“I don’t know if I can do that.” His voice shook. “It’s perfect, but I don’t know if,” he stood and began to pace. “There are some that can read minds. They will know your plan before I can begin.”
“I can give you the power to repel their thoughts.”
Flynn frowned. “I don’t want any more powers. I just want to die when this is all over. Can you do that?”
“I can’t kill you. It’s not my place to end your life.”
The sun melted over the horizon and I stretched in its glow. “Do you feel the warmth of the sun?” I asked.
“Of course,”
“Then there’s hope for you after all,” I replied and dropped through the earth as Flynn did, leaving him to make his decision.
Instead of returning immediately to Vero, I stopped at the island where I had discovered Thayde when he had been battling The Shadow. It was just as I had remembered; devoid of human life and filled with fat, indignant seagulls.
Sitting in the shallows of the waters, with the waves lapping at my stomach, I phased and admired my beautiful burgundy tail. Pulling my knees to my chin, I wrapped my arms around the soft scales and rested my head. I was going to have to try and invade the Master’s mind. What were his plans? Why was Flynn so important to him?
Melding into a vampires mind from halfway across the world was something I had never attempted and it took me several minutes to even locate him. He immediately knew someone was attempting to infiltrate his thoughts.
“Who dares penetrate my mind?” His Italian accent was strong. “Herra?”
The mere mention of her name put me on alert. So she had been in contact with him. I forced a stronger shield around me, forcing his questions away as I dug deeper. And there it was: his plans for the vampire race. It did involve merpeople. He wanted to rule it all – both the land and the oceans. Thayde had been right. Power was everything to the Master. But Flynn, what was Flynn to him? It was difficult to decipher. His thoughts became sporadic. He was protecting himself. I would have to meet him face to face, but not now. Now I needed to get back home to Thayde.
“You just left him there?”
My handsome husband watched me wriggle out of my pants and toss them onto the side chair. As soon as I crawled under the sheets, he wrapped his arm under my knees and circled me around him, twisting with ease. It was a good thing my bed was queen sized or we would have fallen onto the floor.
“I’ve placed a lot of trust in him. I hope he’ll do what I asked.” I cuddled up to Thayde’s warm bare chest. “I hope that when this comes to an end, he’ll have a new sense of being. You were right – the Master wants to create a new race. He just needs to start with one and I cannot let that happen. Herra thinks she will rule, but she is just a pawn. Once he has a mer-vamp, it’ll be the end of many merpeople.”
“I never thought you’d have to worry about vampires,” he sighed, tracing my shoulder.
“I never thought I’d have to worry about mermaids. Now look at me!” I tried to laugh it off, but was silenced as Thayde pulled me into a deep kiss. He was passionate, urgent and after a moment, I had to pull back for lack of air.
“What’s wrong?”
The muscles in his jaw tightened as he fought for the words. “Tomorrow, everything changes.”
“How do you mean?”
He ran a hand through my hair. “War,”
“War?”
“It changes everything.”
His fingers fiddled with my golden strands. “I don’t want you to go through it. It’s going to change who you are. You’re going to see things you shouldn’t. You’re going to get hurt.”
With a heavy sigh, he cocked his head and let his gaze fall hungrily to the small of my neck. When he leaned forward to kiss it, goose bumps burst down the side of my body. I started to answer his objection in my mind, but he spoke out loud.
“Morgan, I just want to make love to my wife. I don’t want to even think about what tomorrow is going to bring.”
Thayde’s strong arm snaked under my back, lifting and turning me again as he set me against the pillows. “You’re my Pearl and I love you,” he whispered, reaching underneath the bottom of my tank top.
“I love you,” I managed to breathe before his mouth covered mine.
Thayde’s strong hands caressed the sides of my naked back, pushing upward until they reached the top of my shoulders, cupping them and pulling down the length of my arms. I smiled into the bed, keeping my eyes closed. It was early morning and the rays of the sun had woken him from a heavy dream. He lay next to me, admiring the curves and sparkles of my body in the sunrise until he could no longer resist the urge to touch me.
