Crave the Night (15 page)

He didn't know her purpose for coming on
this trip, or for wanting a companion, but he knew it wasn't for
money or personal gain. It was for someone or something she
loved.

He envied her that—that she had something to
love.

He lowered her body, so he could stare into
her face. Her lips parted. Blood still trickled from her mouth.
Unable to resist, he lowered his face and kissed her lips, tasted
her blood.

His lips tingled, his body tingled, and his
nostrils flared. He had never tasted anything like this mermaid's
blood.

He pulled her body close to his so her face
was cradled against his neck, and spun in a slow circle,
thinking—resisting.

The color of her skin had lost its silvery
sheen and shifted to blue green. He knew nothing of mermaids, but
had to imagine this change was tied to the blood she continued to
lose.

His eyes went to the trickle of red. Guilt
shot through him for tasting her blood while she suffered, perhaps
even died.

No. His jaw clinched. She wouldn't die. She
was a mermaid, a creature even more mythic than vampires, and
vampires didn't die, not this easily.

Vampires.
He'd only been one a few short years, but even before his own
turn, he'd heard stories of what they could do—knew at least part
of what had happened to him too.

He had been close to death, at the hands of
his sire, but he had survived. His sire's blood had saved him.

Could he do the same for the mermaid? What
would happen to a mermaid who drank vampire blood? Would she live?
Die? Become a vampire too?

Nolan had no idea, but he could think of no
other options.

He jammed his fangs into his wrist and slit
his skin. Then he pressed the wound to Sarina's lips and
waited.

Warmth spread through Sarina. She flexed her
fingers and lifted her tail.

Cold
. She had
been so cold, colder than when she'd swum through the Arctic Ocean,
colder than the first time she'd stepped onto land, naked and
shivering.

Those had been a surface discomfort, but
this...what she'd just felt...went past that, deeper, into her very
soul.

Soul
. Her
hand reached to her neck and the vial that hung there. Her fingers
touched the bit of glass and metal, and her body
relaxed.

Safe
. Her
soul was safe, and so was she.

Her eyes fluttered and as she came a little
further out of unconsciousness, new sensations followed. Taste
first, something thick and earthy filled her mouth. She parted her
lips, letting more of the substance in.

A band around her waist tightened, pulling
her against a hard surface. Her hands moved up and forward, defense
against whatever thought to pin her in place. But her lips and
tongue kept moving, kept lapping at whatever the heady substance
was making her warm and whole.

Something moved through her hair, like a
caress, like...fingers.

Her eyes flew open, and she twisted her head
to the side. Nolan stared down at her.

His face was pale, and his hair floated
around his head, reminding her that they were underwater and had
been...how long?

He moved his arm, and she stared, shocked,
at the gash in his flesh. Blood oozed from the wound...she touched
her lips and looked back at the human.

He gestured, brushing away the question in
her eyes, as if feeding a mermaid his blood 14,000 feet underwater
was an average event in his life.

She pulled away, shocked more that he'd
thought to share his blood with her than that she had ingested the
fluid. The mainstay of mermaids’ diet was raw fish, eating cooked
food had been an adjustment. Drinking blood, while not something
mermaids did, held no revulsion for her, and that the blood was
from a human made no difference at all.

Nolan's face hardened. Realizing he'd
misinterpreted her reaction, she moved back to where she had been
and placed her palm on his chest. His eyes met hers and for a
moment, she couldn't move. She could feel his hurt, so intense she
wanted to pull away again, but also, strangely, she wanted to
comfort him, to make whatever caused the pain in his eyes to
disappear forever.

Confused, she folded her fingers into her
palm and busied herself by floating downward, studying what held
him in place.

A plant was wrapped around his ankle. She
ran her fingers over it, but knew instantly the greenery was no
ordinary bit of ocean vegetation. It, like the dragon, served
Melusine.

