Wickedly Wonderful

by Deborah Blake

  Until someone tapped him on the shoulder and a familiar voice said, “May I cut in?”

  FIFTEEN

  WHAT THE HELL was he doing here? Marcus spun around to face Kesh, his hands balled into fists as he fought the almost uncontrollable urge to pound the other man into dust.

  Beka said, “Kesh!” But Marcus thought he detected more surprise than pleasure in her voice.

  “Did you invite this guy to join us?” Marcus asked through gritted teeth. This was taking “three is a crowd” to whole new levels.

  Beka shook her head. “No, I did not. In fact, I haven’t seen him since the day before yesterday; I’m not even sure how he knew I would be here.” The look on her face was distinctly unwelcoming, which made Marcus relax just enough to start thinking instead of simply reacting.

  “Did you follow us here?” he asked, taking a half step in front of Beka. Great. The guy was a stalker. Well, if he wanted Beka, he was going to have to go through Marcus to get her.

  Kesh shrugged elegantly. “I was concerned when Beka did not arrive for our usual dinner on the beach,” he said. “When I arrived at her home to make sure that she was not ill, I saw you driving away. So yes, I followed her. But merely to ensure her safety.”

  Beka scowled at him, for once clearly not impressed by his charm. “We don’t have a ‘usual dinner,’ Kesh. Just because we got together a few nights in a row doesn’t mean that it is going to happen every day.” She crossed her arms over her chest, making that magical dress do dangerous things. “And I certainly don’t need you to keep me safe.” She gave him a glare that was steeped in meaning. “Have you forgotten who I am?”

  Marcus felt like he was missing something, but he wasn’t going to worry about it right now. “Beka, this guy is stalking you. He could be dangerous. Maybe you should report him to the cops.” Or let me beat the crap out of him.

  Beka shook her head, hair pale in the moonlight. “You’re overreacting, Marcus. He’s from a background that’s . . . different from ours. He just doesn’t understand about boundaries, that’s all.”

  How different could Ireland be? Marcus breathed out through his nose, trying to rein in his temper. “Is that why he told me to stay away from you? And said that you belonged to him? That’s not a cultural difference, Beka, that’s just arrogance.”

  She slid across the sand to stand between the two men, her gaze swinging back and forth. “He what? When?”

  “That morning we were all surfing together.” Come to think of it, he’d shown up out of nowhere that day too.

  Beka narrowed her eyes at him, and he suddenly thought that maybe he should have just kept his mouth shut.

  “You mean that’s why you were acting so rude and cranky? Because Kesh warned you off?” She rolled her eyes in his direction, and then turned that piercing blue gaze on Kesh. The temperature on the beach seemed to drop ten degrees, and Marcus realized that the few times he’d thought he’d seen her angry, she’d merely been a tad peeved. This was Beka angry, and it was a truly impressive sight.

  “And you, Your Highness,” she bit off the words as she poked one finger into Kesh’s slim chest. “I do not belong to you. I do not belong to anyone except myself, and you would do well to remember that. You are not my ruler. You are not my lover. And if you ever pull anything like that again, you won’t be my friend either. Have I made myself perfectly clear?”

  Kesh actually took one step backward, alarm flitting across his handsome face for a moment before it was replaced by his usual composure, and then by what was no doubt supposed to be an endearingly sheepish grin.

  “You are quite right, my darling Beka. I overstepped, and for this I am very sorry.” He bowed over the hand that had jabbed him and kissed her fingers.

  Marcus gritted his teeth until he thought he would crack a molar.

  Big brown eyes with absurdly long, dark lashes topped a crinkled smile. “Please say that you will forgive me, Beka. I shall be crushed otherwise.”

  Beka stared at Kesh for one long moment, until her anger slid away like frost on an autumn morning. “Fine, you’re forgiven.”

  Marcus opened his mouth to protest, then closed it again. She didn’t belong to him either, and he couldn’t tell her what to do. So much for a great evening.

