Catch of a Lifetime

by Judi Fennell

  "That wasn't my plan. I want to capture her."

  "So why involve me? Just go bite the twit." She snatched up a handful of prawns.

  "How's Joey doing?" Joey had been the Human re ward the gods had given Ceto during that whole Reel fiasco. Harry waited for her answer—and her reaction. Joey, he knew, could be a sore subject.

  Ceto dropped the prawn that was halfway to her mouth. "Oh, gods, don't get me started." She shook her head. "He doesn't shut up. He's either complaining about the accommodations, barking about his rights—as if he has any—or screaming in pleasure. And, frankly, the screaming is getting on my nerves the most. The man is a selfish hog. Sure, he gets to enjoy it, but me? Pleh. The guy wouldn't find the Mariana Trench if I dropped him in it, let alone anything else. Some prize he turned out to be."

  TMI, but the info fit with his plan. "So how would you like another one?"

  "Another Joey?" Ceto's mouth twisted in disgust. "No thank you."

  "Not Joey. Another Human."

  Ceto raised one of her eyebrows, took a mussel off the platter, and ran it over her lips. "Go on." She cracked the shells between her teeth.

  "Here's what I've got. I want to capture Angel and stash her here. Ransom her."

  Ceto spit the shells at him. One hit him in the star board eye. Great.

  "Sorry, Harry, but I've done my time with The Council. They're still annoyed with me over my last infraction, in case you've forgotten. I highly doubt they'd be willing to give me another Human if I abduct one of their princesses."

  "No, no. You misunderstand me, Ceto. I'll do the abducting. You'll just be loaning out your palace for a while as a holding cell. There's not much else in the ocean that will hold her. And you don't even have to be here. You could leave today, then I can bring her here, lock her up, and no one will be the wiser. Once my demands have been met, I'll release her."

  "So where does the other Human come into play?"

  "Angel is interested in one."

  Ceto cackled like the witch she could be. "You're kidding."

  He swung his head from side to side. "Looks like Fisher won't end up with any full-blooded grandchil dren at this rate."

  "Three out of five of his spawn are hooked on Humans. Ah, the delicious irony." Ceto popped another mussel in her maw.

  "Right. So, Angel's interested in a Human. And he has a son."

  "A child?" Ceto sucked in enough water Harry thought she might choke.

  There was nothing Ceto wanted more in this world than a child. Human, Mer, monster… the race didn't matter to her since the gods had forbidden her to procreate.

  "Yeah. Angel was singing to the Human and you know what that means. He's under her spell. So we'll grab her, and he and his kid will be right behind. You can have them in return for the use of your palace."

  "And I can keep the child. Turn him even…" Ceto picked up a shrimp and studied him, waving the crusta cean under her nose. "It could work…"

  Oh, yeah. Ceto had taken the bait. He had her on board now.

  Angel wasn't going to get away. This time, The Council would have to give in to his demands.

  Or else.

  Chapter 26

  ANGEL DRAGGED HERSELF ONTO THE BEACH OF THE LAST deserted cay before Bermuda and plopped her tail in the sand. Forget heading home. She wasn't up for it. Physi cally, mentally, emotionally.

  All she'd wanted was to prove to her brother that she had what it took to do the job. And look what her life had turned into…

  Yeah, she'd proved something all right. She'd proved that she was so unqualified to do the job it was laugh able, and worse than that, that she didn't know as much about Humans as she thought she did.

  Great. Her degree, her thesis, her life's work… all of it wasted.

  If Logan was too hardheaded to give her a chance to explain, well, then, no wonder the planet was in the shape it was in. Stubborn, prejudiced…

  Oh who was she kidding?

  She missed him like Hades. Last night had been per fect… Until she'd gotten out of that bed.

  He'd wanted her; he cared about her. He'd said he was falling for her. They could have had something to gether. But she'd blown it.

  A tear fell onto one of her scales, amethyst shim mering through the perfect, round drop until another splashed it away. Then another.

  Tears. She was shedding tears for a Human.

  She brushed them away. She was not going to cry over him.

  But the tears didn't stop. Silent, heartbreakingly si lent, they fell onto her tail, mingling with the saltwater, back into their element. As she was.

  Gods. He'd been so disappointed. So… angry. So hurtful.

  A crab came scuttling across the sand toward her, one of his claws waving as if she were here on a state visit. She shook her head and flicked her fingers to send him back where he came from. She wasn't up for small talk, and the fish carcass he was dragging held no appeal.

  After taking an elaborate bow, the crab turned shell and ran away.

  And, yes, so maybe she'd done the same thing, but could anyone blame her?

  Especially after the way Logan had reacted. She hadn't tried to enchant him; how could he believe that of her? Last night had been so different from the kiss in the kitchen—didn't it mean anything to him?

