet and rush after her.
Maybe one-hundred and twenty pounds and under five feet eight inches in height, she was slim and athletic, but also exuded femininity.
He had never encountered another woman, or creature, like her.
As he turned, his foot caught in the pants she had dropped so casually to the floor. He stared down at them, wondering if he should scoop them up and carry them along.
From the front, the bartender's gaze met his. Even through the hazy air, Nolan could read the man’s face. He thought Nolan a fool, or worse a soon-to-be-dead fool.
Little did he know, Nolan was already the walking dead.
With a grimace, he left the pants and followed the "mermaid."
Sarina stood on the damp dock, waiting for the human. The wind had picked up, catching her hair and wrapping it around her. She could smell the water behind her; her body itched to leap into the bay that lead to the ocean. Her toes wiggled, already preparing to shift to the fin she still found so much more natural.
As the man approached, her hand wrapped around the tiny vial hanging from her neck. Feeling its pulsing warmth against her palm calmed her, assured her that what she was about to do was necessary.
Having a soul had saved her, but at times like this, it cost her too.
"Now what?" The man arched one brow and stared out over the water.
She moved toward him with all the power and grace of her kind. Humming, she grabbed fistfuls of his shirt and rose up on her toes. "You said you can swim, right?" She sang the words with no tune in mind. The notes didn't matter, any that left her throat, any mermaid’s throat, would be enough to lure a human into her bidding.
He stared down at her, his gaze hooded. "I did."
"Then now...." She brushed her lips over his, and took a teasing step back. "...is the time to prove it."
With no other warning, she fell backward into the bay, taking the human with her.
Chapter Two
Icy water rushed over Nolan, hitting him in the face. He closed his eyes and cursed his own stupidity. The bartender had warned him. The woman had too, in a way. She had asked him if he could swim.
Stupidly, he had expected her to take him at his word.
He held his breath and waited for her to loosen her hold on him so he could prove his claim, but as seconds ticked by, her grip remained iron strong. And he was no longer falling, he was being pulled...down...at an impossible speed.
His eyes flew open, and his upper lip pulled back, revealing his fangs—not that the woman saw them. She was too busy swimming herself, tugging him down in steady flap, after steady flap, of her undeniably aquatic tail.
The bartender hadn't been wrong.
The guide he had searched out was a mermaid.
And, based on the hold she had on Nolan and the speed she was traveling, her intentions were not good.
Nolan's first instinct was to lash out, to show her the timid fish she thought she'd caught was in fact a shark, sharp teeth and all, but as water slid over him and he caught sight of her hair flowing behind her and her shirt clinging to her breasts, he calmed.
He was at no risk. He was a vampire. He had no need to breathe. Let her tow him wherever she liked. It would do her no good, and he would learn more about her and her kind—the mystical mermaids no one truly believed existed.
Just as no one believed vampires existed.
Her tail slapped against his side. He closed h
is eyes and enjoyed the feel of being swept along. In some strange way—despite the tight grip she had on his body—it felt like freedom.
Sarina had quit singing when her back touched the water. She swam now, strong and determined to reach the bottom of the bay before the human she held came out from under the fog she had created.
She glanced at him. His eyes were closed and he looked...peaceful. Minutes had passed, five at least. By now, the need to breathe should have overcome the fog—or should soon. She flapped her tail again, sending her and the human shooting another ten feet toward the bottom.
The man moved. This was the part she hated...the part that having her own soul made hard.
For other mermaids—shells with no souls of their own—it was easy, expected even, to capture sailors and the like and tow them to the bottom of the sea. The mermaids gathered men, not even realizing what they hungered for—a soul—couldn't be harvested in this way.
But, not any soul would do. For a mermaid to be free of the hunger and the ties to the sea, she needed the soul meant for her and her alone.
Sarina glanced at the man again. His eyes were open now. She steeled herself against his panic and tightened her grip to keep him from breaking away.
Then he smiled.
Sarina's mouth opened and a bubble escaped. They were pressing against the fifteen minute mark now, and he was calm, beyond calm. He looked...pleased.
She loosened her hold and pushed him free. He didn't move; he just hung in place like seaweed attached to the bay floor.
His gaze shifted, from her face, down her borrowed shirt and finally to her tail. It clung there, making her feel uneasy and exposed.
She'd walked among the humans for two years now, knew the bartender had guessed her secret, but she had only revealed herself so thoroughly to the men she had brought to the bay for her test. And none of the others had survived.
This man, however, was different. He was surviving, and he would know what she was, know mermaids were real.
She pulled back further, suddenly uncertain. The idea that mermaids were myth had protected the nixies. Sure, a few storm-tossed sailors had washed to shore with tales of her kind, but that was it. There were no real photographs, and no rational accounts. No proof that other humans couldn't brush off as the rantings of some battered, most often drunk, sailor wanting for attention.
But this man...with his self-possessed gait and his confident stare...this man people would believe.
She twirled in the water and swam to the side, leaving him floating and watching her, his attention and ability to hold his breath eerie now.
It wasn't too late. She could drag him deeper, to a part of the ocean that, no matter his ability to hold his breath, he could never escape.
She rushed forward, intent on righting the mistake she'd almost made and stopped in front of him. Her hair billowed forward, forming a veil around them. He reached out with one finger and lightly touched the vial that floated upward, away from her chest. She clasped her hand around the tiny tube and jerked it back down.
His eyes met hers, and her heart thumped hard in her chest. No ordinary man this, but not selkie or merman or any other being she had ever encountered in the sea. That she knew for sure.
