Blueisland (Watermagic Series, #4) (13 page)

But before I could ask any further questions, he interrupted my thoughts. “I’m taking you somewhere,” he said in a deadpan voice as he dropped his lit cigarette in the sand and took the knife back from me.

I started to talk, but he put his hand over my lips. “Shhhhh,” he breathed.

Dang, his warm, long fingers on my lips set my body aflame.

“Not another word,” he said. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”

What did he have in mind? My thoughts raced with possibilities. He wasn’t the kind of guy a girl should be alone with. I’ll admit I wanted to know. Thoughts of the red head’s warnings about Marcel filled my mind. He was dangerous, she said. Yet, she was a bitch. What did she know?

But before I made a decision, s
uddenly, there were screams. My body tensed. I looked out at the ocean and saw that the makeshift boat had capsized and our classmates were yelling out at each other. My adrenaline rushed. Holy moly. Tally was in the water now with all the cuts on her legs. The blood would surely attract the ancient mers.

Without
thought, I rushed to the ocean moving swiftly across the sand, but Marcel grabbed me before I got to the water. He swept me up into his arms. “Let me down,” I yelled. “Take your hands off of me.” My arms and legs were flailing at him. Emily was out there. As annoying as she could be sometimes, I couldn’t let her die. I knew her family. I had so many memories of us together as kids. We played dodge ball, hide and seek, and built forts in her backyard together.

“You can’t do this, Jewel.”
Still in his arms, he pulled me up against his bare stomach firmly. Oh my—his body felt fine! I still struggled, but realized his strength was so much greater than mine. I didn’t have a chance against him. “I can smell the blood from here. You will surely lose control if I let you in the ocean with them. Then you will be the cause of their deaths. I know you don’t want that.”

Furious, I knew he was right.
My heart was pounding hard. I also could smell Tally’s blood. Something about it touching the water made the scent even more potent to my senses. A glorious perfume. It sent me into fits of hunger and arousal. What was happening to me? My cheeks flushed with embarrassment. Oh, no! My stomach clenched. I was losing control right in Marcel’s arms. This was crazy. Then he ran his finger down my cheek and looked at me with hooded eyes. I took in a long jagged breath not able to take my eyes off of him.

Holy cow. His lips waded over mine.
I could feel his warm breath. Was he taunting me on purpose? Playing with me, messing with my very core. I couldn’t stop myself from leaning in closer. My lips brushed against his. Oh boy, so soft. He smelled so good. I bit his lip. At once, he pulled back and shook his head like I had overwhelmed him or something. I wasn’t sure. My heart clenched. But those sad eyes… He confused me.

I couldn’t help but pull his gorgeous face back to mine. Our lips touched again and then our tongues.
He tasted so damn sweet. It was like I flew into heaven or was it hell? And his scent—what was it? Oh, it was musky, erotic—so damn amazing.

Our tongues twined together. He was unbelievably hot!
I tried to breathe him in as my hand slid down his hair and fisted into his the long strands. Even though I heard screams from the ocean, I couldn’t stop. Everything in my body hungered for Marcel. My tongue explored his mouth with intense yearning. My legs wrapped around his hard torso. The blood rushed through my veins as I couldn’t help but rub up against his body.

“Help me, help me…” I heard someone yelling. There was such pain in her voice. A blood curdling scream as my tongue slid into Marcel’s ear.

“Whoa, there, baby,” he said pulling me away.

But I couldn’t stop
the desire. My tongue ran down his neck. He tasted divine. I took lots of little pecking bites at his skin, yearning to sink my teeth into his flesh. I could fall insanely in love with this guy. What spell was I under? My nails ran down the side of his torso and over his hips where I pulled his sweatpants covered groin against me. “Touch me,” I begged.

“This isn’t what you want,” he murmured, taking me by the shoulders firmly and pulling me away.

Breathless, I looked away from Marcel’s flushed face and out at the ocean. Logan, Andrew, and the attractive adult woman were gone. I squirmed in Marcel’s arms, but he wouldn’t release me. His arms were tight around me.

