“Pardon?”
“Like we’re boyfriends.”
“No.”
“Look,” he snapped, “I don’t like it any more than you do, but d’you want Fred to get into trouble?”
Stiffly, like a recently animated marble statue, Artur placed his arms around Jonas’s waist.
“Not like that, You look like someone’s sticking a gun in your ear.”
“Someone will most likely have to very soon.”
“Put some feeling in it,” he commanded. “Love me tender!”
“No.”
“Look, I’d much rather be snuggling with her,” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “But we can’t get caught, okay? And we can’t get Fred into trouble. So snuggle. Now.”
Instead of snuggling, Artur grabbed him by the shirt front and hoisted him to eye level. This was the most alarming thing to happen since he tried to invent chocolate shampoo and blew up Lab Six.
“You do not touch her,” Artur was telling him, while Jonas struggled and kicked, his feet a good foot off the ground. “Ever. Do you understand, biped?”
“Not—one of—your subjects,” he coughed.
“Then I will simply have to beat you until you comply.”
“This shirt—cost—one-fifty—at Macy’s—” he gurgled.
Artur set him down (reluctantly, it seemed to Jonas).
“Good thing you did that,” he said, straightening his clothing and blowing his hair out of his eyes, “because I was about to kick your fishy ass into the seal tank.”
Artur laughed politely.
“Crushin’ on Fred, eh?” It had to be Fred. It sure as shit better not be Dr. Barb or there’d be a beat-down, all right, and Mr. Hotshit Prince might get a surprise.
“I do not know what that—”
“Yes you do. Get in line, pal. But don’t worry about me, Fred and I are nothing more than friends. Just realize there are other men out there. Even if…”
“Even if…?”
“She’s oblivious.”
Artur nodded, stroking his too-cool red beard. Not too long, not absurdly short—like the little bear in Goldilocks, it was just right. “That is well,” he said at last.
“Oh, right, real well. Listen—”
“Morons!” Fred’s grating voice cut through their private chat. “Are you coming, or not?”
“Where’s Dr. Barb?” he asked, peeking around the corner to make sure the coast was clear.
“She’s outta here. Didn’t even notice you.”
“Oh,” Jonas said. He faked enthusiasm. “That’s good, then.”
Fred gave him an odd look, and let them into the darkened halls of the NEA.
Chapter Thirteen
“It should be here somewhere.”
“What exactly are we looking for, Nancy Drew?”
Fred gave Jonas a look. They’d both gone through an insane Drew phase in the fourth grade, read the entire Nancy Drew series, talked about her and her friends and her borderline-absentee dad, and at the end had both decided it was a miracle Ms. Drew lived through any of her wacky adventures.
“What. Are. We. Looking. For?”
“I heard you the first time, moron. Anything Dr. Pearson might have left. He’s got to have notes, charts—something.”
“I dislike this skulking about,” the prince said, looking around the small, cluttered lab with distaste. “It ill becomes royalty. I prefer action.”
“Indulge the commoners, will ya?”
“Yeah, do that.” Fred picked up a clipboard and instantly became absorbed. Much more interesting than listening to the men in her life bitch and moan. How did wives and moms stand it?
“I don’t know why I’m here,” Jonas was saying, looking absently around the lab. “It’s not really my field. Now, if you want to talk about a hand cream that doubles as perfume…”
“I don’t know why you’re here either.” Jonas, she had decided three years ago, had an odd affection for the NEA. He’d been in it about a thousand times, and was always chatting up her boss and colleagues… even the volunteers who worked the gift shop. She happened to know he didn’t give a tin shit about oceans, sea life, stuffed seals, or penguins, so it was a bit of a mystery. “So go.”
“Yeah, maybe I will.” In another of his odd mood swings, Jonas had gone from keen interest to yawning boredom in less than thirty.
“Then be off,” the prince commanded, sitting on a lab stool and nearly toppling off when he realized the chair didn’t have a back.
