One Soul To Share (5 page)

o0o

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, she let her song die
and stared at him.

He didn’t pull away or blink or do anything
to show 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.

o0o

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 before he’d been declared
undead.

The skin on her back was soft and smooth. His
fingers kneaded their way down her spine, pausing at her hips where
her fish half began. Her hands grabbed on to 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.

o0o

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 go back to where they had been
before. She shifted her gaze 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 hadn’t
noticed 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’d passed her
test. It wouldn’t be long before she and Nolan arrived at
Melusine’s home, and Sarina completed her bargain—a male capable of
living as the sea hag’s mate in exchange for Allera’s soul.

The pirates had taken her mother’s life and
her sister’s soul, in one fell swoop stealing everything Sarina
valued, but now she would get at least one of those things
back.

She would save her sister, and all it would
cost her was Nolan.

She turned her face to the wind, letting the
chill numb her; then she dove into the water and swam toward the
boat.

Sarina reached Nolan before he reached the
boat. She held out her hand, and after a moment, he took it.

She hadn’t rejected him, hadn’t turned her
back on him because of what he was.

Because she didn’t know, an inner voice
reminded him. If she did… when she did… she would look at him with
the same revulsion everyone else he’d thought he’d known, thought
he could trust, had.

Still, as her fingers wrapped around his and
she pulled him through the water, it was easy to get lost in the
joy of the moment. He sped forward, his body surfing over the
water’s surface and cold air blowing over his face.

It was brisk and invigorating—exciting and
like nothing he had ever experienced before.

They reached the yacht, and, sensing Sarina
might want privacy for her transition from water to land, Nolan
climbed onto the boat on his own, then turned his back. He was
curious to see the mermaid’s tail out of water, but he maintained
his stance through the sounds of splashing and something flapping
against the boat’s polished wood deck.

“Thank you.” Her voice was soft and almost
shy.

He shrugged, and, suddenly aware of his own
saturated state, began wringing out his clothing on the deck. Since
his turn, cold didn’t bother him, but removing the water from his
clothing seemed like the expected thing to do.

“Here.”

Something flew through the air toward him.
Nolan spun, catching it. A towel.

He rubbed at his face and hair.

The mermaid had dried off too. Her hair was
still damp, but she had donned one of the loose-fitting shirts she
seemed to prefer and wrapped a towel around her lower body. As
Nolan watched, the tip of her fin, which was visible at the end of
the towel, disappeared, and she wiggled her toes.

She looked up and caught him staring. He
averted his gaze, but she waved her hand and stood. “It’s okay.
Humans have always been curious. At least you didn’t try to cut
open my tail to see if legs were hidden inside.”

“That’s happened?”

“Not to me but others.” She looked away, and
he could tell she didn’t want to discuss the subject more.

He bunched the towel he’d been holding into a
ball. Things felt odd between them, unanswered questions lying
around, weighing them both down.

And there was the kiss too.

He didn’t regret it. In fact, he would have
liked nothing more than to repeat it, but after she’d mentioned the
blood… He lowered his arm and looked around for a spot to deposit
the towel. Seeing a basket, he walked over and dropped the wet
object inside.

“It won’t be long now,” she murmured.

He turned to find she’d moved. She was only a
few feet away from him now. The wind caught her shirt, pushing it
tight against her curves. Her breasts were full, and her nipples
were hard. It was easy to imagine her without the shirt, remember
how she’d looked under the ocean, her hair fanning around her
face.

His groin hardened. “Until what?” he asked,
lost as to what she could mean, lost to everything but the pounding
need to touch her that seemed to grow with each passing second.

“Melusine… the sea hag. The dragon was one of
her pets. She was… testing.”

“And we passed?” It hadn’t occurred to him
that the sea hag would be aware of their approach.

“Yes.” The mermaid didn’t look pleased with
her answer. Her lips pressed together, and her hand rose to hold
the vial that hung from her neck.

Remembering how he’d been tempted to toss the
piece of jewelry into the ocean’s depths, he motioned to it. “Is
that important?”

She stilled, and alarm shone in her eyes. She
took a step back, causing him to immediately regret his question.
He held up a hand to reassure her. “I shouldn’t have asked.
Obviously, it’s important to you or you wouldn’t wear it.”

She licked her lips and slowly nodded. She
didn’t, however, relax or loosen her tight grip on the vial. “It
is. My mother gave it to me when I was born.”

“Really?” He made a point not to look at the
vial again. Instead, he focused on the female who wore it.

The decision was a bad one. His heart
thumped, and he felt his body take a step toward her. She drew him
as surely as fresh blood, but he knew, while he had relished the
small taste of her blood, what drew him was even more elemental
than that.

There was something about the mermaid that
promised peace and contentment. Something that made him think with
her he could relax, go back to being who he’d been before he’d met
the vampire, before he’d become a monster.

He moved toward her, pulled by some invisible
string. She glanced over her shoulder, toward the sea, and for a
moment, he thought she would dive in and leave him standing alone
on the yacht.

But then she looked back.

She sighed, and her shoulders lowered. Her
expression changed from alarm to resigned surrender, as if she was
as incapable of fighting whatever pulled them together as he
was.

Relieved, he closed the space between them,
slipped his fingers into her hair, and pulled her mouth to his.

o0o

She was kissing a human, again.

Sarina closed her eyes, closing out the sight
of the ocean and the eyes she imagined staring at her from its
depths.

Mermaids used humans. They didn’t mate with
them or have feelings for them.

But Sarina could feel that she was on the
verge of doing both. She wanted Nolan’s touch, wanted to feel his
lips on hers, wanted his arms around her.

She wanted him.

His hands moved from her hair, down her body,
over her shoulders and arms, to her hips. His thumbs caressed the
curve of her waist through her gauzy shirt. The tips of her breasts
were hard and sensitive, and as the material grazed them, she
wiggled. Desire built deep inside her.

She knew how humans mated but had never
thought of how it would feel, how she would feel.

Nolan’s hand moved upward, and she found
herself arching toward him. Her breasts felt heavy and ached with
the need to be touched. His fingers lifted and caressed, and a moan
fell from her lips.

She stepped closer until her pelvis pressed
against his thigh. His sex was hard, and strangely, she found that
exciting. She moaned again. A song was building inside her.

She murmured a few words, unable to keep it
inside.

His hands moved again, cupping her butt,
kneading the flesh there and pulling her even tighter against
him.

Unable to resist touching him, she placed her
hands on his chest and pulled at his water-soaked clothes. His
shirt fell to the ground with a slap, and she was free to move her
fingers over his skin—still cold and damp from the water. She ran
her lips over his skin. He tasted of salt and the ocean. A new
thrill ran through her. He smelled of the sea too.

She ran her nose from his neck to his chest,
inhaling the scent of sea and man and knowing she would never smell
or taste anything more intoxicating.

Giddy with desire and new sensations, she
bent and trailed her tongue down his chest to the hard planes of
his stomach. His abdomen was flat and muscled, nothing like the
sailors she’d seen in the past. They had been wiry, almost
emaciated, not muscled and strong. And their smell, of sweat and
ale, had soured her stomach, not drawn her like a bee to a
flower.

“You’re beautiful,” Nolan murmured

Others had said the words, but they had
always been laced with an unspoken,
What can I get from
you?
Sailors believing the tales of mermaid treasure, or
hunting mermaids for fame and the fortune they thought would come
in selling the females to circus sideshows.