Jason
and Jake were swimming as fast as they could back to shore, while Emily and Jeff were swimming out to help Tally. But it was too late. Tally’s arms were flailing in and out of the water, her head bobbing up and down. Goose bumps lifted on my arms. The blood scent was greater. Oh, hell. I saw it in the water like an oil spill covering the surface like a small round pool of darkness.

Panting,
Jeff and Emily reached her and were now trying to clasp onto her slippery body. But then, she went under and so did Jeff. A shudder jerked through my body. Tally lifted back out of the water twenty feet away in screams before never resurfacing again. And Jeff was gone, like he had just completely vanished. My hand flew to my mouth. I was completely powerless.

“Come
on,” Jason screamed out at the top of his lungs to Emily, pausing in his frantic swim toward shore as he looked over his shoulder.

Emily was just
panting and crying in some sort of crazy shock.

Shame rushed over
me like a giant wave breaking over my head as I started to get a grip on what was happening. Squirming in Marcel’s arms, I broke away from him. He seemed to allow me to go now. Could I control myself from devouring them too? I ran into the ocean and swam out to Emily. Ravenous hunger gripped my stomach.

As I got closer, I saw that Emily
was still crying, but she didn’t try to save herself. Stupid. Why had popularity made her such an idiot? She used to be awesome. Sucking in a sharp breath, I grabbed hold of her body, stifling all the feelings I was experiencing inside and swam with her back to shore.

Chapter Eight

When I came out of the water with Emily in my arms still hysterical, Marcel was gone. Maybe he ran off back to his tree house and girlfriend, Brigitte. I didn’t know. But it didn’t matter. I felt deeply ashamed and I didn’t want to ever see him again.

That night I sat with Emily and Jason inside a makeshift tent
on the beach. After about an hour after the rescue, Emily calmed down and fell asleep on the sand while Jason and I talked in the shadows. Light from the bonfire danced through the gauzy fabric of the tent on his face.

“What do you think happened out there?” Jason asked. He was a big burly guy with brown
short hair and light brown skin. I didn’t know him well, but I knew he was a lineman on the football team at school.

I shook my head and shrugged lightly. On one hand, it didn’t seem smart to reveal what we were, but on the other hand, he needed to protect himself. “Maybe it was sharks,” I managed to mumble.
Hopefully, that was enough to keep him out of the ocean.

“Just like
Jaws
.” He rolled his eyes up and dug into the sand with his hand. “What happened to you Raz? The skinny little girl with the baton?”

I think I might have blushed because my cheeks grew hot as fire
as he looked down at my much fuller breasts and then back up at my face.

He brushed his dark bangs off his forehead. “And your buddy,” he continued, “What’s her name?”

“Savannah,” I whispered, feeling tightness in my stomach because I was worried about her.

“She’s a lot prettier than I remember her.
Not as pretty as you and those French exchange students though. Did she always have a bod like that?” His eyebrows lifted. “And that new teacher, she’s hot. Logan and the narc look different too. What the hell happened with you guys?” He shifted his position on the ground giving me the impression he was uncomfortable.

I really didn’t know what to say. Now I knew we were mers, but I didn’t think I should say that. “I haven’t looked in a mirror in a long time. Maybe it was just puberty,” I managed to mumble stupidly.

He scoffed at that. “Puberty?” Now he was laughing. “More like you people made a deal with the devil.” He folded his big legs in as he observed me. “Emily, Jake, the wonder triplets…” he lifted his chin in the direction of the tent where those freshmen girls were sleeping. “… and me.” His eyes welled up for a second. “We look as ugly as we ever did.” A grin formed on his fleshy face and he chuckled. “Except for Emily. She was always the bombshell, but now you and your bud are hotter than the high school dream girl.”

My stomach growled louder than it ever had before.

His eyes widened. “What the hell? Dude, you got a dinosaur in there?”

I feigned a giggle. Crap, what was going on?

