The Lovely Deep (The Mer Song Trilogy Book 1)

by Michelle Pennington

  She carried a mesh diving bag filled with clinking items he could only guess at. A thin belt with a knife sheath was buckled around her waist, and he hoped she wouldn’t have reason to use it this time. But he couldn’t be too worried about anything right then. He felt the draw of the ocean and relaxed with every step closer to the surf. Narissa, however, seemed to grow more anxious.

  “How do we keep people from noticing that we go under water and don’t come back up?”

  She laughed. “You’re already invisible. Our mark doesn’t only change our form. It’s also a key to move between worlds. When it lines up with the same symbol on a portal, it sends you through. Uncle Jesse put the symbol on a support pillar of the restaurant so I can move between worlds without being seen, along with anything I’m touching.” She pulled up their hands, which were clasped together. “The curtain between worlds runs along the beach, so we can still see the human world.”

  “Crazy. Does my mark do the same thing?”

  “No. You only have half the mark—the circle allows you to move underwater.”

  “Interesting. Let’s get going.”

  “We can’t stay long tonight. We’ll just sort of…”

  “Test the waters?”

  Narissa laughed. “Yeah.”

  As they walked into the surf, the waves washed over their toes, then crashed against their calves. When they were knee-deep, a series of bigger waves rushed over them, and they both jumped up to keep it from crashing over their heads.

  Once they were chest-deep in the channel between sandbars, River pulled her to him, and she came willingly. He banded his arms around her waist and felt her smooth legs brush against his. “No tail?”

  “Not yet.” A smile tugged at the corners of her lips. “When I was a little girl, I was staying with my uncle one summer and saw some girls my age pretending to be mermaids on the beach. It made me laugh, because my favorite game was pretending to be human. I got really good at swimming with legs, even though it’s a lot harder.”

  River’s pulse hammered at being able to hold her again. He needed to keep his feelings in control. Somehow. “How long have you been coming to stay with him?

  “Every summer since I was three. I’ve always been meant for this—being a siren I mean. I was born needing air to breathe, which is necessary to be made into a siren. There aren’t many of us, so despite my royal position, I was needed on land.”

  “So most mers are born breathing underwater?”

  “Yeah. But when one of the parents was human, mermaids give birth in the shallows, just in case. Even if they need to breathe air when they’re born, they can breathe underwater as long as they’re being held by a mermaid—same as you could before you got sanded. When they get older, though, they have to be sanded to stay in the water, as I was when I was very young. For other mers, my mother can only temporarily give them the ability to get legs. Mostly though, they have to wait for the full-moon.”

  River couldn’t help the direction his thoughts took, not with the way it felt to hold her close while the wave sheltered them in their own private world. “It’s interesting, you know? The mating cycles of a lot of marine life is driven by the moon. Grouper for example.”

  Narissa made a face. “Don’t compare us to fish. That part of our life, at least, is more human than animal. Thank goodness.”

  He couldn’t help but laugh. “Brody will be glad to hear it. I can’t imagine him being enthusiastic about having to fertilize a pile of fish eggs.”

  It was a joke, but Narissa didn’t laugh. “Well, actually, some of the more secluded mer colonies have evolved to the point, biologically, that they mate like aquatic mammals, never leaving the water. Once that happens, it is no longer… likely… that mating with a human would be ideal. And most of them aren’t interested. They embrace what nature has given them and dislike mers who are trying to avoid that end for their children.”

  River’s eyebrows drew together. “Interesting. And bizarre. It doesn’t make sense that mutations like that should happen so frequently or be passed with such dominance through the population.”

  “I know,” Narissa said. “I’ve studied it some, and the only thing I’ve been able to determine is that science and magic are at war.”

  River tugged Narissa close again. “What do you think would happen if you lived on land and had a family with a human?”

