by Lori Devoti
“But Sarina has hers.” He knew now why the vial was so important to the mermaid.
Melusine inclined her head. “Her mother was… unusual. Ianthe had the love of Poseidon. He granted her one wish. She asked that any daughters she bore be able to keep their souls. He agreed. In fact, he threw in a bonus. He gave Ianthe hers too.”
“But her sister lost hers?” Nolan asked. The tale sounded impossible, but what about mermaids could sound possible?
“It was taken from her by pirates, over one hundred years ago. Ianthe fought them, and while she saved her daughters’ lives, she lost her own life and Allera’s soul.”
“And you found it?”
Melusine smiled, a slow, wicked tilt of her lips. “Mermaids attract men, and I needed a man.”
“You stole the soul?” Any sympathy Nolan might have felt for the creature before him dissipated.
“I told you, pirates did. I just saw an opportunity and took it.” She snapped her tail against the yacht’s deck. “You would judge me for that?” Her eyes narrowed. “Mermaids are no better than I am. They’re half fish, yet men flock to them, declare their love, give up their lives—for one kiss.” Her tongue appeared again. Nolan ignored it and her tirade. He was watching the kelpies. Water horses.
If he could reach one, could he force it to take him back to shore and, hopefully, Sarina? He’d grown up in his family’s stables; he’d been riding horses since he was three. He had never met an equine he couldn’t handle.
How different could a water horse be?
And what options did he have? Stay here with the sea hag?
It wasn’t an option he chose to take. When she turned again, he bolted to the side and leapt, targeting one of the largest kelpies, a silver Percheron-size animal that nipped when another of its kind got too close.
The creature had spirit. Hopefully, enough to break away from the others and get Nolan back to shore. Once there, he’d… He didn’t know what he’d do, and he didn’t have time to think about it further. As his chest and legs hit the kelpie’s back, the creature reared up and screamed. Then it lowered its head and plunged into the sea.
o0o
Water rushed past Nolan so quickly he couldn’t believe he wasn’t washed from the kelpie’s back. He clutched at the creature’s mane, determined to stay on its back and ride until the animal’s energy was spent.
Then he would direct it back to the surface and somehow find land.
The kelpie raced to the sea floor. Once there, its pace slowed to a trot. Confident he could control the creature now, Nolan pulled on its mane and kneed it in the side. The kelpie tossed its head but ignored his urgings.
It was then he realized the animal was headed somewhere—its home or stable, he guessed. Somewhere the sea hag would be sure to find them.
Nolan kneed the creature again and jerked hard on its mane, but for the second time, the kelpie ignored him. It continued its trot in steady even strides.
There was no moving the kelpie off course. Nolan had to choose between continuing on its chosen path or leaving the creature behind and risking the open sea on his own.
Confident the kelpie’s choice would insure the sea hag’s discovery, Nolan loosened his hold on the animal’s mane and tried to push himself off its back.
His legs clung to the creature as if glued, and not just Nolan’s pants, which he would willingly have shredded to secure his freedom. The muscles of Nolan’s legs clung to the animal. Rock-hard and unyielding.
He had lost control of his own body, and, despite all efforts—striking his thighs, attempting to pry his hands under his legs—he couldn’t gain that control back.
He was stuck.
The kelpie, still trotting, lifted its head and neighed… laughed.
o0o
Her sister’s soul in her fist, Sarina swam in circles.
She had seen Nolan’s face when she jumped.
He knew she had used him. Knew she had brought him there with every intention of leaving him behind.
Guilt lanced through Sarina. More than guilt—pain.
She needed Nolan… loved him.
Admitting that truth hurt almost as much as seeing the disbelief on his face when she jumped.
But her choices weren’t good. If she tried to save him now, it would be Sarina against an army of kelpies, water dragons, and any number of other creatures the sea hag might have enlisted to serve her.
One mermaid stood no chance against such an army, but still, Sarina couldn’t force herself to swim away. Couldn’t force herself to look at Nolan as she knew she should—an expendable human who had served his purpose in her quest to retrieve her sister’s soul.
