Chapter 24
Troy
AS IT TURNED OUT, I had missed the computer cave. There was satellite internet hooked up. It took forever to load but load it did.
Now, I could check the news to see if anything about Dylan or the traffickers was circulating, and I hit the jackpot right here in our magical little town. Someone recorded the naga running out of the storefront screaming his head off. It might’ve had something to do with the swarm of killer bees chasing him.
The bewildered reporter wondered how the killer bees even came to be here. Whynot wasn’t their usual buzzing grounds. Then she went on asking why there was an entire swarm of them living in the wall of the storefront, and no one had noticed it until now. Finally, she asked the most important question, who was the man running from the bees and how had he ended up inside an empty store that was locked? He certainly hadn’t gotten permission to be there.
The answer to all three was simple: the place was cursed.
Now that he had been caught breaking and entering, the naga got arrested. Hopefully, they’d hold him for a while, but in case they decided B&E wasn’t a big enough deal, I checked who the judge was.
I grinned when I saw the name. Moira Ainsley was an old friend of mine, but more importantly, she was friends with Eirlys. Her grandma was a selkie, although Moira herself never inherited the beast side. Still, she hated traffickers with a passion.
I emailed her, letting her know what the naga thug was really doing in Whynot. After that, I didn’t need to ask her to keep him locked up. She would dedicate all her extra energy to digging up every connection the asshole had, so she could toss him and as many of his associates as she could in jail.
With my spirits lifted a little, I went to check on Kiora. She had fallen asleep in the water after her fourth orgasm. The hot spring was relaxing, and it’s not like she could drown, so I had left her there. Still, I didn’t want to walk away for too long. Something kept me on edge, telling me our fragile paradise bubble could pop at any moment.
She still lay with her head and torso on the rock and her fluke in the water. If only I could sleep that easily, but my old friend insomnia always visited me when I was stressed, and I was really fucking stressed.
Come to think of it, she was sleeping more than I would’ve expected. Was it the altitude?
Leaving her to rest, I went to the mouth of the cave and tried to reach Dylan again. As my phone gained a signal, I found two texts from my best friend and one from Eirlys, informing me that everything had worked out well.
I hit the call button out of habit, forgetting how bad the signal was out here, but luck remained on my side and the call connected without a problem.
“Hey,” Dylan’s excited voice came from the other side. “We got them. Officer Falls helped us set up a trap, so when they attacked us, he was there with the whole crew.”
Officer Falls was an old friend. He had helped us the first time we tried to get Kiora, back when her father had tried to sell her. We had saved quite a few people that day, but Kiora had already vanished.
“I found your daughter,” I said, the most important part in case the signal got screwy again.
Dylan went silent for two full seconds. “Is she okay? Wait, I’m putting you on speaker.”
A moment later, Eirlys was on the line, too, with a cheery, “hello.”
“He found Kiora,” Dylan said to her.
“She’s okay. That’s actually who those assholes were after.”
A whoosh of air was the only answer, then Eirlys’s whispered chant. “She’s okay. She’s okay. She’s okay.”
“She’s a flight risk,” I said calmly, hoping more information would help with the shock of finally finding Kiora, but I addressed Dylan instead of his wife because she sounded like she might lose it any minute. “I need Eirlys here to talk to Kiora. I think she might bolt if anyone else tries talking to her about it.”
“Why didn’t you tell us sooner?” Dylan asked with a note of accusation.
“I didn’t recognize her at first, and by the time I was certain it was her, the traffickers were in town. When I asked you to lead them away, she was right there with me in the area where she still could’ve made a run for it. I probably would’ve caught her, but why take chances? Besides, I didn’t want her to run into a fucking kraken.”
“Yeah, sorry. It makes sense. I just...” Dylan took deep breaths. “What’s she like?”
I smiled, and it was equal parts happy and sad. Happy because she was absolutely amazing and sad because Dylan still had never met his own daughter.
“She’s a lot like her mom. You’ll love her.” And I said it, I realized that I already loved my little mermaid. I had the hots for her since the first time I saw her picture, but that had been a purely physical reaction. Seeing her stand her ground and not take shit from anyone? That’s what really did me in.
The phone crackled as the connection started to fade. Did I move or something? Damn it.
“Losing connection here,” I warned.
“We’ll be there as soon as we can,” Dylan said right as the static cut him off.
Soon. They’d get here soon, and we would explain everything to Kiora. Then Dylan would probably kill me. Oh, who was I kidding? Eirlys would get to me first. She was vicious, especially when it came to Kiora’s safety.
I could still remember the broken look in her eyes when she had gotten away from Billy—the fear and anger when she had found out what he had planned for Kiora—his blood on her as she killed him.
Kiora needed to know this version of her mom. She needed to know there were people in her life who’d do that for her.
I stuffed the phone in my pocket and went to check on my girl again. She was in the same position as before, but she had legs now. Must’ve shifted in her sleep.
Why was she sleeping so much?
I knew everything there was to know about mers, and I couldn’t come up with a good reason. Maybe there was something that would cause it in selkies?
I returned to the computer room and started searching for an answer. My initial suspicion that it might be the altitude didn’t pan out. It actually did the opposite for selkies and mers alike, giving us insomnia.
Stress made selkies more reckless, or courageous, as some sources put it. There were various illnesses that could cause it, but Kiora seemed otherwise healthy. Pregnancy would only cause fatigue in the second trimester, so unless she had gotten pregnant a while ago, it wouldn’t be it.
Finally, I found a reference to the second birth that only occurred in half selkies born away from the water in an unsafe environment. They would typically not have a seal skin at birth to protect themselves from falling victim, but the beast was there, planted inside them.
On rare occasions, if the animal nature was strong enough and allowed to flourish, a selkie would have a second birth where her seal skin would appear. Before the second birth, however, selkies tended to sleep more to gain the energy needed for the process.
Interesting. Her appetite had been great, too. We’d already gone through most of the fish. I should ask Azar to bring more.