Chapter 4

Chapter

Four

The ocean was Nireed's home, and she'd almost lost it.

She had put her unearned trust into the hands of a Shorewalker, a mermaid born and raised on land. And she had put her life into the hands of a marine biologist, subjecting herself to scientific study and a year trapped in a tank, on the slim chance it might save her people from the ravenous hunger that controlled their minds and made them sick.

A shot at a cure.

A chance to restore her people's ability to choose.

The Surface Dweller scientists poked and prodded her. Studied and watched, sets of cold, indifferent eyes staring at her from all angles, not a moment left unobserved.

But not from the Shorewalker. And not from the marine biologist who became Cure Creator. They kept their promises and freed her when it became clear the other Surface Dwellers had no intention of ever letting her go.

Nireed stroked her wrists nervously, squeezing her eyes shut, a memory resurfacing.

Dank water encased her, fouled oxygen drawn in through her gills. Nowhere to go. No way to escape it. And the ocean called and called and called, a mother crying for its lost child. Always there. Always in sight. And yet, so far beyond reach.

She pounded against the thick, aquarium glass, bubbles concealing her view as she screamed.

Nireed stiffened, eyes shooting open. Some days her time in the lab felt like a lifetime ago, others only yesterday. She'd been so scared of failing, so scared of never returning home. In the end, those fears hadn't come true.

But now, because of these fishermen and their gigantic nets and murderous designs, her home was becoming its own cage, its own death sentence, and not just for her people but all the creatures of the sea.

The Land Above the Water was not a world she wanted any part of, but sometimes circumstances required that she walk it and undergo the metamorphosis that made it possible. For her scales and fins to retreat into her body, deep beneath the dermis, one tail exchanged for two legs. For gills to flatten and seal against her neck, traded for seldom-used lungs. The webbing between her fingers, withdrawn. Claws shrunk and fangs retracted, a row of square flat-edged teeth lying underneath. All the pieces that made Nireed a daughter of the sea tucked away and hidden from view so that she could blend in among the Surface Dwellers.

Like now.

The transformation wasn't painful, but it left behind an ache in her muscles and in her gums and nail beds. But none of that compared to the ever-present longing that weighed anchor in her chest, calling her home to the deep.

A throat cleared beside her. "What was the name of the boat again?"

" The Merry Mariner." It was the first name the pod had been able to get without being caught by fishing nets.

Shorewalker typed the name into her phone. "Just sent it to Jackie. She'll be able to look up who owns it."

Damp hair twisted into a loose, unraveling braid, Nireed sat on a park bench next to Lorelei Roth in the town green overlooking Haven Cove harbor. Behind them was a bustling thoroughfare lined with shops and various eating establishments, that was as much an assault on the senses as it was an intriguing display of behavior and daily life. Waves of Surface Dwellers dipped in and out of buildings, many toting bags of wares and fragrant food that might've been pleasant if it weren't for the offensive odors accompanying them from trash and fuel, the sea breeze only bringing a short-lived reprieve. And while Nireed was used to the constant ambient sounds in the ocean, on land, the relentless stream of machinery, things Lorelei had to identify for her and explain their purpose, things like air conditioning and cars, were so much closer and louder in her ears. Only wearing squishy, orange ear sponges made it bearable.

In front of them was a gently sloped green space and an ocean walk that twisted along the coastline, meant for leisurely strolling along and observing the sea. For all the harm the Surface Dwellers did to the ocean, they also admired it.

More and more, Nireed was acclimating herself to the surface world. Not because she meant to stay, but because the humans passing by were so interesting to watch and study.

That was, when it wasn't through a wall of aquarium glass.

The more she knew—how they moved, how they spoke, what they thought—the better she could blend in, and the better she could defend her people from the ones who meant them harm.

"I'm sorry this is happening. The pod doesn't deserve this."

"Just when we started to rebuild," Nireed grumbled. "Surface Dwellers."

Even though she'd said the last bit like a curse, Lorelei smiled. "Surface Dwellers, is it now?"

Not so long ago, the pod called humans "Two-Leggers," but with how often her kin had been using their shifting abilities to take a more human form on land, it was time for a new name.

"Why the change?"

"Sometimes I have two." Nireed gestured to her legs, all traces of her silvery tail hidden. "And sometimes you don't have two. Undine agreed it's not the distinction it once was." And what the leader of their pod said or did, the rest followed suit.

"I like it."

Lorelei's smile reminded Nireed of brightening bioluminescence, or when the sun hits the water's surface, making it glitter. While her friend's life on shore often kept her away from the pod, it also made her feel like she didn't fully belong, which was the furthest from the truth, not after everything she'd done to help their community. She never seemed to like the name "Two-Leggers," probably because it was once said in the same breath as "food," so if this small change made her at least feel thought of and considered, it was a change well made.