Apparently, he brushed it off because he just continued talking, “I don’t know what happened to the others. It seems like people are disappearing left and right and I don’t know where they are going. Have you seen Jessica and her cute friend, Lisa?” Even though he was an enormous guy that normally might seem intimidating, his eyes looked sad now, even a little afraid.

“I think the same thing happened to them as Tally and Jeff.”
I said, biting my lower lip.

“Damn, I’ve known Jeff my whole life. We were like brothers.” He shook his head as a tear rolled down his fleshy cheek which he quickly wiped off with his enormous hands.
I found myself wondering what his tears tasted like. “I don’t know where Logan, Andrew, and Jane went. They must have been torn to meat also.” He swallowed hard. “This is bullshit.” His voice sounded much coarser now.

“What did you make of that gigantic octopus that sunk the yacht?” I asked running my fingers through my long dark hair, surprised how smooth and silky it actually felt.

“That thing was crazy, man.” He shook his big head. “Shit like that doesn’t happen. It broke Juan Piedro’s neck with its tentacle. Then threw him off the deck.”

My fingernails dug into the sand as I felt the pangs of hunger in my gut.
“Do you know what happened to Donny Smith?”

He shrugged. “Who’s that?”

“He’s blond, tall, and skinny…”

“On the swim team?” He asked, his eyebrows pulling together.

“Yeah, that’s Donny.” I studied his face trying to read him, but my thoughts kept drifting to the pounding rhythms of his blood flow. It was like music to my ears.

“He made it off the yacht.”

My eyes lit up. “He did?”

“Yeah, it was some weird shit.” He leaned back with his hands behind him on the sand as he shook his head again. “That criminal French exchange student—you know the one who was in jail?”

“Marcel?” My heart rate sped up.

He nodded. “Yeah, that’s the guy—long ass hair—the one all the girls fall over.” Now he was chuckling and shaking his head more.

“Go on,” I encouraged anxiously. “The dude made out with him right there on the deck, lips pressed together, shit…” he sighed, “…and then the punk kicked him off the boat like he was a football. It was some weird ass shit.”

“Are you serious?”
I bit my finger much too hard. Was Marcel gay? He couldn’t be. I saw him with Emily. But then again, he didn’t seem like he cared about her at all now. Maybe he just messes around with girls to seem macho, but he’s really into guys. That actually makes sense because what guy on the planet earth wouldn’t be in love with Brigitte? She is utter perfection. And then when I lost control and was making out with him, he pushed me away. I thought about it for a second. Well, that could just be that I’m not his type. Even if I am more attractive than I used to be as everybody keeps saying, Marcel saw me before the changes in my rag doll state and maybe that was enough to turn him off. “Do you think Marcel is gay?” I asked Jason.

He laughed. “I think he’s just a weird dude. Maybe he
is over sexed or into kinky shit.” I had to move back as he stretched his long, thick legs out and crossed his arms over his chest. Emily was sleeping like a baby now just a couple feet away from us. “I saw him out at a club one night with Kitty Kole.”

“The supermodel?” I asked with surprise.
My breathing sped up. I just felt so out of control and desirous.

“Yeah.
Shit, she’s even more beautiful in person, long ass legs. She was all over him, but he didn’t do anything about it. He left her there high and dry. She was crying all over his friends. He’s crazy. Apparently, he does that to a lot of girls. Attachment issues or something.” He laughed, rubbing his forehead. “I heard the dude is rich.”

“What?” My voice lifted. “You mean his parents are rich?” Then I thought about it. Does he even have parents?

“No, I think their dead. He owns vineyards in France and does a lot of international corporate shit—the guy is worth billions. I heard he’s even on the Forbes list. Lucky asshole.”

“You want to go for a swim?” I asked him suddenly.

He scoffed, his brown eyes crinkling at the corners. “You gotta be shitting me?” His eyebrows pulled together. “I’m not getting in that ocean ever again.”

I smiled sweetly. “Not even naked?” Before I knew what I was doing, I pulled off my t-shirt and overly tight, stretched out bra.”