Nolan grabbed her by the arm and pulled her
up so she was once again looking at his face. His head shaking, he
pointed upward.

He wanted her to leave him? Sarina pulled
back again, this time swimming a few feet away, far enough she
could study him and think without the pressure of his gaze.

A soulless mermaid would leave him. A
soulless mermaid would have dragged him under the water, then torn
him apart with her hands—so desperate would she be to get at his
soul.

But Sarina had her soul, and she told
herself, if she hoped to get another one, she needed Nolan alive
and back on the boat.

She swam back, circling him and keeping her
gaze low, away from his face. If she looked at him...she pushed the
thought away. She didn't need to look at him. She only needed to
save him and only because she needed him to trade to Melusine.

He was just a human—nothing more.

But, as she reached for the blade of grass
that had wrapped its way around his ankle, her fingers
trembled.

She feared having a soul was finally
catching up with her. She feared she was close to caring—for man, a
human.

She bit down on her cheek and concentrated
on the grass. She tugged and it tightened. She leaned closer and
bit at it with her teeth. Nothing.

The grass wouldn't loosen and it couldn't be
cut. What other options were there? Her brows lowered and she swam
back again.

Seeing her failed efforts, Nolan pointed up
again.

She ignored him. He wasn't in charge. She
wouldn’t leave him. The ocean was her realm. Even Melusine couldn't
argue mermaids’ rights to the land below the sea.

Melusine was cursed and forced to take up
her under-water home. The mermaids chose to live here.

This plant, as a part of the sea, was as
much Sarina's to command as it was Melusine's.

And like that it came to Sarina, she opened
her mouth and began to sing.

Nolan stilled, and his eyes closed. He could
feel his body drifting back and forth in the water, leaning with
each sway more toward Sarina and the incredible sound that was
coming from her throat.

At least he thought it was Sarina singing.
He couldn't hear her song...not like he could hear on land, but he
could feel her song. It vibrated through him like note after note
hit on a tuning fork, except delicious and alluring in a sleepy,
dream-inducing way.

A smile curved his lips. She was his and
waiting for him. He couldn't wait to get to her.

She swam upward, until she was looking down
at him, and held out one hand. Her hair fanned out around her face,
silver and glistening. She was an angel, beckoning him to
paradise.

He took a step, then bent his knees to push
off of the bottom. His arms moved overhead, catapulting him upward.
A band tightened around his ankle, and he jerked to a stop. He
frowned and stared down. The plant.

Anger ripped through him. He bent down,
ready to rip the vegetation from the seabed by its roots, to do
whatever it took to escape its hold and get to the angel who called
him from above.

But, as he did, the greenery loosened,
fluttering through his fingers like a ribbon. The strands floated
up, past his face, reaching, it seemed, for the mermaid whose song
still beckoned.

Peace settled over Nolan, and he swayed in
place. Then, unable to stay away from the mermaid and her song a
second longer, he pushed himself off the bottom of the sea and swam
upward to meet her.

Nolan's face was pale, but content as he
drifted toward Sarina. She'd seen the look before, on other humans,
moments before one of her kind grabbed them and sucked them to the
depths of the sea.

She closed her eyes, hoping to block out the
image, but it only grew stronger. She could see the mermaids' faces
now, the hunger that threatened to consume them, their eagerness as
they dove with their prize, swam away in search of somewhere
private to rip into their human captive with their bare hands—to
find the soul they so craved.

Fingers slipped into hers, and despite the
horror that had engulfed her, she felt herself calm.

Her eyes open, she reached down with her
other hand and pulled Nolan upward, until he was facing her.

The blind joy she'd expected to see in his
eyes immediately disappeared. Concern darkened them instead. He
bent his elbows toward his body and pulled her close. His arm
slipped around her waist, until her hips were pressed against
his.

Surprised and confused, her song died and
she stared at him.

