Making Waves (Mythological Lovers) (3 page)

Alessa nodded in sympathy. Her small hand rubbed my shoulder. “His sickness isn’t a death sentence, Dante. We still have years left with him.”

You may, but I won’t.

***

“W
hen did you start dancing like a male stripper?” Alessa demanded. “What the hell, Dante?”

“What? What’s wrong with the way I dance?”

“There’s nothing wrong with it, you know, if a guy is wearing a banana hammock for me to stuff dollar bills inside,” she said, flustered.

“It’s the same as I’ve always danced.” At least I didn’t feel like I was doing anything different.

“Ha. If you say so. Who are you showing off for?” She made a show of scoping out our surroundings, likely scouting for a client of mine. I wasn’t fazed by the rumors anymore.

The combined effect of the heat, our mixed drinks, and dancing brought a rosy flush to her cheeks and the glow of sweat to her skin. She smelled divine. In close quarters, I couldn’t ignore the floral scent drifting to me, mingled with Alessa’s natural smell.

What is that smell always surrounding her?
I wondered. Beneath the floral perfume of shampoo and body splash, I frequently caught a whiff of the ocean. Salt water. Like it was part of Alessa’s soul.

“Alessa!”

The tenor voice calling out her name took the wind out of my sails. Alessa’s smile faded, replaced by the scowl I’d worked so hard to wipe away.

“Save it, Ricardo. I already told you, I’m done talking.”

“That’s it? I mess up one time and you’re done with me? I thought I meant something to you.”

“For Chrissake, take the break-up like a man.” Alessa raised a hand for another drink. The bartender placed a shot glass full of tequila down beside a plate with lemon wedges and salt.

Ricardo’s expression contorted into a mask of hate. I winced and looked away, focusing on my cerveza.

“You got someone else then?” He paused, as if to consider his accusation, and before Alessa could deny it he continued. “Like anyone would want your fat ass,
puta
bitch. Go spread your legs for someone el—”

I jumped out of my seat and between them, placing myself in his face. “I think you need to go before all the liquor you’ve drank makes a bigger fool of you, Ricardo.” The strong scent of tequila reached me, worsened by my close proximity to him. My nostrils flared as I breathed it in, my attention fixed on his bloodshot eyes. Her ex-boyfriend was a sip away from a case of alcohol poisoning.

“You got a problem, Dante? This is between me and Alessa. You go and mind your own business.”

Despite her ex’s bodybuilder bulk, the macho act didn’t intimidate me; I towered above Ricardo by a good five inches and had natural, athletic muscle. For Alessa, I’d snap him in half with my bare hands. “You involved me in this when you disrespected her in front of me.”

Ricardo stood his ground. So did I. From the corner of my eye, I saw the bartender moving closer to the phone and a member of resort security weaving toward us through the dance crowd.

“Fine. You keep her then.” Ricardo made a parting comment I couldn’t translate, but from the heat rising to Alessa’s face, I knew it had to be bad. Once he was gone, I turned to face my friend and found her facing the bar with her head down on her folded arms.

“Hey? Lessa? I didn’t mean to embarrass you.” I set my hand between her shoulder blades. She was warm beneath my hand, her smooth back covered in a fine layer of dewy sweat.

“I think I’m done for the night.”

“Wanna walk it off?”

She shrugged without lifting her head. “May as well exercise my fat ass off.”

Raw, unbridled anger washed over me.
There’s nothing wrong with her ass.

“Come on. The coast by your place should be quiet right now.”

“Whatever.” Alessa slid off her stool and headed out, but at a slow pace with her arms wrapped tight around herself. I managed to convince her to step out of her strappy heels. Together, we walked barefoot over the damp sand where the foamy surf came in with the tide. It was warm beneath my feet, heat lingering despite the loss of the sun.

I seethed along the way. Every time I opened my mouth to speak, the words on the tip of my tongue felt too trite for consoling her. “Your ass isn’t fat,” I finally said as her place came into view.

“You’re just saying that,” she moped.

“Why would I lie to you? I have nothing to gain from making up things, Alessa. Ricardo is a dick.”

