Forgive My Fins (8 page)

When I don’t finish, he says, “And that would be…?”

I drop my head and mumble into my chest. For the love of Poseidon, this is harder than I ever imagined.

“What was that?” he asks, cupping my chin and forcing me to meet his questioning gaze. “I didn’t quite catch it, since you were speaking at the sand.”

“I said”—I twist out of his grasp and face him with as much fake boldness as I can muster—“I’m a mermaid.”

His mouth drops open a little. I find myself staring at his lips, the same ones that were kissing me just last night. They are quite nicely formed. I never bothered to look before—since they were usually engaged in finding ways to mortify me—but they are nice and full, without being too soft. Kind of, as Shannen said, Brad Pitt–like. No wonder they felt so good—

Holy crab cakes, what’s wrong with me? Why am I suddenly fanta—No. No, no, no. I am
not
fantasizing about my archenemy’s lips! I must be totally losing it. I have way more pressing matters to deal with at the moment.

“Huh,”
Quince says, like he just saw a monkey riding a dolphin or something. Then he laughs. “That explains your bizarre obsession with fish terminology.”

More laughter. I scowl. There’s nothing amusing about this situation.

“Well, that’s not half of it, buster.” I slam my palms against his chest, sending him toppling back onto the sand. “You’re turning into one, too.”

He starts laughing even harder.

“What’s so funny?”

“Aw, hell, Lil,” he says. “Irony’s a bitch.”

I scowl harder. He is such a lunatic. Maybe I should just leave him here to dehydrate—

“I can’t even swim.”

Great. I jab both hands into my hair and hang my head. Why am I surprised? Nothing about Quince has ever made my life easy. Thalassinia is forty-five nautical miles due east, and the blowfish can’t swim. The sun is already closing in on the western horizon. There’s no time to waste.

“Well, you’re going to have to learn,” I say, leaping to my feet. “And fast.”

“Hold on there, princess.” He stops laughing long enough to stand up. “Water and I are not exactly friends. I prefer transportation with wheels.”

“That doesn’t matter right now,” I say, walking down to the ocean’s edge and kicking off my shoes.

“The hell it doesn’t,” he growls.

“Listen.” I turn to face him, hands on my hips. “We’re working on a tight time schedule here. We don’t want to be caught in open sea after dark.”

When the sun goes down, the ocean turns into a war zone. All the biggest and baddest come out, and some of them have a taste for mermaid. Swimming the night sea without a guarded escort is shark-bait suicide.

He crosses his arms across his chest. “What exactly is going on?”

I can see I’m getting nowhere with him until I explain a few things. “When you kissed me last night, a bond formed and you began to turn mer. Your body started preparing itself for saltwater immersion, raising the saline levels in your skin to compensate—that’s why the salty bath felt so good. Salivary glands near the top of your throat grew into gills so you’ll be able to breathe underwater.”

“Wait a second—”

“The chemistry of your lymphatic system is changing so it can regulate your buoyancy.” I try not to laugh at the thought of Quince floating along on the surface as I drag his sorry self all the way to Thalassinia.

“My buoyancy was just fine—”

“Oh, and the bond?” I add before things go from bad to beyond repair. “Is this kind of chemical-hormonal-emotional connection thing that can kind of muddy your feelings. So don’t go getting all mushy on me. We’re not really falling for each other, even if we start to think we are.”

Good advice for me, too.

I can’t even imagine anything worse than thinking I’m in love with Quince. I’d be too embarrassed to ever leave the sea again.

“Okay…,” he says. “But what about—”

“No time,” I interrupt once more—it feels good to finally be the one getting the last word. “I can dish more details later. First, I have to get you to the Thalassinian royal court so the king can perform the separation ritual, like, last week. Now get moving.”

He looks stunned. Completely stunned. I never thought I’d see the day
I
shocked Quince Fletcher. And now that it’s here, I don’t have time to enjoy it. I’ve got to get this bond undone before the emotional stuff starts clouding my judgment, before his mer mark begins to form at the start of the next lunar cycle and the process becomes irreversible.
Ticktock, ticktock
.

“Let me get this straight,” he says, recovering himself. “I’m turning into a mermaid because I kissed you?”

