A Mermaid's Ransom (32 page)

When they surfaced, Dante lay her on the concrete apron next to the pool so she could get her breath. Alexis came to the ladder, holding the slick metal handrails as Dante squatted over the girl, his dark hair pasted in long wet strips down his broad back. His crimson eyes intent on the girl's face, he touched it with light, questing fingers, so that she opened her eyes and nodded in reassurance.

"I'm all right. Wow." She looked toward Alexis. "Was that one of those, 'I can't have what a lot of kids get, so I get something maybe they never will?' Like crazy Make-A-Wish Foundation shit?"

"Maybe. You're worth something like this. I like you."

"Oh. Well, it was great, probably the best thing ever. I'd still trade it for sixty years of normal boring life, you know? But don't tell anyone, because that sounds so uncool."

Dante drew back to the other side of the ladder, one foot in the water while he sat on his hip facing the two women. His toes grazed Lex's thigh and her glance strayed toward him. He was now studying her damp shoulders, the beads of water rolling down her neck onto the upper curves of her breasts.

"Why don't you guys go and swim for a while? It's going to take me about thirty minutes before I can even move from this spot, so you might as well go do what it's obvious you want to do." Reba closed her eyes, a wistful smile playing on her face. "The things I'm too young to know about. That I'll always be too young to know about, right?"

"I don't think it's wise to leave you here . . ." Alexis began.

Reba shook her head. "I'm going to lay here like a dead fish. I promise I won't move until you get back. Unless I get the sudden urge to run the New York Marathon. Then I'm history."

Lex smiled, stretched over the ladder and closed her hand on the girl's thin leg. "All right. We'll go check on the adjacent tanks, and be back soon. I can sense strong emotion, Reba, so if you need us to come back, concentrate really hard and I will return."

Dante put his hand on her other leg, drawing Reba's eyes to his. "And if you break your promise to her, and endanger yourself, I will not be happy with you."

Reba shut her mouth at his expression and looked toward Lex. "Something 'other,'
huh
? It's kind of creepy awesome. Sexy
and
scary."

Lex bit back a smile. "In so many ways, Reba. All right, we'll be back." She slid back into the water, the soles of her feet touching Leroy's back as he passed under them, making another loop in the tank. He did that often, reminding her how much happier he'd be once he was rehabilitated and in the open ocean again, where he belonged. Glancing at the vampire descending next to her, using his arms to keep an even pace at her side, she knew he was another creature like that. Right now, everything was new, and except for the collar at his throat, the limits of his world seemed suitable enough. But by the time thirty days were done, he'd be itching to explore the full extent of this new world, far beyond the narrow scope of her own. A wild creature couldn't handle confinement.

That day is not today.
Dante's voice resounded in her head. His hand enclosed hers, his features all the more clear and potent beneath the water.
Your own world is limitless in a far different way, Alexis.

He didn't pursue that further because the manatees circled them, curious what they were doing. Alexis opened the narrow gate that led into the larger exhibition tank and gave them both a parting scratch, gesturing Dante in so she could close the gate behind them.

This tank has a lot more fish. There are also manta rays and a couple sharks. They're predators, but they won't hurt us. They've fed.
Plus, no animal ever tried to hurt her. Bran found it remarkable but also useful. Whenever they had a difficult treatment to do on an animal with teeth or claws, she was the one called to hold and soothe the creature during the procedure.

Dante nodded, acknowledging her thought, and then she let them into the Conservancy's most popular exhibition tank. She'd told Bran she'd check the filters on the water processor, so there was a practical reason for being here, but part of it was wanting Dante to see another part of her world. As he gazed about, she thought of his words and wondered if he was right. How many creatures had access to the water, earth and sky the way she did? She could show Dante things he'd never seen before, in all of those places.

