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  “Got you,” the merrow teased. He swam before Derek like an apparition, hair floating around his face in a golden swirl. Every inch of him was bigger than Derek remembered, from his large, palm-shaped hands to the strong legs that parted through the water with a mindless ease, keeping him afloat. The human form had fallen from him and left a frightening sea creature in its place. His chest puffed out in indignation, tapering to a narrow waist and thin hips framing a jutting erection he didn’t even bother trying to hide. Raking his gaze over Derek’s transformation, he growled, “I don’t know how you managed it, Dere.”

  Derek didn’t want to admit he had no real clue, either. All he knew was somehow, Tad’s ring had fused with him, making his body impossible for Kellen to touch, and in doing so, brought back his own merrish abilities. As Kellen advanced, Derek ducked among the kelp, trying to keep his distance. His arms came up between them, as if he could ward off Kellen—as if he had to now. “You can’t touch me,” he called out. “If it hurts me so much, I know it must be killing you.”

  Kellen laughed. With a sudden surge, he closed the water between them to push against Derek’s raised hands. Where his palms touched Kellen’s chest, they burned with a deep ache and he had to pull them back. “I can withstand this pain,” Kellen promised.

  To prove his point he reached out, encircled Derek’s waist with his arms, and hugged him close. A veil of darkness descended over Derek as bright pain crippled his body. He murmured the merrow’s name, “Kellen,” but found it impossible to say or do anything else.

  Through clenched teeth, Kellen muttered, “This is nothing compared to what I felt when you left me. If I have to live through this to have you again, I swear I will.”

  “Please,” Derek sighed.

  His eyes slipped shut and he felt his body go limp in Kellen’s embrace. Pain spasmed through him, burning like fire across his muscles. Kellen might be able to live through it but Derek wasn’t quite so sure he’d be able to himself. It took all the strength he had to hold on, mind tense while his body relaxed, waiting for a moment’s doubt, a single hesitation…

  The hands on his body released him—with one arm around Derek’s waist, Kellen trailed the other up Derek’s chest, tickling its way over the sensitive scales of his underbelly. Together they drifted to the sea floor, the kelp rising above them like trees to block out the sunlight above. The tension in Kellen’s arm eased a bit, and Derek felt a faint, almost tender kiss on his throat, seconds before his feet brushed over the ground.

  Without warning, he pushed against the seabed. In a cloud of fine sand, he shot through Kellen’s hands and up among the fronds of the kelp, legs kicking hard as he hurried away. His instincts took over, guiding him through the kelp as he dodged this way and that, a zigzag pattern through the water, his direction changing with each pulse from his ring.

  Kellen’s voice followed after him. “We’ve played this game before, Dere,” he called out with a laugh. “Remember, when we were kids? I used to love it when you made me chase you. Got me all worked up.”

  “I’m not playing with you any more,” Derek announced. He felt fingers brush over his left leg and he dodged right, swimming through a narrowly arched reef formation before twisting away again. When he came close to anything—the ground beneath him, the rocks nearby, a dense thicket of kale—he pushed off against the object, giving himself added momentum to outrace Kellen.

  Still the merrow kept up with him, despite Derek’s attempts to shake him. Perhaps he’d grown lax these past ten years—already muscles ached in his legs and arms with a deep, primal burn that had nothing to do with the ring or Kellen’s touch. His body remembered the motions, but he didn’t quite have the same speed he once had in the water. Already he felt himself slowing down, and Kellen’s hands scraped along the scales on his lower legs, then his thighs, as he overtook Derek. When they closed around his waist again, capturing him, Kellen pulled Derek back to him. A searing pain rippled across Derek’s shoulders and ass, and that thick erection pushed between his buttocks, spreading his legs.

  “No.” Derek whirled in Kellen’s embrace, pulling away.

  With a laugh, Kellen reached out and caught Derek’s own hard cock in one tight fist. The pain of his touch mingled with a bolt of pleasure that soared through Derek—his legs kicked out, his arms spun back, his whole body felt torn in half between the two warring emotions. Derek’s body pleaded for more—that hand working him to orgasm, those fingers once again jammed tight in his ass—but his mind railed out, following the rapid pulse of the ring, seeking Tad.

