One Soul To Share

by Lori Devoti

Sarina loosened her hold on the mane she’d held and floated to a stop.

  “The dragon,” the kelpie who had spoken to her said, then whinnied to the others, and as a herd, they left.

  Allera swam up to her, looking dazed and uncertain. “What happened?” she asked.

  Sarina shook her head. “I don’t know. One kelpie told me—” She broke off her response. She hadn’t told her sister about Nolan. “One told me the sea hag had bound them so they can’t shift or speak.”

  “But they took us away from her.”

  “And she won’t be happy.” Sarina hoped the kelpies could handle Melusine, but the creatures had given her and Allera their assistance of their own free will. She had to believe they knew what they were doing. And now she had other issues.

  She turned to Allera. “I have to tell you something.”

  “Do you?” Her sister’s eye brows lifted.

  “There’s a man. A vampire. I traded him to Melusine to get your soul. And now I have to get him back.”

  “A vampire? They’re real?”

  “Yes.” Sarina was surprised Allera knew of vampires, but, she realized, she hadn’t seen her sister in a very long time. They hardly knew each other anymore.

  “And you’re risking yourself to save him?”

  There was no censure in the question, just curiosity, but still Sarina looked away. “I have to.”

  “I see.”

  And maybe Allera did. The young mermaid she’d been when the pirates stole her soul couldn’t possibly have understood, but this Allera was older… changed.

  And so was Sarina.

  She placed a grateful hand on her sister’s arm and swam into the cave.

  The place was dark, darker even than the deeper part of the ocean where Melusine’s cages had been. Sarina sensed the rock formations that jutted from all sides of the cave. She swam around them instinctively while her other senses stayed alert for living presences.

  She quickly sensed one. A large one. The dragon.

  It was curled into a spiral at the back of the cave.

  “Mermaid,” he said. “You’ve come for my treasure.”

  “Treasure?” Sarina paused. “No. The kelpies said you have the vampire.” Her gaze roamed the area around the dragon, but there was no sign of Nolan, no sense of him either.

  “Treasure.” The dragon lifted one loop of his body. Nolan lay tucked against him like a baby. “He’s dead.”

  “Dead? No. That can’t be.” Sarina rushed forward.

  The dragon’s tongue darted out of his mouth, brushing against her chest. “He gave me the strength to swim away.”

  “You too?” Sarina edged sideways, wondering if she could call Allera, wondering more what good it would do. Two mermaids against a dragon that equaled fifty of their kind in weight.

  “But I’m not free, not completely. I thought if I brought him here, I could save him—so he could finish what he began.”

  “Finish?” Sarina paused. The dragon didn’t want Nolan dead. It wanted the vampire alive. She moved forward a foot. The tongue pressed against her chest again.

  “I can save him.” Her hand moved to her vial.

  Nolan wanted a soul. She couldn’t give him Allera’s because it wasn’t hers to give, but she could give her own.

  “A mermaid soul,” the dragon muttered, causing Sarina to hesitate. Dragons were dumb creatures motivated by base needs and greed. They didn’t know about souls or mermaids.

  This dragon wasn’t what it appeared.

  Before she could ponder the thought more and think of how she might use the realization, a voice called out behind her.

  “Stop!”

  Allera stood in the opening of the cave. Realizing her sister had figured out her plan, Sarina spun.

  “You can’t understand. I have to save him.”

  “Because you used him to save me.”

  Sarina shook her head. Her hair streamed up and outward. “Because… because I love him.”

  “Love?” Shock was clear on Allera’s face.

  Sarina bit her lip and turned back to the dragon. Allera could judge her, would judge her, but it didn’t matter, because soon, without her soul, Sarina would be like every other soulless mermaid—an unfeeling shell devoured by hunger and knowing nothing else.

  Chapter Ten

  Again, Sarina reached for her soul.

  Allera raced forward. Arms outstretched, she knocked into Sarina, sending the mermaid flying into the cave’s wall.

  “Allera, I—”

  Allera stood in front of her, her hand raised palm out. “You’ll kill him.”