The fish ranged in size up to three feet long, their silver bodies a soft glow as they glided among schools of more colorful fish. The manta rays swept by in majestic flight. Everything was in motion in the water, though at night she'd seen them resting in groups on the ledges of the coral reef, moved only by the slight cavitation of the water. It was a quiet world like that. More than once she'd floated to the bottom and lay on the rocks with them as she did in the ocean, keeping them company, wishing they could all return to the sea. This was not a bad place, where manatees, sharks and dolphins were only kept if they couldn't be rehabilitated and returned to the sea, but she wished they all had that option, to swim as far and free as they wished.

The sharks made a curious pass around Dante, but veered off sharply and moved away, sensing a predator far more dangerous than themselves. A manta ray brushed her leg with the cat fur softness of his wing. The filter was in good shape, so she snapped the grid closed and moved back to Dante.

What do you think of it? You should see Neptune's kingdom. I'll take you there if you want. It would be a little tiring to pull yourself all the way up, but I could help with my tail and wings. The trip down would be easy, though.

He nodded absently, watching a group of fish turn in unison. Another fish dove down abruptly, chasing a school with a burst of speed. Both altered their course to narrowly miss the outcropping of rock that had been added to the area to simulate their natural environment. She could imagine him standing there for hours to do just this, while visitors walked past the viewing area and wondered if he was a life-sized form of one of those tiny figures often put in a home fish tank.

Did you ever think about it? Doing something that would end your pain?

He didn't look at her.
I did. I found you.

Alexis touched his arm.
I mean like the morphine thing. Did you ever think of killing yourself so it would all be over?

He kept his gaze on the fish.
No. I did not know what existed after death. Except for my mother, all those I have seen die, died fighting, as if they saw through the eyes of approaching death what lay after, and it was worse. Plus . . . it was never quiet enough to think about it.

I'm not glad for that. But I am glad you never considered it. Never did it.

Dante did look at her then. He'd noted how nothing in the tank made aggressive movements toward her. Not sharks, or any other creature considered her food or enemy. Nothing attacked her or had the desire to do so, except a vampire more focused on himself than her well-being. But he knew how the creatures in this tank felt, because he was feeling it himself, right here and now. A simple desire to be near her.

She floated in the water without motion, her pale wings holding her, the red and gold jeweled tail balancing her, so the only sway to her sinuous body was from the water's movement. Her eyes were so vivid beneath the water, the blue capturing his attention, drawing it to her pink mouth. The delicate gill slits below her ears were only a flutter, giving her air. The feathers moved as if in a breeze. He'd not been told whether she was the only one of her kind, but it struck him now that was possible. Like him, she might be the only one.

But her uniqueness wasn't in her physical form. It was in the way she looked at life, at everything, at him. Her belief in his
spark
, as she called it, existed, no matter her species. No matter how he adapted to this world, it was likely he'd never find anyone else who saw him that way. He didn't even see himself that way. But he didn't doubt her belief. He was in her mind, knew she was pure light and truth. Though he was a vampire, that light could draw him out of any shadow, even if it meant burning in the sun.

She had her hand out to her side. Lifting his own so their fingertips touched, he pulled her toward him. She drifted to him like a cloud moving across a blue sky on a sunny day, something he'd never seen until these past couple days. When she reached him he circled her waist, stroking his knuckles over the scales layered low on her hip, the bare hipbone above, then toying with the tiny jewel winking at her navel. Fish passed above, behind, around them, and there was a silence to the water that was a sound all its own.

Shift to your human form. I want to be inside you here, and I want to see your face.

I won't be able to breathe.

I'll give you air. Just because I don't have to breathe doesn't mean I can't provide you breath.

Her hands came to rest on his shoulders. With his feet braced apart on the tank floor, which was covered with sand and shells, pieces of shiny rock, her tail curved inward, the fins brushing his ankles, the muscular column of it sliding along the inside of his thigh. Her eyes were luminous, and though he felt the response of her body, something made him tighten his grip on her, commanding her attention before she shifted.

Alexis, do you want this? For me to be inside you now?

