by Starla Night
The salty water blurred her vision. She blinked.
Small fish hovered in the shade beneath the raft.
A larger fish evaded her focus.
She squinted.
Angry eyes. Dangerous purple-gray tattoos.
Electricity jolted her veins.
The monster!
She gasped.
Water clogged her throat.
She pulled herself back and slammed into the floor of the raft, coughing.
He did not follow her.
She refused to die as a dried-out, salty husk. Harmony crawled to the edge and took a deep breath. She had to be calm. Controlled. Subservient.
For Evens.
She held her breath and started to lean over to plunge in again. But before she could do so, something caught her eye.
A few feet away, the monster’s forehead popped above the surface. He hovered mid-waves like a submerged crocodile. Only his eyes lifted above the waves. His nose remained beneath the water.
He studied her.
She let out her breath in a shaky rush. Her heart quickened.
This was it. He’d won. She didn’t have the will to resist. Her headache hurt so badly.
He’d been destined to defeat her.
“W-well, what do I have to do?” she demanded.
His lips rose above the water line. “Do?”
“You have me. Alone.” She hugged her bare elbows. Her sleeves hung from her shoulders in long strips attached by threads. “What do you want?”
“Want?” His voice rasped.
“Yes, w-want!” Hers shrilled. “You proved your point. I can’t survive without you. Stop this punishment. I’ll do whatever you ask.”
His brow descended.
She’d made him angry. Thunderous.
Her heart thudded.
What would he do?
He searched for words. Never a good sign.
She braced.
“This is no punishment.”
Of course it’s a punishment! How can it not be? She swallowed the protest and waited for his wrath.
“I rescued you.” His shoulders floated above the water line. Bare, knotted with muscle, riddled with scars. His voice smoothed as though he’d gotten rid of the last of the water in his throat. “You are no captive.”
“Okay.” She forced herself to be calm. Pretend to believe his lies. And when he transformed into an unrecognizable beast and ripped her to pieces like he’d ripped the dead fish, she would endure that terror too. “Where are you taking me?”
“Where?” He hooked a hand on the edge of the raft and gazed into the distance. “Where do you sail?”
“I don’t know.”
His shoulders lifted. Was that a shrug? They dropped again. “I do not know either.”
“You control the wind and the water.”
“I do not.”
“You are the Sea Lord.”
“And? You think I control the ocean surface? How would I do such a thing?”
“Use your power.”
“My only power is to breathe.”
“I know the truth!”
“Do other amphibious creatures possess such powers?”
Amphibious creatures? But her great-grandmother had said…
A large wave crested the raft, slapping the slats, and showered her with rebuking spray.
He had done it! Slapped her with the water!
“You are confused.” He rested his second hand on the edge of the raft. His wiry muscles flexed and his brows furrowed.
In fury!
He would enter the raft and beat her.
Fear panged her chest.
She scrunched into the corner. This torture had to end, but she didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to—
“Please.” His voice broke. Still floating, he rubbed his palm on his chest. “Do not fear me.”
Had he begged the fish with that same ragged tone right before he’d dismembered it?
She squeezed her eyes shut and braced.
“Why did you summon me?” he demanded. “What do you need?”
She held her breath.
“Tell me your desire.”
But she couldn’t.
He would kill her.
His voice turned heavy. “I will leave you.”
Silence.
Splish.
She peeped with one eye.
He was gone.
Harmony sat crisscross and mulled
The Sea Lord had said he couldn’t control the wind and waves—despite evidence to the contrary. He must be lying.
Except…what if he was right?
He’d sounded so sad. Wounded, even. Her chest throbbed.
She rubbed her dress collar.
Tell me your desire.
It had been a long time since she’d told anyone her desires.
Right now, her primary desire was for a tall glass of water followed by two cups of iced tea and a pitcher of lemonade. Pink lemonade with extra sugar.
And a thick slice of carrot cake, ten strawberry frosted toaster tarts, four pumpkin pies, and an entire Thanksgiving dinner of turkey and ham.
She’d planned to share all that someday with Evens.
“I will go to America and become a marine biologist,” Evens had told her seriously on his eighth birthday. She’d scrimped to gift him a shiny new mask with bright orange plastic. He’d hugged it as his special treasure. “I’ll make them give you a work visa.”
“Oh?” She had tousled his thick, dark hair the same color as hers. “What work will I do?”
“You can be housekeeper in my university dorm room. But you don’t have to work. You can be free. No one will ever know.”
She had to save Evens.
Maybe the Sea Lord could help her.
Be brave. Tell him your desire. For Evens.
For Fab.
Heart thumping hard, Harmony knelt by the side of the raft and splashed the waves as if she was tapping on a door.
The Sea Lord arose once more.
Dark, angry eyes. Mesmerizing awareness stirred deep in her soul. Her body heated.
This time, his ears lifted above the water line.
“I’m sorry.” She coughed on a dry throat. “Sorry to disturb you. I just… I…I need you to take me somewhere.”