He didn't pull away, or blink or do anything
to show that the spell she had woven around him had ended, but she
knew it had, knew the only way to keep a human in thrall was to
sing and keep singing, until he had been dragged too deep to
fight.

His fingers ran over her face, and his thumb
brushed over her lip.

Then he leaned forward and kissed her.

Nolan had never kissed anyone underwater. Of
course, until he had met Sarina, he had never been underwater, not
for longer than a few seconds.

Holding the mermaid in his arms, water and
her hair swirling around them, he realized how much he had missed
out on, how little he had lived when he'd been alive, or at least
before he'd been declared undead.

The skin of her back was soft and smooth.
His fingers kneaded their way down her back, pausing at her hips
where her fish half began. Her hands grabbed onto his shirt, and
she kissed him back.

There was something both desperate and sweet
in the touch of her lips, like the experience was as new and
surprising to her as it was to him.

The thought made his vampire heart beat a
little faster, far from racing, but fast enough he could almost
believe he was still human, still alive.

He kissed her harder. His fingers pressing
into the back of her head, holding her mouth to his.

He realized then a plus to their shared lack
of humanity, neither needed to breathe, at least not for very long
periods of time. They could kiss and kiss, stay beneath the ocean,
secluded and alone for hours, be together just touching each other
with no thought to the outside world and the hurt it held.

Hurt.

The word jolted Nolan, reminding him that
Sarina had been hurt, had only moments earlier been losing
blood.

Concern wrapping around him, he pulled his
face from hers and one arm still around her waist, began moving
them upward toward open air and hopefully, the yacht.

Nolan had stopped kissing her.

At first the realization hurt, but then
Sarina realized he still held her tight and was swimming, pulling
her with him as he moved toward open air.

Feeling selfish for forgetting that he was
not like her, not a creature of the sea, she swam with him,
flapping her tail in strong steady swipes that ate through the
water.

In moments they broke through the surface,
into the dark cold night.

She stared at him, uncertain. Their kiss
while below water had seemed natural and right, but here in the
open air she felt embarrassed and awkward.

She had never kissed a human before, not
like that, not willingly and wanting more.

But she had kissed Nolan and given the
chance, she would do it again...and again.

She pressed her lips together and turned in
a circle, hiding her embarrassment by pretending to search for
their ship. It was less than a tenth of a mile away, a quick swim,
too quick for Sarina to recover from the emotions tearing her
apart.

Fingers brushed over her shoulder, and
knowing she couldn't avoid Nolan any longer, she turned to face
him.

"You were bleeding," he said, and there was
concern in his voice. "I..." He closed his lips and glanced to the
side.

The blood. He'd given her his blood, and
she'd taken it.

Sarina studied him, her own uncertainty gone
for the moment. "I drank your blood," she replied. "It made me
better. How?" He wasn't human. She'd suspected it all along, but
now she was certain.

His jaw tightened. "You don't want to
know."

Sarina's hand moved, as it so often did when
she felt uncertain, to the vial at her throat. A cold wind blew
over the water. She shivered, but Nolan seemed unmoved. His gaze
was stony now, all the joy she'd seen in it earlier gone.

She bit her lip, sorry for whatever had
changed and wishing she could take it back. She shifted her gaze,
back to the yacht. "The boat isn't far. Can you make it on your
own, or do you—"

In answer to her unfinished question, Nolan
leaned forward and started to swim. His arms sliced through the
water, steady and sure, and his face never rose. He didn't, she
realized, need to breathe—not for long periods of time, maybe
never.

What creature didn't need air? She had
noticed no gills on him to allow him to breathe underwater.

Her fist still closed around the vial, she
stared after him. What could he be? What secret did he hide?

And, perhaps, most important, why did she
care? They were in the sea hag's territory now and he had passed
her test. It wouldn't be long before she and Nolan arrived at her
home, and Sarina completed her bargain—a male capable of living as
the sea hag's mate for Melusine, Allera's soul for Sarina.