Page 16 of The Scent of Salt & Sand

“Anything sound good?”

Startled, she shook her head quickly. “I haven’t looked yet. Sorry.” She flipped back to the first page of entrees. “Seafood,” she whispered. Yearning for a plate of salty kelp, or a bowl brimming with seaweed, her stomach growled in response as she perused the options. Pan-seared scallops. Her eyes again flicked up to Dean, who was calmly studying the back of the menu. She shrugged, and continued reading. Grilled jumbo lobster tail. She wrinkled her nose in disgust.

Melody had been taught that humans ate a wide variety of foods, but that lesson was one of the boring ones she hadn’t paid much attention to. But seafood. Surely people didn’t think sea creatures swam around waiting to be eaten. Maybe this was some sort of test. Melody craned her neck to see if she could spot Harmony or another one of her sisters lurking in the restaurant.

“Something wrong?” Dean’s brow crinkled.

“You’re not going to eat any seafood, are you?” she blurted.

“Wasn’t planning on it. I’m more of a pasta pomodoro guy, and this restaurant makes a great sauce. They call it the Angelina.”

Melody exhaled and relaxed against the curved back of the chair. “Good. I’ve never met a crab who’d agree to be made into a salad, or a clam who chose to be chowder, and I don’t understand how they convinced a squid to want to be fried, but here they all are.” She released a puff of air and set the closed menu on the red-and-white checkered tablecloth.

“You’re a vegetarian. I didn’t mean to offend you by bringing you to a place that serves seafood.”

“No, it’s fine. I’m not a vegetarian. At least, I’m supposed to eat meat, but I don’t. There’s just so much…blood.” Even the word left a sour taste in her mouth.

Dean’s head tilted as he listened intently. Melody’s eyes traveled along his jawline to his thick chest, and back up again. Blood coursed through the steadily pulsing vein on the side of his neck. She should want to bite into it. Should crave the moment when she could relax and let her True Form take over completely. Each movement with this man should be calculated, fueled by the desire to climax before tearing into his flesh so the hot, dense, scarlet liquid gushed from between mouthfuls of muscle and skin. Evidence cleanup. Or so Harmony called it. But it was so much more. An ancient need to protect themselves by devouring their prey.

She shivered, repulsed.

“Good evening, and thank you for coming in to Pompeii’s Grotto.”

Relieved for the distraction from her own thoughts, Melody turned her attention to the petite, scratchy-voiced waitress. “Can I start you two off with anything to drink? Any appetizers?”

“I’ll let the lady pick our poison this evening.” Dean slid the wine list across the table.

“Red,” Melody noted.

“So, you’d each like a glass of our house red?” Her bushy eyebrow curved into an arch. “It’s a fabulous Chianti.”

“Yes. And I will eat the Angelina,” Melody said quickly, trying to mask her embarrassment.

“I’ll have the same.”

“And some of the brussels sprouts,” she added.

“You’re going to love the Angelina, and not enough people order the brussels sprouts. They are delicious.” She collected the menus, and offered a weathered smile before rushing toward the kitchen.

“Brussels sprouts?” Dean cringed, the tiny crease between his eyebrows deepening.

“She said they’re delicious. Plus, they’re cruciferous.” She echoed one of the only facts she remembered about her lesson on food. “That’s a funny word when you say it out loud. Cruciferous,” she enunciated, her laughter twinkling around them.

Dean held her gaze for an uncomfortably long time. His eyes were warm and inviting, two calm pools in the midst of the sea of chaos that was San Francisco. But she didn’t like them settled on her, not right now, anyway. Nervously, she grabbed the burgundy napkin off the table and busied herself with unwrapping her silverware.

“I watched The Little Mermaid last night. The condo doesn’t have very many movie choices,” she babbled. “But I didn’t understand why Ariel put that fork in her hair. No one does their hair at the dinner table.”

Dean chuckled. “Fish can’t talk, either, so I think that movie missed the mark on a few levels.”

Finally lifting her eyes to meet his, she cocked her head to the side. “Fish can talk,” she said, whimsy absent from her voice.

The waitress returned, and, with practiced grace, noiselessly placed each glass of wine on its respective cocktail napkin.

“Sure, but not to people,” he said after a quick drink.

“Only because people don’t know how to listen. Sometimes I wonder how humans have survived for so long, deaf to the world around them.” She followed Dean’s lead and took a sip of the house red. Bitter liquid spread out over her tongue, and her throat tightened against the thought of swallowing. Covering her mouth with the napkin, she spit out the wine, thankful the fabric matched its hue.

“You’re different, you know that?”