Blood of a Mermaid (7 page)

As they meandered through the formal gardens, Kae named all of the different plants growing there. She’d helped her mother plant many of them over the years, and knew much of the history and lore of the plant life both native and foreign to Nantucket Sound. Xander was attentive to her every word, asking questions and making her laugh at his jokes. He seemed to have a fair bit of knowledge about the medicinal uses of some of the plants, which Kae found fascinating. The afternoon swam by at breakneck speed, and Kae knew that soon the servants would be coming outside to light the various lanterns. Her parents would be looking for her to join them at the supper table.

It occurred to her that she could ask Xander to join her family for their evening meal, but what would her father think of that? Would he think she was courting the affections of another? Is that what she was actually doing, or was she just hanging out with a friend?

Kae was no longer certain.

Perhaps things would be easier if she’d fallen in love with another commoner in the first place, someone like Xander who was funny and charming, and handsome in a roguish sort of way. A merman who could anger her one moment and make her laugh the very next. Whose touch filled her with warm feelings of security and confidence, rather than the breathless exhilaration she felt in Shea’s arms. Her life would certainly be simpler, less complicated.

If only she’d met Xander first.

But she hadn’t. She’d met the boy on the beach first, and her life would never be the same. And despite the fact that she worked for his mother, who was now the queen of a foreign ocean, she knew she was totally and completely in love with him, Shea MacNamara, heir to the Atlantic throne. The boy at the center of her heart and her universe, and never far from her thoughts…but oddly enough, she hadn’t mentioned him much at all to Xander, except to say that she had a “boyfriend.” Did her simple act of omission mean something?

Meeting Xander now wouldn’t change the way she felt about Shea. It couldn’t. Besides, she had to leave in the morning on her journey to Atlantis to testify before the court. She would have to say goodbye to Xander tonight, just as she’d said goodbye to Shea earlier in the morning.

From the corner of her eye, she saw the first of the servants coming out of the castle with a net full of luminous sea creatures. It was time to light the lanterns. Time to say goodnight and goodbye.

She stopped swimming, hovering next to the hedgerow Xander was inspecting, watching his seaweed-colored hair tossing gently with the current. She hated to interrupt him when he seemed so engrossed in the details of the plantings, but she had little choice. “It’s getting late. I think it’s time to say good night,” she said, her voice sounding sad even to her own ears.

He turned, a frown upon his face. “So soon? But you’ve only named half the plantings in the garden for me! Can you meet me here again tomorrow morning?”

She shook her head. “I leave tomorrow on a journey. I told you I was leaving for Atlantis soon.”

A look of genuine surprise crossed Xander’s face. “Atlantis? But it’s only mid-summer. I thought you meant you’d be headed there for the fall semester.”

Kae looked away, unable to meet his eyes. Her real reason for the journey was supposed to be secret, known only to her family and the king himself. And to Shea, of course, since she had no secrets from him. Although, she supposed he didn’t know about Xander.
Did that make it a secret?

“My mother wants to accompany me, and we are going early to see the sites.” Which was partly true. Her mother planned to swim with her on the journey, as she was also called to testify. King Koios had asked her father to stay and watch over Shea, until Demyan could be brought to justice.

“So this is more than a mere good night,” Xander said, swimming closer. “This is a goodbye as well.” He took both of her hands in his, and she felt a much stronger pulse of electricity flow through her, drawing her closer to him. His dark eyes searched hers as he bit his bottom lip. Staring into their depths, she saw again the lonely boy who needed to be comforted and her heart ached for him. “Don’t leave me. We’ve only just met.” Another surge of electricity shot through her body and her mind slowly began to cloud.

Kae struggled to retain control of her thoughts. “I must…get home. It’s late and…and my parents will worry.” She knew she should back away from Xander and leave the garden, but she couldn’t make herself swim away. In fact, she found herself inching closer to his warm body, as if against her will, until his heat completely encircled her.

“Stay with me, Kae,” he whispered, his words hovering in the water around her, echoing in her head.

“Okay,” she heard herself agree, although she knew it was wrong. But she couldn’t quite remember why it was wrong. She did know she didn’t want to leave him, not when he needed her.

