Authors: Judi Fennell

Catch of a Lifetime (27 page)

BOOK: Catch of a Lifetime

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Worry fueled her. What had compelled Michael to get on the back of a hammerhead? Was he still alive?

She kicked harder and saw a pod of dolphin heading toward her from the east. Good. Dolphins were Human friendly. They'd help her.

And then she saw who it was.

"Princess!" the head of her brother's Council Guards called out. "Your presence is requested in Atlantis—"

She didn't slow down. "Captain Brackmann, tell my brother I'll be there as soon as I can, but I have a job to finish first."

She was in trouble anyway; what was another infrac tion? She wasn't going to leave Michael out here. She was his only hope.

The dolphin swam up beside her. "I'm sorry, Your Highness, but my orders are to bring you in."

It was futile to argue. The Council Guards were trained to obey one commander and one commander only—the High Councilman. Her brother. Who could be one stubborn Mer and had a huge shell on his shoulder about her doing this in the first place. But she couldn't leave Michael.

She also couldn't outswim a pod of highly trained dolphins.

And then she remembered the final test all Council Guards must undergo before being accepted into their current positions: dolphin swim encounters with Humans. Her father had implemented those surveillance squads
selinos
ago. That training would bolster her argu ment—as would the fact that dolphins hated sharks.

"All right, Captain, but there's a Human child in jeopardy with a hammerhead up ahead. I want to save him. A
child
, Captain. We can't let the shark kill him."

The dolphin studied her.

"Really. Come with me to see for yourself."

The dolphin studied her some more, all the while keeping pace with her. "Fine. We don't need the balance upset any more than it already is. We'll follow you."

"Good. Let's go." Angel kicked her tail harder, and the captain whistled. Within seconds, all ten cetaceans were lined up behind her in perfect V formation.

The shark, whoever he was, was in serious trouble.

Chapter 33

A.C. WAS IN SOME SERIOUS SHIT.

"Ah, A.C. We meet again." Ceto swirled her finger in the water, and the whirlpool circled him closer to her, and, ironically, that stupid hat closer to him. "And
who
do we have here?"

"Do you know Angel?" the kid asked, leaning off to get his damn hat.

"Pipe down, kid." A.C. tried swimming backwards, but the current was too strong. So,
yes, he'd planne
d to eat the kid, but at least he'd make the death quick. Painless even. Well, after that first bite. But Ceto? She was known for stretching torture out over eons. No one deserved that.

"I do know her, child," Ceto answered, her tails seeming not to move at all. Yet somehow she was closer despite A.C.'s attempts to get away. "Who are you?"

"I'm Michael." The lucky S-O-B actually got the hat
and
managed to stay on A.C.'s back. "I want to see Angel. She promised she wouldn't leave me, but she did."

A smirk settled on Ceto's lips as she met A.C.'s gaze. "Altruism, darling? How unlike you."

A.C. thought about playing it tough but knew he didn't have a prayer of getting away from her —not that he'd prayed in a long, long time, rest Mama's dear, departed, speared-by-a-Human heart.

There was only one way to deal with Ceto. Pander. At this point, he just wanted to get out of here with his life. "Yeah, well, you know… It's a kid. What are you gonna do?"

"Yes. That is the question, isn't it?" Ceto slapped the surface of the water, and a bloom of jellyfish rose around her.

A.C. rolled his eyes. Ouch. That portside eye still stung.

Just like the jellyfish.

He stopped the eye-rolling.

"I'll just relieve you of your burden, A.C. I'm sure you'd be much happier back in the depths. The sun does awful things to a shark's skin, I'm told." She wiggled her fingers at the largest jellyfish closest to her. "Concord, my majordomo, will escort you." She smiled at the kid. "Come here, child."

A long jellyfish tentacle snaked through the water, up under A.C.'s belly, then once around his tail.

Then another, this one circling in the other direction.