"Killian's next offshore run is at the end of this week." Lorelei tucked a windblown strand of auburn hair behind her ear. "Anything he can bring?"

"We need food, but the usual has been used as bait."

While The Lovely Lorelei was a safe vessel to approach, under the current circumstances, they couldn't get close enough to tell their friends and foes apart, not when the latter was using purse seine nets.

"If I came along, I could swim down and guide you," Lorelei suggested.

"It'd be risky, but if you come, I'll follow."

A Surface Dweller might've protested the offer, something Nireed had observed among Lorelei and her friends, but that was not the merfolk way. If you said you could do something, you'd have every right to try. Insinuating someone couldn't handle the danger was an insult.

"You've risked so much for me. It's the least I can do."

"That debt has been long paid." Bracing the back of the bench, Nireed rose to her feet. While her walking had gotten better, getting up and down still left her wobbly. "If you do this, do it because you're my friend."

"Fine then. I want to help, because you're my friend, and I'm overdue for a visit."

Nireed nodded approvingly. "That's much better, Shorewalker."

"Such a stickler for phrasing."

"I don't know what that means, but I'm going to guess and say you're a stickler for guilt."

"Ouch." Lorelei grabbed her neck. "Went right for my jugular with that one."

"Someone needs to keep you honest and guilt-free."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know."

The wind shifted, carrying with it a strangely familiar scent. Surprised, Nireed glanced back, but Lorelei was busy rooting for something in her purse and didn't seem to notice. Nireed had only come across it once before, and recently, in the open ocean.

The Coast Warrior.

Surprise turned to panic but she took a deep, steadying breath, this form's lungs filling with air. She was more vulnerable on land when she traded a graceful tail for wobbly legs, but she was still a mermaid and a siren, no matter what form she took. She could rip out a man's throat with a single swipe. And she could sing him into submission before he could even think to draw a weapon or shout a warning.

Tension eased.

Maybe he wouldn't recognize her out of context. But she had to know for sure.

Nireed followed the scent down the grassy slope to the ocean walk, where she found a man with dark auburn hair leaning against a railing, staring out over the harbor. She'd made allies before from little—first with Shorewalker, then with Cure Creator. If she played this right, maybe she could do so again.

A Coast Warrior ally could be useful. Someone with ties to Surface Dweller leadership and its laws. Someone with jurisdiction over the fishermen killing her people. Someone who might be able to sway his leader's decisions based on what he reported back after each mission.

It was a risk to approach the Coast Warrior in his domain, but she was used to taking those.

"Mind if I join you?"

A woman sidled up to him. Her unsteady gait, and the fact that he'd never seen her before, made him think she'd had a drink too many and might be part of the latest batch of cruise ship tourists. She wore a simple, sleeveless dress—no bra—and a messy braid fell to pieces over her shoulder, some of the dark brown strands wet and clinging.

And yet, despite the disheveled appearance, her peculiar, golden eyes were sharp and keen, chips of amber reflecting sunlight. He'd never seen irises that shade before.

"Don't see why not." Reid swept a hand toward the harbor, royal blue water dotted with all manner of fishing and recreational boats. "The view's meant to be shared."

"How generous." The smile she threw his way was fleeting, but warm, as she folded her arms across the railing. "But that wasn't a yes or no."

Literal, this one, and despite appearances, lucid. "No, I don't mind."

"Better." The corner of her mouth lifted, a teasing twinkle illuminating her strange eyes. "You come here often?"

He shrugged. "It's close to where I work. This your first time visiting?"

To his surprise, she shook her head and said, "No. I come here quite often."

Not a tourist then. "I didn't peg you for a local."

"I'm not." She drummed long, pointed nails against the railing. "Not exactly. More…regional. You?"

"Nah. Just stationed here for a few years. I'm a rescue swimmer for the Coast Guard."

There was a curious pause before her reply. "Guarding coasts? What's that about?"

A small twinge of impatience sparked, but it didn't linger. Not everyone remembered that the Coast Guard was one of the military branches, or knew it even existed, but that just wasn't something worth getting hung up on. Recognition wasn't why he joined. "It's a lifesaving service," he replied. "When people are in trouble at sea, I'm there to help."

"Is it dangerous?"

Remembering the last case, and the fishermen devoured by flesh-eating mermaids, he swallowed thickly, careful to keep his tone light as he said, "It can be, especially when there's heavy weather."

Her brow pinched as she considered this. "You risk your life for people you don't know."

"All the time."