  Making love with him had been so perfect; how could it not be special to him? How could he not get beyond her tail to realize that? They'd fit together, their bodies in perfect harmony, creating music all their own. She hadn't sung a note. Love had made last night what it was. Wonderful. Special. Beautiful.

  Another tear fell onto the back of her hand. How could he turn what had happened between them into something dark and ugly?

  She picked up a handful of white sand and tossed it onto her flukes. So what if she was a Mer? She was a woman. One he'd felt something for, dammit. There was no faking that. What-in-Hades difference did it make if she had a tail? She certainly didn't look at him and say, "Oh yeah, he'd do if he could only lose the leg thing."

  She sniffed back another round of tears. Why couldn't Humans accept people as they were instead of putting labels on them? Notice the similarities instead of the differences?

  She flipped the sand off her flukes and washed them in the gentle waves, scrubbing at her eyes. Her amethyst scales were pretty, not something to be ashamed of, dammit.

  Good thing she hadn't considered giving it up—es pecially not for him, the hogsheaded, stuck-in-the-sand, stubborn son-of-a—

  Angel fell back to rest on her elbows and looked at the calm ripple of the sea's surface. The truth was, she might have.

  Gods, what did that say about her? Half—if not all— of her life seemed to have been defined by conforming to others' views and expectations of her. Angel, the student? Check. Angel, the Human-crazy Mer? Got that covered. Angel, the two-legged babysitter? Yep.

  Angel, who'd destroyed the veil of secrecy that had shrouded their race for millennia?

  Sadly, that, too, was her.

  She sniffled again. The thing was, they were her. All of them. But she was so much more than that. She was a compilation of life events and wishes and dreams and purpose and determination and…

  And lies.

  Yeah. That. She'd lied to him.

  Her head fell back, and she closed her eyes. A liar. She'd been reduced to lying about who she was. Reduced to skulking around to find some way to wiggle into the job she wanted. Granted, Rod should interview her like he did everyone else, but she, too, should have gone about applying for the job like everyone else did— in ways not designed to break the rules and subvert tried and true Mer practices.

  She deserved everything she'd gotten—or hadn't gotten.

  She flung her arms out to her sides and fell back against the sand, the sun warming her, and she remem bered Mariana's suggestion about getting burned.

  The pain in her heart was more searing than any ray of the sun.

  Gods… Logan. How could it have gone so wrong?

&nb
sp; And Michael… She'd promised him she'd be there this morning, and now she'd made a liar out of herself with that, too. The poor kid had been through so much already…

  A wave came out of nowhere to splash over her, salty drops sprinkling her face. Ah, the irony of the Universe flinging her tears back at her.

  Okay, already. She got it. She should have kept to the original plan of observing and not gotten involved. It was all her own fault.

  So what was she going to do about it?

  Angel grabbed two handfuls of sand. Do? What could she do? Logan had made his point perfectly clear, and she was not a glutton for punishment. She wasn't going to do anything. That stupid conscience of hers could just take a permanent vacation some place cold. Like Antarctica. Angel didn't want to hear anything from it ever again.

  Yet here she floated, moaning and giving up. Was that really what she wanted to do for the rest of her life?

  Not really. But Rod certainly wasn't going to give her the job now, and what else could she do? She'd left her notes in Logan's guesthouse, and there was no way to fix this. Logan didn't want to listen; she'd lied to him and had—albeit inadvertently—bewitched him. He had a valid point. Several, in fact.

  And Rod was sure to point out—not that he needed to because she was certainly aware of that fact now—that if she could screw up something like this, something so important to her, so personal, what did it say about her ability to handle the big-ticket items like world peace and interspecies integration?

  No. She was done. She'd turn in her degree along with her aspirations and find something else to do. Salvage work maybe.

  At least her Human knowledge would be good for something.

  Chapter 27

  COME TO PAPA! A.C.'S PRIZED TEETH GROUND AGAINST EACH other in anticipation—and this time he didn't give a fly ing fuck that a few broke off. Breakfast was about to be served.

  "AAAnngggeeelll!"

  Of course the pup had to be yelling underwater. A.C. wanted to clean out his ears. Too bad they were on the dorsal side of his head and he couldn't reach them. Hades. Didn't the pup have anything else to say? Another tone he could use?

  If only he could surge in and grab him, but A.C. was still a few yards too far out, and the water was becoming too shallow for him to be able to function properly. And if there was one thing a Hammerhead liked to do, it was function properly. He was a veritable killing machine created by the gods. He hadn't missed any prey yet.

  Except that Mer…

  Yeah. Much as he hated to admit it, the fact that Angel had gotten away did count as a miss. Couldn't have that. He had a 100 percent EVA. Earned Victim Average. He'd put a lot of effort into it.

  A.C. strummed his pectoral fin against the sandy bot tom. How could he get Angel?

  "AAAAnnnnggggeeeellll! I wanna come with you!" The pup splashed a few more yards into the water.