  Her eyes met his squarely. “I believe they’d be human, but I don’t know for sure.” To his surprise, she growled and flung herself away. “Why did I ever think I could make this work? I’m such an idiot. I just… wanted what I couldn’t have so desperately I didn’t think. I should have remembered Tyranno.”

  River paused, wanting to ask who Tyranno was and what he had to do with their conversation, but he was more concerned about what else she’d said. “Make what work?” He pushed himself through the water to be close to her again. “Us? Who says we can’t make this work?”

  She let him draw her back into his arms. With her hands braced against his chest, her green eyes flashed at him, reflecting the glow of the sunset. “You don’t even want me.”

  River shook his head and clamped her against him, running his hands around her waist, until not even the water could fit between them. “You have no idea how much I want you. And it scares the life out of me, Rissa. I don’t understand anything right now, but the power you have over me is so powerful I can’t fight it. I tried, just so I could be in control. But every time I look at you or touch you, I’m consumed with how much I want you. And it doesn’t stop when you’re away from me. How much of this is the magic and how much is real?”

  “I don’t know. There’s no way to know unless you were mer. And I don’t want that for you.”

  “Well, maybe I do.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “All I know, right now, is that I’m tired of fighting it.”

  He dipped his head then and kissed her. Her lips were cold and slick with saltwater, but as he deepened the kiss, her mouth was warm and sweet. The contrast sent desire surging through him. He angled his head, devouring her willing lips, tasting her over and over as he anchored his hands at her hips. A sound—half groan, half song—sounded in her throat, telling him that she was as lost to this current as he was.

  A wave washed over them and pushed them under. For a minute, River froze, startled to realize they were underwater. But Narissa’s small hands tugged on his shoulders, pulling him down. He opened his eyes and saw her smiling at him as a few bubbles slipped from her lips and rose to the surface. And then he remembered that he too could breathe underwater.

  He clenched his jaw a moment, dreading the abrasive sting of salt-water in his lungs, then opened his mouth and took the water in. Faster than he could have believed possible, his lungs adjusted. Smiling, he tugged Narissa close again.

  The jade water embraced them, rocking them gently as waves passed overhead. A school of odd, brightly colored fish passed by, the last of them swimming through Narissa’s cloud of red hair as it floated around her, swaying with the movement of the water. He wanted to explore this new world and the creatures in it, but for now, he just wanted her.

  She came to him with a smile, wrapping her arms and legs around him as they sank together to the soft, sandy bottom. The water was a silken whisper around them, deceptive in its strength as it shifted them around on the cloud of white sand. Wrapped up in such a perfect kiss, River forgot there were other creatures in this world, and that few of them were as lovely as the girl in his arms.

  When a swift movement in the water finally caught his attention, he opened his eyes and looked up through Narissa’s floating hair, into the streams of light-shot, green water to see a black-haired, beak-nosed mermaid circling over them near the surface. It was the mermaid from the ceremony, the one who had helped Narissa’s mother.

  River tensed and gripped Narissa’s arm, turning her as he drew himself upright. She shrank back against him in surprise. But she relaxed a moment l
ater and swam toward the surface. She untied the knots of her swim bottoms, and bubbles funneled around Narissa’s hips and legs, preserving her modesty, until a silver, opalescent tail flashed where her legs had been. It had happened so quickly, he couldn’t believe he’d just seen her change, but since the other mermaid was swimming to meet her at the surface, the last thing he wanted to do was wait around down on the sand admiring her shimmering tail.

  He planted his feet and pushed off towards the surface, rising quickly. When his head emerged from the water, Narissa glanced at him then turned immediately back to the other mermaid. “What brings you here, Eponnia?”

  “More words.”

  “From my mother?”

  But the mermaid didn’t answer. She was staring at him with what he could only call hunger. “You claim him or no?” she asked Narissa.

  “Yes, so stop staring at him. What is the message?”

  “She want you home. She need talk. I guard your man Lovely.”

  “What, now? Not a chance,” Narissa said. “She’s already commanded me to come at the full moon. She can wait till then.”