  “No, I….” Sarina glanced from her sister to Nolan.

  “You said he’s a vampire. Vampires are immortal or close to it. If you give him a soul in the state he’s in, he will be human. He will die.”

  Sarina rose onto her arms, then slowly, pushed herself upright. She swam forward, closer to the dragon. This time, the creature, its attention shifting between the two sisters, allowed her to approach. She knelt and placed her hand on Nolan’s chest. No heart beat, but there was something else…

  “He’s alive,” she murmured, to the dragon, her sister, herself. She needed to say the words, but she couldn’t keep from admitting the truth either. “Barely.”

  Allera blew air out of rounded lips. “He needs land. Just surviving here has to be draining him—too much for him to heal.”

  Land. It was an idea. Nolan wasn’t a creature of the sea, and, despite the fact that he’d been able to tolerate staying so long beneath the water’s surface, it made sense that he would fare better on land.

  She looked at the dragon.

  The creature’s tail closed back over Nolan, hiding him.

  Holding very still, Sarina waited. The dragon had said he wanted to save Nolan, but he had also called him a treasure. Dragons didn’t hand over their treasures lightly.

  “Let me try,” she murmured.

  The dragon stared at her. His tongue flicked out again but this time didn’t touch her. “You’ll bring him back to me?”

  Sarina couldn’t promise that. She froze, but Allera saved her. She swam forward and placed her hand on Sarina’s shoulder. “If he won’t come, I will, and I’ll bring the mermaids. We’ll figure a way out of your enchantment.”

  Sarina’s eyes widened. Allera seemed to have knowledge and instinct that Sarina lacked.

  “Enchantment?” she asked.

  “He’s a merman,” Allera replied. “The sea hag trapped him six decades ago. Whatever your vampire did broke the bonds but not the enchantment. He’s still stuck in this realm and this state.”

  The dragon lifted his head. “If Melusine finds me before you return…”

  Allera folded her arms over her chest. “I know, but I won’t forget or forsake my promise.”

  The two had lost Sarina, but that didn’t matter. What did was getting Nolan to land. While the dragon stared at her sister, Sarina leaned forward and carefully pulled Nolan free from the dragon’s grip.

  Then, with his body wedged under her arm, she swam for the surface.

  o0o

  Days later…

  Nolan gagged and began to cough. Rolling over, his body began to heave until the contents of his stomach, nothing it seemed but seawater, flooded onto the ground beside him.

  Ground. He was on solid ground.

  He coughed some more, his hands gripping the rough wooden dock he lay on. His fingernails dug into the planks, tearing them to the quick. His skin felt shriveled, and his clothes were heavy and wet.

  He coughed again, expelling more seawater until his throat burned and his stomach ached.

  A foot nudged him in the side, shoving him onto his back. “What are you that you survived her tricks?”

  He looked up.

  The bartender stood above him. The moon shone at his back, clearly illuminating the pistol in his hand.

  “Are you part fish? A witch?” The bartender cocked the gun and held it up, his hands an
d the weapon shaking.

  “Where is she?” Nolan rasped. His voice was rough, and it hurt to speak.

  “Gone. She dumped you here and left. With luck, she won’t be coming back.”

  But she had to come back. Nolan had to get her back. He pushed his body to a sit. The world shifted as he moved, and his head ached. He clasped it in his hands.

  “I should ignore her threats and kill you now,” the man beside him muttered.

  Nolan glanced at him again. “Threats?”

  The man’s lips thinned, and his hand moved to a pocket. “If I give it to you, will you leave? Never come back?”

  “Give me what?” Nolan couldn’t imagine what the bartender could have for him.

  “I wouldn’t… but she was different this time. Hard. Cold. I could see she didn’t care, meant every word she spoke. She’d have eaten my liver and fed my brains to the birds, then sent her sisters to hunt down all I’ve loved.” The man’s thumb caressed the gun’s hammer. “I ain’t got much, but I’ve fought for what I have. I don’t fancy losing it to the mermaids.”