She spun in another circle, swimming away and then swimming back twenty times before reality truly sank in.
What was done was done. Now that Melusine had met Nolan, she wouldn’t give him up—not willingly.
And Sarina had made a promise, to herself, her sister, and her dying mother.
Allera’s soul gripped tight in her hand and her heart dying, she swam away.
o0o
Its laugh at Nolan’s expense over, the kelpie had trotted along, giving Nolan and his continued efforts to dislodge himself no consideration.
With a silent curse, the vampire jerked on his leg again. Still it wouldn’t budge, but the kelpie did. The creature surged forward, moving so swiftly that Nolan’s body bent backward over the beast’s rump.
Then, with no warning, the kelpie stopped and fell forward onto its knees. Just as suddenly, Nolan was free and catapulting forward. He flew over the creature’s head toward a large metal cage. His body hit the back wall of bars, and his teeth slammed together. His own blood filled his mouth, but he didn’t let that slow him. He leapt to his feet, but the door he had flown through had already slammed shut.
He raced to the closed opening anyway and jerked on the door. It held fast.
Frustration and rage filled him. He wrapped his hands around the cold bars and hissed, or tried to. Only air gurgled from his lips.
A few yards away, the sea hag appeared on a kelpie of her own. Her snake-tail draped like pearl strands over the creature’s sides, and her fingers wove into its mane. With a shake of her head, she guided the kelpie closer.
“Neither running nor fighting will do you any good. Why not accept your fate and give love a chance?” She swept her hair over one shoulder, revealing one perfectly formed breast. “I assure you, I have every charm the mermaid offered.” Looking like some twisted version of Lady Godiva, she leaned forward. “Love me, and I will set you free.”
A luminous globe appeared in her hand. She tossed it toward his cage. He tried to move, but the bubble burst, coating him in some invisible liquid.
“Speak now,” she ordered, impatient.
Realizing her voice sounded clearer now, he did. Water didn’t rush into his mouth, and his words came out with ease. “You can’t order love delivered like milk to your door.” Disgust and disbelief warred for control of Nolan’s emotions.
Her eyes narrowed. “Perhaps not, but I can and did order a man, and I can order more. Would you like to see your predecessors?” She waved her hand, and the water around Nolan lightened, as if illuminated from below. Twenty cages stood anchored to the sea floor. Kelpies wearing harnesses waited beside them.
“They’re empty,” he replied, unimpressed.
Melusine smiled. “Look again.” She motioned to two of the harnessed kelpies. The creatures walked toward him pulling one of the cages with them.
Bones littered the bottom of the cage—human bones.
Nolan’s stomach clenched, but he held his gaze steady. “That won’t happen to me. I’m a vampire.”
Again, Melusine smiled. “All the better. You have eternity to realize our love. In the meanwhile, I have more suitors to gather.” She flicked her tail against the kelpie’s side, but then, as the creature started to move, pulled back on its mane. “If you have a breakthrough, simply tell your guard. He will be
happy to find me so you can declare your love.”
The dragon swam toward them, knocking against the empty cages and jostling the bones inside. The kelpies parted and pulled back; then, after a signal from the sea hag, bolted as one upward and out of sight.
The dragon curled around Nolan’s cage. Its head propped onto its body, it watched him through one slitted green eye.
Finding the dragon’s regard unnerving, Nolan closed his eyes and allowed his body to drift upward to the top of the cage. Once there, he floated, feigning sleep and wishing for the millionth time he wasn’t a vampire. Wishing he could die.
Chapter Nine
Nolan floated at the top of the cage like a dead fish for days. The sea hag returned regularly to tempt him with promises of sex, riches, and everything her twisted mind could imagine that a human turned vampire might desire.
The first day into what Nolan calculated was his second week trapped underwater, she arrived on the back of a kelpie, a dagger in her hand.
“What about blood, vampire? Would you love me for blood?” She held out one smooth, green-tinged arm.
