Chapter 7

Chapter

Seven

"It came out of nowhere."

On the helicopter floor, the captain of the Savvy Rose huddled under emergency thermal blankets with his wet and shivering crew. One by one, Reid had plucked them from frigid water, where they'd bobbed among their fishing vessel's wreckage, and now his team was racing the borderline hypothermic men back to shore.

"It pinged on radar, but all we saw was darkness." Lips blue, the captain's teeth chattered as he spoke. "Just getting closer and closer. It wasn't until she was right on top of us that we finally saw her. No radios, no lights, and the transponder was off. Ran us right over."

Illegal, every bit of it. No lives lost this time, thank God, but the boat was gone, and the livelihood of these small, independent fishermen sunk right along with it.

"Anything you can tell me about the ship? Any identifying information?"

"About two-hundred feet long. Was hard to see in the dark, and it happened wicked fast, but it looked like the name on the hull was The Seriphus. " Several of the other men nodded in agreement.

Surprise stole his next breath.

Nautic's factory ship and crew were getting their hands dirty.

The Coast Guard had several incident reports on file naming other boats in Nautic's fleet suspected of either sabotaging, or outright destroying, other fishermen's equipment. But the factory ship wreaking havoc itself—that was a first.

"Those greedy sonsofbitches have been going after us," one of the crew members said, volume rising.

But why? To push out smaller, local competition like these guys and monopolize the region's fishing industry? It was just the sort of shady shit Reid was coming to suspect wasn't mere conspiracy.

"How much more are they going to get away with before somebody does something about it? Is it when one of us is killed?" He didn't namedrop the Coast Guard, or "the government" at large, but it was clear as day that was what he meant.

"We're building a case." It wasn't much of an assurance, but it was all he could say. A handful of incidents weren't nearly enough to go to court. They needed dozens more, and a crushing amount of evidence, when filing a lawsuit against a corporation. It was time consuming and tedious, and a whole lot more shit had to go wrong to ultimately stop it.

Infuriating as hell and of no comfort to those affected by Nautic's shady activities.

The captain snorted. "Building a case, my ass. Tell Big Brother I want my tax money back so I can buy myself a new boat."

If only.

Back on shore, emergency responders awaited dockside to take the fishing crew to the hospital. Once they were squared away, Reid and his team returned to Haven Cove Airport for debriefing, some log entry, and sleep. As far as missions go, this one went well—a textbook SAR case where everyone made it home. But really anything that wasn't losing an entire crew to people-eating mermaids, categorically speaking, was a shining success.

At daybreak, Reid saw Hatcher coming out of the head, tucking a flip phone into his pants pocket.

"What's with the dinosaur tech?" Reid teased, going to the sink to brush his teeth.

Hatcher took the sink beside him, washing his hands. "Dropped my smartphone in a puddle."

"Shit luck, fumble fingers."

"Shut up."

After morning quarters, they were released from duty for the next few days, the unit's second aircrew coming in to take the next shift.

And Reid was more than ready for the break.

In a short period of time, he had to come to terms with critical mission failure and a mermaid situation that was far from cut and dry. Everything would've been so much easier to get straight in his head if their motives had been purely vicious. But as much as he was a simple man who liked simple answers, he hated convenient ones more.

Sliding a full-face black helmet over his head, he mounted his motorcycle, the engine roaring to life beneath him. Its steady rumbling drowned out all other sounds, right along with the turmoil fogging his mind. In minutes, he was shooting down the coastal highway, dense pine forests on either side, occasionally opening to reveal glimpses of the ocean and mountains beyond.

He drove to a shaded, empty picnic grove, someplace quiet by the water, but that still had cell service, and dialed his therapist. He'd scheduled the call while on duty. It wasn't for everyone, but Reid just couldn't imagine doing the work he did without one.

He'd found the little seaside grove shortly after moving to Haven Cove. Any time he had a tough case, he'd come here, hash things out for about forty-five minutes, and either go for a hike or swim afterward to further process and decompress, then return home with a six-pack of beer.

Maybe that made him frighteningly well-adjusted, but he just didn't fuck around when it came to his headspace. His only uncle was an alcoholic, so he never felt comfortable beelining it to booze to make himself feel better.

The line connected, a low, easy voice answering on the other side. "Hello, Reid. How are you?"

Alan, his therapist, was retired Air Force, which made talking to him so much simpler. All the rote military things he didn't have to explain—the culture, the expectations, the rigorous demands, and command structure—allowed them to get to the meat of his troubles sooner.

"I've been better."

"Want to tell me what happened?"

Exhaustion fell over him in a way it hadn't even when they got Savvy Rose 's distress call, after hours of research and computer work. Between debriefing command, the reports, and filling in gaps for his team, he was sick of explaining everything again and again. If only he could just offload the memories, dump them in a big file folder, and hand them over to be picked apart and assessed while he lay on this picnic table bench and took a nap. But that wasn't how this shit worked and retelling it for the umpteenth time was all a part of the process.