  Kesh shot him a triumphant look out of the corner of his eyes and turned to bow again to Beka. “Then may I have this dance, my lady?”

  “No,” she said.

  Marcus wasn’t sure which one of them was more surprised, him or Kesh.

  “No?” repeated Kesh, a baffled expression on his face. “But I apologized.”

  “And I accepted your apology,” Beka said in a calm voice. “But I promised this evening to Marcus, and that didn’t include sharing it with you. After all, you wouldn’t like it if I invited him to join our picnics on the beach now, would you?”

  Marcus almost laughed, watching Kesh try and figure a way to wiggle out of that one. He had to bite his lip as Kesh sputtered his way through the beginnings of three different sentences, only to end up saying, with less than his customary poise, “As you wish. Perhaps you will dine with me tomorrow,” and then stalked off across the sand without a backward glance, almost knocking over a woman who happened to be in his way.

  “Sorry about that,” Beka said, putting her hand back in his and resuming their interrupted dance. The band had switched to something faster with a Latin beat while the three of them had been absorbed in other matters, but Marcus stuck with the slow sway that was his only speed.

  “Not a big deal,” Marcus said. After all, he was the one who’d ended up with the girl. He could afford to be gracious in victory. Although he couldn’t keep himself from adding, “I’m still worried about that guy, Beka. He might be dangerous.”

  “Kesh is just from a very different culture,” Beka said, although she softened the disagreement by moving in even closer as they danced. “He’s kind of, um, privileged, where he comes from, and he’s not used to people saying no to him. But he’d never hurt me.” She tilted her head up and smiled into his eyes. “Although it is sweet of you to worry.”

  With Beka in his arms, Marcus felt anything but sweet. She set his blood on fire and made him want to scoop her up and carry her off to someplace lonely and private and dark. Part of him actually sympathized with Kesh, although that didn’t make him like the spoiled rich guy any better. There was something not right about him, but now wasn’t the time to push the issue. Not when there were so many better things to do.

  “I’m sorry he interrupted such a lovely evening,” Beka said, echoing his thoughts. “Let’s just pretend he never showed up, and we can move on to whatever was next on the agenda.”

  Marcus gave her a slow, wicked smile, feeling the smoldering heat rise to the surface like molten lava, irresistible as a force of nature. “If you insist,” he whispered, and bent his head to capture her lips with his own. He put all his yearning, all his gratitude for the gifts she’d given him, all that heat bubbling up within him into the kiss, feeling her lips yield beneath his.

  She returned his fire with fire, kissing him back with a wild abandon that left them both trembling and enraptured, wrapped around each other in the midst of a crowd, focused only on each other.

  Overhead, fireworks lit the sky, but neither of them noticed.

  * * *

  FROM A STAND of straggly trees overlooking the beach, Kesh watched them embrace and thought about death.

  Bad enough that Beka had shamed him in front of that peasant. But for her to choose a mere Human fisherman over him—this he could not forgive. Or permit to go unpunished.

  Yes, he was already poisoning her with the radiation-tainted fish he fed her at every romantic moonlit dinner. But he had never really intended it to kill her. When she had grown ill and weak and given in to his wishes, he would simply have suggested that she take an especially large dose of the Water of Life and Death. She was a Baba Yaga; it should have been sufficient to drive the poison from her body
. Then, even more grateful, she would have been his to use as he pleased.

  Now, though, a cold rage filled that place where his soul would have been, had he cared to possess such a useless thing. She had the audacity to reject him. Him—a Prince of the Selkie people. Baba Yaga she might be, but she was still merely a woman, and a foolish one at that. Look how she had fallen for his lies, swallowed up each charming twist of the truth as he slowly used her own weakness against her. He had had such hopes for their future; him as a king on the land, with her power at his beck and call.

  But he would have to find another way. He did not need her magic. Not after tonight. No, now he needed only one thing from the Baba Yaga—her screams as she died in agony, calling his name.

