River was silent a moment, weighing out her words and his reaction to them. “I feel like I’ve been dropped into a nightmare, like any moment I’ll wake up. If it weren’t for this wicked wound on my hip, I’d be sure I’d made it all up.” He finally looked down at her, unable to stop himself any longer. As he looked into her green eyes, he admitted the truth that had been shoving at the edges of his consciousness all morning. “I’m glad I know, though. What if I’d blindly loved you the rest of my life and never known it wasn’t real?”
She flinched as if he’d slapped her. He hadn’t meant it to be hurtful, but he wasn’t ready to examine where his feelings were currently, just where they had been.
“I told myself it wouldn’t matter if you never knew,” she said. “And once I gave up my mer powers, any enchantment I’ve accidentally cast over you would have ended. I never meant to compel you to have feelings for me. That was why I told you I might hurt you, why I tried to keep you at arm’s length. But I wasn’t strong enough to deny myself the chance to be close to you when you offered it.”
River thought over all their conversations, the way she had pushed him away. He had to give her that much. But it didn’t change what she was. What she’d done to other people. Maybe she hadn’t meant for him to be forced into this curse, but she’d done it purposefully to others. “How many?”
“How many what?”
“How many men have you lured into the ocean?”
Narissa’s head dropped, and she shifted slightly away. “Thirty-seven.”
He didn’t know what he’d expected, but the number shocked him. He felt like he might hurl his coffee into the ocean and was glad he hadn’t eaten anything. “Those poor souls.”
“They’re not poor souls.” Her voice sharpened with anger. “I know now how wrong I’ve been, and I bitterly regret it. But you have to understand—this is what I’ve always been taught, what I was trained to do. Mers see things so differently. But growing up with humans, and feeling so much like one myself, I could never tear any man away from a life he wanted and where he was loved. Finding human mates for my people was my duty, but I found men who would be blessed or saved by becoming a mer. Men like Stumps who have no family and who suffer in body and mind. If he chooses to join my people, he can be free of pain and his broken mind will be healed.”
River saw her point and knew that she was walking a fine line between the morality of two different worlds. But she had to understand. “But he deserves a choice, Narissa!”
“I know that now,” she yelled back at him. “I’m desperate with fear and regret. Seeing you and Anne in my people’s toils changed everything for me. I’m going to save both of you, River, and I’m not doing it anymore, no matter what.”
He felt her sincerity deep in his core. “What about Brody and Stumps?”
“If they want me to save them, I will. I just don’t know how much I’ll be able to trust their wishes. The compulsion will be difficult to get through. But I’ll do my best. I don’t think Anne wants this on any level, so she’ll be easier to help, if I can help anyone. And you… well, I don’t know what’s going to happen with you. I’m hoping the spell won’t be as strong for you.” She gave a frustrated groan. “I just don’t know anything. But you’re strong, River. As strong as an ocean current. You can fight this.”
But there was something he was still battling to figure out—the question that he’d been wrestling with since he’d woken up. “You’re assuming I don’t want to be a—what would I be? A merman?”
“What?” She turned, stepping back into the tide and facing him. Her eyes searched his frantically.
River took a deep breath. “I don’t want to be compelled. I want this to be my choice—but yes, I’m thinking about it.”
“But why?”
He had several reasons, advantages he couldn’t deny. But they were too unformed in his mind, or too revealing, to discuss with her right then. “I’m just saying that I’m considering my options. I want to know everything. All about your people, your world, what’s behind stealing people’s lives. All of it.”
She nodded. “Of course you do. So will the others. We can talk about it on the beach tonight, all together.”
“Who says I’ll be on the beach tonight?”
Her eyes were troubled. “Oh, you will be. If you think the pull was strong this morning, wait until tonight when the moon is out. The same force that pulls the tide will be pulling you. And even though I could stay here and talk to you all day, I have to go find Anne. I’m worried about her. She isn’t answering my calls or coming to the door at her apartment. I’m worried that Edmar has her hidden away somewhere.”