As his fingers fell into the crevasses left behind by the Genif, his heart dropped. Fingertips delicately edged the thick wounds on my arms and Thayde held his breath while his mind raced.
I stopped myself from listening any further. There was nothing I wanted more than to invade the privacy of his thoughts – to find out what he was thinking. But as much as I wanted to, I was afraid. Was he revolted by me? Did he suddenly wish he didn’t have to be with someone who was not perfect anymore? Such thoughts seemed ludicrous and the mere suggestion made me feel sick.
“Are you kidding?”
Thayde’s scintillating touch was gone. Turning my head to face him, I squinted against the sunrise. He sat on his knees by my side, most of the top white sheet wrapped around his waist. I watched his perfect stomach contract and relax as he breathed. It was amazing to me how he stayed in such good shape. He hardly ever worked out. If you didn’t count the constant swimming.
“What are you talking about?” My voice sounded far too innocent.
“Don’t give me that,” his tone changed and he leaned back, supporting himself with one arm. “How could you possibly think I would leave you? What? Because of those?” His face contorted as he waved toward the blackened indentions.
“Thayde,” I didn’t know what to say.
“How could you even begin to think something like that? After everything we’ve had to endure?” Angrily, he pulled from the bed, ripping the sheet away with him. “Why is it that you always doubt us?”
“Thayde!” I pulled on my tank top and pants.
He dropped the sheet as he reached for his shorts, revealing his picture perfect body. “You’re supposed to be The Link, Morgan.” His voice grew louder as he pulled on his shorts. Stooping down, he reached for the sheet on the floor. “You’re acting like a damn child.”
Balling the sheet in his hands, he threw it to me. Intense rage threatened to overpower me, but before I could respond, a loud popping sound reverberated throughout the room. A figure rose through the floor, wrapping its arms around Thayde’s arms and chest. Platinum hair matted with blood appeared over Thayde’s shoulder and a nasty, sharp-toothed grin froze me to my very core.
“Flynn!” I cried, bolting from the bed. “What are you doing?”
A blue light exploded from Thayde as he attempted to rid himself from Flynn’s grip. Quick as lightning, Flynn sunk his teeth into the soft skin of Thayde’s exposed neck. Blood spurted across the glass doors and Thayde screamed in agony. Before I could reach them, they disappeared through the floor.
Fire instantly shot from me, rippling along the floors and climbing the sides of the walls of my bedroom. The intense heat barely registered with me and it wasn’t until I felt a cool hand on my shoulder that I realized I was screaming.
Tammer’s best friend, David, suddenly appeared, pulling me into his arms and teleported us from the collapsing room to the side of the pool where Tammer stood with Mom.
“Kenneth!” He shouted, and a figure standing on the edge of the steps waved, creating an enormous tidal wave that shrouded my room in a cloak of water. The fire was instantly extinguished.
“He took Thayde,” I heard myself say to David. He looked to Tammer.
“Who?” Tammer demanded and I felt my knees buckle.
“Flynn,”
“Where did he go?” Tammer knelt next to me, drawing my attention back to him.
“I knew we couldn’t trust a vampire!” David cursed.
“I told you!” Tiesa cried.
Panicked voices melded into an enormous, unrecognizable mess. It wasn’t until strong hands lifted me underneath my elbows, forcing me to my feet that I snapped out of my delirium.
Kenneth, the man from the meeting with the Elders, frowned angrily at me.
“She’s got the lingering effects of a Genif in her.” He pointed to the marks on my arm. “Those shouldn’t be black. What’d she do? Tear it out of her?”
Tammer nodded and Kenneth raised an eyebrow. “You are The Link!” He shook my shoulders. “Snap out of it!”
“Kenneth!” Tammer’s warning had no effect on the man.
“Let me deal with this,” his hazel eyes narrowed as he focused on me. “You didn’t remove the Genif properly.”
