Catch of a Lifetime (36 page)

   "Have a seat, son," he said, steering Logan into the chair. "You, too, Angel." Another chair appeared next to his, and Angel floated into it.

   Logan grabbed her hand. He wasn't about to let go. Her sister had said marriage was the only way out, and Logan was all for it. And not just to save her life.

   "Zeus, Sir." Rod, one of the two brothers Mariana had pointed out before he'd set foot in The Coliseum, nodded at the newcomer—
Zeus
, of all people—from behind the table. "To what do we owe the honor?"

   Zeus approached the bench, shaking a finger at Rod. "You're smart, Rod, but I bet even you didn't see this one coming."

   The merman glanced at Mariana, who was trying hard to keep a smile off her face. Looked like she'd known what she was talking about.

   Zeus turned to face him. "By the way, Logan, it's mer. Capital M and no
man
or
maid after it. Just Mer
. Your kind added the suffixes."

   Wow. Logan thought he'd been prepared for any thing, but Zeus? An honest-to-God Greek god? Here?

   Then he looked around. Mermen—no, Mers—all around him, fish and eels and barracuda sitting next to each other, not a snarling maw in the crowd. Nothing should surprise him.

   "Actually, it's 'honest-to-gods.'"

   Logan looked at Zeus. "Sorry?"

   "Gods." Zeus walked toward him. "You thought, 'God.' I prefer you use the plural, otherwise, when I return to Olympus, I'm going to hear it from Hera. And Aphrodite
and
Poseidon
and
Eros—especially Eros. They've accused me of getting too big for my toga on occasion, and singling myself out from the rest of them tends to get their Irish up. Or rather, their Greek." He patted Logan's shoulder. "Okay? From now on, it's 'gods.' Lower case, plural. Keeps everyone happy."

   The guy…
Zeus
… swam back to the head table while Logan just stared at him.

   "So," Zeus thrummed his fingers on the table. "I'm sure you're all wondering why I'm here. After all, we gods bowed out of your adjudications
selinos ago. Close to tw
o thousand, I believe." Rod nodded. "Right. Well, you see, we've obviously been following this case closely, due to your predecessors. Pontus and his heirs didn't manage their Human interaction well, as we all know."

   "What's he talking about?" Logan asked Angel. Mariana hadn't told him this part of their history.

   "The previous dynasty treated their reign as one long party and got too involved with Humans. The gods got fed up with the destruction that caused and cleaned house. That's when my family took control," she whis pered back.

   "We gods decided that an impending marriage neces sitated some intervention on our part." Zeus looked back at Logan. "So, son, do you care to tell us why you've suddenly decided that life with a Mer is preferable to the
normal
one you so craved on land? Is this some con trived plot to tug on the heartstrings of the assembly? A hope for a celestial pardon?"

   Zeus planted his hands on either side of the chair, his face inches from Logan's. "Or is this a ploy to make the ultimate sacrifice as a means of earning Immortality and escaping death?"

   Logan took a deep breath. Of water. Funny how that didn't bother him anymore.

   He met Zeus' gaze, then slowly pushed on the arms of the chair and rose. Zeus grudgingly allowed him to stand.

   Every eye in the place was on him.

   Logan didn't care.

   He brushed past the god to face Angel, her beauti ful eyes both worried and shining with happiness. He reached for her hand, then dropped to one knee.

   "Angel, I love you." He said it loud enough for ev eryone to hear. There would be no misunderstanding on anyone's part. Especially not hers. "I have since our night together. Probably even before. I love how you laugh, how you sing, how you make everyone around you feel special and good and valued. I love how you are with my son, and I love how I am when I'm with you."

   Tears filled her eyes, and he had to clear his throat.