Her lashes were so long and thick, and the way they swept down, that sweet surrender, a sign of submission, tightened things inside of him. But for some reason he wanted the sweetness of hearing it was willing, that it reflected her desire as much as his. Not because he overwhelmed her, not because she thought he needed it. Not because it was a temporal experience only.

Leaning in, she pressed her mouth to his sternum, then stretched so she was at his throat, and her teeth marked him there, making blood surge into his cock and his hand tighten on her even further, desire starting to overtake thought. Her wings briefly closed on his shoulders, then slipped away, a silken touch.

I've wanted you inside me from the second I woke this morning. And even before that, in my dreams.

Her body moved against his, a sinuous ripple of movement, and the wings simply dissolved before his eyes, shimmering away out of existence with no evidence they'd ever been there. The scales became something smooth and different in texture, the soft skin and firm muscle of her calves and thighs. Lifting them to wrap around his hips, she used her hands to push the swimming trunks out of the way, working them over his arousal and then down, one agile foot taking them the rest of the way. Holding her with one arm, he guided her down on his length, and plunged into a body warm, slick and willing for him, causing him to groan.

She pressed against him, drawing his attention, and he remembered. Cupping her head and covering her mouth with his, he gave her breath from his body. She relaxed against him, though her little moans and whimpers as he brought her down further on his cock coiled things inside him tight. He wanted to drive deeper, so deep he'd never need to withdraw, never need more than this, because if he drove deep enough he would be complete, at peace.

He pushed the swimsuit top out of his way so he could arch her up against him. Leaving her mouth briefly to suckle a taut nipple, he drew in the cool wet water with it. While she had a greater lung capacity than a human, he sensed how the lack of air, the shortness of breath, ironically heightened her arousal. He couldn't indulge that for long, though, because he found it hard to resist her mouth, the pleasure of exploring it as he was giving her air. He teased her tongue and lips as he worked her body on his, moving slow, like the water environment itself, a still, drifting place where pleasure could build at its own pace.

He opened his eyes while kissing her. As if sensing his attention, she opened hers. He stopped, holding them both there, locked together, blood pounding, the pulse of his and her sex creating its own friction, her fingers tight on his arms, her body melded to his, trusting him to give her air, trusting him with her life.

She dwelled upon the spark she sensed in him, but he knew the concern he and her father shared was the vastness of his darkness. At times like this, when his passion was greatest, that rage rose up against her own overwhelming light. As if it were a threat and castigation both for which he should punish her, conquer her, make sure she knew his control was absolute. Yet amid all of that maelstrom, that spark of light still reached for her, knowing she was his only hope of salvation.

Which made no sense. He was here, he'd made it so. He didn't need any more saving. The Dark One world was behind him and he would not go back.

Like their coupling, his understanding of it eluded him. He couldn't bring himself to question, not right now. Her skin was so soft, her mouth, her cheeks, her breasts, the slope of her abdomen, the generous curve of her buttocks, the length of thigh, even the tender sole of her foot, pressed insistently against his own flexing buttocks, made him crave, need, hunger.

He thrust in harder, drew out slow and watched her mouth shape itself in a moan of reaction, her eyes closing again. He closed his own then, focusing on giving her air and pleasure both, one arm around her back, one between them to please himself with the nipple against his palm, the weight of the breast in his hand. She seemed to find pleasure in him as well, her hands sweeping his chest, the column of his throat, teasing the area that was so sensitive on a vampire. And then down, to the joining part of their bodies, wrapping her hand around him as he came partway out of her, her fingers caressing as he drove back in, going in to the hilt.

Please, Dante . . . I want to feel your seed inside of me.

Then come for me, merangel. Show me how much you want that. I want you to scream inside of my mouth, dig into my shoulders with your nails.

He pressed her against one of the rock ledges, taking her lower so he could lay his body down upon her. Her hands slipped down, fingers raking his back as he hitched her legs up higher, changed the angle and dove deeply into slick female flesh.