The need for blood had been growing in Nolan for days. He closed his eyes but could feel his body shake.
“Ah… you do need blood.” The sea hag reined her kelpie closer. She hovered above his cage, looking down at him.
“What kind of blood do you crave, vampire? Mermaid? Kelpie? Dragon? Tell me you love me, and it will be yours.”
The herd of kelpies that always accompanied Melusine on her visits blew air bubbles softly out of their noses, and the dragon stirred.
Eyes still closed, Nolan replied, “Will a lie break your curse, hag?”
Melusine slapped her tail against her kelpie’s side, causing the animal to shriek. “Don’t call me that.”
“What?” Nolan opened one eye. Melusine had never shown emotion before. “Hag? The world calls you hag. Didn’t you know that?”
“No!” Melusine lowered her tail and whacked it against Nolan’s cage, sending it, and the dragon still curled around it, flying. The chain anchoring the cage in place tightened, and the cage jerked to a stop. Nolan slammed into the bars, releasing a grunt as he did.
Holding on to the bars, he forced his body into a vertical position and stared at his captor. “Outbursts won’t change the truth any more than a lie. The world knows you as a hag and a monster, and it appears they are right. Melusine, whoever she was, is dead. This is what you are now.”
“No!” Melusine dropped onto his cage, her tail wrapping around it and her hands reaching inside to grab him.
“Truth,” he yelled. “You will never find a man to love you and break your curse. No man could love what you have become.”
“Then more men will die,” she muttered, her hands groping for Nolan while her tail continued to squeeze the cage.
The kelpies and the dragon backed away. They floated at a distance, watching as Melusine raged and clawed, trying to reach Nolan to silence him.
Metal creaked, and Melusine smiled. “I will crush you in this cage, vampire.”
“And you will still be alone,” he replied, his gaze shifting to the corners of the cage and the metal that was beginning to bend, to weaken.
He’d had no plan for this fight when he’d started it, but now… If the cage broke, he could get free, but could he escape? He hadn’t fed in a week.
The tip of Melusine’s tail poked through the bars, jabbing the water, searching for Nolan.
Blood. He needed blood.
Not allowing himself to think further, he kicked his legs and propelled himself forward. Wrapping his arms and legs around the sea hag’s tail, he sank his fangs into her flesh.
Her blood was cold and thick, and tasted of salt and oil. Nolan’s first instinct was to spit out the vile liquid and pull away, but something told him to hang on and drink as he had never drunk before.
He did, guzzling until he thought he would be sick.
Melusine screamed and thrashed, trying to free her tail from his fangs. She slammed his body against the bars, but the more he drank, the stronger he felt. Until he looked out at the sea and saw things differently.
The kelpies morphed, not horses but women, bound in chains of seaweed with their mouths gagged. And the dragon was a merman, tied in the same bonds as the kelpies but his entire body wrapped in the stuff so his arms were pinned down and he had no choice but to undulate his body like a snake’s.
She’s trapped you, he thought. And the dragon lifted his head. A new understanding… hope shone in his eyes. The kelpies moved too, their eyes wide and filled with fear.
Reenergized, Nolan kicked his legs against the bars. They creaked and bent. He kicked again. He felt them give, but Melusine did too. She reached inside the broken cage and grabbed him with her tail.
Then she squeezed and squeezed some more until Nolan heard a new noise… His ribs and spine breaking. His heart would be next—not pierced but crushed. It would have the same effect.
Blood leaked from his mouth, and his senses dulled.
Wishes do come true, he thought. I’m dying.
o0o
Weeks had passed since Sarina had left Nolan. Weeks that had been filled with joy as she had returned her sister’s soul and seen the warmth return to her sister’s eyes. But the weeks had been painful too. The guilt of leaving Nolan hadn’t faded, and the torture of knowing what he had to be enduring under the sea hag’s control had not subsided.
Today it would. Today Sarina would do whatever it took to make sure she undid the wrong she’d done to the vampire.
