by Starla Night
“No, she was warning me not to steal.” The false smile tightened Bella’s face as she tried to find amusement in the warning.
“Do you intend to steal?”
“If I could steal what I want, I wouldn’t hesitate.”
“Bella.” A man’s voice accompanied his shadow. “Caro says you brought a lawyer?”
Bella glanced back at Balim, her gaze lingering on his dry button-up shirt and jacket Hazel had told him was proper for most situations. “He’s a doctor.”
“A doctor?” Chaz flipped on the lights as he entered the living area. He stared at Balim in confusion. “What’s the meaning of this?”
Caro lingered at the end of the hall, close enough to overhear. She crossed her arms over her chest. Her light faded. This man was bright with defensive anger.
Bella put her hand on Balim’s shoulder. “Balim is a merman. He’s chosen me for his bride, and he’s gifted me a Sea Opal worth well over a million dollars.”
Chaz lifted his chin, his arrogance and anger focused on Bella. “Did you come here to brag?”
She was instantly infuriated. Her tone sharpened and her words shortened. “No, Chaz, I came here to ask you again to—”
Two boys barreled around the corner and flew past Caro. They landed in front of Balim and stared up at him in shock.
“Wow,” the older one said while the younger stared in awe. “What are you?”
He squatted to their height. “I am a merman.”
“A what? No way.”
He held up his hand and shifted. The thin skin between his fingers tightened and stretched to make a mitt that would scoop the water. It was the easiest way to show his powers.
“No way! No way, no way! Are you really?”
“Yes. Ask me anything.”
While Balim distracted the boys, Bella spoke to Chaz. “It’s not a brag, it’s a bribe. He has money, Chaz. Money that could be yours. A million dollars. Help me, and I’ll help you.”
Good. He could help her accomplish this and spend time with human children. He had seen more in the past months above the surface than in his entire life beneath the sea. Young fry were innocent and bright no matter whether they were humans or mer.
Balim brushed the hair off the older one’s eyebrow. A scab had formed. “Hmm. You have an injury.”
“He fell off his tricycle,” Caro said defensively. “He rips off Band-Aids.”
Balim patted his suit pocket and pulled out his smallest kit. Removing gel, he smoothed it on the boy’s cut. “Now you will have no scar.”
The child wrinkled his brow, trying to stare up at the gel quickly drying into a bandage. “Wow.”
The younger boy bounced. “I want one too.”
Balim checked his hands. This boy was afflicted with one of the 107 illnesses: small, round growths on his index and middle finger knuckles the mer called Minnow Bites. He’d scratched several, because they jutted up from the skin. “Can you keep on bandages?”
He nodded.
“Yes,” Caro said.
He sprinkled salt into his paste and wrapped a seaweed bandage around each knuckle. “Leave this on for two human days. The growths will shrink into your skin until they disappear.”
The boy rubbed the slick green seaweed with awe.
“Those’ll never last for two days,” his mother said, pulling both her children back and away, and trying her hardest not to look at Bella and Chaz. “He takes a bath, and he just loves running his fingers in the sink.”
“It is better if the bandages remain wet.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.” Balim stood and returned his small kit to his jacket pocket. “I am a mer.”
She blinked, frowned, and ushered her children back to their food. The boys raced around the corner and disappeared into the brighter section of the house. Caro remained near Balim in the doorway to the living room, while Bella and Chaz’s argument grew loud.
“I’m not taking your test.” Chaz cut the air with his hand. “You know how they harvest the marrow? They stick a needle in your bone.”
“Only if you match.”
“No, Bella. I won’t put myself through that.”
“So take the test.” She whipped a paper envelope out of her purse and lofted a small plastic tube. “One cheek swab. If you’re not Jonah’s match, I go away forever.”
He held up both hands. “Get that thing away from me.”
“It’s a Q-tip, Chaz.”
“I already told you no! There’s nothing you can say to change my mind.”