He covered my wounds with his hands and in a deep voice, a Sanserian chant spilled from him.
“Blenald selitalit Genif irava. Iritook, iritak, iritaa.”
The pain was horrendous, but it was nothing compared to Flynn’s betrayal and losing Thayde. I refused to make a sound. Kenneth easily removed the rest of the Genif and in doing so, the wounds branded over.
Tammer put his hand on my shoulder. “Morgan,” his voice was heavy.
“Don’t touch me!” I shouted, shrugging his hand away. The inflection in his voice and the look on everyone’s faces told me they knew Thayde had been killed.
“He’s not dead!” My voice shook.
“He’s gone.” Tammer bowed his head, reading my mind. “If Flynn has bitten him, he’s dead.”
“Get away from me! All of you!” I screamed at the group hovering around me. I wasn’t going to just give up like them. “
“There’s no way he could have survived,” David added and I stepped backward.
“You stay away from me,” I eyed the small group – my family and friends. Their doubt dragged my soul into the very depths of the earth. “All I do is spend my time worrying about Thayde dying! He can’t die! Flynn knew everything – he couldn’t have betrayed me! He wouldn’t!” I sounded desperate.
“We need to talk,” Kenneth mumbled as he walked past me. When he reached the gate next to my destroyed room, he turned and waited. “Let’s go!” He ordered.
I walked completely numb. He ignored my desperate air as he talked.
“I’m a military man. You’ll have to excuse my bluntness. I’m sure this isn’t the first time you’ve heard this, so I’ll say it straight: I think you’re too young to be The Link. But it wasn’t my choice to make, so I respect the decision.”
The look I gave him made him backtrack.
“I can respect something and not agree with it. You may have all the memories and feelings, the experiences of The Links before you, but you don’t know what to do with all of them. You’ve had teachers help you, but you haven’t had enough life experience as a human being, let alone a mermaid to know which end is up!”
“Can you just get to the point?” I was beginning to wonder if I even liked Kenneth.
“You’ve got a couple hundred merfolk about to descend upon this house for the meeting you’ve called. Are you prepared for it?”
Without Thayde, none of that seemed to matter.
“Is there a reason why you’re here?” I sighed.
A smile broke onto his face.
“I have information from my spies about Herra. She has a legion of followers on their way, as we speak, to capture you.”
I would have laughed if my soul hadn’t felt so empty. Kenneth continued.
“I offer you my army.”
“Your army?” I couldn’t help but sound incredulous. “When you say you are a military man, what military are you talking about? What spies?”
“I was a U.S. Marine for the humans for over two hundred years. Now, I run an independent agency for our kind.”
“Are you a mercenary?”
His lips tightened. “No. Humans have their armies. Didn’t you think merfolk would?”
The thought had never crossed my mind.
“She’s ready to strike. Now.”
A flutter of panic pushed my grief aside momentarily. “I have to stop this,” I thought out loud.
“It’s not going to be easy,” Kenneth rubbed his chin. “She’s more than prepared to take you on. I’d say she’s had a lot of teaching on how to beat The Link. If it were my guess, she’s got her information from someone very old and wise. With this vampire friend of yours betraying you, you’re going to have to abandon your plans and come up with a new strategy.”
My stomach surged, forcing me to double over. I vomited until there was nothing left in me. Shaking, I faced Kenneth. His face was filled with alarm.
“It’s nothing,” I coughed, spitting the taste from my mouth. “I’ve haven’t felt a hundred percent for a few days.”
He nodded. “We’d better get you back so you can prepare for your meeting.”
“Yeah,” I spat again we walked in silence. Tammer waited at the gazebo. He shook Kenneth’s hand and asked him to meet him in the house.
Alone, Tammer looked me up and down.
“I’m so sorry, Morgan.”
I looked past him to the ocean. “I’m going to go for a swim.”
“Not without me to protect you,” he began to take his shirt off, but I held up a hand.
“I need to be alone.”