Fred swallowed a laugh and kept her gaze glued to the clipboard. Pearson had the handwriting of a serial killer, and she was having a tough time deciphering if this was a toxin sheet or his grocery list.
“You’re pretty strong,” she heard Jonas say to Artur, obviously ignoring the prince’s command to ‘be off.’ “Fred is, too. I once saw her pick up her mom’s fridge to get one of my Hot Wheels.”
“That is interesting about Fred. It: is also an accurate observation.”
“I’m guessing it’s the whole mer-angle, right? I mean, you can’t swim around on the bottom of the ocean day and night—all that pressure—and not build some upper body strength. I mean, you guys are under literal pressure, not: the usual ‘the H.R. rep hates me, I can’t stand office politics’ pressure.”
“Do not feel shame. An air breather is by nature much weaker.”
“Uh—okay, yeah, I’m not really a shame-feelin’ kinda guy, but thanks anyway. I’m betting you can see in the dark like a cat, too, huh?”
“What is a cat?”
“Because I bet it gets pretty dark down there, too, right?”
“It is dark in many places,” the prince said, sounding slightly confused. She couldn’t blame him. Jonas had all the tact of a pit bull once his mind starting chewing on a problem.
“So all mer-people—”
“Undersea Folk,” the prince corrected.
Fred resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Well, he could have picked a worse one, like Ben-Varry or Caesg or Meerfrau. Seemed like all of her research on merfolk came up with stuff that was ninety percent outright wrong, and silly-sounding names.
“Right, right, that’s what I meant. All Undersea Folk are super strong, and can see in the dark, and can breathe air and water—how do you breathe air and water?”
“We just—do.” Artur looked from Fred to Jonas, puzzled. “Are you not comrades? How do you not know these things about a friend?”
“Because Fred doesn’t know a lot of these things. She was raised by humans. Heck, I didn’t even know she was a fellow mammal at first, because she’s so clammy all the time. You think her mom ever let her near a doctor?”
“I’m never sick,” Fred said absently.
“Anyway, back to what we were talking about. Fred doesn’t have gills. Not even when she has a tail.”
“Never mind her tail,” the prince ordered. “And why would she? She is not part fish. She is one of the Undersea Folk. She is one of my people.”
“Oh, take a pill, handsome. I’m just making observations, here, and you’re getting all touchy.” He added, oddly, “Resist the urge to pick me up and shake me like a juice box.”
Artur sighed, the quiet groan of a man picking up a heavy, chattering burden. “We pull air into our bodies when we are on land, and when we are under water we pull air from the water.”
“Okay, that was super helpful. Lemme just grab some clarification, ‘kay? So—like, you get oxygen from the water, how? The cells of your body somehow open up and grab the oxygen and bring it into your system? You’re, what, like starfish?”
Close, Fred thought. It really was difficult to explain. As people didn’t think about breathing, she didn’t think about water-breathing.
No, she didn’t have gills, and she wasn’t half girl, half fish, but a mammal that simply resembled such a creature. A large, hostile mammal whose baseline temp was eighty-eight degrees and whose resting heart rate was thirty.
She just—just nev
er needed to come up for air when she was swimming. Interesting that even though she had a doctorate in marine biology she never gave much thought to her own biology. (Though it had been amusing, picturing her professors’ reactions if she had shown off her tail during a wet lab.) Very likely the pores in her skin were able to extract oxygen from the—
“This is useless,” she said, bored with the ‘how do you not drown’ talk, and annoyed with Pearson’s notes. “A bad idea. We should have come during business hours.”
“Oh, sure,” Jonas said snarkily. “That would have been easy to explain. ‘Hi, Dr. Barb, this is the Prince of the—”
Fred gave him a look. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
“Sobbingly, no.”
“Well, let’s think about this. I’d like to try feeding the fish again, anyway, so I might as well do it while we’re here. You—what’s your plan?”
“For what?” Artur replied, looking startled when she pointed at him.