He rose above the waterline and raked his hair out of his face, exposing a long, harsh scar across his cheekbone. “Where?”
America. Anywhere in America. America, America, America.
“Haiti.” She sucked in a deep breath and let it out. “I have to rescue my cousin. In Haiti.”
“Where is Haiti?”
She’d asked the same question when Customs and Immigration had dumped her there. “It’s the big island east of Cuba. On the western side. The eastern side is the Dominican Republic.”
“How can I go there from here?”
“I don’t know.”
“I do not know either.”
A flash of anger burned in her chest. She quelled it. Upsetting powerful men only ended up hurting her. “You have to know.”
“How do I know?”
“You’re the Sea Lord!”
The furious silence stretched.
She clenched her hands and released them. “So, where can you take me?”
“I can take you anywhere you wish.”
Then take me to Haiti! She sucked in a deep breath and released it. “Do you know how to get to America?”
“I do.”
“Can you take me there?”
“No.”
Seriously. What was the point of making her ask if he couldn’t do anything she asked him to do?
Disappointment mixed with irritation made her petulant question pop out. “Why not?”
“Because I only know the route from the deep ocean currents. Not the surface. And I did not bring my Life Tree’s blossom. So you cannot transform.”
She couldn’t transform.
“Transform? What do you mean, I can�
�t transform?”
“You cannot become amphibious.”
“Huh?”
“To shift from human to mer, you must drink nectar from a flower of the Life Tree. Then our souls must resonate. And then you will transform.”
“Oh. Wait, what do you mean, ‘Our souls must resonate’?”
“We must synchronize our souls. Only once a warrior and his…his bride have synchronized can she shift into a mer.”
“So, you’re not going to drag me into the ocean right now?”
“You are human and would drown.”
“But you’re supposed to drag me to the ocean bottom and consume my soul.”
“Consume? Why? And how?”
“I don’t know. You’re the Sea Lord.”
“I do not know ei—”
“My great-grandmother said you would,” she interrupted in a rush. “Every year, the Sea Lord carries off a woman of my tribe to have a child. She returns missing half her soul. That’s what you do.”
His jaw closed with a click. New shock burned in his eyes. “You are a sacred island bride!”
So he knew.
“That’s why you kidnapped me,” she reminded him.
“I rescued you,” he repeated, as though she were the idiot. “What city patronizes your island?”
“Huh?”
“What mer city do your warriors come from?”
“There’s more than one?”
“Of course.”
“Well, how am I supposed to know?”
His lips twisted to the side with pity. “You do not review the human ‘news’ programs or ‘internet,’ do you?”
“I heard about the mer when you were first discovered, but until a couple days ago, it had as much relevance to me as life on Mars. Anyway.” She rubbed her cheeks—bruised—and her knees—also bruised. “The last thing Jean-Baptiste did was radio an order to execute my cousin. I have to stop it.”
“Radio? On the communications tower?”
“I guess.”
“That tower broke off as your Lifet threw this life raft overboard. He could not radio anyone.”
Oh, thank goodness. Relief flushed through her. Tears pricked the back of her eyes. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, very. The Coast Guard spotter announced when it happened.”
“Great. Wow.” She got up on her knees. “Now I have to get back to—wait. You were with the Coast Guard?”
“They asked for my aid on a different mission. I have swum for them several times.”
“You weren’t there for me?”
“I was there to support a sting operation on a cartel-owned submersible. During our return to port, we received the location of your gangster boyfriend.”
“Ex.”
“Yes. I remained alert to rescue you or any other human who fell into the water.”
“But you weren’t there to collect me as your ‘sacred bride’ or whatever?”
“No.”
The coincidence was staggering. “Really?”
“Of course. Should I expect to meet a sacred island bride, I would carry, at the very least, my Sea Opal offering.”
“You didn’t?”
“The Coast Guard requested I leave valuables at home.”
That actually sounded plausible. Huh.
A fierce scar cut a deep, angry furrow on his brow. But he himself wasn’t as angry as she’d first thought. Scars pocked the natural lines of his face and obscured his true feelings.
Maybe she had misjudged.
“My city does not limit our hunt to sacred islands,” he continued, as though she needed more explanation. “We may encounter our mate on any surface. I searched for my bride from a penthouse in New York.”
“New York!”
He tilted his head. “You do not recognize me? I spoke on human televisions. Oprah. Sixty Minutes. Jersey Shore.”
“You were on Jersey Shore?”
“The remake. One episode.”
She snorted.
His lips curved into a shared smile.
The monster could smile?
Warmth seeped into her chest. Revitalized by the food he had brought her, calmed by his entirely normal conversation, gratitude flowed in her veins, and her ordinary, trusting nature tried to reassert itself.
She wanted to believe he had stumbled upon her by accident. She wanted to believe he worked with the Coast Guard. She wanted to believe he’d been on an episode of Jersey Shore. The remake.
His aura glowed a steady mauve, the same color as his tattoos and the iridescent threads in his mesmerizing dark eyes. Reassurance flooded her veins.