"That's honorable." The way she said it made it sound like he'd both surprised and impressed her with a rare trait, but other first responders—firefighters, EMTs—did it every day. He wasn't special. " You're honorable, aren't you?"

"Just trying to keep folks alive and bring them home to their families." Reid always felt weird about accepting compliments for doing his job, but coming from this attractive woman, he felt like he'd earned something important. "What do you do?"

"Many things." She stared out over the harbor, tensing as a NOAA research vessel puttered by. Strange how she tracked its course, not once looking away until it passed them. "Usually, it's what others don't have the stomach for, the hard things that need to be done, but are worth it because it can make a real difference."

Mysterious . She sounded like either a public servant or a vigilante. Leaning a little closer, Reid considered asking if she'd like to get a cup of coffee with him and keep this conversation going. "How come I've never seen you around before?"

It was an innocent question, he thought, but her demeanor shifted, a switch flipped. Pinning him with an unblinking stare, her smile darkened, a sinister, predatory thing. "What makes you think you haven't?"

"Do I know you?" Reid didn't do flings, and if it weren't for the distinctive golden eyes flecked with amber, he might've guessed an old classmate or some other passing acquaintance. But no, he'd never seen this woman before in his life. He'd remember those eyes—eerie and mesmerizing at the same time. Impossible to look away from.

"You don't remember?" Her smile was too wide, too wicked, too knowing, and unease settled cold and heavy in his stomach. It made him want to run in the opposite direction or square up and fight, which was a hell of a way to feel about a random woman he'd just been about to ask out on a coffee date. But his animal brain demanded alertness. Don't turn your back. Or look away.

"You sure you've got the right guy?"

She considered this for a moment, then inhaled deeply. "Positive."

Had he met her before? He tried picturing her with different eyes. Maybe she was wearing colored contact lenses, and that's what was throwing him off. But when he tried imagining her with brown eyes or blue, he still drew a blank.

"I'm sorry." He rubbed a hand behind his neck, offering a sheepish half smile. "Remind me. Where'd we meet?"

Her smile grew impossibly wider, showing too many teeth.

And then her eyes flashed from gold to full-blown amber.

He jerked back, cursing.

For just a second, they'd been glowing, really glowing. Like fireflies on a summer night. Or…

Bioluminescence in the deep, dark ocean.

Good god. He bit hard on his inner cheek to hold back a scream, accidentally drawing blood. He had seen her before. Just not here. Not on land. And not anywhere close to shore.

Fishermen screamed around him, each yanked under, one by one. Not even the best swimming training could save him. He'd never move fast enough. Never be strong enough.

Bloodred lips curled over cruel, sharp teeth made for slicing and tearing, and in her unrelenting amber stare, lay the promise of death.

Her nostrils flared, breathing in deep, smelling him . And on some harebrained instinct, he pressed his tongue to the cut in his mouth, as if that would stem the bleeding or throw the monster off its scent.

How was she here? And where was her tail? He'd gotten an aerial view of it glittering beneath dark water, swaying back and forth with a long, sinuous grace.

"Remember now?"

Anger flared. She knew damn well that he did.

Land was his domain, and yet, she had the upper-hand here—that, he felt in the marrow in his bones and in the cacophony of alarm bells firing off in his brain. Was this a game to her? Was he a toy to toss around and discard at whim? Did his life, and the lives of the men she killed, mean nothing? "You murdered those men."

The mermaid frowned, the wicked gleam vanishing from her gaze. "Did I? Or was it self-defense? I thought Surface Dwellers respected that."

"You sank their ship." Fear receded as his anger spiked higher, and although he lowered his voice so he couldn't be overheard by casual passersby, his words were hard. "They were vulnerable out there, barely staying afloat. They weren't a threat."

Leaning in until her face was mere inches from his, she fired back in a tone equally low and hard, "Tell that to my kin taken by their nets."

She was so close he could count the gold and brown flecks in her odd, amber eyes, and it tripped his danger sense again, now firing on all cylinders, but he dared not pull away. When sharks smelled fear and blood, they bit. A mermaid wouldn't be any different.

Firming his stance, he replied, "And why should I believe you? I don't know you."

"You didn't know them."

"I know even less about flesh-eating mermaids."

"And flesh-eating fishermen are all the same?" she snapped.

"What the hell are you talking about? Flesh-eating fishermen…"

"Do Surface Dwellers not eat meat? Why else are you out there with your boats and giant nets? Is it not to hunt the flesh of creatures?"

"Not the same thing."

"Isn't it? Your kind doesn't have exclusive rights to mind and soul. If it breathes, it feels."

No point arguing with a half-fish woman if fish had feelings. Evidently, they did.