Her chest flared to match Chaz, anger to anger, while her smile only broadened. “Not even for a million dollars?”
The man glanced at Balim and then back to Bella. His greed was piqued. “What are you talking about?”
“If you match Jonah and donate bone marrow, I’ll give it to you. A million dollars. For you or anyone in your family. Or anyone.”
Caro stepped forward. “Chaz already told you no.”
Chaz tapped his lip with his index finger, then jerked his head at Caro without looking at her. “Go back to dinner, Caro.”
Her light dimmed, but she held her ground. “You always get dragged around by her.”
“Caro.”
She sputtered at Bella. “I won’t let you touch my boys.”
“That’s your choice.” Bella focused on Chaz. “They’re only a one-in-a-million chance of matching Jonah like you or any other stranger. Chaz has a one-in-two-hundred chance.”
She got more upset. “And you want him to sell off his body parts for money!”
“For his son. And bone marrow grows back.”
“Quit asking for pieces of my husband.”
Bella’s smile flattened. Her true feelings flared out. She ticked off a list on her fingers. “I have never asked for alimony. Never come after him for child support. I don’t even send you guys a Christmas card.”
“We don’t want one!”
“Jonah is dying. He needs a bone marrow transplant. I have no choice.”
Chaz came to a decision. He motioned Caro the rest of the way into the room and put his arm around her, while she continued to cross her arms and glare. “Bella. I cut you out of my life a long time ago. This is my family now. No more sneaking in a surprise bone marrow registration drive at my church or my workplace. We’re through.”
She tapped the tube against her wrist. “Not even for a million dollars?”
He hadn’t heard her. “Huh?”
“You won’t swab your cheek for your firstborn son for a million dollars.”
He jerked his head back and pressed a hand to his chest. “Hey, I’m not the bad guy here. Your kid has bad luck. I made youthful mistakes, but now I’m the head of a good Christian family.”
“The other members of your congregation tested. You walked right past.”
“Because you won’t manipulate me.” He gestured for her to leave. “Take your blackmail and your guilt trips and get out of here. You’re giving me more indigestion than Caro’s idea of pot roast.”
His wife’s soul light grew weaker with his insult. She squared her shoulders to make herself more in sync with her husband.
Bella stuffed the envelope into her purse. “How insensitive of me for inconveniencing you during dinner. You probably weren’t a match, anyway.”
“Quit your harassment.” He hugged his wife. “Leave me and my boys in peace.”
Bella’s chest light extinguished. She turned and ran into Balim.
He held her shoulders, supporting her. Bella swallowed convulsively, regaining control. She did not show weakness, and the other couple would only see her back straight with pride.
He studied Chaz, irritated and righteous, beside Caro, threatened and scared.
“What are you looking at?” Chaz demanded.
“I do not know,” Balim responded.
“Huh?”
“It is strange.”
“You think I’m strange? You’re the one with scary
red tattoos on your face.”
“Humans have so many children, yet such bounty does not increase your joy.”
“Of course not.” He snorted. “We’ve got more mouths to feed. If it’s a choice between my kid and somebody else’s, I’m saving my kid. You’re lying if you don’t treat your ‘treasure’ the same.”
“Young fry are not one male’s or one city’s treasure. They are the future, and therefore the treasure of the mer.”
“Her kid’s not my future. I wasn’t there when he was born. She’s the one who screwed up.”
“That is what I cannot understand. You carry such coldness in your soul.”
Chaz raised a brow. “If the only way to save her kid was to hurt yours, you’d hurt your own kid? That’s not love. That’s sick.”
His question struck too close to Balim’s bone. Long-suppressed anger, which had been leaking out along with the other emotions since Bella had first crossed his path, hissed like acid as it ate into his heart.
“You let my son die! How dare you heal your son first? He is useless! Not even a warrior! Now you will die, false healer.”
Balim would never forget that shout. The grief. The screams.