"We had two cases." He sighed heavily, feeling his body sag. "The second was textbook, everybody made it home. But the first…"

Alan waited patiently, allowing him to get it out at his own pace.

"We lost them. Every single one."

"Didn't get there in time?"

"No. We did." Now for the spectacularly weird icing on the cake. "But we had company." Reid explained that he'd been in the water with flesh-eating mermaids, had been there when they devoured the crew, right beneath him.

When he finished, Alan drew in a deep breath. "That must've been hard watching them go under like that."

"I felt helpless. All that training, all those hours spent doing PT, and what good did any of it do?"

"Seeing people die is one of the hardest things a service member can experience. But your training wasn't for nothing. It kept you alive."

"Wasn't training that did that. She let me live."

"Okay, well, let's think about it this way. Elite training makes you damn good at what you do, but it doesn't make you a superhero. Did you feel like you did everything you could under these unique circumstances?"

"No." Reid rubbed the back of his neck. He hated sounding difficult, but it was the truth. "I feel like I should've been able to do more."

"Run me through standard procedure and what you would've done differently."

And that was why he liked this guy. Every time they ran through this exercise, Reid either realized there was nothing he could've changed, or if there was, he came out of it knowing what to fix and how to manage the boatload of guilt and self-loathing for fucking it up the first time. It was a painful process, but it worked.

No pain, no gain.

And this time wasn't any different.

"What you do under normal circumstances is hard. Facing a supernatural force? No use comparing apples to oranges. You're not a superhero, Reid. Don't try to be one."

"There's more." Piece by thorny piece, he unspooled complex truth after complex truth, a bigger picture so massive, he could barely wrap his head around it.

"That's a lot to unpack, and we'll work through it, but my most immediate concern—do you feel like your life is in danger? You said you've seen the mermaid twice since the incident."

"No." The answer whooshed out so fast it surprised him. She was scary as fuck, yes, and had him completely outmatched, but she'd never tried to kill him. And she'd been vulnerable, too, in her own way. Misunderstood, afraid, taking huge risks for the greater good. Trying to save…trying to save her own people. "She's just like…"

Just like me.

"You've had a lightbulb moment—I can hear it in your voice. What've you realized?"

"Our responsibilities, our goals, they're the same."

Fresh off the case, he'd been wary of giving Nireed his sympathy, but all that was different were their methods, and even those weren't completely unfamiliar when he thought about the other military branches. Nireed was one of the ocean's denizens, forced to play the part of a soldier, and the fishermen hunting her people were the invaders. No wonder Perez seemed pissed when he couldn't put that together. When he was so stuck on seeing Nireed as the monster.

It had been shocking, traumatizing even, witnessing that annihilation, but of course it was. He didn't see that kind of action. He didn't take lives, he saved them, and he'd effectively dropped into a war zone that night. And that, he could wrap his head around.

"We're more similar than I realized."

He could hear the smile in his therapist's voice when he said, "You came to that conclusion sooner than I thought you would. Good work."

Reid let out a shaky laugh, feeling fizzy and punch-drunk. "Damn. Well, I'm glad I'm not delusional for thinking that."

"Not at all."

When the call ended, hiking felt like a better escape than a swim, so he marched off into the trees, allowing the wilderness to swallow him whole for a day. Steady ground beneath his feet and a quiet path, broken only by birdsong and the scuff of his boots against rock and root, had a way of absorbing his cares.

That evening, Reid went home feeling lighter, better. Maybe not one hundred percent, but well enough he'd probably get some sleep tonight.

He stared out at the orange-cast horizon from the stern of his houseboat, legs dangling over the diving platform. He pulled a long swig from the neck of his beer bottle, some local brew he picked up at the grocery store on the way home.

He was anchored with several others in a quiet inlet, but between his odd schedule and theirs, he rarely saw his neighbors. One was a charge nurse who often picked up overtime shifts, and the other was a retired fisherman who spent more time at the bars than was strictly healthy.

"Is this your boat?"

Nireed popped from the water, a disturbingly beautiful jack-in-the-box. He nearly jumped out of his skin, scrambling back from the ledge, and spilling his beer in the process. Not so much as a stray ripple or subtle flash of silver scales. The effortless stealth was as impressive as it was terrifying, but damn, why'd she always have to scare him shitless? Some warning would be nice.

She stared at him unblinkingly, her eerie, lambent eyes made liquid amber in the light of the setting sun. Such dangerous promise in those eyes. But of what, he didn't know anymore, not when she'd no intention of killing him.

If not his life, then what?

He growled, probably a little more harshly than was necessary, but his fear was talking. "Where the fuck did you come from?"