“For—you know. Waiting until tomorrow to meet the other guy who’s bugging me about your little problem.”
“I will return with you to your dwelling, of course.”
“What?” she cried. “I don’t have the room or the temperament for a royal roommate. And don’t wait for an invitation or anything.”
“You are my subject,” he said, looking even more wide-eyed. “Of course you will open your home to me.”
Jonas snickered. “Fred, meet Artur. Artur, meet Fred.”
“I do not know what you—”
“Fred doesn’t ‘of course’ do anything.”
“There’s a Marriott right next door,” she forced through a tense jaw. “We’ll get you a room. You might be in town for a while.”
“The Prince of the Black Sea has an American Express?” Jonas asked gleefully, being more annoying than usual. Then, before Artur could ask what he was talking about: “You got any money on you? Dough? Moolah? Treasure?”
Artur’s red eyes actually glowed with comprehension. “Ah! Treasure. Yes, of course. The sea is generous. But I—”
“No pockets, huh? Left all your doubloons at home?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll put the room on my Visa,” Fred gritted.
“You refuse your home to me?”
“Yes.”
“You may not.”
“It’s a one bedroom apartment. Just watch me.”
Artur glared at her. She glared back. Jonas watched, enjoying himself far too much. Then they both glared at him.
“Well, I’m sure you two will work it out.” He coughed. “I’ll just, you know, hit the trail. Call me tomorrow,” he said to Fred.
“Nuh,” she said, fumbling through the papers on Pearson’s desk. The guy had been in town less than three days and his lab looked like a tsunami had hit it. How he could find anything, much less research his little problem, was beyond her. “This is hopeless. My dumb idea of the year. I’d better see to the fish.” She thought of something and looked up at Artur, who was still looking at her with narrowed eyes. “You any good with fish? I mean, do they listen to you?”
“Of course.”
She sighed. “Of course.”
“Of course,” Jonas called over his shoulder as he left.
“Well, suit up. Or whatever you do.”
“Summon an underling to tend to your chore,” he said, waving her responsibilities away with a hand the size of a baseball glove. “Greater problems require your attention.”
“Around here, I’m the underling,” she snapped. “Some of us work for a living, Prince Artur.”
He blinked, his eyes like banked coals in the poor light of the lab. Creepy eyes. But kind of interesting. Hard to look away from, really. “I can assure you, setting out from the Black Sea to find you was considerable work.”
“Good for you. Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“More subjects for you to meet.”
Chapter Fourteen
“Those tiny creatures are not my subjects,” the prince observed, staring down into Main One. They were at the top level of the aquarium, the observation deck, looking down into the main tank. The prince, on the way up, pronounced the NEA “acceptable,” deciding it was “a miniature kingdom.” She had bitten back an acid remark; maybe he’d decide to take the place over and give her a new problem to worry about.
“But they’ll listen to you, right?”
“Some will. The predators will.”
“And the others?”
He smiled at her with his very sharp teeth. “The others will see me as the predator, and flee.”
Briefly, she imagined herself explaining the mass carnage to Dr. Barb. “Ohhh… kay. New plan. How about you stay here, then? I’ll do this myself.”
He eyed the smelt bucket with distaste. “These menial tasks are beneath you.”
She cursed herself for not having Jonas take Artur with him when he left. Jonas could have checked him into the Marriott, gotten the guy all settled, fluffed his pillows, told him all about the good bars, whatever. Now she was stuck with him. “Why?”
“Because—” He groped. Not literally, thank God. “Because you are above such things.”
She prayed the Marriott still had rooms at this hour. “Why?”
“Because you should be tended to and coddled and pleasured and teased.”
She gaped at him. He was staring down at her, his big hands in his pockets, his eyes thoughtful and almost—dreamy? “Why?”
“Would you like to be a princess, Little Rika? I think that would suit you. I think that would suit you very well.”
