One Soul To Share (2 page)

With no other warning, she fell backward into
the bay, taking the human with her.

Icy water rushed over Nolan, hitting him in
the face. He closed his eyes and cursed his own stupidity. The
bartender had warned him. The woman had too, in a way. She had
asked him if he could swim.

Stupidly, he had expected her to take him at
his word.

He held his breath and waited for her to
loosen her hold on him so he could prove his claim, but as seconds
ticked by, her grip remained iron strong. And he was no longer
falling; he was being pulled… down… at an impossible speed.

His eyes flew open, and his upper lip pulled
back, revealing his fangs—not that the woman saw them. She was too
busy swimming herself, tugging him down in steady flap after steady
flap of her undeniably aquatic tail.

The bartender hadn’t been wrong.

The guide he had searched out
was
a
mermaid.

And, based on the hold she had on Nolan and
the speed she was traveling, her intentions were not good.

Nolan’s first instinct was to lash out, to
show her the timid fish she thought she’d caught was in fact a
shark, sharp teeth and all, but as water slid over him and he
caught sight of her hair flowing behind her and her shirt clinging
to her breasts, he calmed.

He was at no risk. He was a vampire. He had
no need to breathe. Let her tow him wherever she liked. It would do
her no good, and he would learn more about her and her kind—the
mystical mermaids no one truly believed existed.

Just as no one believed vampires existed.

Her tail slapped against his side. He closed
his eyes and enjoyed the feel of being swept along. In some strange
way—despite the tight grip she had on his body—it felt like
freedom.

o0o

Sarina had quit singing when her back touched
the water. She swam now, strong and determined to reach the bottom
of the bay before the human she held came out from under the fog
she had created.

She glanced at him. His eyes were closed, and
he looked… peaceful. Minutes had passed, five at least. By now, the
need to breathe should have overcome the fog—or should soon. She
flapped her tail again, sending her and the human shooting another
ten feet toward the bottom.

The man moved. This was the part she hated…
the part that having her own soul made hard.

For other mermaids—shells with no souls of
their own—it was easy, expected even, to capture sailors and the
like and tow them to the bottom of the sea. The mermaids gathered
men, not even realizing that what they hungered for—a soul—couldn’t
be harvested in this way.

But not any soul would do. For a mermaid to
be free of the hunger and the ties to the sea, she needed the soul
meant for her and her alone.

Sarina glanced at the man again. His eyes
were open now. She steeled herself against his panic and tightened
her grip to keep him from breaking away.

Then he smiled.

Sarina’s mouth opened, and a bubble escaped.
Their time underwater was pressing against the fifteen-minute mark
now, and he was calm, beyond calm. He looked… pleased.

She loosened her hold and pushed him free. He
didn’t move; he just hung in place like seaweed attached to the bay
floor.

His gaze shifted from her face, down her
borrowed shirt, and finally to her tail. His attention clung there,
making her feel uneasy and exposed.

She’d walked among the humans for two years
now, knew the bartender had guessed her secret, but she had only
revealed herself so thoroughly to the men she had brought to the
bay for her test. And none of the others had survived.

This man, however, was different. He
was
surviving, and he would know what she was, know
mermaids were real.

She pulled back farther, suddenly uncertain.
The idea that mermaids were myth had protected the nixies. Sure, a
few storm-tossed sailors had washed to shore with tales of her
kind, but that was it. There were no real photographs and no
rational accounts. No proof that other humans couldn’t brush off as
the rantings of some battered, most often drunk, sailor wanting for
attention.

But this man, with his self-possessed gait
and his confident stare… this man, people would believe.

She twirled in the water and swam to the
side, leaving him floating and watching her, his attention and
ability to hold his breath eerie now.

It wasn’t too late. She could drag him
deeper, to a part of the ocean that, no matter his ability to hold
his breath, he could never escape.

