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Ibroke the surface and gasped in the salty warm air. I had fully expected to wake up from unconsciousness when I surfaced. Instead, Eason and Storm shouted exclamations and hauled me from the water. Fynn stepped forward, a thick towel held out toward me. I thanked him and grabbed the towel. I wiped at the salt water that was burning my nose.
“Where have you been? How did you escape?” Fynn spoke first.
“Escape? From what?”I replied.
“The mermaid that surfaced with you in her arms,” Fynn almost shouted back. “She told us you were alive, and that she wouldn’t hurt you. Then she warned us not to get in the water because a shark was nearby. It’s highly likely that she is the one responsible for the climbing body count. We worried you were her next victim.” His words came out like a torrent, his fear and anxiety apparent.
“She wouldn’t do that!” I said it with confidence, but the reality was I had no way of knowing if it was true or not. After we made love, something inside me shifted and I had thought I could feel her. I couldn’t clearly read her thoughts, but there was a ghostly impression of them. It had been just another intriguing twist of the illusion.
“Did she tell you that?” Eason’s snort of derision had me snapping my head up to lock eyes with him.
“No, we didn’t talk about it. She was––” How was I supposed to describe her?
“Kye, I am sure any of us would fall in love with a mermaid that rescued us, but remember that she is a predator,” Storm said. “From the little I saw, she is literally built to kill. We were helpless to stop her tonight and that was terrifying.” Storm’s tone wasn’t condescending, and I knew where he was coming from. They were all wrong, though.
“It’s a dream. I’ll wake up any minute.” I closed my eyes tightly, praying that I would wake up and none of this would be real. The most incredible dream of my life was fast becoming a nightmare. Just the thought that this might not be a dream had bile rising up my throat. I was the one who asked to cut our time together short, and I had let her swim away. Her last words to me had been in Greek, but my mind had understood her meaning, even though I knew nothing about the language.
I will love you forever.
Those were the last words she said to me. I hadn’t even had a chance to respond before she pulled us underwater. If this was all real, then I had let the love of my life slip through my hands like water and she didn’t even know that I loved her too.
Groaning, I dropped onto the deck with a thud and pressed my face into the damp towel. Storm eased down on one side of me, and Fynn settled on the other side.
“What’s going on, little brother?” Storm wasn’t my brother, none of us were related by blood, but that didn’t change the depth of our relationship.
Heaving a sigh, I recounted the entire saga. I did, however, skim over the details of our lovemaking. “How can I be sure I’m not still asleep?” I moaned in frustration.
Suddenly, a fist connected with my stomach, hard enough to knock the wind from me, but not hard enough to truly hurt me. “What the heck, Eason?”
“I was just proving you were awake.” His casual shrug was irritating.
“You couldn’t just pinch me like a normal person?” I growled.
“That’s for wimps.”
I wanted to wipe the smug smirk off his face, but I was exhausted and heartsick. I wanted to sleep for the next week straight, but I also wanted to jump in the ocean and find Zosi.
Fynn spoke, his voice coming from far away. “He’s going into shock. Our questions will have to wait until he has been rested and checked for injuries.” His hands moved along my skin feeling for my pulse and temperature. My eyelids turned to lead, drooping with the weight. Unable to bear the heartache of losing her, I let unconsciousness steal me away.