“Yeah, I’ll agree with you there. I don’t even know what I saw in him. Guess that’s why it was such a short fling.” She sighed and let her shoulders droop more.

“Want me to beat him up? Bury him in the sand? I can do that, you know. There’s enough of him to feed a thousand sea creatures.”

A small smile tugged her lips. “He’d make the beach smelly.” She stumbled on the sand, a misstep of her foot.

“Damn. True.” I slyly snuck my arm around Alessa’s shoulders to steady her. The same alluring scent tickled my senses again. “Whatever you’re wearing smells nice, by the way.”

“Huh?” She blinked. “Oh. Thanks. I put flowers in my bath sometimes when I wanna soak.”

Dreading the sight of her house in the distance, I tried to stall with small talk. Anger at Ricardo made me desperate to put the smile firmly on her face again before we parted ways. “Remind me to call you next time I want to smell pretty. Do I get to come in and eat you out of house and home since we missed out on our chance for dinner?”

“I dunno. Last time I let you in my fridge you complained about my lack of veggies.”

“You won’t hear a complaint from me this time. I will eat Pop-Tarts and grin through
every
bite.”

I did. By the time she nodded off to sleep, I was on a strawberry-filling induced sugar high. But my friend had a smile on her face well worth the price of my sleepless night.

~Dante~

T
he appointments came hard and fast over the next days, packed together on a tight schedule to appease the demand for my services. Repeat customers returned from last year, eager to advance to the next step in their training.

Alessa believed I spent more time dipping my cock into my students than sliding a board onto the surf. It wasn’t true and hadn’t been since my first year as an instructor, when I was fresh to the world, eager to please any woman on two legs, and blown away by how good sex could feel.

I didn’t have the honor of breeding in the herd, so I quickly became addicted to receiving any form of attention on land. Abuelo even sat me down for the talk, plied me with condoms, and set me free again until frequent sex with an endless line of willing females began to bore me.

They still bored me. No-strings-attached sex was okay for a while until the shifter in me wanted — needed — more.

I spent my hour lunch break drifting aimlessly until a moving crowd caught my eye. Teo’s island had a strict event schedule, filling each day with activities and shows.

I never kept up with the schedule, and had no idea where they were going, but our destination became clear once the shuffling gait took us below ground.

A fair-skinned mermaid drifted past, golden hair streaming behind her. I hadn’t watched one of the mermaid shows before, too disinterested in watching humans playing at a life they could never understand.

The real mermaids of the paranormal world were terrifying, man-eating beasts. They’d laugh at the humans wearing silicone tails and green bikini tops.

Alessa is in there somewhere,
I thought, intrigued.

“Mommy, are the mermaids real?” the child beside me asked her mother. She couldn’t have been more than three or four, with rosy-red cheeks and a head of blonde hair.

“Of course they are.”

“I wanna be a mermaid.”

An ethereal beauty glided by the aquarium glass, her fiery red hair adrift in the water. Her blue tail held hints of green and gold iridescence and the flowing fin faded into gold and ruby at the tips. Seaweed, pearls, and artistically placed fish netting made up her bikini top.

Wide grey eyes peered at me from the tank. Eyes I knew.

I hadn’t been prepared for the effect she would have on me, blown away by my failure to recognize Alessa at a glance. My heart rate spiked and began to climb, the rapid pulse a methodic bass pounding in my ears.

She’s gorgeous.

Alessa favored modest swimwear while on the beach and I’d never seen her in less than rash guard shirts and board shorts. As she floated on the current and twisted a somersault beneath the surface, I received a spectacular view of her body. An odd contrast of toned athleticism and generous curves made watching her a delight. She was soft in all of the right places, her breasts more than a handful, but tastefully concealed.

Desire hit me hard and fast, a sudden freight train sweeping away my common sense and ability to reason.

Alessa is my friend,
I repeated while approaching the glass to stare at her. As I watched her perform for the crowd I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She twisted and turned through the water, a beautiful sea nymph who enchanted the younger viewers and enraptured the adult males.

I didn’t want them watching her. Hot jealousy washed through me followed by the urge to charge all the leering men in the room. My wild, animalistic instinct called for me to drive off the other male contenders. Only then, could I dive into the tank to claim my mate.