She rushed forward, intent on righting the
mistake she’d almost made, and stopped in front of him. Her hair
billowed forward, forming a veil around them. He reached out with
one finger and lightly touched the vial that floated upward, away
from her chest. She clasped her hand around the tiny tube and
jerked it back down.

His eyes met hers, and her heart thumped hard
in her chest. No ordinary man this, but not selkie or merman or any
other being she had ever encountered in the sea. That she knew for
sure.

Whatever his magic, whatever gave him the
ability to walk the earth with such confidence and stay calmly
submerged under the bay too, he was the one to fulfill her
plan.

A plan she had dreamed of for too long to
give up now.

And, she reminded herself, she needn’t worry
that he knew her secret. His part of the journey would be one-way.
He would meet the sea hag as he asked, but he wouldn’t be coming
back. There would be no one but Melusine, her kelpies, and the fish
for him to tell.

She grabbed the man by the front of his shirt
and towed him back to the surface.

o0o

This time as the mermaid pulled him along,
Nolan kept his eyes open.

The bottom of the bay was dark, too dark even
for his vampire vision to make out more than murky shapes, but as
they moved upward, back toward the surface, his eyes adjusted, and
he could see the mermaid clearly.

Her hair flowed behind her, and her body
undulated with the water. Her skin, in this form, was silvery,
giving way to glistening scales just below her waist. Her breasts
were high and firm, the same, he imagined, as they would be in her
human form. His groin tightened at the thought.

Mermaids were sirens, known for luring men to
their deaths.

Staring at her, having heard her voice and
felt the brush of her lips, he could understand sailors who steered
their ships up onto the rocks or dove into the ocean knowing they
were about to die. Death would seem a small price for a moment in
the arms of such a creature.

So, despite the fact that she had pulled him
to the bottom in what had to be an attempt to kill him, he had no
doubt that he had found his guide.

He, like any man, would be tempted to follow
her anywhere, even to hell itself. Making it good fortune that she
was willing to lead him where he wished to go.

Where she wished to go too, if the bartender
was correct.

Why she, a creature of the sea, needed a
companion was a question Nolan would at some time ask, but for the
moment, it didn’t matter.

He had found his guide.

o0o

Sarina popped through the surface of the
water, releasing the man as she did and plunging her body
immediately back down into the bay. She swam beneath the surface
for a moment, assessing her plan.

She could not return to her human form until
most of her body was dry of the sea. She hadn’t thought to place
towels on the dock and was unprepared to air dry herself here, in
the human domain, as mermaids often did when sunning on the
rocks.

But if she let the human go, would he come
back? The journey was too long and dangerous to swim while towing
him. They would need a ship.

She returned to the surface a few yards from
where the man waited, treading water.

“Do you have a name?” she asked. Humans were
simple creatures, fond of being called by their own names.

He glanced toward the dock, as if questioning
her choice of location for this chat, but then looked back at her
and answered, “Nolan Moore, and you?”

“Sarina…” She paused. “Neri.”

“Sarina.” He smiled, and a strange warmth
filled Sarina. She usually found talking to humans, especially the
men, frustrating. They were obvious creatures filled with base
desires. No human she had ever encountered wanted her for anything
other than what she could do for them, or what they thought she
could do—lead them to treasure, supply them with sex, or entertain
them with song.

She moved her tail, swam a little to the side
and then back.

“Why did you try to drown me?”

The question caught Sarina by surprise, not
because the human realized that his life had been in danger, but
that he was, without her doing anything to charm him, so calm.

She came to a stop, holding her body in place
with tiny movements of her tail. “I wasn’t trying to kill you.”

“Really?” He stopped treading water for a
moment, allowing his body to sink down beneath the water before
bobbing back up. “Last I checked, humans need air.”

“You don’t.” If he chose to be direct, she
could too.

Again, he smiled. “Of course, I do. I’m no
different than any”—he shoved a damp chunk of dark hair off of his
forehead—“man.”