  “She not want to wait,” Eponnia said.

  River tried not to stare at the mermaid’s protruding facial features and thinning hair, but it was difficult. Then she smiled at him and rose up in the water with a flick of her tail, revealing some of her more human charms. Alarmed that she’d gotten the wrong idea from his curiosity, River shifted closer to Narissa.

  Narissa pulled up her mesh diving bag. Opening it, she pulled out a handful of dripping, pink hair extensions and handed them to Eponnia. “Thanks for bringing the message.”

  It was difficult to discern expressions on such alien looking features, but even River could tell the mermaid was delighted with her gift.

  “I go now,” she said. “Bye, man Lovely.”

  “Bye,” River said, relieved beyond words when the mermaid dove back under the surface and swam away. “Wow, she is…”

  “Yes, I know. But she’s more harmless than others you may run into out here. Be careful if you’re out here alone.”

  “So, you have to go, huh?”

  “Yes, and it worries me.”

  “Can I come with you?”

  “Oh, no. She won’t be in the sanding cave. She’ll be home in our city. The gulf is a desert, with nothing but sand for hundreds of miles, but in the realm, it’s much different terrain with a lot of dangers lurking around.”

  River didn’t like the sound of that. “Then I’m definitely going.”

  Narissa frowned. “I really shouldn’t let you. But I must admit, I hate going alone.” She ran her hands over his shoulders. “And you’re a strong guy, right?”

  “I like to think so.”

  “Okay. We’ll talk to my uncle and make a plan. He’s been wanting to talk to you anyway. I’ve been putting it off.”

  “Why?”

  “He can be a bit protective of me.”

  River smiled and pulled her to him. “Sounds like we’ll get along great then.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Narissa kept her distance from River while she changed her tail to legs. She unlooped her bottoms from around her arm and pulled them up her legs as quickly as she could manage. Fortunately, her trust that he would be a gentleman was not displaced. He kept his face turned away until she took his hand.

  It was dusk when they emerged from the ocean, which had turned steel blue with the sun gone. The moon rising in the sky was nearly full, reminding her just how little time she had left to save River and Anne. But at this moment, after kissing River, she felt buoyed with new hope—hope that she would find a solution and that maybe some part of River’s feelings for her would prove to be real.

  They walked up to the steps of her uncle’s restaurant where she’d left some towels. She climbed up a few steps and unfolded a big blue towel, then wrapped it around River’s shoulders. Holding onto the corners, she tugged him closer for a quick kiss. When he tried to pull her in for more, she ran up the stairs ahead of him. She paused at the door at the top to wrap another towel around herself. “Don’t distract me. We have things to figure out tonight.”

  She watched while River dried himself off with the towel, wiping silver beads of water from his firm chest and spiking up his hair. “Welcome to my life for the last few weeks, water girl.”

  “And likely for a long time to come, Stream.”

  River groaned. “I thought we were done with that.”

  “Not till I run out of words for flowing, inland water sources.” She winked at him and led him inside.

  Narissa often hated that to get to her home, she had to walk through a very busy restaurant. Even taking a route away from the main room of the restaurant, they still drew a lot of curious glances. Especially River, since he didn’t have a shirt on and looked like one of Michelangelo’s sculptures come to life.

  They passed by a large group of women sipping margaritas and he got more than just a few curious glances. Mermaids weren’t the only ones who thought River was prime mating material.

  When they escaped to the kitchen, she found Uncle Jesse working at the grill top. He looked up, and his sharp eyes scanned River thoroughly. “This the guy?”

  Narissa let out a breath of frustration, wishing he didn’t sound so gruff or look so intimidating. “Who else would I bring back here?”

  “I don’t know. You’ve had a talent for finding trouble lately.”

  “We need to talk to you.”

  “Go on upstairs and find lover boy a shirt. I’ll be up after the dinner rush.”