  “No,” he said again, as Kellen reeled him in. “No,” when those hands held him close and his cock throbbed in sweet agony against Kellen’s soft belly. “No,” as his face was angled up toward Kellen’s for a suffocating kiss.

  Kellen ignored him. With a slight grin that looked half-crazed with pain in the flickering undersea light, he licked out and ran his tongue around Derek’s chin. “Oh, yes,” he purred.

  In a fit of desperation, Derek cried out, “Gorchymyn i sefyll!”

  It was an old phrase, in the ancient language, one his mother had used to quiet him as a baby. I command you to stop. When he’d grown older and asked what the words meant, they made him laugh. I command you, so demanding—at that age, the thought of anyone commanding him to do anything had been humorous.

  But the words acted like a spell on Kellen. The instant they were free, the merrow froze. His grip relaxed, allowing Derek to drift away—as he did, he noticed Kellen didn’t move to follow him. In fact, he didn’t move at all. His eyes had glazed over, and his mouth stayed puckered for a kiss, his arms tense as if he still held Derek within their span.

  Derek turned and swam a few feet away. When he glanced over his shoulder, what he saw stopped him dead in the water.

  Kellen’s position had not changed. His muscles stood out rigid along his arms and legs, his eyes unblinking, his mouth still pursed. The only thing about him that moved was his hair in the current. “Kellen?” Derek called out.

  No response.

  Then Derek noticed Kellen seemed to be sinking. The merrow seemed unable to move or swim or…or anything. After a moment, when he was sure Kellen wasn’t faking, Derek dared to swim closer, within reach. But those large hands didn’t move, and those wide, sightless eyes didn’t turn his way. I command you to stop. Was there magic in the old tongue, too?

  Without stopping to think about it, Derek grabbed Kellen’s arm and tugged. He expected some resistance, but the limb moved easily for him—he was able to bring it around behind the merrow’s back with little effort. He did the same with the other arm, then used a strand of kelp to tie them together. More strands of the leafy green plant secured Kellen’s ankles, and for added measure, Derek roped several thick fronds around Kellen’s chest, tying him back against the swaying kelp. When he swam clear, he saw Kellen bound to the kelp, face frozen in that same, stupid expression. “Stay,” Derek said, then laughed at his own joke.

  Light flickered across Kellen’s open eyes, spooking Derek. He’d lost enough time as it was. Tad, he reminded himself. Turning tail on his old friend, he sped off into the kelp forest, once again following the ring’s pulse.

  * * * *

  For the next half hour or so, Derek swam through the kelp forest. His pace slowed as he struggled to find his way through the maze of tall, flowing plants. Above him, the kelp closed over his head in a canopy that blocked out the last rays of the dying sun. Though his eyes grew accustomed to the dismal darkness below the water, he still found it hard to see through the thick growths blocking his path. Twice he veered off course, and once the swish of water behind him forced him to whirl around, sure Kellen had freed himself from the kelp and the spell and was right on his tail. But it’d only been a small shark, gliding through the kelp in search of food, and Derek kicked away from it.

  Just as he was beginning to doubt his own memory, he pushed through a stubborn patch of kelp and saw the Hellcat resting on the sea floo
r ahead.

  The old airplane had cracked in half when it hit the ocean—the fuselage looked as if it had been pulled apart by gravitational forces upon landing and strewn across the bottom of the sea. The tail end lay on its side a good dozen feet from the cockpit; between the two sections, a variety of sea plants had sprouted over the years. The plane’s nose assembly lay facedown on the ground before the cockpit, the propellers now more rust than metal. One wing had sheared off during its crash landing, sinking into the sand and disappearing from view; the other was intact, raised a bit off the ground and crusted in barnacles, creating an overhang beneath which rockfish swam in droves.