His words,
Stay with me
, seemed to have invaded her entire being, insinuating themselves into every fiber and muscle of her body, sapping her will power to make any decision other than to stay. A small part of her mind tried to disagree, but her body would not listen. She hovered in place, staring into Xander’s dark, bottomless eyes, unable to move away.

* * *

Zan had not planned for this.
Why in Neptune’s name would she be leaving for Atlantis tomorrow?
He could not allow that to happen, not when Demyan had ordered her capture. They’d never be able to take her once she reached the city of Atlantis, where it would be far too risky to attempt a kidnapping. He sent another wave of magick through their clasped hands, erasing the last of her free will.

They would have to leave for the Arctic tonight. Demyan planned to use the mermaid to lure Shea into Nerine territory, and then use a captive Shea to negotiate with both King Koios and Queen Brynneliana. The Aequorean forces would be no match for the Nerine. Demyan and the Nerine would easily win, and then begin to work their way toward Atlantis. It wasn’t Zan’s place to point out the holes in Demyan’s twisted logic, but only to fulfill his own small part of the plan: capture the mermaid who held Shea’s heart.

It would be a faster journey if Kae could swim on her own, so controlling her mind seemed the most efficient option. He’d been using his magick sparingly up until now, gently sending trickles of warm feeling to make her trust him, to make her open her heart to him. Given more time, she would have come around on her own, perhaps even choosing him over that drylander whelp.

But there was no more time.

As he stared down into her wide, green eyes, the muscles in his jaw tensed. He realized he desperately wanted to kiss her, to taste her soft lips, but that would be wrong. He’d cast a spell over her and controlled her will completely. Anything that happened between them now wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be real.

He wanted to get to know Kae better, her likes and dislikes, what made her laugh and smile. She was so very beautiful when she smiled, like a brilliant sunrise on a cloudless morning. He would never wish harm to such a sweet and trusting mermaid. What Demyan had planned for her was so, so wrong.

Zan wanted the chance for Kae to know him not as the Adluo spy sent to capture her as a hostage, but for who he was on the inside. Could she love a merman like him? Would she? Now he’d never know, because he’d run out of time. They needed to leave the castle grounds now, before anyone noted her absence. Before her parents missed her at the supper table.

Before he lost his nerve.

He released one of her hands and gently lifted her transmutare necklace over her head, letting it fall to the sand. “You won’t be needing this where we’re going,” he murmured.

“But…my parents will worry…”

“Come now, Kae,” he whispered. “You’ll be safe with me. We have a journey of our own to make.”

Four aluminum soda cans, two and a half white plastic coffee cup lids, one Styrofoam coffee cup with a bite mark out of the rim, a broken red shovel, a supermarket rewards card, and a faded pink flip flop.

Shea kicked another spray of sand into the oncoming surf. His usual two-mile walk had done nothing to alleviate his angry feelings. Since saying good-bye to Kae the day before, he’d felt unsettled, upset with the whole world. Especially with the undersea world ruled by his grandfather.

“Why can’t I go with her? I should be there too!” Logically, he knew his ranting was in vain. King Koios couldn’t hear Shea yelling at the waves as they curled upon the sand. And even if he could, it wouldn’t change the king’s decision to send Kae to the hearing but not send his grandson.

“Kae’s on her way right now to Atlantis,” Shea fumed. “I should be swimming by her side. If the journey is too dangerous for me to undertake, how can it be safe for her?” Kae had told him her mother would be traveling with her, along with a contingent of guards, but that the king had ordered her father to stay in Nantucket Sound to guard Shea.

Martha’s revelations had given him a lot to think about, but in the end, Shea decided that the stark choices his grandmother had been forced to make between love and her life undersea were also the fault of the Atlantic king. No one should ever be forced to choose between such things, to give up everything because they’d fallen in love with the “wrong” person. That wasn’t fair.

Lying awake during the long, sleepless night, he’d wondered what Kae would have done if faced with a similar choice. If Shea had been a mere drylander, like his father and his Grandpa MacNamara, would Kae still love him? Would she have given up the mermaid life to live on dry land? His grandmother had chosen love.

