Blood of a Mermaid (24 page)

“Don’t hurt the drylander,” she called across the waves. “She’s my friend.”

Zan’s glance darted back to the old woman. “Drylander?”

She gave a slight shrug. “It’s a long story.”

Moments later Kae emerged from the water, a tall, burly merman by her side. He hung back by the water’s edge as the mermaid ran forward. Her first words were to the woman. “Mrs. MacNamara? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, dear,” she said, stepping forward to hug her. Zan’s head suddenly felt like it was spinning out of control –
MacNamara
? But she was a mermaid!

Kae released the older woman –
Mrs. MacNamara
– from her embrace and took a small step back, still not looking at Zan. “Where is Shea?”

“He swam to get help,” she replied, startling Zan with the information, but she continued on, oblivious to his shock. “Several people were badly injured in the crash, including Hailey.” She nodded in Zan’s direction. “I think this one seeks Shea as well.”

Finally, Kae turned to face Zan, her emerald eyes sparkling in the gathering darkness. Her voice was like sweet anemone nectar to his ears. “You don’t need to capture him anymore. I escaped.”

He reached for her hand, giving it a squeeze to make sure she was real and not some conjured vision. He desperately wanted to pull her into his arms and hug her close, but didn’t, unsure if she would welcome a display of affection from him. Instead he focused on gathering facts. “How did you get away?”

“My father,” she said, tilting her head toward the big merman stalking his way up the sand. Zan blanched as he drew near, looking even larger up close. And most definitely
not
welcoming. Before he could react or defend himself, Kae stepped between them and made introductions. “This is my father, Lybio. Father, this is Shea’s grandmother, Mrs. MacNamara. And this is Xander. Or rather, I guess his name is really Zan. He’s the one I told you about.”

The merman nodded respectfully to the old woman before training his frown on Zan. “I take it you know my daughter?” The rumble of the merman’s low voice sounded menacing. Zan took a deep breath before attempting to answer, but Kae beat him to it.

“Father, leave him alone. I told you already. He protected me from Demyan.”

“He also
delivered
you to Demyan in the first place,” he growled, fists clenching by his sides.

It was the old woman who saved him from the father’s wrath. “So this is the famous Zan,” she said, stepping closer and putting a hand on his arm. “If your magick is as strong as the rumors say, then perhaps you can heal my grandson’s friend, Hailey, before it’s too late.”

Kae gasped, her eyes widening. “Mrs. MacNamara! What’s wrong with Hailey?”

“She was hurt in the plane crash caused by your
friend
here,” she said. “A plane crash that killed six people and injured dozens more. She’s still unconscious and I fear she may be close to death.”

The look on Kae’s face made Zan want to melt into the sand. She looked so unhappy, and even worse, so disappointed in him. “Why would you do something like that?” Zan opened his mouth to answer, but she held up a hand. “Wait, I know. Because Demyan told you to. Because of me.”

He stared at her, feeling as miserable as she looked. He saw the water pooling in her eyes, as if her confidence in him had melted. This was his fault.

“Now you have to make it right. Can you help her?” Her eyes pleaded with him and he felt his breath catch in his lungs. He knew he had to do whatever he could to make her happy again. Zan wasn’t actually sure whether he could heal a drylander with his magick. But for Kae, he would try.

Kae stared at Hailey’s motionless body. The rest of the survivors slept while Mrs. MacNamara stole back to the campsite and carried away the unconscious girl. Laying her gently down onto the sandy beach, she said, “She hit her head in the crash and hasn’t woken since. In the drylander world, it’s called a coma.”

Looking at the bandage wrapped around the girl’s forehead and the dark circles under her closed eyes, Kae regretted every mean thing she’d ever thought or said about Hailey. The girl was always talking, always moving, always so full of life. Lying there so motionless and barely breathing, Hailey looked young and fragile. Hardly a rival for Shea’s affections, as Kae was used to thinking of her. She was just a little girl in the wrong place at the wrong time.

She felt overwhelmed with guilt. “This is all my fault,” she whispered. Lybio put his arm around her shoulders and she leaned against his side. She noticed Zan staring at her instead of Hailey. Wiping the excess moisture from her eyes with the heel of her palm, she asked, “Can you make her better?”

“I’m not sure,” Zan admitted, turning to look down at the girl for the first time. “She’s a drylander, not a mermaid. I’m not sure how her body will react to the magick.”