She arched a brow, gesturing to the wide expanse of the ocean.

He huffed, wiping a beer-drenched hand dry on his shorts. Smartass. "How'd you find me?"

"I was around." She shrugged. "Picked up your scent. Is this your boat? It's very small."

It was small—smaller than he would've liked long-term—but he suddenly felt rather defensive of it. "I don't need a lot of space."

She eyed the narrow doorway warily, like it might bite her. "You don't?" The crease along her brow deepened, and if Reid wasn't mistaken, it looked a lot like concern. "Sky boat's small too." Glancing between him in his home, she began to wring her hands.

And that was when it hit him. She wasn't criticizing his home. Tight spaces freaked her out, and compared to a wide, open ocean, he could see how a compact space might feel claustrophobic.

His reply was gentle. "We call that a helicopter."

The mermaid repeated the word flawlessly.

"That's where I work. This"—he patted the deck fondly— "is my home."

"Does it have a name?"

The question took him off guard. It was tradition to name boats, but he hadn't named this one. Couldn't come up with something that fit.

She folded her arms across the diving platform, right next to where he sat. "I didn't get my name until my fifth year. Sometimes these things take time."

Was she trying to reassure him? It was unexpectedly touching. "What were you called before Nireed?"

"Starfish."

Shit, that was adorable. He set down his drink, stretching his arms wide open. "Well, you found me, Starfish."

She rested her cheek on top of her arms, watching him intently. "Do you want me to go?"

Something loosened deep inside his chest. Even with her sharp edges—the claws and teeth made for ripping and tearing—there was something soft and sweet about how she laid in repose against his boat, orange and silver tailfin fanning out behind her. A girl next door kind of vibe. He shouldn't be comforted by that, knowing what he did of her, but he found himself saying anyway, "You can stay."

Her answering smile was warm, pointed teeth and all.

"You come this way often?" he asked, remembering she'd mentioned a friend in one of their previous encounters.

"Every few days. What with everything that's going on."

He whistled long and low. It was about sixty nautical miles from here to mermaid territory. "That's a long way."

She shrugged again. "I move fast."

It was in line with what other sea creatures could do. Dolphins could migrate up to eighty miles a day, whales one hundred. Still, her range was damn impressive.

"Is it hard, being away from home so often?"

Maine took his breath away, and there was no denying he lucked out being stationed here, but he missed Michigan and his mom and dad. Doing what he did, it was hard to go home, and he often missed holidays and birthdays and other life events. While he didn't regret his career choice for a second and had made plenty of new friends along the way, it hurt sometimes living far away from the place and people that raised him.

"It is, and it isn't." She sighed. "Sometimes I don't want to be needed, and here, no one needs me." A dark look crossed her face. "That is, when they don't know what I am."

"What do you mean?"

"Surface Dwellers like knowing things, and I'm an unknown. But if I blend in, I'm free."

It was a cryptic response, but one thing was clear: Nireed was risking everything to be here, to save her people. Her life, her freedom. Nautic's fishermen likely wanted to poach creatures like her, and the science community wanted to study another live mermaid. And yet, she was still here, trying to make a difference.

He stared at her in awe.

He had the forest, and its towering pines, when he needed to carve out space for himself, but what did Nireed have? Was there some place she could go when she needed to be alone with her thoughts, when the responsibility of saving her kind weighed heaviest? Or did she live her life raw and exposed, always on the lookout for danger, always fighting for survival, never afforded the luxury of having peace of mind?

He imagined taking her to his favorite spot and leading her down the path that wove in and out between the trees. To see her take in the forest for the first time, moving about his world on unsteady, but determined legs. The terrain, knotted with rocks and roots, could be treacherous to the inexperienced, but if she tripped, caught onto his arm, he wouldn't let her fall.

She fidgeted, eyes narrowing. "Why are you staring at me like that?"

He blinked, then shook his head. Shit, how'd he go from sheer terror to wanting to take a mermaid on a hike? He quickly changed the subject, waving a hand in front of his face, and teased, "Thought you said it was gross and smelly here."

"And dry." She shuddered, then splashed water onto herself using her fins. "I don't know how you live like this."

"I like the water, but I wasn't made for it."

"I was made for water but can adapt to land." She shrugged. "And besides, it's like home to you."

"That's perceptive."

She smirked. "Why else would you choose to fall out of a Hel-i-cop-ter and live on a tiny boat?"

"I don't fall, I jump. There's a difference."

"If you say so, Coast Warrior." She winked, flicking a bit of water his way.

Hot damn. He hadn't wanted to believe it, but Perez was right. This was flirting. A man-eating mermaid was flirting with him. "I'm a Coast Guard. " God dammit. What a spectacular time for his brain to short circuit. "I mean, a Coast Guardsman."