“I don’t remember asking you to kiss me,” I retort.

He scowls and I regret my snide remark. He didn’t ask for any of this to happen, either. There was no way he could have known what he was getting himself into.

“Technically,” I explain, “you’re turning into a mer
man
.”

He gives me a look that makes it clear that he’s not interested in
technicalities
at the moment.

“Look,” I say. “Can we just forget the last few days and focus on what we need to do right now?”

He shrugs, still sulking, from the look of his scowl. But we don’t have time to indulge his pout. Unencumbered, I can make the swim from Seaview to Thalassinia in under two hours. With biker boy slowing me down, we’ll be lucky to coast in before the suns sets in a few short hours.

“We don’t want to be traveling when the sun goes down. I thought we would have more than enough time to spare, but I didn’t know you couldn’t swim.” I turn and head again for the sea, unbuttoning my shorts as I go. “Follow me.”

When I reach waist-deep water, I slip off my shorts and fling them back onto the beach next to my shoes. Next to a gaping Quince, who hasn’t moved from the spot.

“Get your butt moving,” I shout.

Jerking to a start, Quince finally starts walking. And reaching for the waistband of his cargo pants.

“Uh-uh,”
I call out. “You can keep your drawers on.”

“But you—”

“I will be transfiguring,” I explain. “Changing into my fins. You’re not fully mer yet. You will be able to breathe and communicate underwater, but you won’t transfigure into a merman.”

And once the separation ritual is complete, he never will.

“Oh,” he says, eyes slightly glazed and not sounding as if he understands at all.

There will be plenty of time later for Q and A.

“Lose the shirt, though,” I order. “It’ll only add drag and slow us down.”

Without argument, Quince reaches for the hem of his Miami Ink tee and lifts it over his head. His skin gleams in the warm sunlight as he throws the shirt aside, landing right on top of my shorts. Lord love a lobster, he has a beautiful chest. He’s not bodybuilder muscular, but clearly he’s built enough to lift whatever comes along. I can just imagine him earning those muscles in the lumberyard, hefting plywood and two-by-fours to sculpt perfect pecs and a washboard—

“See something you like?”

My eyes jerk up. Caught staring at the off-limits eye candy. From the smoldering look in his eyes, he’s not about to punish me. I shake my head slowly, unconvincingly. It’s the bond. It has to be the bond. What else would—

He takes a step closer.

“No!” I squeak. “We have to,
um
, get going.”

He stops and has the nerve to laugh.

The bond is already tweaking my thoughts. If I don’t get us out of here and on the way to a full separation soon, I’m going to be in big—okay,
bigger
—trouble.

Quickly slipping my undies off, I throw them up to join my shorts and shoes on the beach. All I’m wearing is my tank top, which is all I’ll need once I transfigure.

Quince stares at the water right in front of me, as if hoping to be able to see beneath the surface despite the distortion.

“Eyes up, buster.”

In a slow, languid movement his eyes travel up over my wet top—hovering just a little on my cha-chas—and finally up to meet my angry gaze.

I feel my cheeks burn red.

“If we had time,” I warn, “I would so punish you for that.”

“You don’t scare me, Princess,” he replies with a grin.

Deciding that ignoring his comment is the best course of action, I ask, “Would you go lock our stuff in your bike?” The last thing I want is to come back later to find my clothes gone and have to ride all the way home in a finkini. (Manifesting a partial-transfiguration bikini bottom may be great for day-to-day modesty purposes, but straddling a motorcycle would be hard enough for me in regular shorts—I’m not about to attempt it with my backside covered in slippery scales.) Usually I bury my things in the sand beneath the pier, but I’d rather not traipse across the beach in the near-buff in front of Quince.

He lifts a brow.

“You
do
have a way to lock up stuff in your bike, don’t you?” I taunt.

He looks like he wants to make another smart comment, but then he just shrugs and takes our pile up to the parking lot. He returns a few seconds later, slipping his keys into a Velcro pocket in his pants. That should hold them securely.

Time to get back to work. “The first step is aquarespire,” I say as he approaches me in the surf.

“And that is…?”