For the first time ever, A.C. wanted to stay on the surface. Knowing Ceto, if he went down, he'd never see the light of day again.

He tried another tactic. "Look, Ceto, the kid's mine. I'm sure we can come to some kind of reasonable ar rangement if you get your henchfish to let go." He swung from side to side, but the tentacles held firm.

"But that would call for me to
be
reasonable, and whoever said I was?" She twirled her finger in a circle, and the
cnidaria
started winching his tentacle in—along with A.C. "As a matter of fact, I distinctly recall a time you told me I was most
un
reasonable."

Damn him and his stupid shoot-off-at-the-mouth youth. He'd
had
to pick Ceto to challenge. It was amaz ing he was alive to be terrified of her.

And with good fucking reason.

His days were numbered.

***

Ceto lifted Michael off the idiot's back, encouraged to see there was no fear in the child's brown eyes. Not black like hers, but close enough. She wanted to pull him into her arms and hug him. Brush her lips across his forehead, stroke his hair, and hold him to her. It'd been so long since she'd held a child.

The Council and their foul rules. None of them knew what it meant to be the bearer of life. Not a single one. Yet they took that from her…

She'd never forgive them. All she'd ever wanted was to have a child in her life.

Michael was going to be that child.

He hadn't screamed when he saw her, proof that he was the one for her. Once she showed him where he'd live for the rest of his life, in a castle, surrounded by tropical fish and warm gentle waters, he'd be excited to stay with her.

"Hello, Michael."

"Hello. Where's Angel?"

Angel. Fisher's princess. The hope of Humankind, if the new Mer ruler's latest venture was to be believed.

And this Human wanted her.

It made Ceto sick to her stomach. The Mer was fully capable of bearing her own young. Angel didn't need this one. Ceto was going to make sure he wanted to stay here with her.

"Oh, I'm sure Angel will be along shortly. In the meantime, why don't you wait with me in my castle?"

Like sundial-work, the boy's eyes lit up. Didn't mat ter the race or the species, you offer someone life in a castle, and you got that same reaction.

"Oh, cool! Can I?" He kicked his legs in his excite ment, one foot catching her in the rib.

Uncouth. You'd never see a Mer child doing that. Well, not that they had feet, but she'd never been kicked by a tail. He'd learn. They had lots of time.

"You certainly can." She pulled him close, unable to help herself, and brought her lips to his temple and her fingertips to his mouth, transferring the ability to breathe water into him in a way that wouldn't work with adults.

He smelled like a child. It'd been so long since she'd experienced such softness and scent…

"Where is it? The castle? All I see is water." Michael squirmed in her arms, and Ceto smiled against his hair.

"Close your eyes, Michael, and I'll take you to it."

"Don't do it!" A.C. whipped back and forth at the end of his tether, gnashing his teeth so hard some of them fell out. "You can't touch him! The Human's mine! Mine!"

Ceto flicked her fingers at Concord. He'd know what to do with the troublemaker.

She turned then so Michael wouldn't see Concord subdue the shark for transport to her dungeon. She circled her finger in the water, creating the funnel that would send the shark and the jellyfishes back to her home. They all disappeared with a soft sucking sound.

"Where's Mr. Shark going?" Michael asked, his eyes still closed as an obedient child's should be.

"He'll be joining us in the castle, but we'll go there a different way."

Conscious. Unlike the shark. He'd be lucky to make it to her home alive. Concord's venom could be deadly if not administered properly.

Ceto calmed her whirlpool before lowering them both beneath the surface. Oh, dear. She did so hope A.C. didn't receive an accidental overdose. She chuckled. No loss if he did.

"We'll all visit the castle together. Doesn't that sound lovely?" She patted the child's head, loving the fact that he was comfortable with her, when so many others hadn't been.

That proved it. He was hers.

Michael reached up to twist his hat across his fore head, then back, his lips going in opposite directions, but he still didn't open his eyes, the dear thing. Such a special child.

