Lovers in Deep: A Reverse Fairy Tale Merman Romance (The Sea Men Book 3)

by Dani Stowe

  I splash her by shooting a spray of water at her and she gasps.

  Oh, the look on her face. I wish I could laugh. She’s stunned now—her mouth is open and her face has paled as it drips of seawater.

  Her breasts peep through the top of the wet fabric.

  Mmm, she certainly has grown. She’s clearly not a child anymore. For whatever reason, it excites me to want to play with her some more.

  I shoot another stream of water at her again and she squeals, becoming stiff with the shock of having been soaked.

  Oh, if I had a body it would be rolling in the sand, unable to remain upright with such tremendous laughter. I’m confident this is not what Athena had envisioned how a first meet with the Captain of all the Seas to be.

  Hmm...

  She’s sulking now, removing her spectacles to shake the water away. Her bottom lip quivers as she sucks it in.

  Perhaps I should not have shot at her a second time. I can sense a bit of dense salty fluid. Tears are spilling from Athena’s eyes.

  I suppose despite her scholarly appearance, which is hardly attractive, Athena has pretty eyes. I know how fierce, determined, and gentle those eyes can be at different times. Eyes like those should not be so sad.

  I suppose I should also leave her be. I do wish she would leave me be. In light of all her collected scholarly material, Athena has yet to learn there is no hope for me. I wish desperately for her to understand this. I have been cursed to command the seas for all eternity. And one day, Athena will be nothing more than a silly girl in a lost memory.

  2

  Athena

  The sea has gone flat again. The Captain has sailed away, sneaking off to the vastness of the ocean, and it breaks my heart.

  Shelley comes shouting from the beach house, “Athena! Are you okay?” Her fingers grip my elbow.

  “Why does he do that?” I wipe my wet face and flick the saltwater from my fingers. “Why won’t he show himself to me?”

  “I think he showed himself to you the best he could,” says Orphelius, approaching and giving me a look over. “We should be glad he didn’t drown us.”

  I pull off my glasses and rub them the best I can to clear the lenses from blobs of water, but my shirt is wet as well. All I do is smear the lenses with streaks. “Do you really think he’d do that?” I glower at Orphelius. “You think he’d kill us?”

  “All that studying, Athena, you’ve been doing on mermen and magic. Us. Him.” Orphelius scratches his jaw. “You have no idea who he really is, do you?”

  “I know he’s your friend. You’re like a brother to him, are you not? The folktales talk of Captain Willis as though he is a good man, a great man,” I correct myself.

  “Mmm, a great man he once was,” Orphelius nods and bites his lip before his eyes gloss over the ocean. “But that was before we were tossed into the ocean, into the great abyss where our Captain became the very thing he once loved to sail upon. The sea may seem calm from where we stand right now but believe me when I say below lurks many demons and they all belong to him—his demons.”

  A siren sounds from beyond the beach house and we each turn our backs to the ocean.

  “Shelley!” a voice yells. It’s Sheriff Pike.

  We make our way up the beach back to the house and I notice Henry wheels himself out to the top of the ramp.

  Shelley runs up the beach. “What do you want?” She yells nastily as Pike comes walking around the corner and Orphelius and I run after her. We are all thinking the same thing, hoping Pike is not here to cause more trouble despite being a man of the law.

  “I just want to talk to all of you,” Pike has his hands up, away from his gun, but he’s got his eyes on Henry.

  Shelley’s also got her hands up and she pushes on Pike’s chest. She’s not going to let the sheriff pass. “Go away! You have no business coming here.”