Hard anger made his empty hand clench for his trident.
Bella sucked in a long, deep, calming breath and let it out. Fierce. Strong. She straightened and murmured to Balim, “Thank you,” before once more facing Chaz. Her chin trembled, but her voice remained steady. “That is the difference between you and him. He heals everyone who crosses his path, even a little scrape or hangnail. You won’t lift a finger to save your boy’s life.”
Chaz darkened.
Caro trembled, held on to Chaz’s elbow, and spat at Bella, “Get out.”
Bella’s chest flared. “I hope your sons don’t get sick. Because it’s a long road to travel alone, and as you can see, he won’t even swab his cheek with a Q-tip.”
Caro’s soul light fluctuated. She knew the truth of Bella’s accusation. For the first time, she looked at her husband with a question.
Chaz didn’t notice. “Go, before I throw you out.”
Bella linked hands with Balim and tugged him through the front door.
They had failed to acquire human medicine from this selfish Chaz. Now what would happen to Jonah?
Once more, Balim had gone to war with Bella and failed her. Healing was all Balim had ever been able to do, and now even that was called into question.
Chapter Thirteen
Outside the house, Balim breathed in the crisp air and tried to focus on calming himself. The acid of his memories damaged him, dissolving his usual limits. The night felt strange. Dangerous.
He focused on Bella. “That male must have changed since you chose him to father your child.”
“Chaz was always selfish.”
She brushed empty food packets out of her way and settled into the car again. While he buckled in, she checked messages on her phone, made sure they were both ready, and drove down the road into the city of Buffalo.
“He was a rising salesman at the first firm I worked. We were sleek and selfish and rising stars together. Then, an accident happened. I got pregnant.”
“And he did not treasure you.”
“No. He did not.”
Balim stared out at the strange lights in the human city. So much of the human world had become familiar, and yet so much would never make sense.
Bella made a frustrated noise. “I shouldn’t have said that to Caro. I would feel bad if one of her kids got sick.”
“Your words were accurate.”
“Yeah, but I would hate for anything to happen to them. Or anyone. I mean, maybe Chaz is right, and he’d be in the millionth percentile of people who go healthy into a hospital and end up dead.”
“You do not believe this.”
“Of course I don’t. I’m trying to talk myself out of going back and murdering him.” She tapped the steering wheel with her palm. “Freak accidents could happen. Like the guy who went crab fishing, stuck his finger, and contracted flesh-eating bacteria.”
“Crab-Cut Disease,” Balim identified.
“It’s a known illness?”
“One of the mer one hundred seven, also known as ‘Warm Seas Disease.’ It is common and terrible if untreated.”
“I bet. It was terrible even when treated.”
“He must drain the poison, pack the wound with astringent gel, and rest against the Life Tree until the streaking descends into the wound and disappears.”
“Yeah, well, we have antibiotics. I think the guy lost an arm.”
“He experienced a mild infection.”
“Mild!”
“Although inconvenient, an arm will grow back.”
She blinked. “No, it won’t.”
Oh, he had forgotten. An unfortunate problem. Humans could not regrow missing pieces. Their robotic limbs were very interesting.
“Grow back…” she muttered. “Limbs don’t just grow back.”
“They do with the healing sap of the Life Tree.”
“I wish we had a Life Tree on land. Then we could cure everything.”
He let her believe that for a short time, but it was inaccurate, and so he forced himself to say the truth. “Almost.”
“Oh, so you do have cancer?”
“Rare diseases do not respond to the Life Tree.”
“So what do you do?”
“Nothing. They are ancient diseases that have never left their cursed grounds.”
Except once.
Never again.
To avoid any follow-up questions, he reached back into Bella’s purse, removed the envelope, and examined the plastic tube. “How does it work?”
“How does what work?” She glanced over, saw the tube in his hand, and her expression flattened. “You want to test yourself for a match?”
“Yes.”