  As Derek swam closer, he could see wooden slats beneath the raised wing, similar to the types of cages used to trap lobster. Peering beneath the wing, Derek saw the soul cage. About four feet in length, the cage was made of sturdy wood, long, splintery slats bent to form a curved dome shape. The front of the cage sported a wooden door locked with a gold clasp. In a rush of excitement, Derek surged forward, rounding the wing to duck down and press his face against the wood. There were few spaces between the slats—Kellen must’ve been lying about that bitch of his, watching Tad sleep, and about masturbating over Derek’s lover. Words just to rile him up, he should’ve known better…

  He found a loose knot and worked it free, then leaned against the cage to look inside. The band on his finger no longer pulsed—it rang out with a clear, high note, triumphant. “Tad?” he whispered.

  He thought he heard soft breath and his heart quickened in his chest.

  Then claws scraped over his scalp, pulling him back by his hair. In his ear, a woman giggled. “Silly little guppy,” she teased, her voice’s sugary tones belaying the cruel undercurrent of her words. “That human’s mine.”

  Chapter 10

  Derek could see at a glance why Kellen had chosen Merla for his mate. Her thin face was gaunt but beautiful, with high cheekbones that could cut sea glass and a flawless, pale complexion. Narrow and long, her face seemed to draw down to a point at her chin; just above it, lips reddened with crushed coral twisted into a vicious grin that made Kellen’s nastiest sneer look tame by comparison. Black hair floated in tendrils around her face like ink spilt in the water—in their thick mass, Derek caught a glimpse of a red comb holding the hair out of her dark, fathomless eyes. Her talisman.

  With a hard yank, she pulled him away from the Hellcat. As he drifted back, she let go of his hair and swam around in front of him, planting herself between him and the soul cage. Derek wasn’t even sure if that was it—he hadn’t seen anything inside, and the breath he’d heard could’ve been anything really, air escaping the knothole, or one of the kelp bladders letting out a sigh. But when he tried to dodge around her, Merla shoved him back. Pain blossomed where her shoulders touched his. “Go away,” she growled. Her leg dashed out, catching Derek in the thigh. “I told you, he’s mine.”

  “So he is in there?” Derek asked. “I didn’t see anything…”

  He tried diving around her for another glimpse but earned himself her elbow in the small of his back for his troubles. The sharp blow made him crumple to the sea floor, arms wrapped around his waist as his gills flared, the breath knocked from him.

  “You wouldn’t be able to,” Merla snapped. She kicked Derek again, pushing him a safe distance away from the wing and the treasure hidden beneath it. “Soul cages are a female magic. Didn’t your mam teach you anything? Only I can see into it. Kellen put that human in there for me. That makes him mine.”

  Derek had forgotten the possessive nature of the merrow—he’d learned to curb that part of himself in the years spent in human form. To a merrow, anything found was instantly claimed and never returned. In Merla’s mind, she had Tad now, so he belonged to her.

  In desperation, Derek rushed the merrow. Keeping low to the ground, he swam at her, fast, tackling her legs and knocking her back over the top of the plane’s wing. She slid across the rusted metal, scales scraping over barnacles and deteriorating paint as she cleared a swathe across the wing. Her hands grappled with Derek, but he swam away before her nails could find purchase in his flesh. “He was mine first,” he told her, ducking down beneath the wing to grab at the golden latch. “I want him back.”

  Claws like daggers pierced his back, digging through scaly flesh and raising puffs of dark blood that dispersed like spore in the water. Derek cried out, twisting away from the merrow who closed in on him. With a swift fury, she backed him into the Hellcat, teeth gnashing as she bit at his arms and face, legs swishing around his own, hands beating at him, nails raking over his skin. Derek raised his arms over his head to protect himself—Merla snarled and scratched at his forearms, teeth closing around one wrist. “Stop!” he tried.

  Her rage increased. Like a dervish, she whirled around him, striking him, hitting him, beating him into the sandy ground. Derek could barely draw in breath to speak, let alone try to defend himself. The water around them was thick with the scent of his blood.

  Merla pounded at him, fighting in a frenzy that reminded him of sharks attacking prey. “Stop it,” he tried again, grabbing at her hair to pull her off. He caught her talisman in his hands, but a whip of her neck and the comb slipped from his hand to float to the sand. “Merla!” he cried. She paid him no heed. “Mananan, woman, please.”