  “Now, that’s not true. I still have a case unsolved—your parents’ case—and as the sheriff of this town, it's my duty to seek justice. Now, I’ve been thinking about this for a while. I thought about you and your fish friend.” The sheriff nudges his chin at Henry in his chair and then swallows. “I thought about you all a lot for the few days I was locked up in that crazy psyche ward, which they attributed my actions to a midlife crisis, and I even let you have some time to yourselves, but Goddamn it, Shelley. This is my town! I’ve protected it for a long time. I take a lot of pride in knowing all that goes on here and between the poachers, strange weather, and crazy critters, I’ve always suspected your Aunt Cora might’ve been right. I always had a feeling this town was cursed with all the unexplained hocus pocus going around, but I’ve got real problems right now. Problems that I need to solve. I got missing girls, two teenagers, both of whom disappeared this week. Now, I don’t know what happened to your parents,” Pike looks to Henry again, “but I still have evidence that says your friend there was involved. So, I need the truth, Shelley, because right now, your transforming fish friend is still my number one suspect.”

  Henry signs with his hands furiously and Shelley pauses, kicking the sand. She finally nods to herself, crossing her arms before she looks back to Pike. “Would you like to hear a tale, Sheriff?”

  The sheriff points a finger and shakes his head at Henry. “Young man, I don’t want no tall tales.”

  “Young man?” laughs Orphelius. “I assure you, Sheriff, our tales are not tall but they are old. We are much, much older than you.”

  “Mmm,” grunts the sheriff, rubbing his jaw. “So, you’re one of them, too, huh?”

  Orphelius smiles and nods.

  “Ugh,” growls the sheriff. “I shoulda known anyone shacking up in Cora Morae’s house would be different.”

  Kumiko steps out the door, leaning up against the back of Henry’s chair. “Oh, hey,” she looks surprised to see Pike here. “What’s going on? Orphelius, you told me to stay put, but when you didn’t come back—”

  “She one of them, too?” asks the sheriff, examining Kumiko. “One of you, creatures? She’s got to be one.”

  Orphelius laughs. “No, Kumiko is human.”

  Henry cocks his head, grabs his wheels, and turns his chair around then signs.

  Shelley translates, “Henry wants to invite you in.”

  The sheriff puts his hand on the handle of his gun. “I’m not going to get any trouble from you, am I?”

  Shelley calmly places her hand on the sheriff’s forearm and it surprisingly seems to calm him. “Pike, Henry just wants to sit down.”

  Pike rubs his jaw. “Sit down, huh?”

  Henry flashes a modest but genuine smile and holds out an open palm towards the door.

  Shelley translates again. “He says it’s time for you all to chat. Chat like real men.”

  I hate that I’m pouting. The corners of my mouth can’t seem to deviate from their downward spiral and I also hate that everyone keeps looking at me. As Henry professes his role in Shelley’s parents’ deaths, the rest—Kumiko and Orphelius won’t stop frowning at me as they pity me.

  Shelley was nice enough to grab me a towel before she sat to translate because I’m drenched. Willis splashed... or sprayed... or more like squirted water at me.

  It’s embarrassing.

  Orphelius cuts in during Henry’s tale to explain their magical pasts and the sheriff is still having difficulty coming to grips with each seaman’s story. In truth, the sheriff appears at odds with himself—both intrigued and upset with disbelief. I remember Shelley wore the same look on her face before she could finally accept Henry for who and what he truly was.

  I look through the bay window as we are all sitting around the table and for the first time ever, I’m regretting having ever believed. In magic. In merpeople. In mermen.

  I’ve spent many summers with the sea and as soon as I became an adult and could afford to move out on my own after college, I saved money so I could move back to this town. I always thought I was connected to this place somehow. I always thought it was the plac
e where I would officially meet my destiny one day.

  Like a foolish girl, I’d believed that I was special, that there were secrets the sea would only reveal to me, like the fact that it was a living entity that moved because it was willed to do so and that it could see with eyes once only shown to me.

  I also believed the sea could speak. I’d observed bubbles rising, popping open at the surface to release gossip and whispers from the mouths of fish that often swarmed beneath my boat. Not once did I doubt my beliefs. And I’ve been doing everything in my power to protect those beliefs, no matter how critical or harsh people were to me.

  A chill passes through my body and I pull the towel tighter around my shoulders.

  Orphelius is glaring at me now. He sends me a flat grin, which I believe is intended to make me feel better but it feels more like an I-told-you-so.