"I dunno. I'm not apposed to go with strangers."

Oh yes he
was
supposed to. "But I'm not a stranger, remember? I know Angel. We'll have fun. You'll see." Ceto picked up her speed and set off toward her second favorite palace.

"But how will Angel know where I am? I don't know where she went. I wanna find her."

It'd be a cold day in the tropics before that happened. This one was hers. Let Angel make her own.

But Ceto had to get him to her lair. Then he'd see. She'd give him everything. "I know where she lives. I'll send a message to her. How's that?"

He wrapped his little arms around her neck and squeezed. His hat bumped her chin and drifted off in her wake. "It's cooool! Hey! My hat—wow! We're under the water! And I'm not drowning. Cool!"

It definitely was cool. And a gift—one most defi nitely
not
from the gods, but, surprisingly, from Harry. She owed him.

"I can breathe?" Michael's little face looked very perplexed.

Ceto soothed a hand over his hair because a mother should soothe her child. "Yes, you can. Because you're a very special boy."

"Rainbow used to say that. Angel, too."

Ceto didn't know who Rainbow was, but Angel wasn't getting him back.

If he was so special to her, she shouldn't have left him the first place.

Chapter 34

SEEING LOGAN'S MIRA-MAR RACING THROUGH THE WATER off to the northwest, Angel adjusted her angle of ap proach accordingly. Boats traveled faster than she could ever hope to swim so she didn't want to undershoot in tercepting him.

"Captain, can you have one of your pod flag Logan down to let him know I'm here and ask him to stop?"

"Are you sure, princess? Having a dolphin break the Rule of Speech is a serious infraction."

As if that mattered with her list of felonies. "I'm sure."

The captain eyed her a bit longer, then whistled the order to the pod. One sleek, gray body dropped low, then sped off as the rest of them continued skimming the waves toward the boat, matching their speed to hers.

Angel was getting tired, but nothing was going to stop her from saving Michael. Why had he gone with a shark? Why had Logan let him? What had any of them been thinking?

A few minutes later, Logan's boat slowed. She hoped Logan was as receptive to her as he had been to the messenger.

He was waiting when she surfaced near the back of the boat. "What in the hell are you doing here, Angel?"

"I heard about Michael."

"Funny thing—so did I. From a talking flamingo. What do you have to say about that?"

"I'd say, thank the gods for Ginger and her nosy, fat beak, or we wouldn't have a clue where Michael was. Now, are you going to let me on board so we can find him, or do you want to waste valuable time arguing?"

"The only reason I'm doing this is so you can fix the mess you've created." He shoved the door open so hard it smashed into the boat behind it.

Angel caught it before it could do more damage on the rebound. There'd been enough destruction going around. She kicked her tail and landed back on the deck where everything had started, then closed the door.

It all looked so familiar.

If only she hadn't decided to stay.

If only she hadn't followed them in the first place.

If only Rod had given her the damn interview.

She hiked herself onto one of the pull-down benches on the side of the boat, willing the stabbing ache in her heart to subside. Would have, could have, should have… nothing would change the fact that Michael was at the mercy of a shark, and his only hope was her and Logan working together.

Logan did his part by heading back onto the bridge and firing up the motors.

Captain Brackmann breached next to her amid the churning water. "I'm trusting you, Princess." The dol phin dove into the water, then kicked out of it again. "Turn yourself in once you've recovered the child."

"I will," Angel called as the dolphin fell back when the boat picked up speed.

"You will what?" Logan turned around to ask, his eyes straying to her tail.

She couldn't blame him, but even though she understood Human curiosity, it just made her feel so… well…
studied. A specimen. Not like the woman he'
d made love to—

Then again, she wasn't the woman he'd made love to, was she?

And hadn't she been studying him when she first arrived?

She shook her head. "Something I have to do for our ruler."

"You have a ruler?"

BOOK: Catch of a Lifetime

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