A Mermaid's Ransom

  "And that desire drove you to do whatever was necessary," she murmured. She realized she was still leaning forward into his body, her hands gripping his biceps. His palms were under her elbows. Their bodies formed a quiet, still tent there, and she was reluctant to pull back despite her next words. "Including harm me."

  "Take you," he corrected. "I have no desire to hurt you. Beauty and the Beast?" he prompted.

  "In a minute. She used up her soul energy? You mean she destroyed her soul to give you that knowledge?"

  "Yes. It was a reasonable thing to do. She had no more use for it after death."

  Alexis gazed at him. "But what about an afterlife?"

  At his puzzled reaction, Alexis realized she wasn't up for a theology discussion, at least not here. She herself had wondered if the Goddess had influence in this desolate place. "Beauty and the Beast is a story, a fairy tale," she repeated. "Did your mother tell you any?"

  He shook his head. His expectant look reminded her of the manatees, the way they swam up in the morning when the staff arrived, their bright eyes vividly curious about every small new thing that would be presented to them that day. In their far-too-limited environment, anything different was of value.

  "Fairy tales are considered children's stories now," she said, pausing as he moved the hand resting on her hip to her abdomen, idly stroking bare flesh and toying with the navel jewelry. "They were intended to teach people moral lessons. But time has made them more fanciful, more appealing to children. Anyhow, here's the shortened version."

  "I want the longer one."

  "It's difficult to talk for too long," she said, not without regret. "Hard to breathe."

  "Oh. Short is fine, then."

  However, because she saw disappointment in his gaze, Alexis spent more time with it than she'd intended. She set up the tale and painted the scenes, even when she had to stop a couple times to get her breath, pressing her forehead to his shoulder again to rest her spinning head. During that time his hands never stopped moving, exploring her. Stroking her hair, learning the shape of her skull. Teasing the curve of her spine, the small of her back. Fingering the scales. It was arousing, but she didn't sense that was his intention. He needed to touch her, which unsettled her further.

  "In one version, as the Beast spent time with Beauty, he kept entreating her to marry him, but she couldn't get past his appearance. Not until she realized he was going to die of a broken heart because of her withheld love. Then she realized how much he needed her, and that changed her feelings. She agreed, and when she agreed, his enchantment was broken. She found the Beast was really the Prince who had been speaking to her in her dreams all along, entreating her not to be deceived by appearances." She hesitated at that, then pressed on. "There's another version, where the Beast is a terrible, cranky thing who spares her father's life if she agrees to stay with him. Through her love and kindness, he learns to be a better soul, so that he releases her, rather than hold her captive."

  "He gives her up, even though she is what he wants most?"

  She nodded. "It's when he releases her that he truly captures her heart."

  Dante frowned. "This woman sounds hard to understand."

  "The Beast realized, in order to forever keep Beauty, he had to prove her happiness was more important to him than his own. That allowed her to love him back."

  "Hmm. Perhaps when the witch releases me, you'll read me the complete versions of the story."

  If they brought him back through to rescue her, did he really think they'd just let him go, give him a welcome-to-Earth packet and send him on his way?

  Alexis shrank back at the change in his expression, from intrigued listener to forbidding captor. "I wish you'd stop doing that," she said desperately.

  He stood up, towering over her. "If they let me out of this world, I will do as I wish. They will regret it if they stand in my way."

  "No." If he fought them, Mina and her father might kill him. Or they could end up killing each other. Dante had already proven more resourceful than she was sure Mina had anticipated. Thanks to his mother's willingness to sacrifice her soul to give her son her schooled intelligence, he was no mindless Dark One driven by bloodlust.

  She cursed her inability to stand on human legs, hated being trapped in her merform without the propulsion of water. And now, with her wing injured, her ability to fly was hampered. In the face of his anger, it made her feel that much more helpless.

  "Take me out of this room," she mumbled, fighting it back. "Please. Show me the garden."