   "I know I said awful, hurtful things to you that night. I was an ass. I didn't mean them. I was just so… sur prised, and—"

   She put a finger on his lips. "I know. I should have—"

   "No." He shook his head and inhaled that special blend of hibiscus that was all Angel. "You shouldn't have. There was no easy way to tell me. I behaved badly. But I want to make it up to you. And not because you saved my son. Not because you put yourself in danger. Not for any of the reasons Zeus said." But he
had
used Mariana's knowledge of Immortality to his advantage. It'd been the only way, and one he'd embraced wholeheartedly.

   "I want to marry you because I couldn't live another day knowing you were suffering. That I'd never see you again. Whatever it takes, if I have to give up living on land or only see you occasionally, I'll do it." He stroked her cheek with his other hand, then cradled it and ran his thumb over her lips. "I love you Angel, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you."

There wasn't a dry eye in the place—oh, that's right. They were underwater.

   But Angel knew tears when she felt them, and they were what was sliding down her cheeks. And what she tasted when she kissed Logan. "I love you, too," she whispered against his lips. "I never lied about that."

   "Then it's settled." Zeus clapped his hands and a giant golden abacus with different colored pearls floated in front of The Council.

   Angel looked past Logan as Zeus swam over to it. What was the head god up to?

   She caught Mariana's smile before her sister tucked her chin to her chest and draped her long hair in front of her face.

   She had a feeling Mariana knew exactly what Zeus was going to do—and she had a feeling she was going to be eternally grateful to her sister.

   "In the system of checks and balances that we use On High, two negatives—" the god slid two small black pearls to the side—"equal a positive." He slid a pink pearl on another row.

   "Angel offered herself in Michael's place. Knowing Ceto as we all do, that was certain death." He slid one of the black pearls back toward the middle. "Then we have Logan. Mortal, Human Logan who dared to venture back into Ceto's palace to save the woman he loves. Again, almost certain death." The other black pearl slid home.

   "Two sacrifices." He tapped the one small pink pearl. "One positive left." Then he slid the pink pearl back.

   "The precedent's already been set. Noble sacrifice earns Immortality. Reel will testify to that."

   Angel looked at her brother, who held his wife's hand to his lips. Reel had earned Immortality for sav ing Erica's life, then declined it to spend the rest of his with her.

   "And if someone's Immortal, they cannot be hooked, killed, or destroyed. Which is how Ceto survived her own seaquake. She and I had a little
chat
after she slith ered out of that trench she buried herself and half the continental shelf in. I believe I've put the child issue to rest with Ceto. She's on indefinite community service at Artemis's orphanage."

   Zeus brushed his hands, and the abacus disappeared. Then he raised his hands, palms down, toward where Angel and Logan sat, and closed his eyes. "So, by the power vested in me, I now bestow Immortality upon you, Angel Tritone, you, Logan Hardington, and any progeny thereof."

   He opened one eye, then the other, nodded, then clasped his hands behind his back, and faced The Council. "Rod, I believe all that's left for The Council to do is decide a fitting punishment since a death sentence is now a non-issue."

   Thorsson tossed up his hands and Santos grumbled something.

   Henri, however, had something to say. "Humans are the worst punishment I, personally, can imagine. Filthy air, crowded living arrangements, ignorance of other civilizations… I say we give Angel the job she so desperately wants. Talk about a fitting punishment. And marriage—especially to a Human—is just one more shackle."

   Not in her mind. To her, Henri couldn't have given her a better punishment. Logan, Michael, and the free dom to do what she wanted.

   This trial had turned out better than she'd ever expected.

Hera was waiting for Zeus when he returned home.

   "You just had to do it, didn't you?" She crossed her arms and tapped her foot beneath the saffron toga he'd given her for Mother's Day.

   Zeus grabbed a bottle of ambrosia out of the icebox and wiped it across his forehead. "It was fascinating, sweetheart. They're finally flexing their Free Will muscles. It's only taken them two millennia."

   Hera huffed and walked over to her prized hyacinths. She picked up the spritzer and watered first the purple, then the pink, then finally, the white. His wife was a creature of habit. In some things. "I knew you wouldn't be able to simply observe. You just had to play
deus ex
machina
to the hilt, didn't you?"