  * * *

  BEKA CALLED MARCUS’S name as she came into sight of the Wily Serpent the next morning, and he raised a hand in greeting, his usual scowl replaced by something that looked like it might grow up to be a smile.

  She ducked her head, hiding one of her own, as she swung about with her gear. Chico and Marcus Senior were there, checking the nets over one more time before setting out.

  “Morning, Beka,” Marcus’s father said gruffly. “Joining us again, I see.” Despite his pallor and the dark shadows under his eyes, he was clearly still the captain of the ship. He pretended to be annoyed, but it was just a game they played. Chico winked at her as she walked by; her presence on the ship always seemed to put the old man in a better mood, and that made life easier on everyone.

  Everyone except Marcus, who’d only mellowed a little where his father was concerned, although to be fair, his father hadn’t mellowed back any either. They were at least being civil to each other, which was more than could be said for when she first started going out with them, but it was as if neither one wanted to be the first to bend and show affection to the other.

  Beka sighed a little but refused to let the old wounds between the two men ruin her lovely mood. Despite Kesh’s unexpected arrival, she and Marcus had enjoyed a wonderful evening, far beyond anything she’d imagined when she’d agreed to go to the barbeque with him. She still thought Chewie was out of his mythical mind, suggesting that she’d fallen in love, but she had to admit, the kiss she and Marcus had shared on the beach had been . . . remarkable.

  Legends had been written about less.

  He’d kissed her again when he’d brought her home around midnight, but that time had been gentler, quieter. Maybe he’d begun to regret the passion he’d revealed in that first one. Or maybe it was just the inhibiting presence of Chewie, standing by the door of the bus waiting for her like a giant furry chaperone, his dark mass barely visible against the backdrop of the summer night.

  Either way, there had been a glimmer of something like hope in his voice when he’d asked her casually, “So, are you coming out with us in the morning?”

  She hadn’t actually intended to; the odd weakness and fatigue she’d been feeling were starting to make diving difficult, and she’d meant it when she’d told him earlier that she didn’t think there was anything to be gained by gathering more samples. But the thought of not spending the day in his company was almost painful, so she decided that maybe one more day of easy exploration near the surface wouldn’t hurt anything. She could always start her research when she got home in the late afternoon.

  Marcus came down from the prow to give her a totally unnecessary hand with her equipment and a brief, secret smile that caused butterflies to flutter around inside her already unsettled stomach.

  “We’re going out to the same spot as yesterday,” he said as the boat pulled away from the dock. “My father was really happy with the mackerel haul we brought in, so he’s going to see if they’re still around.”

  The huge catch had made Beka happy, too, mostly because it meant that Kesh had done what she’d asked and stopped chasing the fish away from the Humans’ boats. She hoped he was feeling as benign after she’d made him leave last night. Still, she thought she’d made her point, and he was a reasonable man. It wasn’t as though he was actually interested in her; he and Marcus just had one of those competitive testosterone things going on.

  She wasn’t sure if Marcus was actually interested either, but she was working hard at convincing herself that she didn’t care. Much.

  As usual, she and Marcus put on their diving gear and lowered the dinghy into the water. The Wily Serpent moved off slowly, nets lowered to glide through the nearby seas in search of fish. Rather than try and make awkward conversation, she slid into the water right away, a few sample bags tucked into her belt pouch. Marcus gave her the thumbs-up and she dove down, although not nearly as far as she had been going.

  So far, there was still no sign of an issue this close to the surface, other than the usual bits and pieces of flotsam that floated out from the shore or were dumped by careless boaters. That was good news for fishermen like Marcus, but it meant that the problem was almost certainly limited to the Selkie and Mer home trench, far below.

  This baffled her, since the mystical creatures were normally excellent custodians of their watery realm; it was literally their entire world, and there was no other for them to go to. Not that this stopped Humans from destroying their own environment, but sea beings had a close connection to the ocean they lived in, and generally treated it with respect and care.