  He muttered something vile and sharp, making her flinch when he moved. Turning on the ball of his foot, he strode to the other side of the room. He sat down on the edge of his chair, his body tense, expression dark. "Why would they stop me? They have a whole world. Why would they not let me be?"

  "They'll be concerned about what you want to do. Dark Ones are violent killers. You . . ." Knowing she was risking his wrath, she flicked her gaze meaningfully to the circle and the dead female there. "They don't know your intentions. What you want. What do you want to do there, Dante?"

  He held that stone-faced posture, except for a quivering through his limbs she recognized as an attempt to restrain his reaction. Her fingers curled into the bedding. Despite his stated desire not to hurt her, she suspected she might be moments away from being torn limb from limb. The danger and fury emanating from him were equal to the task and far more. Her fear for Mina and her father went up several more notches. Maybe Mina was right to think he should be locked in this world.

  Alexis drew in a dismayed breath, but she'd won a break. It appeared Dante was not listening to her thoughts while he brooded. Maybe he didn't have a Rewind button on her brain.

  Apparently he was doing more than thinking. The door opened, bringing a surge of fear with it, but the Dark One that skulked in kept his head down, scuttling to the middle of the room without lifting it.

  "As you wish, my lord," he rasped. Grasping the dead female, he hefted her onto his back while Alexis closed her eyes, said another prayer. Then the door closed and the Dark One and Dante's victim were gone.

  As the short waft of air from the outside overpowered her senses for a suffocating minute, Lex felt something from Dante to balance it. Even though his emotions continued to fight like rabid dogs over what she'd told him, he was hoping the woman's removal made her feel better. While she wanted him to regret the act itself, not its effect on her, she had to pick her battles.

  "Dante. You promised to show me your garden. Will you please show it to me?" She was just going to have to accept the quavering in her voice as something outside of her control. She was lucky the nervous spasms of her whole body had settled down to an every-few-minutes cycle, rather than a continuous knocking that made her teeth chatter.

  Several long seconds passed. While she wasn't sure he'd heard her, she lacked the courage to ask the question again. Instead, she listened to the muted but constant roaring noise coming from outside the tower. Perhaps it was the combination of fire and wind, occasionally punctuated by a keening shriek or terrible snarl, the day-to-day of the hate-and rage-filled creatures here.

  He wasn't all hatred and rage. He was exuding a terrifying level of it right now, yes, but there was that other quality to him. So far, it had helped her stay calm and maintain a thread of hope, while the rest of her feelings were a monotonous circle, the pacing of a trapped animal, anxiety continuing to spiral.

  She firmed her chin, straightened her spine. "Dante?"

  Slowly, his focus returned to her.

  "Please. Your garden? Show it to me?"

  Nine

  WHEN at last he moved, his expression did not change, but as he knelt beside her, the hands sliding beneath her body were not rough. She winced a little, though, because her scales were drying out. "Before we go, can we immerse my tail again?"

  He dipped her back in his pond. While she undulated the red-and gold-scaled portion of her lower body in a rhythmic motion to distribute the moistu
re into all the crevices, he continued to hold her. Her hand clasped his neck and shoulder as he held her up, and his long black hair brushed her cheek. Her movements slowed, uncertain, as his head dipped. He only rested his jaw against her temple so she couldn't see his face, but it was what she felt from him that gave her pause. Wearied by his frustration and rage, he was giving himself a respite, some of the tension leaving his body and mind.

  She didn't want to know what had gotten him past this bout of anger, since she might not like what he'd resolved about her eventual rescue. His hair was a curtain in front of her face, and though it smelled like sulfur and blood, she made herself touch it. Once she did, it was easier to run her fingers through it, wonder if he'd ever braided it or tied it back, or if it had always been like this, as wild a creature as he was.

  "You are done?" he asked.

  When she nodded, he lifted her again. Thank goodness her hair was long enough to mostly cover her breasts. If he looked at her body, it reacted. Though the female sacrifice was gone, the memory was too raw in her mind to handle the betrayal of her own flesh.