"I know," she said, looking pleased as punch. "But I like Coast Warrior better."

When she said it like that, like something that impressed her, maybe it didn't sound so silly after all. Maybe he even liked it. "That something you're into, a man in uniform?"

She appraised him openly, thoughtfully, and as her eyes tracked their way along his body, he felt his cheeks warm. From previous encounters, he should've remembered that she usually took what he said literally, and this had been as good as an invitation to check him out.

He was just wearing basic Coast Guard PT gear—a light gray T-shirt and blue gym shorts—nothing particularly flattering. It occurred to him then that she might not know the distinction, that "uniform" and "clothes" weren't quite the same thing, because the way her gaze lingered covetously on each stretch of exposed muscle, one would think he was decked out in dress blues.

"Merfolk don't wear clothes," she said, continuing her slow perusal, and it took all his willpower not to let his gaze dip. "We don't hide ourselves. That's not our way."

While she was mostly hidden by the boat, he had an unhampered view of her sleek, bare back, its ripped muscle, and glistening, sea-kissed skin. God help me. Don't spring a boner two feet away from her face.

"And yet," she said, tugging lightly on the hem of his shorts. "Not everything needs to be knowable. It makes me wonder." The curve of her claws grazed his thigh, sending an unexpected thrill up his spine. Was she saying what he thought she was saying? That she thought about what he looked like under his clothes?

Nope. None of that. His dick wasn't going to so much as twitch at the possibility. Leaning forward, he used an arm to block her view as he subtly pressed the heel of his hand into his crotch. Coming off an extremely stressful duty period, blowing off some steam made for a nice fantasy, but he wasn't going to complicate an already complicated situation by getting horny for the mermaid at the center of it all. He had better self-control than that.

"Not missing anything." He plucked out the front of his shirt, trying to get some fresh air on his skin. "Once you've seen one, you've seen them all."

Withdrawing her hand, Nireed returned to her repose. "There's nothing in the ocean like you." She said it so softly, he almost hadn't heard her.

That he might be as much of a wonder to her as she was to him was such an unexpected thought. But it made sense too. They were creatures from two different worlds, as foreign and alien to one another as the universe around them. While their species shared some anatomy similarities, when considering all their other differences, he might as well be from outer space.

"I guess we have a lot to learn about each other, don't we?"

"This has been a good start."

A start. So much promise and possibility in that word. Much more than "let's not be enemies" or even "can we be allies." She didn't just want his help, she wanted to get to know him, and that meant there was something here that could be nurtured, if he just made the leap.

He studied her open, hopeful expression, from the sparkle in her eyes to her round cheeks and soft lips. Such sweetness layered over sharp edges, a curious and mesmerizing contradiction. Seeing this side of Nireed almost made him wonder how he'd ever feared her, but the truth still resonated deep in his wary bones, and in muscles primed to flee. Seeing her like this was a gift, a privilege, and one not to be taken advantage of or squandered.

And for the first time, he allowed himself to look with eyes not shadowed by fear.

Her skin was pale, almost translucent in places, no doubt due in part to living hundreds of feet down from the surface, but there was a sort of plushness to it, too, that tempted touch. When she moved, a generous display of muscle rippled beneath, every inch of her a testament to a hard-fought life at sea and regular long-distance swims to the shore. And yet, such strength wasn't without beauty, each motion flowing from one into the next with a sinuous grace.

Then, the most striking non-human thing about her: the long tail.

It swayed languidly beneath the water, silver scales reflecting the warm tones of the setting sun, a gentle gradient of pinks and oranges, but there was no forgetting it was a powerhouse of strength, one that propelled her hundreds of miles every week.

If he touched her tail, ran his hand along the scales, would she be smooth one direction, rough the other? He continued drinking in the wonders of this mystifying creature, not quite daring.

A small smile curved her lips. She seemed so content resting against his boat, like it pleased her to watch him look his fill.

Most of her hair was wet and slicked back, save for one stray, drying bit, frizzing wildly out of control. He didn't know what compelled him, but he dipped his hand in the water and swiped down the wayward piece.

He should've pulled away then, but his fingers stayed put, lingering on the outer shell of her ear. Her eyes widened, searching his for several long beats, as she touched the piece he'd wetted down, her clawed fingers brushing his. She opened her mouth, then closed it, rendered utterly speechless.

Shit, she was cute, even as she gaped like a fish out of water.

He tapped his finger to the tip of her nose. "You don't like being dry, Starfish."

Her cheeks pinkened, and goddamn, he'd somehow managed to make this devastatingly and dangerously beautiful man-eating mermaid bashful.

"I have to go," she said suddenly, tearing her eyes away. "I'm sorry."

She pushed off from the boat, and in a flash of silver scales, disappeared beneath the surface.

The abruptness of it shocked him. He thought they were having a moment…

What had he done wrong?