  Nothing stopped her. “He’s mine,” she snarled, and her teeth sank into Derek’s shoulder. “Mine!”

  Her legs twined through his, gripping him so tight, his shins threatened to snap. “Mine.”

  Derek felt those claw-like fingers tear at his chest and stomach, reaching lower, as if to break off his dick at the root. He pulled himself into a tight ball, blocking his sensitive underside from her furious tirade, and scuttled like a hermit crab away from the Hellcat and its protective banshee.

  A few yards away from the plane, the blows stopped raining down on him. Every inch of his body ached, and the sea around him took on a purplish tinge from the dozen small cuts bleeding on his arms and back. After a moment’s respite, when the bitch didn’t resume her attack, he dared to turn around. Merla swam in front of the wing, guarding the soul cage beneath it, her tails swishing with an angry pace and her hair spread out like oil in the water. She glared at Derek as if taunting him to come closer. When he tried, she came at him like a lamprey, hissing and spitting to scare him away.

  He shrank back, the ancient words rising to his lips again. “Gorchymyn i sefyll!”

  Merla just laughed.

  Derek swam a few yards away, distancing himself, as confusion clouded his mind. Those words had stopped Kellen in mid-attack, freezing him in place, but had no effect on Merla. Were they not imbued with the gold that flowed through him now? Why would they work on one but not the other?

  As if reading his mind, Merla gave a short, derisive snort designed to make him feel stupid. It worked. “Who the hell do you think you are?” she asked, her voice haughty and cold. “Don’t you know only the one who holds my heart can command my body?”

  Tears of frustration pricked Derek’s eyes. Tad was so close and yet still so far away. “My heart lies in there,” he said, pointing to the soul cage in the hopes of reasoning with her. Merla bristled with anger but didn’t renew her attack. “Please. I need him back.”

  “No.” Merla turned, flipping her tails at him in disdain. “And if you come any closer, I’ll tear you apart and leave you for the sharks. You’re not getting him.”

  As Derek watched her swim circles around the Hellcat’s wing, he thought of Kellen still bound in the kelp. Not without any help.

  * * * *

  Derek hurried back through the kelp bed, frantic. He’d been so close—when he’d heard Tad’s slight breath through the soul cage, it seemed as if the past four months had disappeared. His heart, once a dead organ in his chest, began to beat again, and his thoughts whirled out in a wild blur that made him want to laugh out loud for the first time in weeks. A smile pulled at his lips, no matter how he tried to tamp it d
own. Tad, alive. Within reach, even. All he had to do was convince Kellen to help him rescue his lover—

  Kellen.

  When Derek caught a glimpse of his old friend among the strands of kelp, he slowed his headlong swim and stopped just out of sight behind a large clump of fronds. Kellen wanted only one thing from him, Derek knew. But he’d give that and so much more for another chance with Tad. As much as he loathed to have sex with Kellen, to touch him intimately, to be touched by him, if it brought his lover back, then what did Derek have to lose? It was nothing he hadn’t done before. Living without Tad was worse than any momentary indignation he might have to suffer at Kellen’s hands.

  Taking a deep breath to center himself, Derek parted the strands of kelp and closed the distance between them.

  The fight had gone out of Kellen’s body—his muscles were no longer tensed or taut—and his pale eyes glared through his limp hair. The spell had broken, but Kellen remained tied in the kelp. Derek approached with caution, heart hammering in his chest, pounding in his crotch. He wished for some covering, however thin, to hide his budding erection from Kellen’s baleful gaze. The thought of Tad turned him on, true, but he’d be fooling himself if he wasn’t aroused at the prospect of a good, hard fuck in general. It’d been so long since he’d felt another’s body in his, and if it had to be Kellen’s, then at least he’d get Tad back in the bargain.

  And at least I’ll get off, a part of him whispered.

  Derek quashed that voice quick, but not before it tugged his cock erect.

  Swimming closer, he called out, tentative, “Kellen?”

  His old friend turned from Derek’s words. “Come back to gloat?”