“Breathing water.”

His dark blond brows furrow over stormy blue eyes. He’s skeptical. Who wouldn’t be? It’s not like breathing liquid is a normal, everyday thing for humans. In fact, it’s so abnormal that their brains usually make them do just about anything to keep from inhaling water, even fighting to the death. Literally.

“Follow me.” I sink under the waves, letting my fins appear, lime green and gold scales covering my body from the waist down. My gills fill my throat, and I take a deep breath.

Quince doesn’t follow.

I pop back above water. “What’s wrong?”

“Kiss me.”

“What?!?”

That’s what got us into this mess in the first place.

“Kiss me,” he repeats, stepping closer. “I trust you, but what do I know? If this is going to be my last breath, I want it to be a good one.”

Then, before I can react or argue or escape, he slips an arm around my waist, yanks me closer, and presses his mouth to mine. Instinctively, my arms wrap around his neck, holding on for everything I’m worth. It’s just like last night’s kiss, only this time I know who I’m kissing. And this time the bond magnifies my every emotion. I can’t think of anything but his lips moving over mine, of staying in his arms forever.

Thankfully, he’s not so consumed by the bond. He’s probably more experienced than me in the love department. It would be hard
not
to be more experienced than me, right?

He pulls back, leaving me breathing heavily.

“Okay,” he says, his voice a little raspy. “I’m ready to go.”

As he slips below the surface, I recover enough to say, “The first breath is the hardest.”

9

“Y
ou have to breathe.”

Quince shakes his head, mouth clamped shut.

“If you don’t,” I argue, “you’ll die.”

He shrugs. As if he’d rather die than breathe water. Well, I’m not about to let him croak before we separate. I’ve heard stories about merfolk who’ve lost their bonded mates. They feel the connection forever, knowing they will never see their mates again. Without magical intervention, eventually some go mad.

I’m not about to go mad over Quince Fletcher.

He starts to push back to the surface. Before he can react, I dart behind him and wrap my arms around his stomach.

“I’m sorry,” I say, “but this is the only way.”

Then, before he can fight, I squeeze with every ounce of my strength. The last bit of air whooshes from his lungs, bubbling up to the surface above. He starts to struggle, twisting around and trying to yank my arms away. I squeeze tighter.

He goes limp. For half a second I think he’s passed out.

“Breathe,” I order, relaxing my hold a little so I can swim around to his front.

His eyes are wide open. Trying to take advantage of my slack grip, he pushes off the bottom and lunges for the surface. At the last moment I dive over him, forcing him down to the sandy bottom on his back.

“I know this is hard,” I say, though I don’t really know. I’ve always been able to breathe water.

But I can imagine it’s pretty tough on the brain.

I stare directly into his eyes. “Trust me.”

He blinks once and then nods slowly.

I watch as he opens his mouth, hesitates for a second, and then draws in a lungful of ocean. A look of uncertainty crosses his face as the water passes over his new gills for the first time. He holds the breath for a second and then releases. Then takes another. And another.

“Perfect,” I say, smiling. “You’re breathing like a pro.”

He smiles back, a boy-am-I-happy-to-be-alive smile. His mouth moves like he’s trying to say something.

“Oh, I forgot about that,” I say. “We can’t just talk like normal underwater.”

He looks confused. And tries to speak again.

“Sound doesn’t carry as well through gills. You have to use a different level of your vocal cords.” I point to the spot just above his Adam’s apple. “Higher.”

He just stares at me, looking confused—but breathing like he was born to it.

“Pretend you’re talking like a girl.”

No way, he mouths, shaking his head.

Stupid male ego.

“You won’t
sound
like a girl,” I assure him. “Because sound travels slower, the register of everything shifts lower. Just raise your pitch—”

“Like this?” he says, in a super-squeaky voice.

“Maybe a little lower,” I suggest.

“Here?” he asks, sounding like his normal self.

I grin. “Perfect.”

For a second I wonder how this whole thing would have gone—correction,
will
go—with Brody. As soon as I explain this whole mess to Daddy and we get our separation, I’m going back and confessing everything to Brody. And you can bet I won’t hesitate this time. He’s still my true love.