  The Captain has no interest in me. Willis revealed himself as a massive wall of water and the second I ran out to face him, he squirted me. And it wasn’t just once but twice, like I’m the silly target of some carnival water gun game.

  I look at Shelley and Kumiko and they are beautiful. Just beautiful. One is fair with strawberry-colored hair while the other seems rare due to her sharply angled exotic features as a result of her mixed heritage. I recognize that Shelley and Kumiko are the specimens from which fairytales are made. It’s why their mermen are so captivated by them, willing to fight, chase after, and even die for them.

  But me?

  “Ah, me,” I sigh, which causes Henry to pause his hand speech and look forlornly in my direction—another reminder that I’m not worth a merman.

  Jeez, am I really that pathetic?

  I get up.

  “Hey, where are you going?” asks the sheriff.

  “Back to the library,” I tell him.

  “Listen, Athena,” Pike points at me. “I know how late you like to lock yourself up with those books at night and then leave when there’s not a soul around. I don’t want you doing that anymore. I want that library locked up at least an hour before sunset and I want you in your home before dark.”

  I laugh, “Sheriff—”

  He stands up. “I’m not kidding around, Athena. And I don’t want to see you seaside at midnight, either. I know you like to check those books out, plant yourself alone in the dark on the beach, and read aloud with your flashlight like you’re tellin’ tales to these merfolk.”

  Oh crap! The sheriff knows about that?

  “You read to Willis at night?” asks Orphelius, his brows furrowed.

  I blush. “Nnnnno.” I don’t know why I’m denying it. I’m still embarrassed I guess that Willis squirted me in front of everyone. Clearly, Willis doesn’t like me and I feel foolish for having believed that he was listening to me for all these years, which I now figure he wasn’t.

  “Athena, whatever it is you’re doing out there at night, I need you to keep off the beach.” Pike points to Shelley and Kumiko as well. “And that goes for the rest of you. I got two girls gone missin’ from what looks like two different beach locations, so I’m not ruling out kidnapping. And until I figure out what’s going on, the beaches will be closed after dark.”

  “Sheriff,” I interject, “closing the beaches at night is going to upset a lot of people. We have tourists plus fisherman who like to go out at night and—”

  “I don’t care,” he growls. “And since you’re heading back to the library, make me a hundred or so signs on your copy machine. Make sure the print is clear: Streets and beaches close at sunset by my order. I’ll come by to pick those up tomorrow and put ‘em up. Can you do that for me, Athena?”

  Two girls—missing. My eyes wander towards the horizon over the sea and I wonder if Captain Willis would be able to help in getting answers, but I quickly toss the idea out of my mind. Willis is not the type to communicate.

  “Yeah,” I nod to Pike as I remove the wet towel from around my shoulders and hand it over to Shelley with a thankful grin. “I’ll have those copies for you this afternoon, Sheriff.”

  3

  Athena

  Seagulls are perched atop the library. There has to be at least fifty of them up there and I get the feeling that they’re all looking at me—spying with their curiously tilted heads and blinking eyes.

  “Go away! Shoo,” I shout and they all squawk at one another in a cawing chorus with their feathery bellies bellowing with laughter while remaining exactly where they are.

  I sigh as I pull out the keys to the library and notice the door is slightly ajar.

  Strange. I know I locked this. At least, I think I did.

  I push the heavy wooden door open just slightly and poke my head inside and then pause.

  Missing girls. It’s a scary thought and I consider that perhaps I should call the sheriff, but I also wonder why anyone related to what the sheriff suspects as kidnapping would have anything to do with the library. I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about but I’m still cautious as I inch my way in through the door.

  There’s some fumbling going on. I can hear it. It’s coming from behind the checkout counter and, since I can’t see who it is, I figure it’s a kid or two.

  “Hey!” I shout, pushing the heavy wooden door wide open as I march towards the counter. “What are you doing? Get out from there.”

  A head with black hair hosting light green eyes pops up, which is not at all what I suspected. “I-I-I’m sorry,” the tall, slender young man stutters as he blinks blankly at me behind thick black frames. He pushes his glasses up his nose and looks me up and down.