“You have to try,” Kae implored.

Without answering, he knelt in the sand next to the still form. He put one hand on her wrist and the other on her shoulder. Slowly he closed his eyes. Seconds ticked by as Kae held her breath, saying a silent prayer to Neptune. Finally Zan opened his eyes and shook his head, staring down at Hailey. “I don’t think there’s anything I can do for her. There’s no mermaid blood in her for the magick to connect with, to spark the healing.”

“Give her some of mine,” Kae blurted, the words rushing out in a jumble. “If my blood will help her heal, let’s give it to her. We have to fix this. She can’t die because of me.” Lybio tightened his arm around her shoulders but said nothing. She wriggled free of his grip and fell to her knees next to Hailey. “How do we do this?”

Zan shifted uncomfortably. “I’m not quite sure. It’s not like she can drink your blood to process it.”

“Why not?”

He shook his head impatiently. “It doesn’t work like that. But there may be a way…” He looked up at Mrs. MacNamara. “Can you remove the bandage around her head?”

She produced a small cutting tool from a pocket deep inside her dress. “Scissors, from the first aid kit,” she explained to Kae as she sat on the sand at Hailey’s head. Carefully, she snipped away the gauze, exposing a long gash on the side of Hailey’s forehead that looked angry and red. Released from the pressure of the bandage, fresh blood oozed from the cut.

“May I have the sharp tool?” Zan held out his hand and she gave him the scissors. He turned to face Kae, his dark eyes boring into her own. “Are you sure you want to try this?” She nodded, and he scooted closer to where she sat until their legs were pressed close together. Gently, he took her hand by the wrist and held it over Hailey’s body, muttering some words she didn’t understand. Her hand tingled under his touch until it felt numb.

With great precision, he drew the sharp point of the scissors across her palm, opening a long red welt that ran almost the length of her hand. Above her, she heard a sharp intake of breath from her father. She looked up to reassure him. “Don’t worry, I can’t even feel it.”

“I used a simple spell to numb your hand,” Zan explained, keeping his eyes on the welling blood. She focused on her hand as well, watching the thick, red blood ooze from the cut he’d made. When enough had pooled in her palm, he spoke again. “Kae. I need you to relax and trust me.”

She looked into his dark eyes and felt that familiar tug on her heart, but without the pulse of warm feelings she associated with Zan. “You’re not using your magick on me,” she said with some surprise.

He raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t realize you could tell,” he said, sounding embarrassed. He held her gaze. “And no, I’m not. I have to focus my magick on the healing process. I need you to trust me on your own.”

“I do trust you,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper as she stared into his eyes. She felt him pulling on her numbed hand, but he never broke eye contact, even as he started chanting Latin words under his breath. When she finally looked down at Hailey again, she was surprised to see that her cut palm was lined up against the open wound, Kae’s blood seeping over Hailey’s forehead, but not as much as she would have thought.
My blood must be going right into Hailey’s body
, she realized.
He’s going to try to use it to heal her from the inside.
She glanced back at Zan. “Have you done anything like this before?”

He shook his head and rested his other hand against her cheek. “You’re very brave, Kae, to help your friend like this. Brave and very beautiful. I’m so sorry that I messed things up.”

“You’re fixing them now,” she reminded him, a faint smile playing on her lips. She felt a little lightheaded, as if there wasn’t enough air for her to breath. “Zan? I don’t feel so well.” Even though it was already night, everything around her seemed to be growing ever darker. Her entire body started to tingle just like her hand had done when Zan had cast his numbing spell.

Strong hands grabbed her shoulders and her father’s voice echoed in her ears, as if he were speaking from far away. “Kae? Stay with us, little one. That’s enough blood, sorcerer!” She felt herself being pulled backward, away from Hailey.

“No, I need to help,” she mumbled, trying to orient herself with the group. She tried to turn her head to chastise her father, but instead she fell sideways onto the sand. For some reason, the ground was spinning underneath her and she felt as though she were being tumbled by a wave crashing onto the shore.

Suddenly Zan’s face was very close to hers, his breath on her cheek, his warm hand cradling the back of her neck. “You did well, Kae. Now get some sleep and heal yourself.” She felt a tingle rush through her as his lips brushed against hers and his breath filled her mouth, as if he were filling her with his own heat. It wasn’t quite a kiss, but it felt as though he were giving himself to her nonetheless. She stared into his dark eyes a moment longer, but then felt herself drifting off on a billowing cloud of sleep. The last thing she was certain of was her father’s worried voice chastising Zan.