“Can I help you?”
“You’d do that?”
Yes, dang it, he would still do anything for her. Would this spell she had over him ever ease away? But he was determined to keep that to himself. “I want to help Anne too. I wanted to kill Edmar last night for what he’d done.”
“Maybe you can help me do that too then.” Her eyes flashed with a dangerous light and River made a mental note not to cross her.
“Let’s go then,” he said, nodding toward the street.
“Okay. Can we go in your truck?”
“Absolutely. It’s my only morning off this week, so I have time.”
But when River turned to follow Narissa from the beach, he found that his feet didn’t want to take him anywhere except out into the water. Where was this strength that Narissa said she saw in him? He couldn’t even walk away from the beach.
She must have noticed his difficulty because she turned back and walked toward him. The slightest smile pulled at the corner of her lips when she took his hand and tugged. “Maybe a little siren magic would be helpful right now.” Then, her voice growing sweeter and more musical somehow, she held his eyes with hers and said, “Come with me, River.”
And then, though he felt nothing other than attraction for her beauty—which was a constant for him anyway—he found that he was easily able to follow her up the beach and up the stairs to the parking lot. She left him at his truck door and ran around to the passenger side. As he got in, he felt a strong urge to go around to open the door for her, but she was already climbing inside, so it was pointless. And he needed to keep his distance anyway. A lot of distance. At least until he knew what was real and what wasn’t.
“Where to?” he asked, putting his truck in reverse.
“Do you know where Sandpiper Drive is?”
“Yeah. Is that where Anne lives?”
“No, it’s her mother’s house. They’re really close. I always envied that.”
Her revealing comment made him wonder about her mother. She’d mentioned before that she hadn’t lived with her mom for half of her life. “You aren’t close with your mom?”
“No. She’s too… controlling.”
“I’ve noticed that about your people.”
“Yeah, well, she’s literally the queen. One of seven of them, actually. They make up one of the ruling bodies in Poseidon’s Realm. You met her last night.”
River turned to and eyed her warily. “Don’t say that was your mother. Though she did have red hair, didn’t she?”
“Yes. Her name is Hali, and she’s… a lot different from Anne’s mother.”
While River followed Narissa’s directions to a nice blue house on a quiet, palm lined street, he thought over her situation. Was she some kind of mer princess? No wonder her mother didn’t want her to become human.
River parked on the street, and they walked up to the front door. He looked down at the porch while Narissa rang the doorbell. “Think there’s any chance she told her mom what happened?” he asked.
Narissa shook her head. “Are you going to tell anyone?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“They’d think I was crazy.”
Narissa gave a knowing nod of her head as a petite woman with kind eyes opened the door.
Narissa smiled at her. “Hel
lo, Mrs. Bradbury. Is Anne here by any chance?”
“Yes.” Her eyes flashed with worry. “Something’s wrong and she won’t tell me what. Do you know?”
“I think I do,” Narissa said. “Would you mind if we came in and talked to her?”
“No, please do.” As they stepped into the dim house though, she said. “She’s in the pool, actually. Has been all morning, so you’ll have to go out back to talk to her.”
She showed them the way out through a French door then left them to go on their own. A line of short palms screened the pool from view, so they had to walk around before they could look for Anne. At first, River was confused when he didn’t see anyone in the pool. In fact, there wasn’t even a ripple on the surface. But Narissa didn’t hesitate to walk right over to the edge and look down.
She squatted down and dipped her fingers into the water, then tasted them. “It’s a salt-water pool.”
River came up next to her and finally saw Anne’s small form underwater. She had curled herself around the metal rail of the short steps into the pool. Her hair floated around her head in a cloud the color of corn silk and her face was turned down, hidden behind her arm.
“Is she alive?” River asked, starting to panic.
“She can breathe underwater now, remember?”