Allera swam by Sarina’s side.
“Why are we returning?” Allera asked as she brushed aside a school of fish that had surrounded them. “Does Melusine have more souls?”
“Perhaps.” It had occurred to Sarina that if the sea hag had found Allera’s soul, she might have found others too, but that wasn’t why Sarina was swimming until her arms and tail ached or why she hadn’t stopped to sleep or eat since leaving the sea hag’s realm.
“We should have brought the others,” Allera added.
“They wouldn’t have come.”
“For the promise of souls, they would have.”
Perhaps, but soulless mermaids were too undependable and unstable. They could have been captured by the sea hag and turned into man-hunting monsters in her quest for the love that would free her from her curse.
“We can take the souls to them,” Sarina said. She’d tried to get her sister to stay behind, but Allera had insisted on following. At some point, she would learn Sarina’s true reason for returning to the sea hag’s world, but not until Sarina had Nolan in her sights—when it would be too late for Allera to fight her.
It took them another hour to reach the area where the dragon had attacked them. Sarina slowed her frantic pace to a steady flip of her tail.
Allera slowed too. “Something is… off,” she murmured.
Sarina nodded and slowed to a stop. “I smell… blood,” she said.
Without waiting for her sister to reply, she dove forward, following the scent as quickly as she could—three times their previous speed.
“Sarina!” Allera called, but Sarina had already left her sister behind, and her focus had already shifted—to a scene of mass destruction such that she could never have imagined.
Metal cages the size of small human rooms were strewn over the floor of the sea like broken toys. Bones occupied most or fell from them onto the sandy floor.
Sarina’s hands fisted as she tried to stay calm. The bones couldn’t be Nolan’s. She hadn’t been gone that long. He’d survived her test, survived the dragon’s too. He wouldn’t have drowned, and Melusine wouldn’t have killed him. He was too valuable to her; he held too much potential.
“Your vampire wasn’t up to par. I want a new human or my soul back.” Melusine wove her way through the wreckage. She was alone, no sign of her kelpies, the dragon, or any other creatures she might have enslaved to her service.
; “Where is he?” Sarina asked, pulling herself upright to face the water spirit face-to-face.
“Gone.” Melusine fluttered her hand. There were gashes in her tail, and the human part of her body bore bruises.
“It’s your blood I smell.” Sarina lifted her eyes and stared the sea hag in the face. “He fought you.”
“He insulted me.” Melusine’s eyes narrowed, and her tongue flitted out of her mouth. Then her gaze shifted, and a smile curved her lips. “My soul. You brought it back to me.”
She raised her hand, and kelpies surged forward like green water pouring from a tap.
“Get the soul!” Melusine yelled.
“No!” Sarina threw herself toward the sea hag, but the kelpies flowed between them, separating them.
“The dragon has your man.”
Sarina spun, unsure from where the words had come.
A blue-green kelpie raised its head to catch her gaze. “The sea hag has us bound so we can’t shift or speak, but your man weakened her hold.” The horse-shifter glanced over its shoulder, toward Melusine. “She doesn’t realize her power over us has weakened.”
“He weakened her?” Sarina didn’t realize it was possible to weaken a water spirit as old and powerful as Melusine.
“Bled her and ingested some of her magic,” the kelpie replied, but Sarina could tell talking with her was making the creature nervous. It shook its head, nudging her with its nose. “Go to the dragon.”
“But my sister—”
“Her soul is safe.” The kelpie whinnied then and reared up on its hind legs. As one, the herd began to move, and Sarina was swept along with them. Afraid of being crushed or left behind, she grabbed hold of the nearest kelpie’s mane and hung on. A few yards away, Allera did the same.
The kelpies cut through the water faster than the fastest ship or even the fastest mermaid. Sarina closed her eyes and hung on, praying she was doing the right thing, praying the kelpies weren’t leading her astray.
o0o
Outside a massive sea cave, still within the sea hag’s realm, the kelpies slowed.