Whatever his magic, whatever gave him the ability to walk the earth with such confidence and stay calmly submerged under the bay too, he was the one to fulfill her plan.
A plan she had dreamed of for too long to give it up now.
And, she reminded herself, she needn't worry that he knew her secret. His part of the journey would be one way. He would meet the sea hag as he asked, but he wouldn't be coming back. There would be no one but Melusine, her kelpies and the fish for him to tell.
She grabbed the man by the front of his shirt and towed him back to the surface.
This time as the mermaid pulled him along, Nolan kept his eyes open.
The bottom of the bay was dark, too dark even for his vampire vision to make out more than murky shapes, but as they moved upward, back toward the surface, his eyes adjusted and he could see the mermaid clearly.
Her hair flowed behind her, and her body undulated with the water. Her skin, in this form, was silvery, giving way to glistening scales just below her waist. Her breasts were high and firm, the same, he imagined, as they would be in her human form. His groin tightened at the thought.
Mermaids were sirens, known for luring men to their deaths.
Staring at her, having heard her voice and felt the brush of her lips, he could understand sailors who steered their ships up onto the rocks or dove into the ocean knowing they were about to die. Death would seem a small price for a moment in the arms of such a creature.
So, despite the fact that she had pulled him to the bottom in what had to be an attempt to kill him, he had no doubt that he had found his guide.
He, like any man, would be tempted to follow her anywhere, even hell itself. Making it good fortune that she was willing to lead him where he wished to go.
Where she wished to go too, if the bartender was correct.
Why she, a creature of the sea, needed a companion was a question Nolan would at some time ask, but for the moment, it didn't matter.
He had found his guide.
Sarina popped through the surface of the water, releasing the man as she did and plunging her body immediately back down into the bay. She swam beneath the surface for a moment, assessing her plan.
She could not return to her human form until most of her body was dry of the sea. She hadn't thought to place towels on the dock and was unprepared to air dry herself here, in the human domain, as mermaids often did when sunning on the rocks.
But, if she let the human go, would he come back? The journey was too long and dangerous to swim while towing him. They would need a ship.
She returned to the surface a few yards from where the man waited, treading water.
"Do you have a name?" she asked. Humans were simple creatures, fond of being called by their own names.
He glanced toward the dock, as if questioning her choice of location for this chat, but then looked back at her and answered, "Nolan Moore, and you?"
"Sarina..." She paused. "...Neri."
"Sarina." He smiled, and a strange warmth filled Sarina. She usually found talking to humans, especially the men, frustrating. They were obvious creatures filled with base desires. No human she had ever encountered wanted her for anything other than what she could do for them, or they thought she could do—lead them to treasure, supply them with sex, or entertain them with song.
She moved her tail, swam a little to the side and then back.
"Why did you try to drown me?"
The question caught Sarina by surprise, not that the human realized that his life had been in danger, but that he was, without her doing anything to charm him, so calm.
She came to a stop, holding her body in place with tiny movements of her tail. "I wasn't trying to kill you."
"Really?" He stopped treading water for a moment, allowing his body to sink down beneath the water before bobbing back up. "Last I checked, humans need air."
"You don't." If he chose to be direct, she could be too.
Again, he smiled. "Of course, I do. I'm no different than any..." He shoved a damp chunk of dark hair off of his forehead. "...man."
Her eyes narrowed. He was lying. He had to be. He couldn't, despite his appearance, be human.
"You are...."
"What?"
"Different." She circled him, careful not to get too close. "I'm just not sure how."
"And you are a mermaid."
She flicked her tail, sending water spraying to the side. "Obviously."
"Are you dangerous?"
"Yes." Mermaids didn't lie. They had no reason to. Men would follow them even if they were told within minutes they would die.
"Should I trust you?"
"No."
Her answer seemed to please him. He smiled again. "Trust is over-rated."
It was a strange reply, and she had no answer. She waited.
"Will you take me to the sea hag?" he asked. His gaze was direct now, demanding the truth.
"Yes." She held his attention.
"Dead or alive?"
She shook her head. "Dead you do me no good." She dove under the water and swam along the docks, emerging twenty feet away. "Meet me at the ship, The Mermaid's Dream." Then, her message delivered, she disappeared under the water again.
He would follow her, not because she had charmed him; she hadn't. He would follow her because his desperation to find Melusine was as great as her own. She had seen it in his eyes.
Chapter Three
Nolan pulled himself up onto the dock. His soaked clothing slapped against the damp wood. He ran fingers through his hair, sending water droplets flying.
The mermaid, Sarina, had said she hadn't been trying to kill him, but she had also admitted she was dangerous and not to be trusted.
Which was he to believe? Could both be true?
He supposed, but whatever the female’s motive for pulling him under the surface of the bay, he was sure no other occupant of the bar would have survived the trip. Which explained the bartender's warning.
If Nolan had still been human, he wouldn't be alive now.
He was a lucky man, cheating the grim reaper like that twice in one lifetime.
He laughed, an ugly sound that had taken over any carefree noise he could make years before.
Being ostracized and cursed was not anyone's definition of lucky. Death would have been better, and Nolan might well have searched it out if he hadn't learned of another possibility, a way to reverse what had been done to him.
As he sat dripping on the dock, a new light approached, the beam of a large flashlight, dancing over the wooden dock where Nolan sat and the bay behind him.
"You survived." It was the bartender. Behind the glare of the light, Nolan couldn't see the man’s face, but he could smell his fear. If the bartender had been afraid of the mermaid, it seemed now he was even more afraid of the man who had swam with her and survived.