“Artur, do you have to take any medications if you’re out of the water for a while?” She racked her brain, trying to figure out the poor guy’s damage. “Do you need to lie down, maybe? Do you feel dehydrated? Do you have a headache? I don’t think you’re getting enough air. Or probably too much air. Yeah, that’s it!” In her excitement, she reached out and grabbed his arm. He felt just right; not feverish, like Jonas felt on the few occasions she’d touched him. “Do you feel light-headed? Dizzy?”
Somehow, he had edged closer without her noticing. Now he was very close. Almost kissing close. “Yes,” he murmured.
“You do? You feel dizzy?”
“Yes.”
“When your king father sent you, he didn’t warn you? That you might not be able to take it?”
“As a matter of fact, he did not.”
“Well,” she fretted, “you’d better lie down.”
“Yes indeed.” His hand was on the back of her neck. He probably didn’t want to fall down. Which was too bad, because if he went, they both would. She doubted she could keep him from—
His lips covered hers and pressed, hard. No tentative brushing of lips for this guy. No, his mouth was all over hers, almost hard enough to bruise, and his fingers were like iron on her neck, it was overwhelming, it was the hardest, most possessive kiss of her life and she brought her hands up in outraged surprise, tried to shove him away except, weirdly, she wasn’t shoving him. She was touching, feeling… stroking?
Was she getting too little air?
She managed to tear free and leaned on Pearson’s desk, gasping. “That’s—don’t do that.”
“Oh, I think I will, Little Rika. It was far better than I imagined, and I have a large… imagination.”
She stared at him, her mouth hanging open, and her brain once again erroneously reported that the planet’s spin had sped up. It was all—it was just too much.
It was too much, really! For anyone to deal with. Her mom on all fours. Her dad not being her dad.
Her dad being dead. Pearson showing up. This one showing up. Somebody poisoning the harbor. This one sticking around. Pearson waving at her—following her all the way down the tank to wave at her. This one all grabby. Pearson all chatty about her hair. This one—
“Are you well, Little Rika?”
“No.”
“I did not think so. You look odd.”
>
“I have to go to work,” she said, feeling stupid. That wasn’t what she had meant to say. At all. Why couldn’t she think of what she meant?
He shrugged, turned his back, dismissed her, started heading down the stairs. “Then work. I will view the displays, like a good biped termist.”
“Tourist.”
“That, yes.”
“Don’t eat any of the exhibits,” she couldn’t help adding, then fled.
Chapter Fifteen
She hopped on one foot, struggling out of her stubborn shoe, and it seemed as if everything was fighting her: items of clothing, the doorknob, the packets of smelt. Breathless, she hit the water and grew a tail.
Fish girl bring fish.
And realized she was still gasping from the kiss. Jonas’s inquisitive comments about how mermaids breathed without gills—
Fish girl bang bang fish girl bang.
—flitted past her brain and she realized her mouth was closed. So she was gasping in her brain.
Fish girl bring bang bang thud thud.
Or thought she was gasping.
Fish girl bring bang bang thud thud.
Or—
Fish girl bring BANG BANG THUD THUD.
EVERYBODY SHUT THE HELL UP!
Startled, an angelfish swam into a chunk of coral reef, reeled dizzily for a foot, then straightened and darted away.
She took a deep breath. Or thought she did. And tried to think. Yes, get Artur into the Marriott Long Wharf tonight, tonight, then get
(sneak)
—the hell back to her apartment on Commonwealth Avenue. Tomorrow was another day, and all that. Yes.
How she would keep a strong-willed, large, immensely powerful man at arm’s length was tomorrow’s problem. She just—didn’t he understand? This wasn’t how things were supposed to be.
She offered fish to fish, and some of them, cowed from her mental screeching, actually fed. Distractedly, she fed several reef fish and a couple of the turtles. The sharks grinned as they swam by, and ignored her offerings. That was all right, though. She had plenty of other problems right now. So many that she couldn’t be elated that some of the fish had given in without her having to blast “West End Girls” over the PA system.