Her eyes narrowed. He was lying. He had to
be. He couldn’t, despite his appearance, be human. “You are….”

“What?”

“Different.” She circled him, careful not to
get too close. “I’m just not sure how.”

“And you are a mermaid.”

She flicked her tail, sending water spraying
to the side. “Obviously.”

“Are you dangerous?”

“Yes.” Mermaids didn’t lie. They had no
reason to. Men would follow them even if they were told within
minutes they would die.

“Should I trust you?”

“No.”

Her answer seemed to please him. He smiled
again. “Trust is overrated.”

It was a strange reply, and she had no
answer. She waited.

“Will you take me to the sea hag?” he asked.
His gaze was direct now, demanding the truth.

“Yes.” She held his attention.

“Dead or alive?”

She shook her head. “Dead you do me no good.”
She dove under the water and swam along the docks, emerging twenty
feet away. “Meet me at the ship, the
Mermaid’s Dream
.”
Then, her message delivered, she disappeared under the water
again.

He would follow her, not because she had
charmed him; she hadn’t. He would follow her because his
desperation to find Melusine was as great as her own. She had seen
it in his eyes.

Nolan pulled himself up onto the dock. His
soaked clothing slapped against the damp wood. He ran fingers
through his hair, sending water droplets flying.

The mermaid, Sarina, had said she hadn’t been
trying to kill him, but she had also admitted she was dangerous and
not to be trusted.

Which was he to believe? Could both be
true?

He supposed, but whatever the female’s motive
for pulling him under the surface of the bay, he was sure no other
occupant of the bar would have survived the trip. Which explained
the bartender’s warning.

If Nolan had still been human, he wouldn’t be
alive now.

He was a lucky man, cheating the grim reaper
like that twice in one lifetime.

He laughed, an ugly sound that had taken over
any carefree noise he could make years before.

Being ostracized and cursed was not anyone’s
definition of lucky. Death would have been better, and Nolan might
well have searched it out if he hadn’t learned of another
possibility, a way to reverse what had been done to him.

As he sat dripping on the dock, a new light
approached, the beam of a large flashlight, dancing over the wooden
dock where Nolan sat and the bay behind him.

“You survived.” It was the bartender. Behind
the glare of the light, Nolan couldn’t see the man’s face, but he
could smell his fear. If the bartender had been afraid of the
mermaid, it seemed now he was even more afraid of the man who had
swum with her and survived.

Nolan stood, running his hands over his
clothing to remove some of the water as he did.

“I was right, wasn’t I? She is a nixie, a
mermaid.” The man’s voice quivered, and his flashlight’s beam
shook.

Nolan paused. Behind him, he heard the slap
of a tail against the water. He pulled off his shirt and wrung it
out onto the dock. Water fell against the wood in loud
splatters.

“The mermaid. Where did she go?” There was an
eagerness in the bartender’s voice now, his merchant mind realizing
the potential draw a real mermaid might hold for his business.

Nolan slung his wet shirt over his shoulder
and walked forward. “No mermaid here. Just a girl looking to play a
joke with some friends. I called her bluff, and she shoved me in,
then ran. Her friends did too.”

“A joke?”

Uncertain
.

“They had a camera. My guess? They were
planning to upload these ‘mermaid encounters’ on the Internet and
become the next big thing.”

“A stunt?” The bartender still didn’t sound
as if he was buying Nolan’s explanation.

The vampire shrugged. “Believe me or not, but
I don’t think you’ll be seeing her again.”

“Oh.”

Disappointment now.

Nolan walked past the bartender without
looking back.

If the mermaid thought to dump him now, she
would at least have to find another place to fish for his
replacement. Of course, he had also saved her from possible pursuit
by the bartender and other fortune hunters, but that had held no
weight in his decision to lie about her real identity.

None at all.

o0o

Sarina stared out over the borrowed boat’s
stern.