“But the heads of household will be here with their attendants. If you were to run into one of them who is angry with you,”
“If Thayde is dead,” I stumbled over the words, “I don’t care.”
The ocean waves beat heavily against the steps.
“What do you mean you don’t care?” Dread crept into his voice. “You are The Link – you have to care!”
My body fought the urge to throw up again. “I have to go,” I whispered, and turning from him, walked to the steps and fell into the water.
Phasing was instantaneous and I swam in a daze to the edge of the boundary Tammer had once set for me. I hung in the water, pure hopelessness filling my being until the feelings overpowered me. How could Flynn do this? Betray me? After everything I entrusted to him? To bite my Thayde – to do the very thing to him that he was going to do to Gavran was unforgivable. Thayde hadn’t even been prepared to fight him and his attempt to dislodge Flynn had been futile. And I had just stood there, unable to foresee Flynn’s actions or motivation.
Desperate, I tried to lock onto Thayde, to see if I could locate him but there was nothingness; a void that once was. Thayde was dead, just as the dreams I used to have warned me. The terror, grief and shame I knew would come with his loss hit me like a freight train. I had done nothing to stop Flynn from killing him. I tipped my head back and screamed. My cries echoed about me more powerful than a dolphin’s cry.
“Sssteady there,” a snakelike voice hissed. Twelve feet away, a sea creature bowed and when righting itself, I was able to see what it was.
It was an Akamatta – half woman and half snake. Known as the serpent spirit, they were the sirens of Japan’s seas.
Thick black hair wound around her body, covering her green scaly skin and naked chest. Her hands clawed the water as she hovered, keeping herself upright.
“Might I come clossser?” She asked, her voice heady.
I found myself agreeing and she twisted in the water, tunneling toward me. Just before crashing into me, she untwisted, her hair fanning around her like a poodle skirt. She was beautiful, but terrifying.
“My name is Aika,” she bowed, her bright red eyes looking through me. “I come with information you may need.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because we do not want this war. It jeopardizes our way of life. Should Herra rule, we will ceassse to be.”
Th
e current brought her closer and I held up a hand.
“I have a meeting in a few minutes,”
“Yesss, I know. The heads of the mer-families.”
“How do you know this?”
Her eyes glowed. “The four you deposed informed Herra.”
Silence filled our conversation and I regarded her warily. “Has she intercepted any of them traveling here?”
Nodding, Aika pursed her lips. “Not to kill, but to recruit. You will have an enemy among you. Be very careful who you trussst. You should know: when the fight draws near our home, we will fight by your ssside.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate you telling me this.”
She turned to go. I stared at the sandy floor a hundred feet below me.
“You will not be fighting in your condition, will you?”
My skin crawled. I looked up at her, suspended ten feet away. “My condition? What do you mean?”
“You are with child,”
Her words hit me like a ton of bricks. My face must have mirrored it because she too, looked surprised.
“I shall not speak a word of it.” She whispered and twisted away.
With child? Impossible! Thayde and I hadn’t made the decision to have a baby. I ran my hand over my stomach, trying to feel life within me. There was no way I could be pregnant. I closed my eyes, scanning my torso and stopped the instant I saw her: Leigh, no bigger than a walnut, lay cocooned within my womb.
Fear coursed through my veins. How could this be possible? Thayde had said I couldn’t become pregnant unless we both agreed to it. Mermaids chose when to have children! They weren’t at the mercy of ovulation like humans!
Flying through my memories, I recalled the conversation I had with Thayde on our honeymoon: “Merpeople don’t have children until they both decide they are ready and want them. It’s a choice they make. When we are both ready to make a baby, we’ll start the process.”
How could this be? He hadn’t been ready to have a child then. Had he?
Horror flooded me. I had wanted one, but knew we weren’t ready. Did just the act of wanting one mean I had ‘agreed’ to have a baby? Is that how I became pregnant?
I couldn’t have a baby without Thayde! How could I possibly even continue to live, let alone rule the merpeople and raise a child on my own?
Forever Page 13