  “I’ve been summoned, Uncle Jesse.”

  “By who?”

  “My mother.”

  Uncle Jesse looked surprised, as well he should. “Give me ten minutes.” He turned to his assistant chef and barked, “Irvin, get ready to take over for me. And don’t burn that Amber Jack or I’m taking it out of your check.”

  “We’d better find you a shirt,” Narissa said, pulling River into a store-room where spare t-shirts were kept for the wait staff.

  “How do we always seem to end up in places like this?” River asked, eying the shelves and boxes around them.

  “I wouldn’t say it’s a bad thing.” She smiled as she squeezed past him in the narrow space. She dug through the pile of blue t-shirts until she found a size large.

  He put it on without question, and she found herself enjoying the masculine way he shrugged it on and yanked it down. When the typography on front was revealed, she couldn’t help but laugh.

  “What?”

  “It’s perfect.”

  River read it out loud. “Men Beware.” He pointed to the drawing of a mermaid beneath the words. “Did you model for this?”

  “Of course not. My tail isn’t that wide.”

  “I bet that’s what all the mermaids say.” His hands settled around her hips.

  She leaned into him and whispered. “I hate to break it to you, but most mermaids don’t talk much.”

  His eyebrows went up. “Hmmm… That sounds nice. Maybe I should throw you back and find another one.”

  Narissa punched him gently in his side then untangled herself and headed out. River followed her upstairs into the small living room with big windows that looked out over the ocean. She brushed her hand down his arm, unable to keep herself from touching him. “I’m going to change. Be right back.”

  When she came back out dressed in leggings and a long t-shirt, she found him leaning against the wall, staring out the giant windows facing the gulf. Since there was only one small lamp on in the room, it was easy to see out even though it was not fully dark outside. The lights and noise of the restaurant below filtered up to them, but beyond that, the view of the moon shining down on the black waters was entrancing.

  “It’s pulling on me again,” he said.

  She put an arm around his waist and leaned into him. He uncrossed his arms and put one around her shoulder. With a deep breath, she said, “I’d hoped that by swimmin
g this evening, you’d be able to resist more easily.”

  “I might be able to. I’m wondering if I want to.” He was silent a moment, then asked. “How’s Anne doing?”

  “I was going to call her soon, but not well if I had to guess. She’s not coming to work because Edmar can find her here, even though Uncle Jesse kicked him out because of what he did to her. But she’ll be down there tonight, so I’m going to be there for her.”

  “If the song is louder for her than it is for me, I don’t know how she could ever resist.”

  “It’s quiet for you?”

  “Well, granted, I don’t know how it is for others, I’m just guessing since it’s muffled for me. I think it helps. So, I was thinking, maybe you should help Anne, the way you helped me last night.”

  They heard Uncle Jesse’s footsteps on the stairs then and turned. His broad shoulders blocked out the light of the lamp. “Let’s talk,” he said.

  River sat on his towel in a leather arm chair and Narissa curled up in her favorite spot on the chaise lounge with a soft blanket pulled over her. She needed the comfort and warmth right then. She had no idea how this discussion was going to go.

  “I’m worried,” her uncle said.

  “Me too. What do you think she wants?”

  “Her heir,” Uncle Jesse said, his voice hard. “Something must be worrying her.”

  “But she knows—she’s always known I don’t want that. I’ve been fighting the magic in my blood my whole life.”

  “Doesn’t mean she agrees with it. You told me you suspected Edmar was here to spy on you and cause you problems. She must be anxious that Poseidon will be true to his word and make you human.”

  “But what about your sisters?” River asked. “Are you the oldest?”

  “No.” Narissa clenched her blanket tighter. “I’m the youngest of all, and I have eight sisters. But I…”

  “She’s the most human, just like the first of our kind,” Uncle Jesse said. “Hali has always been determined to have a baby who was half-mer, half-human. As you might guess, Narissa has a different father than the rest of her siblings.”