  How handy was that?

  "Hey, pup. I mean, kid." A.C. tilted his head side ways so the words would resonate above the water. Hammers were definitely not made to talk like this, but when you wanted something badly enough, you found a way.

  "Who said that?" The pup stopped screaming. Finally.

  Another handy thing was the fact that Human vocal chords were located in the neck, A.C.'s usual target of attack.

  Although… Hmmm… Maybe he wouldn't eat him. Well, not yet anyway. If the pup—kid—cared this much about her, maybe she cared about him, too, and why not kill two parrotfish with one strike?

  Yeah. He'd use the kid as bait to lure Angel out of her royal air bubble. Wouldn't that be a bait and switch? Mers were all about protecting the young—even Human young. He'd seen some perfectly fine cruise-ship meals pass him by, thanks to those damn altruistic Mers turned-dolphins.

  Dolphins. Blech. Mammal, or a Mer who'd turned into one for whatever idiotic reason they came up with, the result was the same: perpetually smiling, happy do gooders. Made him want to puke.

  The kid stopped moving and put a hat on his head.

  Yeah, that ought to protect him.

  Not.

  "Angel?"

  "No. Me." A.C.'s mind was churning along with the anticipation in his gut. He knew what he was going to do. And it was going to be a b-eaut. Everyone would be talking about this catch.

  It really was a no-brainer to see why he was high on the food chain in every ocean. Instinct jumped in and saved him where indecision could have lost him this deal.

  "You're… a shark."

  Oooh, score one for the Human. "Yeah, I am. Problem with that?"

  "Sharks eat people."

  Only if they qualified as a meal. This pup was barely an appetizer. "Well, some do. But not all of us. And I can take you to Angel."

  "You can? Cool!"

  A.C. had absolutely no problem lying to him. A shark with a conscience was a skinny shark. Dead, even.

  Besides he would take him to her. Right before he ate both of them.

  The Human started heading in deeper. A little slower than A.C. would have liked, but it was progress—to both a gargantuan meal and one hell of a reputation. He didn't know the last time a shark had gotten a Mer.

  "You really know where Angel is?"

  Heh. He'd hooked the little sucker. "You betcha."

  And then the sucker stopped. Two more feet, and his two feet would be A.C.'s.

  "I dunno."

  Gods save him from creatures with a brain—which would be why he put up with Abby. What that shark could do with only two brain cells…

  "Look, kid. I can't hang out here all day. You comin' or what?" A.C. even turned a hundred-and-twenty de grees to make it look legit.

  "How?"

  "How?" What did he mean, how? It was the ocean. He was a shark. Was there really a question?

  "Yeah. How? I can't breathe water like you and Angel can. I don't wanna get drowned."

  Fuck. He hadn't thought about that.

  A.C. scanned the area. He didn't see any boats around. No one to see him hauling his prize through the water and decide he'd make a nicer prize.

  "Yeah. Okay. Whatever. You can ride on top. Climb on." The things he did for dinner. And lunch. And an appetizer… He'd savor every one of Angel's scales.

  "Okay. I'm comin'." And with that, two little legs splashed through the waves, right toward him. A.C.'s mouth started to water.

  The kid climbed aboard and grabbed hold of his dorsal. A.C. hoped none of the guys saw him acting like those stupid, Human-friendly dolphins, but then, they had no room to talk. They were just plain stupid. Besides, they were probably still asleep. Losers.

  Still, A.C. wanted to hightail it out of there, so he whipped his caudal fin sideways—and almost flung his appetizer off in the process. He slowed down so the kid could hold on for dear life—such a futile gesture— because there was no fucking way he was gonna lose his ticket to a tasty Mer meal. This was like taking candy from a baby.

  No. Make that, making candy from a baby.

  Chapter 28

  LOGAN WOKE UP WITH A HELL OF A HANGOVER. AND he hadn't even been drinking—how was that for fucking sucks?

  No, it wasn't a hangover. He was drained. Physically from one of the best nights of his life—before her reve lation—and emotionally… from, well…

  The damn revelation itself.

  She was a mermaid. A mermaid.

  He wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes. He almost wished he'd touched her tail—

  No he didn't. She was a mermaid, for chrissake.

  Mermaids were myths. Legends. Sirens. They lured ships onto rocks and sailors to their deaths by promis ing nights of deadly delight. Which she'd proved in that damn kitchen.

  He knew something weird had been going on. He didn't attack women. No matter how gorgeous they were.

  And yet, he'd slept with her. Was he out of his mind?

  He had to be. She had to have cast some spell over him to make him fall—oh, shit.

  Logan threw the covers off, one ha
lf of his brain call ing him all sorts of idiot for even thinking what he was thinking, the other half terrified she had actually done something to him.

  He looked down.

  Normal. Thank God.

  Tired and worn out, but normal.