  Beka swam lazily back up toward the dinghy, wondering if it was possible that one of the court wizards could have done some sort of magical working that had gone wrong, and then been afraid to confess it to his or her ruler. She wasn’t looking forward to broaching the question with either the King of the Selkies or the Queen of the Merpeople, but it was worth looking into.

  Despite the rich oxygen mix in her tanks, even this brief dive had left Beka feeling tired and short of breath. Maybe she would risk the potentially unsettled atmosphere, stuck in a tiny boat with Marcus, and give herself a break. Or even let him take a turn diving instead, although he’d be doing it for fun, not to try and keep an impossible promise and save an entire supernatural homeland.

  A huge shadow blocked out the light from the surface for a moment, and she glanced up to see if she’d misjudged the location of the dinghy. What she saw sent adrenaline rushing through her veins and made her heart skip a beat as she grabbed for the knife she always wore in a waterproof sheath strapped to her calf.

  Above her, a great white shark circled, its belly only six feet from the top of her head, its massive body between her and the surface.

  SIXTEEN

  THE SHARK SWAM through the currents, its vast maw open as if tasting the water for hints of something edible. Beka desperately hoped it would find something other than her and swim away.

  It didn’t.

  Instead, it turned its blunt, bullet-shaped snout in her direction, revealing multiple rows of sharply serrated teeth. Beka froze, knife in hand, trying to estimate her chances of getting past the beast to the surface without being noticed. Considering that it was at least twenty feet long and had the ability to sense electromagnetic fields as well as movement, she didn’t count the odds as being in her favor.

  A brief, regretful thought of Marcus and what might have been flashed through her mind, and then she focused all her attention on trying to stay alive.

  The shark circled, closing in on her in an ever-tightening loop. Beka gripped the knife so hard her fingers ached, the sound of her own breathing reverberating loudly through the regulator in her mouth. She had to force herself to take slow, calm breaths; panicking underwater would get her killed with or without the shark’s assistance.

  Something about its behavior struck her as odd; sharks usually came up on their prey fast, attacking from below. Despite what you saw in the movies, they didn’t usually lurk about, looming ominously. Maybe this one hadn’t read the rule books, because it was doing a damned good job of doing just that.

  For a moment, she thought she caught a glimpse of an impossible oddity—a thin golden chain around its massive neck. And then it at
tacked and she stopped thinking and just reacted.

  It roared at her like a jet plane, its bulk displacing the water forcefully, its jaws gaping wide, one dark eye staring into her soul. The power of its passage spun her around, and she was untouched but disoriented for a moment, unable to distinguish up from down in the murky depths.

  Just as she glimpsed a hint of sunlight from above, the shark came back again. Its own length was all that saved her for the moment; the necessity of a wide turn bought her an extra second to get her knife in position for a wild slice across its gills. Clearly hurt, the shark lashed around in the water, almost missing her entirely. Only the jagged edge of one tooth tore through wet suit and skin, leaving blood leaking out from a wound in her left calf.

  It wasn’t much. But in the end, it would probably be enough.

  * * *

  MARCUS SAT IN the dinghy and looked at his waterproof watch for the third time. According to the timepiece, which had always been reliable up until now, Beka still had four minutes until her next check-in. Four minutes until he felt that tug on the rope that meant she was okay. Much longer than that before her tanks started to get low and she should be heading for the surface.

  But his skin prickled across the back of his neck in a way that hadn’t happened since Afghanistan. A soldier learned the hard way not to ignore that feeling. Not if he wanted to survive to fight another day, and all his buddies with him.

  Muttering a curse, Marcus pulled on his mask, grabbed the spear gun he’d tucked into the dinghy just in case, and slid into the water. Better to look foolish than to spend one more minute in that tiny boat, sure that something had gone wrong in the blue-green depths below.

  Heading directly down, along the path of the rope that Beka should be following back up, he didn’t have far to go before he came upon a scene that seared itself on his brain, joining the worst horrors of the battlefield to forever haunt his dreams like reels of black-and-white movies.