Chapter 2
Keri
Something moves through the water, slicing through it with an elegance that stuns me. But I’m more stunned by the beauty of the creature moving toward me. I don’t know how I got into the water. I only know that something within me calls out for the male gliding through the water. He reaches for me, his fingers spreading to reveal the delicate webbing between them before they slide over my cheek and skim further back to cup my head, holding me in place as his lips cover mine. I expect him to be cold and clammy, but he burns with a heat that flushes through me and makes me want to sink into him and escape the chill of the water. His hands skim over me, and he draws me up over his tail, holding me in place as he continues to pet me. I am delirious with pleasure, which only escalates as he rocks up into me, shattering me with desire.
I jerk upright with a gasp, my skin slicked with sweat and my pajamas sticking uncomfortably to my skin. I clutch a hand over my racing heart, my head spinning as my whole body throbs with unfulfilled need. Oh, gods! What was that?
I laugh weakly at myself. Of course. I know exactly what it is. It’s pretty obvious that my current dry spell is messing with my head if just the casual mention of a merman brings that on. Enough so that I’m still thinking about it while I go through my morning routine to get ready for work, an unanticipated needy tingle rushing beneath my skin. I scrub my face with one hand in frustration as I head out.
How ridiculous to still be all worked up over a silly dream. Clearly, I desperately need to get laid. That is the most logical conclusion. That doesn’t stop me from mulling it over, however, as I key myself into the library. It is strange that I can’t even say what the source of my sudden fascination is. Other than Adiele’s brief mention of the merman she met, I don’t really know much about merfolk or have that much interest in them. What I know about them certainly doesn’t warrant dreaming about them—unless it’s a nightmare. They aren’t ideal lovers, after all. Although they are said to be legendary seducers, I’ve read enough to know that mating for them is often a brutal affair, and that’s if their sole intent is not to simply eat you—which is really a toss of the coin from my understanding. A merman is the furthest thing from anything I would fantasize about. It therefore follows that the best way to deal with my current lingering arousal is to dive into research.
Facts—which are usually far less pleasant than the fantasy surrounding a species—should effectively cool my desire. It usually does the job whenever I’ve been tempted to experiment. Still, I can’t seem to control the reflexive little shiver that runs through me as I hang up my things in the staff room and head into the main building. It takes me little time to light the windowless building before I can set about reshelving the carts of returns that are waiting for me. As expected, there are quite a few and it takes me a couple of hours of patient sorting and shelving before I have the time to enter the restricted aquatic species section. While there is as little there as I recalled, I’m surprised to find a narrow volume that I have never seen before. A new acquisition perhaps?
I pull it from the shelf and run my fingers along the old binding. Wherever it’s from, it’s well made. The brown cover doesn’t have a title, just a simple gold mermaid pressed into it, but the craftsmanship speaks for itself. Tucking my prize against my chest, I return to the front of the library and unlock the entrance door to officially open for the day. I smile and greet an elderly male that promptly enters as I set the book on my desk. It feels almost forbidden to have it there, out of the restricted section, even though I know I’m allowed so long as I lock up any books or scrolls in the small safe built behind the desk whenever I step away.
Settling in my chair, I don’t immediately open the book but tap a finger on its cover as I look expectantly toward the door just in case someone plans to come barreling through the moment I’ve sat down. When no one does, I finally open it and begin to read.
It opens with a lot of information I already know regarding the “song” of merfolk and how it’s used to captivate and lure in humans. No mystery there. They’ve been pointed to as the cause of shipwrecks and human deaths at sea just as often as miraculous rescues. I am surprised, however, to learn that we are one of the few species compatible with merfolk to mate and breed with. This, of course, explains why we are so particularly susceptible to their charms. Not very awesome for humans, I note, considering that they are also predators who historically don’t have a problem with eating us. I suppose that makes us their natural targets in more than one way.
The fact that a merman has been wandering around town is a tiny bit disconcerting. Not because I’m afraid of people being eaten—that seems like a little too much effort when there’s plenty of food available right there in the sea—but if they are coming on land looking to breed there’s reason to be wary. More specifically, the danger of males looking for easier breeding partners among females on land. According to this book, though mermen are susceptible to the song of the females of their species, mermaids are immune to the song of the males. Not very fair, but I guess that means no mermaid risks being assaulted by a male of her own species. That, of course, makes humans and other species easier targets than mermaids for mermen. Is there a male out there right now mate-hunting? If so, that could potentially be concerning for our little town.
