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Ibarely had time to appreciate the sparkle of magic-lit barnacles as the surface came into view. Strong arms thrust me forward like an offering, practically throwing me into the side of the fishing boat.
“Go, go, go,” Leander urged, his voice clipped with urgency as he heaved me out of the water.
“It’s fine. The shark already moved on.” I let out a slow breath and decided to take my time finding my grip. As soon as my fingers tightened over the hull, insistent hands were under my tail, shoving me over the threshold.
“Rude!” I snapped, my palms barely saving me from face-planting on the deck. Wiggling my shoulders, I crawled my way across the slick wood so the useless half of my body could slither into the boat behind me. “I can get in on my own, you know!”
I felt Leander’s hands give me one last nudge, and the wide end of my tail flopped over the rail, crashing down on top of me, its weight knocking the residual water out of my lungs. The bottom frills draped over my face like a bridal veil.
Stupid, useless tail!
Throwing it off, I scrambled for a less vulnerable position before dear Leander could flop into the boat and see me looking like a fool. With a little luck, maybe he’d wind up crawling in and looking even more ridiculous than I had. Imitating his stupid, satisfied half-grin, I waited for him to emerge.
Wind beat against the beads of salt water running down my arms, and I was suddenly struck with a sense of apprehension. Without the surrounding rush of water, the night seemed so quiet. Eerily quiet.
“Leander?” I whispered, dragging myself back to the rail. No answer.
I peeked over the edge, and the only thing in the water to greet me was a white pool of fabric.
Leander’s shirt.
My eyes studied the dark water for a glimpse of the rest of him, but any other trace seemed long gone.
Just his shirt? Surely, even if Leander’s sour mood had driven the shark to come back and eat him, it wouldn’t have left his shirt behind.
Was he teasing me? Some sort of signal? Like a white flag letting me know he’d gone out for the trident on his own without telling me? Or maybe he wanted more revenge?
“Leander,” I repeated, my pulse rising as I checked every angle for flashy shimmers of gold. “You think it’s funny leaving me here? Don’t be a jerk!”
The air bubbles in his shirt were working their way out, and the fabric sank just below the surface. “If you think I’m going to save your shirt for you—”
I stopped mid-sentence, all thoughts leaving me as I spotted movement in the middle of the fabric. In the very center, something was shifting around inside it. Tiny jerks here and there, like something was struggling.
“Oh no, Lee!” I gasped as the realization hit. I scrambled for the shirt, stretching down over the side of the boat to fish it out of the water.
Pulling it up as carefully as I could, I prayed I hadn’t lost him to the ocean. I’d never be able to find him again.
Wrinkles pooled around a little mound in the middle of the fabric, and I exhaled a breath of relief. Thank Poseidon, he was still inside. Opening the shirt’s bottom end, I squinted down at the fish laying inside.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Lee,” I mumbled, watching the tiny golden betta fish flop inside the tented shirt. How had this happened?
The curse seemed to be broken earlier, so why was he a fish again?
Cupping a palm, I went to scoop him free from his wet prison, but as soon as my fingers touched the end of a fin, my entire world changed in an instant.
Pop.
The shirt draping over my lap was there one moment and raining down over me the next, its remnants shooting into my gaping mouth as wet chunks slapped against my face. Before I could even choke on the scraps, the explosion blew me straight on my back, and I found the weight of a hefty body suddenly on top of me, knocking both air and cotton fibers out of my throat.
A golden fin thrashed about, striking out at every corner of the boat. Leander’s crazed body twisted on top of me, jerking around like he hadn’t realized he was no longer a helpless betta fish. It wasn’t until his eyes found mine that the rabid beast began to settle. Palms landed on either side of my head, his arms effectively pinning me to the deck. My eyes widened.
Leander had transformed back, only he wasn’t in his human form. He was still a merman. That meant his change had nothing to do with the amount of salt water he had on him. It… it had something to do withme.
Somehow, my touch had brought him back to his true merman self. Buthow?
A probing query darkened his gaze. He’d realized it, too.
“You.” A mouthful of water sprayed over me with just the one sharp word. My body bristled underneath him, but the burden of his weight had me fixed in place. There was no way I could escape. Leander looked completely feral, every muscle lining his jaw clenched in what looked to be a blend of rage and vexation. Like I was somehow the reason he’d turned back into a fish. Like maybe I had something to do with the ocean’s curse in the first place. I didn’t, though…