"I see your point," he muttered begrudgingly.

She relaxed a fraction, and in that split second, something vulnerable flickered across her face. Something that looked a lot like worry, exhaustion, and fear. That wasn't the face of a senseless killer, but of someone with loved ones on the line. He'd seen such trepidation before on the faces of families living in dread of the moment a search and rescue mission became a search and recovery. "I'm not lying. We are being hunted. I'd give you proof if I had it."

"You think they're eating your kind?" The prospect made his stomach turn just as much as remembering their last search and rescue case. He'd read the research, seen the blood on her lips. The woman before him had likely helped eat those fishermen, and yet he hated that humans might be eating mermaids like her just as much.

"I don't know," she said, wrapping her arms around herself, more protective than guarded. "If they did, I'd at least understand."

A chill ran down his spine. "Why would you prefer that?"

"We're not like you, Surface Dweller. When we kill, we kill for food. Nothing gets wasted. To think that they may have died for nothing? Left to rot in some fish hold?" She shook her head. "No, that's not a comfort."

When put like that, it did sound senseless.

"Life has value and so should death." She flipped her messy, nearly non-existent braid over her shoulder, and through the dark brown strands of hair Reid glimpsed something orange stuffed inside the mermaid's ears. It took him a second to realize they were earplugs. She was hearing sensitive. "Think about that first before you judge something you don't understand."

She'd carved a sizable chip out of his skepticism, that was for sure, but he couldn't shake the feeling she might be playing him. Just saying things that he might sympathize with and sprinkling in enough honesty to make it believable. Why would a mermaid leave her home to come here, walking among people she considered her enemy? It stank of something nefarious.

"Why are you here? And how?"

She rolled her eyes. "Not that it's any of your business, but I swam here to see a friend."

Head on a swivel, he glanced all around, trying to find this so called ‘friend.' Were there more mermaids here walking among unsuspecting humans? The back of his neck prickled with the uncanny feeling of being watched. He turned.

There was a woman sitting on a park bench behind them, staring intently. That, or the dark sunglasses and ball cap she wore made it seem like it. For all he knew, she could be watching the boats sail by in the harbor, but something about her posture seemed too…alert.

Whirling back on the woman beside him, he demanded, "Are there other mermaids here?"

"So suspicious." Amusement twinkled in her eyes as she cocked her head to the side, staring at him with a catlike gaze. "But as highly as you may think of your Land Above the Water, it is dry, and smelly, and I feel gross just standing here." She plucked out the front of her dress, wrinkling her nose to emphasize the discomfort of clinging, sweat-damp fabric. "So no, we don't exactly swarm your shores."

This strange creature dished out more shade than a tree. "All right, fine. So I guess you're not staying long?"

"Patrolling your coasts, Coast Warrior?"

A snort of laughter burst out of him. If he'd been drinking something, he'd have sprayed it down the front of her dress. "Coast, what?"

She narrowed her eyes.

"Are you trying to say Coast Guard?"

"Don't be rude." She sneered. "Coast Warrior, Coast Guard, how would I magically remember everything about Surface Dweller World? I don't live here."

He bit his lower lip, trying not laugh.

She glared. "My people are dying, and I'm here because I need help. Does that satisfy you?"

That sobered him. No matter how deep the well of distrust between them spanned, there was honesty in her anger and a ring of truth to her fears. He'd be a massive dick to ignore this.

"I want to help you, but to do that, I need to trust you. Can you promise you're not lying to me?"

Frustration steamed out with a sharp exhale. "I'm not."

"I'm serious. This only works if there's honesty between us."

"I know what ‘don't lie' means."

"Then promise me."

"Fine," she growled, heel bouncing irritably. "I promise I won't lie to you."

"Then, I'll help you." He was probably going to regret this, but what the hell. Sitting back and doing nothing wasn't in his DNA. If that was the case, he'd have chosen a different career. "Can't promise results, but if you want, I'll look into it. See if there's anything that can be done."

She held his gaze, unblinking.

He'd been dead wrong to mistake her for a tourist.

What he'd dismissed as an ungainly, drunken gait was, in truth, an impressive feat in traversing unfamiliar terrain on seldom-used limbs, and what he'd considered dishevelment was a wildness that couldn't, no, wouldn't be tamed.

And the fact that she'd acquired clothing and earplugs without drawing unwanted attention to herself suggested resourcefulness, even if it was with the help of a landside ally.

It was a while before she inclined her head and said, "That'll be more than I have now." And with that, she turned and walked away, heading toward a quiet footpath that led to the sea.

The mermaid had accepted his offer.

And now he had to deliver.

God help him whatever the consequences might be if he didn't.