  Without comment, he moved toward the circle. "If I'm going to take you out there, you will need additional protection."

  Every cell was repulsed at the idea, but Alexis made herself bear it when he dropped to a squat there, balancing her on his knees with one steadying hand around her back. As he dipped his hand in the blood and painted symbols on her upper arms and then her forehead, he muttered the protection chant to supplement the ones burned on her upper body. Those brands tingled at this additional enhancement.

  I am the daughter of the Prime Legion Commander and a direct descendant of the Princess Arianne. My godmother is a seawitch with uncharted powers.

  It was an old-fashioned thought for a very modern girl, but she grasped her heritage with both hands, thinking of great battles and sacrifices of honor and nobility, the power of the sea and the sky come together in her blood. No matter the enemies he'd faced, Jonah didn't even acknowledge fear. Anna did, but she'd willingly faced down a Dark One army to save him from becoming one of them. Their blood ran in her veins, so Alexis would get through this. Though the Goddess might have no sway in this world, she was connected to the elements enough to know patterns were always there, even if their cycles were unexpected. She had to figure out the pattern that was Dante.

  He lifted her again. The part of her that had writhed under his commanding touch and climaxed in response to his desires, responded to the strength that had him squatting on his heels, holding her on his knees and then rising with the same ease. She held on to that purely female reaction, letting the mindless power of lust steady her more discriminating intellect.

  "Remember, it will be far worse out here until we reach the garden. The additional protections I gave you should hold and make it bearable."

  She had a feeling his idea of bearable and hers were very different, so she tightened her grip on his neck. Dante's arms flexed under her back and the bend of her tail, squeezing her in a gesture she might have taken as reassurance. He opened the door with one spoken command.

  SHE vividly recalled the brief but overwhelming moment when the Dark Ones had flooded their chamber, the terrible sense of despair that had suffused her to the point she couldn't think, only thrash and try to escape like a frightened rabbit, every attempt at bravery or even thought far beyond her reach or understanding.

  He'd said it would be more bearable, and it was, but only insofar as she had the scrap of rationality to realize how insane she'd been to insist on going out here. Abandoning anything else, she was desperately glad for his protection.

  The door wasn't really a door, but a double shuttered window, with a flat ledge protruding over a twenty-foot drop. The tower was built out of rough-cut stone held with gray green mortar and ice. She had a brief impression of that, and then her wings unwisely but automatically tried to snap open as he stepped over that ledge.

  Because he held her firmly, those wings were pinned under his forearm, so the distress to her injury was minimal. He landed on his feet as if he'd stepped off a porch stoop. Apparently blood drinking, excessive strength and the ability to scale or drop from great heights without difficulty were all true parts of the vampire lore.

  He landed among a huddle of Dark Ones keeping grim, tense vigil around his tower. When they scattered back, Dante increased that distance by baring his fangs and emitting a long, menacing hiss that made her tremble in his arms even though it wasn't directed at her.

  She couldn't look at them, the skeletal yet powerful bodies, the leathery flap of wings, fangs as long as her fingers and every one of them pulsing with the need to kill, rape, destroy, obliterate--

  Alexis, stay with me. Stay in my mind. Close your eyes.

  She did more than that. She buried her face in his throat, holding on to the beat of his heart. Thank the Goddess it was a vampire myth that they didn't have one. She found that reassuring on a couple of levels. Digging her fingers harder into his hair and the muscle joining neck to shoulder, she tried to think of anything else. Oh, Goddess, she couldn't. She knew what they were feeling, what they wanted. They didn't want to merely hurt her. They wanted to destroy any thought she had except hopelessness and bowel-loosening terror. The weight of it would tear her out of his arms, and they would devour her, but leave her soul to wander this terrible place forever, because she was trapped. A coffin, like he'd said. He--

  Why are your eyes blue, Alexis? Tell me.

  His voice cut through the miasma of fear, drove it back the determined way he'd driven back the Dark Ones, only using firm insistence instead of fearful threat this time. Steady, sure.