As she spoke, Anne looked up. Even through the distortion caused by the sheen of the sun refracting off the surface, he saw the terror in her eyes.
She let go of the pole and stood up. When her head broke the surface, she screamed, “Get away from me!”
“Anne, I’m here to help,” Narissa said.
River heard the change in Narissa’s voice to her siren tones. He didn’t blame her at all. Anne needed to be soothed or things were going to get bad quickly.
“You’re one of them. Edmar’s one of them.”
“Yes,” Narissa said, calmly jumping down into the pool with a surprisingly small splash. “And unless you want to be one of them too, you’ll let me help you. I’m so sorry, Anne.”
River watched as Anne allowed Narissa to hold her. The girls sat together on the pool steps, and Anne started sobbing into Narissa’s shoulder.
“So sorry,” Narissa said again, so softly that River barely heard the break in her voice.
Chapter Thirteen
By midnight, everyone had assembled on the beach. No one spoke for a time, and Narissa stayed silent as well, allowing them to connect with the force that was pulling at them. Such a powerful and ancient magic was impossible to resist.
The condos, parking lots, and restaurants that lined the beach in both directions were so new to the scene compared to the centuries that had gone before. After a time of soaking in the mystic beauty of a moon-washed sea, Narissa could no longer restrain herself from sharing the history of her people.
“The gods have always found joy in creation. Poseidon was no different, though his realm was the sea. He created the first mers to save the people of a floundering ship. The seven daughters of a king were on the ship, and he was so enraptured with them that he gave them each a sea to care for. And to the Seven Mothers of the Sea, he gave the power to create more of their kind because, at first, their children were born human.
“We have existed since the twelfth century BC in your time. Because we are mortal, our lifespan is the same as a human’s. There have been countless generations of mers, so the evolution of our species is not surprising. We have no written records of our origin, just our oral history and what the early Greeks recorded about us, but it is clear that Poseidon was clumsy in his creation. Where there is magic and power, what use did he have for science?”
River stirred next to her. “Science?”
“Yes, you see, evolution is just as real for mermaids as for any creatures in the world. Oh, most of them don’t know what it is or what to call it, but they know our race is changing. They see it in a daughter born with gills up her ribs and a son born with tentacles for arms.”
“Do the traits pass on to the next generation?”
“Usually, they do. We treasure the human part of us, but the sea is ever trying to claim us as its own. It is said that mers are half-fish, half-human. It is not so simple of course, but it illustrates the point that our percentage is sliding ever more towards our aquatic qualities. There is only one way to slow it, to have children with more human blood than you have.”
“So you mate with a human to make that happen,” Stumps said.
“Exactly,” Narissa said.
“But how?” Brody asked. “I mean, don’t the humans have a hard time getting it on with a fish tail?”
Narissa knew her cheeks must be cherry red with River listening, but it was so dark, she doubted he could see anything. When Stumps jumped in to answer, she was happy to let him.
“Their tails turn to legs, of course. They come on shore.”
“How do you know that?” Brody asked.
The silence left in the wake of his question revealed the reason as well as if Stumps had spoken.
Brody’s voice hitched higher. “You don’t mean to say that you’ve…”
“Been seduced by a daughter of the sea?” Stumps chuckled softly. “Well, I’ve always wondered myself whether or not it was real, seeing as how drunk I was at the time. But then I met Narissa, and I knew. Because if she was real, then so was the other. Tonight confirmed it for me.”
There seemed to be some meaning to his words that Narissa couldn’t quite catch. Before she could question him further, Anne spoke in a quiet, broken voice.
“You mean they want me to have babies?”
Narissa had spent all day trying to help Anne recover from her shock, trying to get her ready for the fight ahead of her. She refused to soften the matter for her, but also didn’t want to cause her any more trauma. “Yes, they do. If you completed the transformation and became a mermaid, a merman would pay Edmar for the right to claim you. The number of human mates available have declined in the last fifty years since Poseidon sealed the realm to those without a mark, so they are highly prized.” Narissa paused, cleared her throat, and said. “We um… my people that is, call you Lovelies.”
