Chapter 4
ELENA PIERSON
“Watch your step. Some of the path is still slick, aye?” Lachlan says once we reach a set of double doors that I assume leads outside.
“I’ll be careful,” I reply, enjoying the way the sunshine warms my face as he leads us out of doors. The sky is deep blue with puffy clouds, and the view is breathtaking.
Whatever exit we’ve taken leads to a large stone path that seems to wrap around the castle, and I can just make out the lazy moat that surrounds it in the distance.
“Wow, I didn’t know this was back here,” I say.
I spent several hours before getting on the plane researching the castle. But none of this was in any of the photos, or any of the guest ones I managed to find on the internet. “It’s beautiful.”
“Aye, it is. It’s a lot prettier when the rains haven’t flattened everything,” he replies.
The closer we get to the water, I see what he means. The grass and flowers dotting the small patches of ground look like they’ve been battered by the downpour. I’ve read about the torrential rains that come across Romania in the spring, but wasn’t expecting this kind of weather so close to summer.
I’ll be lucky if any of my samples made it through the night. “I hope my backpack is okay,” I mutter, hoping some of my more important supplies aren’t floating somewhere, along with my passport.
If I don’t have that, how will I get home?
“It’s safe. Connor brought it inside last night,” Lachlan says, making me feel a bit better.
I study his broad back in a glance, how he almost prowls as he walks, as if he’s in no hurry.
I smile to myself, remembering how Dad used to make choo choo noises as I’d run through the house as a kid, unable to ever walk sedately anywhere.
“So, what were you doing swimming in the moat anyway?” I ask.
He quirks one red brow at me from over his shoulder and smiles, causing my stomach to do that funny flip flop again.
“You tell me your secrets and I’ll tell you mine. What is this?” he asks, easily bending by the bank to pick up one of the sample kits I left last night.
I blush at the insinuation I’ve secrets to tell, and quickly try to align my thoughts to leave out. “I was trying to take a sample around the moat to see what properties are found in the soil. The data will tell me how well the population of beetles are thriving in it,” I try to explain.
“Is that why you’ve the net just there?”
Lachlan points to the farther bank where my D net lays half in the water, obviously pushed there by the swell of the rain last night.
“You’ve the least polluted natural waterway of any other in the world here, at least I think you do, and I just wanted to sample and see if I’m right.
No toxins and pollutants like what impact other natural estuaries around the world have occurred here.
With the castle sitting at such a high elevation, it could be the freshest source of untouched water, which is why I tried to get here before the owners decided to drain it and put in a pool,” I say, attempting to keep my expression neutral.
Anyone who’d do something so wasteful as turn this beautiful place into a chlorine-filled splash pad is a complete dipshit. Although I’d never call Aubrey or Vlad that to their faces. They truly seem nice enough.
“Ah I see, and have you always been this interested in wee beasties this way? Traveling around the world to take a sample of some mud water, all for a beetle?”
It’s the genuine interest in his tone that has me wanting to explain for once instead of becoming offended by the question.
I’ve been trying to push the subject of sampling a fresher water system to compare it to the watersheds back home for years, but like in most jobs, men, especially men who’re supposed to be my superiors, don’t like to admit when women are right.
“Natural swamps and wetlands are nature’s Brita filter.
If I can show data on a thriving ecosystem, I can prove what we need to create healthier riverbeds and estuaries where factories have polluted in the past. I think something is potentially missing that could help reverse the effects faster, and I think it could make a difference. ”
“Where do they make women like you?” he asks.
The question lands like a compliment and I’m suddenly bashful. “Massachusetts,” I reply, starting to wish I didn’t turn a tomatoey red every time this man speaks, but he looks at me like I’m something he’s never seen before, and oddly, I don’t dislike the attention.
A huge smile spreads across his face and a resulting bubbly sensation fills my heart.
“Ah, America. Well then, by all means let’s get the lady her phone back,” he says.
Before I can ask how he means to find it, my jaw drops the same time his pants do.
“What are you doing?” I stammer out.
He grins in response and his left brow arches, making him look rakishly handsome just as he whisks his gray shirt over his head.
My jaw unhinges further as the giant man shucks his pants off and comes to stand in front of me wearing only a pair of heart-covered black swim trunks and his smile.
“Will you hold onto these please?” he asks, handing me his still warm jeans and t-shirt neatly folded.
I blink, unable to respond as I hug them to my chest and watch as he bounds toward the water’s edge.
Lachlan swan dives, a move that would win the gold at any Olympics, into the moat with barely a splash of water. What the hell?
I stand there staring stupefied a moment before my brow crinkles in disgust. What am I doing? Gah. The first attractive male I find after leaving my small town, and I’m cancelling my plans just to stare at him like some sex-starved woman in need of a man. Ugh.
Snap out of it, Elena.
I glance where I last recall taking a sample last night, and notice the tree I squatted under, looking for any sign of plastic in the mud, but don’t see anything.
I was hoping my phone had landed near the bank where I fell in last night, because if it didn’t, it’ll take hours to find it in the moat. I may just need to ask if someone could let me borrow one long enough to check in with Natalie and let her know my travel’s been delayed a bit.
“Got it,” Lachlan suddenly shouts.
I gasp. “How did you ever find it!?” I smile, excited I’ll at least have a way to call home.
I remember how just last month I helped Andrew, my older brother, with putting his phone on rice, and it worked just fine.