  Nolan staggered to his feet and threw his body against the bartender. His hands, still stiff from their time under water, gripped the man by his shirt. “What did she leave for me?”

  For a moment, the bartender hesitated, and Nolan could see the decision revolving behind his eyes. Then he pulled his hand from his pocket and shoved it toward Nolan. “This. She left you this. Take it and leave!”

  The vial Sarina had worn around her neck fell from his fingers and onto Nolan’s palm. With a harried glance, the man shoved his gun into his pants and scurried for the safety of his bar.

  Nolan didn’t watch him leave; he barely noticed that he had. He just stared at the vial and wondered what it meant.

  A soul. Sarina had given him a soul. Elation and warmth shot through him. Then he closed his fingers around the glass, and his emotion changed.

  Not a soul. Her soul.

  Sarina had sacrificed her soul for him.

  o0o

  Six days later, Nolan stared out over the water.

  Dawn was approaching. This sunrise would mark his seventh on board the dilapidated boat that he’d stolen for this mission to insanity.

  His eyes burned from sleeping on deck in the day, and his skin itched from the salt still coating his body after his time under the sea with Sarina.

  After he’d realized what the mermaid had given him, he had forced his body to stand and follow the bartender. Then he’d used his built-up hunger and exhaustion to show the man how intimidating a preternatural creature could be.

  The bartender hadn’t even reached for his gun. Instead, eyes wide and face pale, he’d babbled every bit of trivia and lore he’d collected about mermaids, including how to find them.

  In the distance, silhouetted by the rising sun, Nolan could see the island he sought. The bit of land was covered in rocks, no sign of a sandy beach or a tree, but jutting from the water around it were hulls and masts of ships long ago wrecked and their sailors taken.

  Taken by mermaids, harvested, according to the bartender, in the mermaids’ never-ending quest for souls.

  Sarina’s soul safe in a silver box, Nolan walked to the front of his small vessel and waited.

  Slowly, as he approached, the mermaids came. Only a few at first, brunettes and blondes, redheads and a few with silver or green hair that glistened like some exotic precious metal in the gathering light.

  All were attractive, but none were as beautiful as Sarina.

  The mermaids circled his boat, confused, he guessed, by his presence but obvious lack of a soul.

  As more mermaids appeared, the water beneath the boat shifted. Nolan widened his stance to maintain his balance and continued to scan the growing group of mermaids.

  According to the bartender, the mermaids couldn’t touch him or his vessel. Like vampires, they had to be invited aboard—more than that—invited to touch him. And there was only one mermaid he would give that permission.

  Another half hour, he waited. The sun was up now and strong enough Nolan was forced to pull sunglasses and a hat from a duffel.

  She wasn’t coming. His presence alone wasn’t enough. A bit of him died, but he wouldn’t give up hope; he couldn’t.

  Kneeling, he dug into the duffel again and, following Odysseus’ lead, he pulled two softened chunks of wax from inside and placed them into his ears.

  Then he opened the box.

  Immediately, the mermaids began to rise out of the water and sing. They bared their breasts, held out their arms and tossed their hair. It was enough to get any male of any species to step off the boat and into the water, to give up his life… his soul… for just the brush of one mermaid’s finger.

  Enough, that was, for most, but not Nolan. With his ears plugged and his heart taken, he looked over the alluring bodies with the cold, clinical eye of a computer tech searching for a missing piece of code.

  And then he saw her.

  She rose out of the water like the others, her hair flowing over her shoulders and her lips curved in a smile.

  Only Nolan, knowing the real Sarina, could see the cold death behind her eyes and the robotic lack of caring in her movements.

  Still, his pulse jumped, and it took all his self-control to keep from jumping overboard into the mass of undulating mermaid forms.

  His eyes never leaving Sarina’s, he pulled the chain that held her soul from the box and dangled the precious piece over his head. “Sarina!” he called. “Come for me.”

  And she did. She pushed the mermaids closest to her out of her path, then sliced through the water with her arms. At the boat, she looked up at him. Water slicked back her hair and glistened on her breasts.