   One of her habits was to keep his feet firmly planted in the clouds.

   He took a swig of the ambrosia. "Don't get your lau rel leaves in a tither, Hera. Logan found a way around the statute with no help from me. Give me a little credit for knowing my creations. I just showed up to bestow the Immortality. Besides, you can't tell me you don't love a good happily-ever-after."

   Hera's spritzer hit the window ledge.

   "
Whose creations?" She turned her head so slightl
y that the long braid down her back barely swayed, but it was all the more effective for its lack of movement.

   Oh shit. "Um,
our
creations, dear. Ours."

   She nodded and picked up the spritzer. "That's better. So, you gave Ceto something to make her happy and keep her out of trouble, and you saved a Mer, a few Humans, and their civilizations."

   "Don't forget coming up with a fitting punishment for those two sharks." He tried to keep Smug out of his voice, but Hera knew him too well.

   Surprisingly, his wife laughed. "Yes, sticking A.C. and Harry in a Human aquarium was a stroke of genius. How long will they be there?"

   Zeus let Smug out. "I figured five
selinos ought to teac
h them a lesson. Three if they're on their best behavior."

   Hera sniffed. "That I'd like to see. So, what's next on your agenda?"

   Zeus picked up the latest edition of
Natural
Geographic.
Easter Island. Hmmm. Every so often Humans revisited the origins of the statues. He won dered what Mariana thought of that.

   Smart girl, that Mariana.

   "I think we ought to take a vacation." He thumbed through the article to the map and ran his finger across the twenty-seventh latitude, west of South America. "How does Chile sound?"

LOGAN WAS GLAD ANGEL DECIDED ON LEGS FOR THEIR wedding day. And the morning after—if only for the fact that she looked utterly magnificent straddling him.

   Her skin glistened in the warm Caribbean sun. The pineapple-and-hibiscus-scented breeze wisped her golden hair around them, and the rhythmic arrival of the surf on the deserted island beach set the tempo for their lovemaking.

   The twilight ceremony last evening hadn't been his idea. If he'd had his way, they would have been mar ried in Atlantis immediately after the trial, but Angel had specifically requested a land wedding with all her family… and no tails. It wasn't enough that she'd fi nagled both the job she wanted and had him—by virtue of his experience with green technologies—appointed to her Advisory Board, she'd wanted to make a state ment about bringing the sea and the land together via their marriage.

   The earliest the wedding could be pulled together, tails shifted into legs, and Michael brought over had been last night. Logan hadn't let Angel out of his sight for one minute between the verdict and the wedding.

   And what a sight she was: naked, sexy, with that glori ous hair cascading over her shoulders, the ends caressing him wherever they touched. Logan realized he'd found paradise. Anywhere Angel was, was paradise—and he didn't care that he was waxing poetic again. Those poets had been onto something.

   Logan reached for her hips, her deliciously silky, naked hips, and slid his palms down her thighs as she straddled him. "You know I really don't mind the tail, right?"

   She tossed her hair down her back. "Now? You want me to have a tail now?"

   "Well, no. Not now, obviously. But later. You don't have to sneak off like you did before."

   Angel blew against his throat, then traced her tongue up to swirl around the shell of his ear, little puffs of her breath warming him more than the sun ever could, and one of her hands found his nipple. He sucked in a breath. She'd discovered just the right way to do that for just the right reaction and had been using that weakness to torture him for hours.

   Not that he was complaining.

   "I know I don't have to, Logan, but if it's all the same to you, my tail is the last thing I feel like thinking about right now."

   He smiled. Oh, he didn't mind thinking about her tail…

   He ran his hands back up her thighs and around to knead her backside, pressing her down onto him a little more, gratified to hear her groan, "That's not fair."

   "Tell me about it." He did it again.

   "That's it, buster." She wiggled in that sexy way she'd discovered drove him wild. Which it did all over again.

   Angel, in all her naked beauty. Even more gorgeous than she'd been on his boat. She was his, and he could look and touch and savor all he wanted.