Chapter 16
Troy
ONE LITTLE PROBLEM with my escape plan was my boat. I couldn’t just leave it where it was. Those assholes would find it in no time, and they’d start looking in the surrounding area. I needed them gone.
As soon as we got to the chamomile field, I pulled out my phone and placed a call that would hopefully help me get rid of the mobsters. Dylan had served in the navy with me, so he’d know what to do if things went belly up.
It took him forever to answer, and when he did, it was with a gruff, “What the fuck do you want?”
I must’ve interrupted his and Eirlys’s love fest.
“Sorry, but this is important. We got supes traffickers snooping around, and I need you to lead them away from Whynot.”
“Keep talking,” he said, all anger replaced by a tense concentration on the task ahead.
“I left it at Dead Man’s Rocks. They saw me leaving the docks, so they’re probably going to come looking for it. If they don’t, make sure you get their attention. And keep that wife of yours safe. If they hear there’s a rescued selkie in town, they might think she’s one of their victims.”
“Have you met my wife?”
He had a point. The last time we told her to stay put, she shifted into her seal form and snuck onto the boat filled with traffickers.
“Okay, take her with you, but be ready to bail. The supes snooping around are all water folks, and there’s a kraken with them.”
“Shit.” He stayed quiet for a second as the information sank in. “You know who they’re after?”
“Yeah, but I’ll tell you later.” As in, when Mira wasn’t right there listening. I had to find a way to explain it to her first.
How would I even explain it? She was such a flight risk that she might try to off me the moment I mentioned anything about knowing her parents.
No, What I needed was to get Eirlys to explain it. If Mira—Kiora—saw her mom outside the house she had been trapped in, she might actually listen.
Dylan’s next words came through muffled, as if he covered his phone. “Get your sexy ass dressed. We’re going to do something reckless and dangerous, just the way you like it.”
I wasn't going to listen to my best friend talking dirty to his wife, so I hung up. Just in time, too, as Azar appeared above the tree line and swooped down, his claws out to grip the ground. Mira squealed and darted farther away from Azar’s path.
She must not have seen a lot of dragons in their beast form. Where would she? She had grown up around humans, and then she was on the run.
Azar landed softly, but his massive body still sent a ripple through the delicate flowers. In his giant paw was Mira’s hiking backpack. He must’ve grabbed it before coming here.
Without bothering to shift into his human form to talk to us, Azar extended his wing to help us onto his back.
“There’s no harness,” Mira pointed out. No, not Mira. Her name was Kiora. I had to get it through my thick skull that she was the girl I’d been looking for this whole time.
“You can hold on to me,” I offered.
“And what are you going to be holding onto?”
“I’ll be holding onto hope that if we fall, Azar will catch us.”
That didn’t seem to reassure Kiora in the slightest. Still, she climbed on, and I followed, but instead of me sitting in the front and Kiora holding onto me, I chose to get behind her. That way, if the flight wasn’t as smooth as I hoped, I could cover Kiora’s body with my own. Not that it would help if we fell.
Azar shifted his body back and forth until we fell into better positions, then he pushed up and started to beat his wings, lifting us higher and higher.
Suddenly, I knew exactly why mer people hated flying. Flying sucked. The chilly wind ripped at us, stealing our breath in an already oxygen-depleted atmosphere.
I pushed Kiora down and covered her with my body, even though there was no physical danger. I just wanted to shield her from the wind and keep her warm.
Kiora let out a pitiful sound. Relatable. I could keep a straight face and not show that heights bothered me, but being so high up that the trees below us turned into a green blanket was abso-fucking-lutely terrifying. And yeah, the whole no harness thing wasn’t helping.
It took an eternity for us to reach the mountain, or so it felt. When Azar landed at the mouth of the cave, I felt like I had run a marathon from how hard I had been flexing my legs to stay on his back.
“Kiora, are you okay?” I asked because my little mermaid was still gripping Azar’s neck even though we had landed.
“No,” she ground out.
“You can let go now. We’re on solid ground.”
She shook her head. Azar’s whole body shook with the dragon’s version of a laugh. He could laugh all he wanted. I would’ve liked to have seen his reaction to being underwater.
Instead of letting Kiora calm down in her own time, Azar shifted back into his very naked human form. Kiora screeched, jumped off him and hid behind me, her face in my back so she wouldn’t see more than she bargained for.
“You mers are funny,” Azar announced.
“Remind me to take you diving next time I go,” I answered. “No scuba diving equipment, obviously.”
“Sure, why not. Dragons are reptiles, you know. We like water.”
Oh, right. I miscalculated that one.
“Get your pants on, lizard brain. You’re scaring my girl with your snake.”
Azar flipped me off and went deeper into the cave where he found a pair of shorts and a shirt to throw on.
“It’s safe to look,” I told Kiora.
“Please, tell me we don’t have to fly again to get off this mountain,” Kiora whined. Poor girl.
“You can climb down,” Azar told her. “I have all the equipment here.”
Mira made another pitiful sound but nodded. “Flying sounds great. We can definitely fly.”
Azar laughed again. When he was finally...finally done laughing at our expense, he led us into the cave. “Well, if it makes you feel better, there’s a hot spring inside, so you can get your flukes wet.
As a matter of fact, I started feeling better the moment I stepped into the main part of the cave. It was massive with ceilings going up to twenty feet high in some places. Lights hung all around, and the two sectionals made it feel like I could actually live here. I just needed to forget how high up the mountain we were.
“Wow. The flight was almost worth seeing this place,” Kiora said, her head on a swivel as she took everything in.
“It’s my family’s hunting cave, but we rarely use it these days,” Azar explained. “Come on, the bedrooms are this way.”
He led us to a series of smaller caves connected to the main one. Each bedroom looked as amazing as the living room but more compact and with king-size beds. Plenty of room for me and Kiora to... No, I wasn’t going there. I wouldn’t drag my little mermaid to bed. She was my best friend’s daughter, for wave’s sake.
“And the bathing cave is this way. Watch your head for stalactites.”
Azar led us into the next cave that was the size of my living room. In the middle was a rock formation with water running from the top and bubbling in the pool below.
“You know what? The flight was definitely worth it,” Mira said, eying the pool like she wanted to jump right in.
“I’ll let my uncle know you approve. It’s his design,” Azar answered, then pointed with his thumb toward the exit. “I’ll go get you food. We don’t keep this place stocked because we just hunt our food.”
“Thanks. I owe you.”
Azar waved me away. “The things I do for apple charlotte.”
He was so full of it. The guy was loaded, thanks to his family. If it really was about the dessert, he would’ve gotten it himself. No, what he wanted was the experience of spying on someone.