  “Human,” she whispered.

  “Nolan,” he replied. “Say my name, Sarina.”

  Her hand reached up to take his, but he stepped back. “My name.”

  Her brows lowered, and confusion flitted across her face, but her eyes were dead. “You called me.”

  “My name. Say it.” He didn’t know why he needed her to say his name. Perhaps it was to prove that even minus her soul, she could remember him, love him as deeply as he loved her.

  To prove that neither of them—soul or no soul—was a monster.

  “Nolan,” she whispered, then, placing her hands onto the boat’s edge, she lifted her body. As she rose, her face changed; her mouth opened, and her teeth sharpened. Not just fangs, teeth… like a piranha’s.

  He didn’t pull back. He didn’t feel any horror. She was still his, still everything he loved. “Sarina. Say it again,” he ordered, stepping back again and hiding the soul behind his back.

  She shook her head as if trying to dislodge some thought or nightmare. “Nolan… Nolan,” she muttered again. Confusion clouded her eyes.

  Better than the deadness he’d seen there before.

  “Nolan… the vampire. The man I…”

  Her eyes cleared, and horror dashed across her face.

  Her arms, holding her up, began to shake until she fell forward, limp, into the boat. She curled into a ball, still shaking.

  A trick. It was what the bartender would have claimed, but Nolan knew better. Sarina remembers me.

  He rushed forward and pulled her close. Her face was hers again; the monster was gone. Her fingers tightened on his arm, but her eyes remained closed, screwed tight as if she was afraid to open them.

  Carefully, he slipped the necklace over her neck and let her soul fall down against her heart. Then he tipped her face up to his and stared into her now open, beautiful, sea-green eyes.

  “I don’t need to be what I was. I don’t need a soul,” he murmured. “Not if you can love me as I am.”

  “But…” Her fingers went to the vial. “I would have killed you, dragged you to the bottom of the sea, and torn out your heart. I… wanted to.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “But—”

  “You didn’t.” It was enough. He didn�
�t expect perfection, didn’t expect the impossible. Her loving him at all, accepting him, was miracle enough.

  “The sea hag has more souls,” he told her. “Enough for all the mermaids here.”

  “You would go back? Risk being captured again?”

  “I would.” For Sarina, he would risk anything… everything.

  “I love you,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t, but I do.”

  “And I love you.”

  Then he pulled her close, and he kissed her.

  One soul, one life, one love—nothing could be better than what they had, together.

  -o0o—

  Note from Lori

  Thanks for reading One Soul to Share. If you would like to see more stories in this series or any of my series or if you just have a question to ask or thought to share, I’d love to hear from you. Drop me an email at Lori@LoriDevoti.com or send a message through Twitter or Facebook.

  Then stop by my web site for information on my monthly contests and Fan of the Month program.

  And if you enjoyed the story and have a moment, reviews posted online at any of the online booksellers, Goodreads, or your blog are always appreciated!

  Thanks so much for reading my stories.

  Lori Devoti

  About the Author

  Lori Devoti is the author of urban fantasy, contemporary and paranormal romance. To learn more about her fiction, visit her web site, http://www.loridevoti.com, or her fan page on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/LoriDevotiAuthor.

  Or email her at lori@loridevoti.com

  -o0o—

  Other Titles by Lori Devoti

  -Paranormal Romance—

  Unbound (Harlequin)

  Guardian’s Keep (Harlequin)

  Wild Hunt (Harlequin)

  Dark Crusade (Harlequin)

  The Hellhound King (Harlequin)

  Zombie Moon (Harlequin)

  The Witch Thief (Harlequin)

  Trust Me (vampire)

  Enemy Vampire (coming soon from Harlequin)

  -Contemporary Romance—

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  Love is All You Need

  -Urban Fantasy—

  Amazon Queen (Pocket)

  Amazon Ink (Pocket)

  -Short Stories—

  Captured (Harlequin)

  Lured (Harlequin)

  Zombie Midnight (Harlequin)