Crave the Night (13 page)

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 it 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.

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 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.

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 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
that 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 be 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 over-rated."

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
swam 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.

They had been at sea for two weeks. Sarina
had given the main cabin of the yacht she'd "borrowed" to the
human, Nolan. She slept on deck or in the water, her hand pressed
against the boat's side so she didn't lose it in her slumber.

The sun was fully overhead now, and she was
alone on deck. Nolan, she'd soon learned, preferred night to day,
disappearing into the cabin at dawn and not appearing back above
deck until dusk.

He had other habits too that didn't fit with
what she knew of humans. While he slept each day, she would swim
and catch fish for their dinner, but he had yet to eat any of them
in front of her. He drank wine and once she had seen him sipping
something from a flask he'd pulled from one of his bags, but he had
declined all of her offers of food.

She had quit asking, preferring to eat her
fish alone in the sea anyway.

His habits, she realized, suited her...gave
her privacy to be in her natural state in the sea. And, since
mermaids didn't require the same amount of sleep as humans, staying
awake through the night was no issue.

She was able to do what she wished in the
day, even sunbathing in her mermaid form on the deck, and watch the
human at night.

But still...she slapped her fin lightly
against the deck...Nolan's habits added to her certainty that he
wasn't what he appeared, that he wasn't human at all, but some
other creature she hadn't encountered before.

A gull squawked overhead, pulling her back
to the present and reminding her that they were approaching land—a
small string of islands, uninhabited by humans, but the first
visible sign that they were moving closer to the sea hag's
home.

There would be a test soon.

Sarina had no idea in what form it would
come or when, but she knew it would come.

She only hoped that whatever kept Nolan
hidden in the cabin by day wouldn't prove to be their downfall.

Nolan's body rolled off the bed and slammed
into a wall. His eyes flew open, and his nails scraped over the
cherry boards that lined the cabin walls. He fell back onto the
bed, only to be flung sideways again as the boat was catapulted
sideways by some unknown force.

With a curse, he leapt to his feet and
clawed at the walls to keep from falling again.

His head throbbed, telling him night had yet
to fall. Since his turn, he had avoided the day. He had never been
caught in the daylight to know if the horror flick images of
vampires erupting into roman candles of flames were true; the
general groggy feeling and aches he experienced when the sun was in
the sky had been enough on their own to keep him inside.

The boat listed violently to the side again.
Only Nolan's hands pressed on the walls of the tiny hall by the
cabin's door, kept him from slamming into the wood.

He could, he realized, stay here and drown,
or go out and hazard the sun.

Water or flames?

He chose flames.

As the boat continued to tilt side to side,
Nolan struggled his way through the bedroom door and into the
kitchen and living part of the cabin.

Sarina was nowhere to be seen, which meant
the mermaid was above deck facing whatever threatened them alone,
or she had already left—swam off to safety.

Grim but determined, Nolan flung open the
main cabin door. Sun blasted into the room, hitting him in the eyes
like a giant laser. Wincing, he stepped back, out of the light.

His eyes burning, he groped around the room,
looking for the small desk and a pair of sunglasses he'd seen
tucked into a basket.

Glasses in place, he opened the door
again.

The sea hag's pet, a sea wyrm, rose over the
yacht and blew steam from its nose. Sarina clung to the boat's
railing and stared up at it.

The creature's tongue danced over her face,
smelling her. She held still, knowing any movement on her part
would only anger the dragon.

It snorted, spewing hot water over her. She
shook her head, freeing the droplets from her hair and held up both
hands, revealing she held no weapon. "I'm here by Melusine's
invitation."

It was the right thing to say, although most
likely unnecessary. If the dragon had thought the yacht and its
occupants were trespassing, it would have sank the boat long before
this. Still though, its job was to guard the outer perimeter of
Melusine's territory, and it apparently took its job seriously.

The dragon's worm-like body curved up on
both sides of the ship.

The yacht was trapped now, sandwiched.

"If you are going to sink us, get on with
it." To show the creature his threat was wasted on her, Sarina
lifted her head to meet his gaze and allowed her body to shift. In
seconds, her human legs were replaced by her tail and only the
strength of her arms holding onto the railing kept her upright.

The dragon moved its body again, sending the
boat popping upward and out of the water before landing back down
with a bone-jarring jolt.

Sarina lost her grip on the railing and went
flying. With a roar, the dragon moved in and caught her on the
bridge of its wide nose.