River looked pained. “They call us what?”
“Lovelies. I thought I should mention it so you’d know what they mean. Because speaking underwater is impossible, few of us learn English very well. They understand the word lovely, and humans are beautiful and fascinating creatures to them. A Lovely is sought after by every mer bloodline in the sea because it means respect and power and, well, beauty for your children. I know this seems distasteful to you, but you would be… like royalty.”
When Narissa finished, a stunned silence fell over her companions. The silence was broken by a sniffling sound. Narissa moved closer to Anne and dropped onto her knees in front of her.
“Is this too much, Anne? We can stop for now.”
Anne wiped her cheeks with her fingers, the moonlight making her pale skin glow. “No, it’s just that I lost my first baby.” She held up the pendant around her neck. “My son’s fingerprint is all I have left of him. I always wanted to have more. I never…” Her words faded as sobs wracked her body. When she finally controlled them enough to speak, her words were punctuated by sharp gasps. “I never thought… it wouldn’t… be human. Or not with a… man I loved.”
Narissa thought nothing else could make this worse, but she’d been wrong. She’d never known, never imagined, that Anne’s haunted pain was caused by losing a baby. With her mind racing, wondering what had happened, all Narissa knew to do was sit beside her and put her arms around Anne’s shoulders.
Muffled footsteps moved across the sand nearby, and Narissa looked up sharply. Without her mer eyesight, it was difficult to see much, but she knew immediately that it was Edmar. “What are you doing here?”
“You didn’t expect me?” He sat down next to Anne as if sure of his welcome.
Anne shot up out of Narissa’s arms, moving several yards away. River stood and put himself betw
een Anne and Edmar, his arms tense and his fists clenched.
Narissa felt a swift surge of jealousy that River was being protective of Anne but fought it back. Anne needed all the protection she could get. “I should have, I suppose,” she finally responded to Edmar.
“Just doing my job, getting Anne ready for her new life.”
Knowing better than to tip Edmar off that she intended to save Anne, she answered, “I think you’ve done enough damage. She’s shocked and afraid, Edmar, and she’s my friend. Let me take care of her.”
He laughed. “But she’s my asset to protect. Surely you understand that.”
Seething, Narissa considered throwing sand in his face. She also considered giving him a good, hard kick between the legs—surely one of the downfalls to a merman being on land. But before she could say or do anything, River’s voice stopped her.
“So you did this for money?” he asked.
“Of course. Anne here should fetch me a nice string of pearls and some gold. Not to mention that I intend to enjoy her company for the next few days. Perks of the job you know.”
Without another thought, Narissa reacted to the tide of white-hot anger inside her. Launching herself into motion, she flew at Edmar, catching him off guard and throwing him backward onto the sand. She straddled his chest and pinned his arms with her knees. When he raised his head to sit up, she slammed her hands against his forehead, slamming his head back onto the sand.
“Jealous, love?” he asked.
“Revolted. And angry enough to gut you right here on the beach. You will not use my friend like that. You will not.”
“You know you only have to say the word, and you can have her place. Keep it too, for as long as you like.”
“I’d rather be mauled by a bull shark.”
“Why, when you can be mauled by me instead?”
Narissa pulled her fist back to strike him, but Edmar bucked, throwing her to the side. Her control over him had been an illusion. He was much stronger than she’d realized. She scrambled to get to her feet and run away from him, but her limbs felt slow and clumsy. Her heart hammered in fear, and she desperately tried to think of how to defend herself, how to fight back. But then River was there, quicker than her eyes could follow in the dark. He grabbed hold of Edmar’s shirt just as he’d gotten to his feet, then smashed his fist into the merman’s sharp-featured face, the sound of knuckles on flesh exploding through the night air.
The Lovely Deep (The Mer Song Trilogy Book 1) Page 9