Intoxicating.
He was here. Her protector, her warrior. She must seek his powerful arms, shelter in his kiss. The moment their lips touched she would be free. Once he claimed her, he would always keep her safe.
Hot desire tingled deep in her bones. Her channel slicked, readying for his possession. She wanted his claim.
No, her thoughts made no sense. She tried to shake the strange feelings off.
But her attraction to the dangerous male hummed.
She rested her palms on her knees. “Are you sure you don’t steal souls?”
He hesitated.
Or maybe not. “What’s, uh, more important is getting me back to land and you back to, uh, New York.”
“Yes.”
“So how do we do that?”
“I do not know.”
Here they went again. “But you’re…okay. You don’t know where to sail. You expect me to know where to go.”
“I push the raft,” he agreed. “I traverse currents. The Coast Guard uses a navigational tool called a ‘GPS’ and ‘maritime charts’ and also ‘satellites.’ You have these human tools?”
“Nope.” She patted the barren floorboards. “I don’t even have shelter or water. Which will be pretty important pretty soon.”
He ducked beneath the waves.
No.
No!
She rushed to the place he’d disappeared. “Monster!”
He was gone.
She sat back and berated herself. Harmony couldn’t just call him “monster.” How stupid. She needed to ask his name.
He’d come back. Right? He wouldn’t strand her.
Not again.
A chunk of lawn chair sailed over the side of the raft. And then plastic webbing landed.
She fingered the shredded plastic. What—?
He surfaced. “Can you build a shelter?”
“Uh…maybe.” She rotated the lawn chair pieces. “Are there poles or ropes? I can lash—”
He disappeared.
More detritus popped from the sea and landed in the raft. She pieced together a shelter, weaving the frayed plastics on rusted metal and trying not to cut herself. It had been a decade since her last tetanus shot.
The sun descended. Mist blurred the horizon once more. She positioned moisture-catchers—tarps Monsieur Joseph had taught her and Evens to build when they had still fantasized about stealing Lifet’s life raft and sailing it to America—to collect fresh water.
The Sea Lord dropped two more dead fish, each the size of her hand, over the side near the others. “You now have what you need to survive?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
He released the raft and turned away.
“Wait!”
He bobbed in the rolling waves.
Okay. She swallowed. “I’m sorry about before. Screaming and calling you names. I was scared and I never meant to make you angry.”
“I have never been angry.”
“Ever?”
“Not at you”
The sun dipped below the horizon. Harsh orange faded into a pink whimper.
In front of her floated a dangerous male. A warrior. Primal. He stirred awareness in her belly. The commanding jaw, the cut of his cheekbones, the flare of his nostrils were more deadly than any human’s. And the tattoos. Dark purple—mauve—and iridescent. They shimmered like a fish.
&nb
sp; This primal, dangerous male had rescued her.
And he claimed she had kissed him.
Well, maybe under different circumstances—in another life, when she hadn’t been betrayed, exiled to Haiti, and subjected to a terrifying prophecy—maybe she would have.
Heat flared in her belly.
No!
No, she wouldn’t have kissed him. Just like she wasn’t wondering what his lips had tasted like. Salty? Like the ocean? Commanding? Or perhaps sweet…
Ugh! No.
“Tell me your desire,” he ordered.
“I want to get to land.”
“Yes, aside from that. You stare at me with an unspoken wish.”
He knew. She gasped. “I, uh, just wish I could do something more useful than sitting in the raft.”
“Then I will leave you.” He disappeared beneath the surf.
“Ah!” She rushed to the side. But he was gone.
In the sunset distance, a long, curved shark’s fin cut the water. The shark veered away from her raft. Was that the doing of the warrior?
Was he still rescuing her?
She drew the plastic shelter around her to stave off the chilly, damp wind. It worked. Her little spot created a junk nest around her shivery body.
Things were much better than they’d been hours ago.
And also much, much worse.
This Sea Lord hadn’t come for her.
He didn’t have ocean-controlling god powers. In fact, he and Harmony were both victims of the same storm. Both far from home. Both unable to find a way back to land.
This Sea Lord had rescued her. He stayed with her. But for how long? He could go anywhere. Dive. Leave her to fate.
And she needed to get back to land. Evens had survived Jean-Baptiste’s wrath but he could still be stranded in the gang. Alone, frightened, and unable to get free.
Just like her.
Chapter Six
Faier gave the confused female her privacy for the rest of the night and the day. Under the raft, he watched the fish from between the slats.
She took his offerings. Warmth filled his chest. He tried to crush it. She’d had no choice.
And despite how her chest had glowed as she’d learned more about him, he would not subject her to his scarred form.
Faier caught a bluehead wrasse and surfaced. In the falling darkness, he leaned over the edge of the raft to deposit it and sink back into the depths.
“Oh. Hello!” In the twilight, the female held two dead fish in her hands. Her gray-green eyes captured his with welcome. “You surfaced again. I thought you would.”