“You better pray that Poseidon spares this girl’s life, sorcerer. Else yours won’t last much longer.”

Kae wasn’t sure but she thought Zan answered him by saying, “My life isn’t worth living without her.”

That can’t be right
, she thought as sleep carried her away.
He can’t be in love with Hailey. He doesn’t even know her.

Ever so gently, Zan laid Kae’s head onto the sand and withdrew his hand from the back of her neck. She looked so very fragile, so pale, he worried that he’d let her give too much of her blood to her friend. He hoped the magick he’d breathed into her would speed her healing.

“You better pray that Poseidon spares this girl’s life, sorcerer. Else yours won’t last much longer.” The hulking merman on the other side of Kae glared across her sleeping body.

Zan heaved a heavy sigh. “My life isn’t worth living without her.”

Her father looked momentarily shocked by the admission, but quickly scowled. “Then you’d best pray hard. Now go. Help the human girl.”

Reluctantly, Zan returned to the drylander’s side. The girl’s forehead was smeared with fresh blood, mostly Kae’s. With one hand wrapped again around her wrist, he pinched together the skin on her forehead to close the wound. As he muttered incantations in Latin, he watched the skin fuse itself together. Once the cut was sealed, he directed the MacNamara woman to clean the rest of the blood from her face.

Without the bandages and blood, she looked like a small child who’d fallen asleep after a long day. Zan could see that she was even pretty, in a dark-haired sort of way. Nothing like Kae’s blonde beauty, but cute. The dark circles ringing her eyes had already started to lessen, and her breathing seemed deeper, more normal.

He gripped her shoulder with one hand and her wrist again with the other. Closing his eyes, he reached out with his magick and felt the mermaid blood coursing through the girl’s body. Kae’s blood. The drylander’s body had sucked in the mermaid blood as if it were the nectar of the gods, which made some sense to Zan, given whose blood it was. He’d been so focused on healing the drylander that he hadn’t noticed the energy draining from Kae until it was almost too late. Lucky for them all that her father had been paying attention.

Beneath his hands, he felt the drylander’s body start to stir. Color returned to pink her cheeks, and her dark eyelashes fluttered until finally she raised her eyelids. Dark brown eyes, the deep color of rich garden loam, stared up at him as she blinked, her long eyelashes fluttering. “Where am I?” she asked, her voice croaking from disuse. “Why is it so dark?”

The old woman bent over the girl, holding her cheeks between her hands. “Hailey? You’re awake! Oh, thank the gods, you’re okay!”

“Gramma MacNamara?” Hailey stared at the woman before returning her gaze to Zan’s face. “Then, who are you? What happened? And where am I?” Her voice still sounded weak but the questions kept flowing. “What happened to the airplane? Was it able to land safely? Why do you have green hair? Where’s my mom? Is Chip all right? Where’s Shea?”

“Hush,” Zan finally said, removing his hands and laying two fingers over her lips to stem the tide of words with a gentle pulse of magick. Mrs. MacNamara answered the most pertinent of the girl’s questions.

“Hailey, the plane crashed into the ocean and you hit your head. You’ve been in a coma for a few days. Your mom and brother are fine.” She patted the girl’s arm. “You’re very lucky Kae and Zan were able to help you.”

Hailey’s eyes locked again with Zan’s. As he watched, tiny specks of green began to bloom within the deep brown of her irises, growing like tiny seedlings in garden dirt.
Green the color of Kae’s eyes
, Zan thought.
Her mermaid blood is taking root in this drylander girl. It’s not possible. Or is it?
He removed his finger from her lips but she remained calm and quiet, still staring up at him. “Thank you,” she whispered, her voice sending prickles up the back of his neck, unnerving him. Hers now held some of the same musical qualities that made Kae’s voice so unique.

“I…I…need to check on Kae, and make sure she’s okay, too,” he stammered, unable to tear his eyes from her face, watching the transformation take place. Her solid brown eyes were now clearly flecked with large patches of emerald green, but still retained the warmth of the darker color. He’d never seen anything like it. With reluctance he turned to check on the blonde mermaid, leaving Hailey and her questions to Mrs. MacNamara’s ministrations.