His own mother had chosen differently.

Were the stakes different for his mother and father, because Brynn was a royal princess? Did that mean things would be different for him because of his own royal status? Maybe King Koios already had a plan for Shea’s future, one that didn’t involve a happily-ever-after with Kae.

Shea frowned, and kicked more sand into the ocean. There were too many questions roiling around in his head that had no easy answers. Besides, he was way too young to start thinking about marriage and forever just yet. He hadn’t even finished high school. The curves of his mouth slowly turned upward as he realized the way things were going, he’d be skipping the rest of “regular” high school and headed straight to the mermaid University. With Kae. Where they’d have plenty of time together to figure out their future, whether King Koios liked it or not.

The sun was finally getting ready to peek out over the horizon, already turning the few clouds floating over the ocean to dusky pinks and purples. Sunrise was his favorite time along the shore, when even the wind seemed quiet and reverent in anticipation of the rising sun. The Native Americans used to call Cape Cod the “Land of the First Light,” since it jutted so far east into the Atlantic. The sands and the beaches were always shifting, always changing at the whims of the capricious ocean, but Cape Cod itself endured over time. Since moving here in May, Shea had yet to experience a coastal storm like the one that had killed his Uncle Rick and Grandpa MacNamara, one with the strength to rip dunes apart and send houses and other structures tumbling into the ocean.

Now that he knew about the magick wielded undersea, he wondered how many of those storms were caused by Mother Nature and how many by vengeful mermaids.
Surely storms like the tornado that killed Dad are the exception rather than the rule
, he decided.

Shea scanned the beach, wondering how far Lucky had run off on his own, chasing down the early morning seagulls still asleep along the edge of the dunes. Movements far down along the water’s edge caught his eye, and he watched as the figures walked in his direction. One was definitely Lucky, next to a tall figure of a man.

As they came closer, Shea recognized the long graying beard and wide shoulders of Kae’s father, Lybio. He’d never seen the merman take human form before and was impressed, and maybe a little intimidated, by how large and imposing Lybio looked. He stood more than six and a half feet tall, towering over the large black Lab prancing by his side.

“Greetings, young Prince,” Lybio called as he drew near. “Are you alone?”

Shea smiled wryly as he nodded his assent. “Good thing I am, or you’d have some explaining to do with that ‘prince’ crack.”

A look of consternation crossed the large merman’s face, but his attitude remained decidedly unrepentant. “Forgive me, my Prince. I didn’t think.”

Shea dismissed the apology with a wave. “What brings you onto shore like this?”

“Actually, I was hoping to find my daughter with you. Have you seen Kae?”

Eyes wide, Shea shook his head. “Kae came to my house yesterday to say her goodbyes. I thought she was leaving for Atlantis before dawn today?”

Lybio turned toward the horizon, the rising sun illuminating his stern face. “That was to be the plan. But she never returned to the cottage for supper last night, and we can’t seem to get in touch with her. She must have taken off her medallion, or lost it again.”

Shea squirmed, remembering the medallion he’d found washed ashore so many weeks ago. “Just so you know, sir, Kae means the world to me.”

“I’m sure you think you believe that,” Lybio said, turning his gaze on Shea. “But you are still very young, ignorant of the consequences of your actions. And the responsibilities of the kingdom are not yet yours to bear. Again, I must ask you, where is my daughter?”

Shea narrowed his eyes. “I really haven’t seen her since before noon yesterday.”

Lybio kept his gaze locked with Shea’s. His eyes looked similar to his daughter’s, large and deepest green, but with none of the sparkle that drew Shea to the girl. Lybio’s eyes were stern and serious as they bored straight through Shea. After a long pause, he asked, “Were you in the ocean yesterday?”

Startled by the question, Shea drew his head backward in confusion, but didn’t break eye contact. “Both you and my grandfather told me it was forbidden.”

“You’ve been known to bend rules in the past.” Lybio jammed his index finger toward the dog, lying in the sand at their feet. “You’re breaking one even as we speak.”