Her soul light flared and her chin wrinkled. She sucked in several breaths and cleared her throat, but she continued driving one-handed, the other pressed to her mouth.
“Why does my action make you so sad?”
She answered, muffled by her hand. “You’re not even Jonah’s… You, an absolute stranger, would offer to help him and the people who should care refuse…”
“He is your treasure,” Balim pointed out. “And I am your soul mate.”
Bella dropped her hand, pulled a U-turn at the next intersection, and drove the opposite direction.
“I have upset you.”
“No. No, no. This is just… I can’t let you affect me like this. So I won’t. You’ll see.”
Her soul fluctuated between bright and dark, and she ripped off her jewelry—earrings, vibrating metal piece, necklace, and hair clips. Her hair descended and brushed her shoulders.
“You must calm.”
“No, calm is the last thing I need right now.”
She drove to a parking lot, got out, and walked to a railing. Beyond it, mist blew off a slow-moving river and a giant bridge roared with traffic. Bella gripped the railing with hands covered by the thick sleeves of her sweater.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“We’re still in Buffalo. This is Black Rock Canal. That’s the Niagara River. It drains from Lake Erie over there. And that’s the Peace Bridge. The other shore is Canada.”
How strange that humans had no real markers between cities or countries. They bled into one another, sharing resources. Cities beneath the sea were much more separate. Above the ocean, everyone crossed between countries by a simple bridge. Such freedom of movement was impossible undersea.
“I was going to take you to the Niagara Falls because the light show is so impressive, but this can’t wait.” She turned to him. “The first time I transform after drinking the permanent Life Tree blossom nectar, my body will experience ‘extraordinary’ healing. It’s not affected if I transform after only drinking the temporary Sea Opal elixir?”
“No. They are separate.”
“So I could tr
ansform right now and still try the nectar trick later with Jonah?”
His heart thudded, sudden and hard, and a lump formed in his throat. He had to clear it, and his voice broke when he spoke. “You wish to transform?”
“I feel too much to stay confined within this skin.” She clenched her fists against her chest. The gesture was a horrible insult beneath the water, and it fit the intensity of her feelings. “It has to come out. Right now, right here, or else I will go somewhere with you and—”
She broke off, but her gaze lingered, hot and fiery, stroking his pectorals and abdomen and centering right on the hard, throbbing center of his rigid cock.
His cock tugged under her heated gaze.
“Go somewhere with me,” he said, his voice thick with hunger.
She jerked her gaze away.
“We have no elixir here, Bella.”
She turned away. Her breath emerged as fog and joined in with the mist above the river.
He stood beside her and rested his bare hand on the damp metal rail.
She glanced at his shirt. “Aren’t you cold?”
“Rarely.”
“Are you serious? Like, not even in the Arctic?”
“Never in the water.”
“Never cold. I’m so jealous.” She gazed out over the mist. Her soul fluctuated a bunch. “Jonah’s been sick over a year. Do you know the worst part? Sometimes I want to escape it all. Pretend I’m single. Start over. Isn’t that awful? He’s my child, no one else is fighting for him, and what happens if I give up?”
Her question chilled his heart. “You have not betrayed him yet.”
“Yet,” she agreed and rubbed her chest. “But I will. Someday. Does that disgust you?”
He studied her. She was a mystery. “Are you trying to disgust me?”
“It would be easier.”
“What would be easier?”
“If you would just go away.” She dropped her head on his shoulder. Her temple was warm, and her hair caressed his cheek like ghostly fingers. “Then I could stop feeling guilty.”
He allowed himself to reach up and touch the soft tickles. His fantasies from before washed over him. During the drive. Thinking about sliding kisses up her arm, resting on the parking brake, across her chest. Kiss every one of her freckles. His cock pulsed hard in his pants, ready and thrusting for her. Her long curls, her large sunglasses, her jeans. She called her dress casual, but she amazed him. He had plotted his own betrayal for years.