“Thank you! I sincerely can’t thank you enough.
Saving my life truly,” I tell him, my smile falling as my gaze fixates on his bare chest.
Each step he takes brings more of the tiny freckles dotting the wide expanse of muscles that cover most of his body into view, making my mouth water.
I give my head a shake and bite the inside of my cheek hard to keep from blushing again like a lunatic. Focus, Elena, and just give the man his clothes back.
But in my haste to get his clothes back in his possession, my bootheel hits soft mud and I slip, the ground rising up to meet me. I brace for an impact that never comes, and instead squeal at the sensation of wet cold water slapping at my thighs and butt out of nowhere.
“Eeeeep!” I yell, somehow still holding his pants and shirt above me.
“Are you alright?” he says, his voice full of panic and worry.
“I’m okay,” I reply, my brows furrowing as I watch the water seep back to the moat’s edge. What the heck?
I turn back to Lachlan to ask if he saw the water rise up to catch me like that too, and yelp in surprise.
His fucking ears are fins.
A scream climbs in my throat as I rear back, tossing his clothes every which way as I scramble to my feet.
Lachlan’s face goes pale, his eyes widening as he searches me over like something’s wrong with me. “What is it, lass?” he asks, his voice full of worry.
I stare on, wondering if he possibly doesn’t know he’s got blue-green fish fins for ears. “Your ears,” I say, shakily pointing to the fish-like things.
He stops as he reaches my side, his brow furrowing, and I extend my hand to comfort him at the same moment he goes to check what I mean. The instant I touch him, his ears transform to normal. I’m left stupefied.
My palms go to my face as I gasp, and he turns to me in confusion. “Don’t come any closer,” I say, holding my hands out when he starts toward me, unsure of just what is going on.
His cheery grin falters, and I don’t miss the look of hurt that passes over his expression. “I’m sorry lass. I didn’t mean to frighten you, are you alright?” he asks, looking me over to see what’s wrong.
Just as the dark red brows on his face scrunch down along his forehead at me, his left hand turns a deep blueish green color, complete with claws.
“What the heck is happening to you?!” I cry out.
He glances down at his hand finally and his face washes white, as if the blood really is leaving his body. He looks at me then back down at his arm and starts screaming. “Ahhhhh, it won’t go back! It won’t go back,” he yells, flexing his hand.
I take a cautious step back as he begins to pace, holding his hand in front of him like it’s foreign to him. The more agitated he becomes, the more wild his body seems to react. His ears sprout back to fins, and scales appear in patches along his shoulders.
Oh my god. Mermen are real.
A large green tail erupts from the black of his swim trunks. I gape, transfixed and horrified in the moment, not knowing how to help as emotions collide within me.
“Shit. What happened?” Whitley asks, suddenly appearing from a stone doorway near the rear path.
“I don’t know,” I blurt, watching his tail whip through the air.
Lachlan’s back stiffens before he folds inwardly on himself. He holds his face in his hands and shakes his head back and forth. “I didn’t want to show you this way. I wanted time for you to get to know me,” he says through his palms.
I blink in confusion, unsure of how to respond to that.
He lifts his head and gives me a sheepish look. “I didn’t even get the bloody chance to tell her,” he says, looking past me to the castle chef.
“I see that, Lachlan,” Whitley says, her tone sad.
“What the hell is going on?” I ask no one in particular.
Aubrey, Vlad, and Connor, along with a redheaded woman who seems oddly familiar, although I know I’ve not met her yet, stand near the castle walkway, probably coming to investigate Lachlan’s screams.
“Elena, there’s something I must confess to you,” he says solemnly.
“Okay?”
Seconds pass. I can’t move. I can’t speak. My breath catches on a sharp inhale, my heart thundering in my ears as I try to take in what he’s saying while he walks toward me like I’m the wild animal.
He puts his broad palms up, his expression pleading as he nears me.
The closer he gets, the louder the buzzing in my ears. It crackles, drowning out everything else as an indescribable feeling begins to tingle through my limbs.
A wave of protectiveness comes over me when Lachlan gives me a sloppy smile on his way to me, and suddenly I’m tipsier than the one time I let Collin talk me into six shots on my twenty-fourth birthday. A deep warmth settles low in my gut, and I fight to stay lucid.
“Did you hear me, lass?” he asks, in that thick husky brogue that sends chills up my spine.
“I said, I’m the Loch Ness monster.”
“Come again?” I ask, knowing I must have heard him wrong.
“I’m not really the pool boy. I’m the Loch Ness monster,” he says, holding his scaly hand out for me to see.
I glance back at everyone else, to see them standing idly watching.
How peculiar. I note how his claws look sort of like an alligator but larger, much larger, and his fingers are still jointed and humanoid-shaped.
Tiny webbing forms between the spaces of his fingers while I watch.
I reach out to touch one to see if it’s as soft as it looks, and instantly human skin covers his body.
Oh my god. I flinch back, having never witnessed anything like this in my life.
He removes his hand from my arm and frowns as the scales return slowly.
“When you fell into the moat last night, you set me free, Elena. I’d been locked there under the castle for a very long time, until you,” he says, tucking a stray blonde hair behind my ear and giving me a smile that would stop traffic in most cities.
“You fell in and broke the curse holding me here.”
First they give you butterflies, then mental health issues.