  We study one another.

  He looks innocent and... cute.

  A smile plays on his mouth.

  My heart palpates—heavily.

  My cheeks warm—rapidly.

  He interrupts the static in the room. “The doors were open,” he says, his pearly whites coming fully exposed as he hoists a couple of books onto the counter. “I was hoping to check these out but since no one was in here, I figure I’d leave a note or something.”

  “Oh,” I blink. “Um...” I can barely talk.

  What’s wrong with me!

  He tilts his head. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m okay,” I exhale.

  He chuckles. “Why are you all wet?”

  Wet? Oh damn! I’m scrambling for an excuse. I certainly can’t tell him a merman made mostly of water decided to squirt me.

  “Oh,” I laugh, “some kid got me with his water gun.”

  “Well, that sounds like fun,” he chuckles again and his white, button up palm tree printed shirt sways over his straight, hip-hugging blue jeans, which makes me wish I could sway him myself. “Have you seen the librarian?” he asks.

  “Librarian?” I mutter in a daze but the title snaps me back to reality. “Yes! Oh, yes.” I plant my hands over my chest. “I’m the librarian.”

  “You?” he looks me up and down once more. “You’re too pretty to be a librarian. Are you sure?”

  I’m blushing again. “Mhm.”

  “Soooo, can you check me out?” He bites his bottom lip and I figure he’s got to be younger than me, perhaps visiting from the university.

  Hopefully, he’s not too much younger.

  “I can check you out.”

  What? What did I just say? Idiot!

  “I mean I can check out your books.” Despite the coolness of my wet clothes, I think I’m perspiring.

  “Great.” He shrugs, his cheeks rising upward, touching the lower rims of his glasses.

  We both walk to swap places and as I make my way around, heading to the opposite side of the counter, he comes in front, both of us batting our eyes at one another.

  “How old are you?” he asks, leaning over the counter.

  I’m ashamed to tell him. “Thirty.”

  He slams his hands on the counter. “Thirty? No way!” he exclaims. “I thought twenty-two or twenty-three. Maybe. Gosh, you’re pretty.”

  I drop the first book I have in my hand and fumble
to pick it back up. “You don’t have to say that,” I mutter, trying to collect myself. For a cute nerd, he sure is forward.

  “Well, it’s true.” He cocks his head. “I was checking you out as you were walking past. You don’t have a single scar on you and I like your skin tone.”

  My skin tone? Odd, especially since I’m sure my skin just flushed red.

  “Can I see you under your glasses?” he asks.

  I laugh, scanning the first book and placing it down to pick up then flip through the second, a similarly themed book on sea navigation with maps included.

  “C’mon,” he smiles. “I’ll take off mine if you take off yours.”

  “That’s not necessary,” I shake my head. I come to the conclusion he’s got to be much younger than I am considering the way he’s behaving.

  “You married? Got a boyfriend?”

  “Mmm...” I hestitate. I typically hesitate whenever I’ve been asked this question in the past and right now, I’m asking myself why I do that. But I’m more curious as to why I’m not married or don’t have a boyfriend.

  Because of Willis? Because I was saving myself for him? Silly woman.

  “No. I don’t have anyone.”

  “Great, so...”

  He’s checking me out again.

  “If I take you out to dinner tonight, will you show me your face without your glasses on later?”

  Dinner? I can’t remember the last time I got asked out to dinner, though my mother says it’s because I always have my face in a book.

  I scan the second book from the stack and pick up the third. It’s an old book about rigging—the proper use of ropes and chains for support during sailing. It looks like a book made for Boy Scouts. I glare up at him. “How old are you?”

  He widens his stance, which is irritatingly sexy, and shoves both hands in his pockets. “Twenty-three.”

  “Mmm,” escapes my mouth as my head drops.

  “Listen, librarian,” he picks up my head with a grip of his fingers wrapped under my chin, forcing our eyes to meet. “It’s just dinner and, you know, I’m new here.”