I’m wondering where the violence comes into mating, and if that’s something I need to warn Adiele about, when I turn the page and feel the blood drain out of my face as I begin to read. The book describes the mating process in detail, but thankfully there is nothing that I can see being risky to humans when it comes to mermen. While mermaids have been known to steal sailors from capsized ships, mermaids who wish to mate among their own species sing so that they draw large numbers of nearby males to them with their magic—and into direct competition with each other. A very dangerous sort of competition too. Not only are mermen pretty, but they are also highly aggressive. Interested mermen partners engage in combat that fills the water with their drawn blood—all for a chance to be chosen by her.
My brows creep up as I continue reading. It seems almost indecent, like I’m reading something particularly illicit in public, as the book explains how, once she chooses her preferred male, he pins her to him—literally. He wraps his arms around her torso, and barbs protract from his arms into her skin so that he injects her body with a chemical that makes her receptive to his seed. Without it, even a female of their own species can go into shock when exposed to his semen. He also pins her in place with his teeth so that she doesn’t move and cause herself pain or injury from his barbs. The penis extrudes, and he wraps his tail around her to tie her to him as they copulate. As potentially uncomfortable as it sounds, I can’t help but feel more than a little fascinated by it.
I’m flushed by the time I finish reading the chapter, and my entire body is washed with a tingle of desire. Shaking my head, I set the book aside. Better to stop now if this book is having the opposite effect than what I intended. It’s not entirely appropriate for work either. I think I’ve learned enough to decide that there probably isn’t any immediate danger since it seems that the initial mating needs to be in water. Hopefully any sane woman will work out what she’s getting into before actually getting into the water with him. I can mention it to Adiele just in case, but I don’t think it’s something to panic about, thank goodness. With a sigh of relief, I stow it away to return it to the restricted section later.
I don’t exactly need to read more when I have no intention of getting into the water with a merman. I mentally tell my aroused body to behave as I get up to find another task that needs seeing to. Perhaps the alchemy section. The nature and property of plants and implementing their use is a large part of it. I know my cousin Fran has a particular interest in magical and medicinal plants and sells them to other witches and in little remedies, but I’m more fascinated with the way the different properties can be purified and combined to create powerful potions of a strictly occult nature. My thoughts drift pleasantly along this subject matter, glad to be distracted from the subject of mermen and their mating. There is little traffic today, so I’m able to pull a few books on the subject and peruse them to my pleasure during my break. I move on to occupy myself by putting in orders for some book loan requests that have come in. By the time I’m done there is a large stack of returns that need to be scanned back into the system, and I’m grateful for the busy work.
I’m about three-quarters of the way through the pile when the bell over the door clangs, and I look up from my work to peer at the couple stepping through the door. My eyebrows fly up in surprise when I see that it is Adiele. Not because she’s with a mind-numbingly beautiful stranger—though I am a little horrified and intrigued by the sudden hot rush of desire I feel when he steps in after her—but because with a business to run, she rarely comes by.
Unfortunately, I’m distracted enough by Adiele’s new friend to be too curious as to why she’s there. I blink once and then gasp when his magic unexpectedly rolls over me, threading around and through my own power. It is just shy of invasive with how its impact ripples through me, and just that quickly, I’m unable to pull my eyes off him even as something deep within me sends up red flags in alarm. The alarm doesn’t make it through the heavy allure that pulls at me insistently as my gaze eagerly devours him. Six and a half feet tall, or a little more, and built with miles of beautiful lean, athletic muscles, on the surface he’s every grown woman’s wet dream. My breath stutters out of my lungs as my eyes run over his sculpted abs and chest, wishing that I could use my tongue to follow those perfect lines. Every inch of him is built for lethal power and speed.
And definitely not human.
It’s not his complexion, which is the color of flawless marble, that gives him away. It’s in the tiny details. It’s the faint iridescent scaled pattern to his skin that catches tiny rainbows of light, the thick mass of iridescent pearl white hair that no dye job can even get close to faking. And the way the bones of his hands are long and strong, each finger slightly webbed and tipped with a small black claw honed to a razor-sharp edge. He is clearly as potentially dangerous as he is beautiful. And as physically powerful as he is elegant. For all that his build doesn’t appear bulky, he is easily twice my size. The graceful column of his neck is corded with muscle, the lines of it drawing the path of my vision up to beautifully ridged webbed ears. His lips are beautifully sculpted, his cheekbones are high and prominent. Yes, without a doubt, he’s a gorgeous male. Especially his eyes, which are such an unworldly shade of aquamarine that they are like two chips of stone glowing with the vibrant force of his life.
Eyes that suddenly pin me. I stare back at him, and something pricks at my mind, warning me to look away but I can’t. Awareness slams through me with the knowledge of exactly what I’m looking at when his throat pulses and a sound rolls over me as he begins to “sing.”
“Oh, damn!” Adiele immediately sidles away from her companion, casting a wary look between the two of us.
Fuck me.