Whoa.
The reckless path my thoughts took made me step back.
It’s Alessa. This can’t be right. She’s a human.

It happened rarely among my kind, known occurrences of fated mates happening so infrequently even
we
chalked it up as a fairy tale. Mating among the hippocampi was never about love; it was about violence and the stallion with the biggest hooves.

Alessa saw me through the glass and smiled. Her shoulders moved and tiny bubbles of air slipped from her. She’d giggled underwater, pleasing the small children in the audience and capturing my heart in one breath. Numb, I waved back to her.

“Mommy, it’s Ariel!”

I’d never noticed it before, but the resemblance was uncanny.

“Hi,” I mouthed to her.

She blew me a kiss and kicked to the surface for air.

I had to get out of here. I turned and weaved through the building crowd, desperate to reach the water. A swim was exactly what I needed.

They could cancel the rest of my lessons for the day.

***

I
dove into the crystal-blue water and dolphin kicked to the sandy bottom. The natural embrace of the cool ocean became a comforting balm, easing my worries in an instant. Once my board shorts were weighed beneath a rock a few yards from the shore, I shifted to my natural state. There was no greater freedom than shedding my human form, no matter the joy I felt in exploring their world above.

The world my mother once loved.

Over two decades had passed since her death, and over the course of that time, my memory of my mother had diminished. I could recall the color of her hair and little else, remembering only because we shared the same blue-black shade.

From my father’s ramblings, I knew I’d also inherited her love of the human world.

My tail whipped behind me, powerful muscle covered in glittering blue and purple scales. Dark horses like me were held in disdain, a bad omen among our kind who favored fair pelts and shining scales in pearlescent hues.

I cut through the water with efficient strokes, using my forelegs as flippers to maneuver through the reef. I swam for a half hour before the first hippocampi came into view, a small family of four: a mare, stallion, their young colt, and a newborn foal. The children grazed on ocean kelp while their mother nibbled a captured jellyfish.

Whipping my tail behind me, I glided forward and through a massive split in the rock formation, into the underground cavern we called home. When I broke surface, I climbed up and pulled my heavy bulk onto the rocks. The tropical paradise was crowded but safe, lit by thin shafts of sunlight spilling through fissures in the stone above. Here, we slept in rotations and fed from the greenery sprouting from the cavern walls.

An enormous stallion lay upon the bank beside his smaller mare. His pelt shone like liquid gold, his immense tail like mother of pearl. The fan at the tip of it resembled a starburst, vibrant as the morning sun. Adon, the massive stallion upon the rocks, did not move to acknowledge me. He barely raised his head, my presence too insignificant to be worthy of attention. It hurt and as usual I tried to ignore it.

“Father,” I spoke up, channeling my thoughts through our link. I’d seen my father in his human shape twice in all of my life. Once, when he came on land to find me as a child. Again, a few years later when a troublesome group of sirens moved in on our territory back in Greece. The memory was murky at best.

“Be gone if you’ve come with meaningless news of your mortal world.” His voice radiated through my mind, filled with the power and influence of an elder hippocampus. I shrank back instinctively.

I’m an adult now. He can’t scare or hurt me anymore.
Once I regained my conviction, I raised my head and leveled my eyes at him. “I do come with news,” I said. “And a humble request for your advice.”

The stallion raised his head and finally faced me, curiosity revealed in his formerly impassive features. I never asked for advice. “Speak.”

“What do you know of fated mates, Father? Are they fable or truth?”

“They are a rare gift, but far from story. It is said the creature who finds his fated mate will enjoy a life twice blessed. But why do you ask? This is not advice, but a question.”

“I ask because I believe to have met mine, Father. And she is beautiful. I know there is a great chance she will feel for me as I do for her.” Unless humans lacked the same instant attraction. The niggling thought snaked through my mind. I’d have to ask Teo’s wife to be certain.

“Oh?” Adon watched me, intrigued. A hint of emotion almost showed in his equine face, but I knew better.

He hated me.

“What is this filly’s name? I had believed all of breeding age to be mated and properly claimed.”