  My . . . mother's eyes are blue. Violet blue.

  So why didn't you get your father's eyes, instead? What color are they?

  They're . . . black. All angels' eyes, those that are born angels, are black. Solid black, no whites . . . like yours, with the red fire. I don't know. I didn't pay enough attention in genetics, about dominant and recessive genes, and I'm not sure if that even applies to nonhumans.

  What are genetics?

  She stumbled around an explanation of that as he continued to poke and prod at her, irritating her, because she needed to react to the horror of her surroundings. It was going to claw away her sanity and make her struggle out of his arms to get away, no matter that she couldn't fly, or swim, or walk . . .

  Abruptly, it eased off, as if someone had rolled a giant stone off her chest and pounding head. Gasping, she opened her eyes and found she couldn't see any Dark Ones, not close at least. The tower was about a hundred yards away. As she turned her head, she saw the desolate landscape at eye level, its impact even more dramatic. Dull gray green patches of ice and sucking mud that shot out fire. Oozing and crawling things gave the ground a sinister look that made her glad she couldn't walk. The smell of sulfur and death was unrelenting. Since the sky was fire and gray as well, it was like being locked inside something in truth. The four elements were here, but in forms devoid of magic and life. No bursting vitality like what she felt from all living things at home, whether blade of grass, beams of sunlight or wind flirting across her face, droplets of salt water a tang against her lips.

  Not too far distant, she saw groves of the trees that had formed his chair. Black, leafless, the bark smooth as seal skin, giving the twists and convolutions an eerie comparison to traumatized skeletons, reaching to the Heavens for salvation that would never come. Since there was light in this world, but no source of sun she could see through the constant cloud cover, she wondered how they grew so tall. Everything she felt was the antithesis of life, yet it existed. She shivered, thinking of the deity who might have created it for his or her diabolical amusement and then abandoned it when bored.

  Dante shifted her, drawing her attention to the left. They stood inside a stone archway that brought them into a circular garden area ringed by rock, branches and other items to form an unexpectedly attractive fence to mark the magical boundary she could s
ense around it. A deer fence, so to speak. He already possessed a marketable job skill for his immigration to Earth. She pushed down a hysterical giggle, the residuals of the Dark Ones' oppressive presence crackling along her nerve endings.

  He had a small grove of the same trees in the garden, only they had leaves and flowers on their branches and in clusters around their base. There were rocks in artful formations, creating an almost pleasing landscape. Or one that was desperate to be pleasing. As he moved her closer, she dreaded what medium he'd used to create the leaves and flowers, but it appeared to be mostly scavenged items. Tinfoil, jewelry, scraps of clothing, all of which had been twisted, cut or folded to make the shapes of flat, pointed leaves or tightly coiled flowers. He'd done credible semblances of tulips, geraniums, even flat-petaled flowers like daisies.

  On one of the trees, hair had been intertwined with the jewelry and scraps to form intriguing but macabre vines in the tree branches. Roses, so like what she knew from home, though a more muted color, were affixed to the branches. Flat stones formed a curving path through the garden, with carvings upon each one. Animal shapes as well as magical ones. Renderings of dragons, fairies, griffons. Larger rocks had been chipped and sculpted into animals. A small bear, a dog. A rabbit with long ears, one broken off but smoothed, so he appeared to have one ear far shorter than the other.

  "Did you do this?"

  He nodded, and though he was looking at the rabbit, Alexis had the feeling he was intently attuned to her reaction. "Can we get closer? I'd like to look at the tree with the roses on it. Did you see all these things in your mother's mind, or in the rift windows?"

  "Yes. But the Dark Ones, before the rifts closed, also brought back many things. They never last long. They're either destroyed when they're fighting over them, or they throw them on the ground and the ground eats them. But I'd steal what I could, hoard them away, study them until the hiding places were discovered. I learned about roses that way. It was dropped during a fight over food, and I took it. I felt its softness"--his fingers moved across her upper arm--"and had a brief sense of its scent before they took it away. I remember it still."