Each Step Like Knives Read online

  "Careless split-tails." This time, Krall's hands fluttered in laughter that echoed the noise issuing from his throat. "Don't they know any better?"

  "Why tell me your tale now, oh, my brother?" Jeenai pulled his tail up so he could grip it with both hands and lean against the wall.

  "Because you are my favorite of all my brothers, Jeenai. And I hate to see you wasting away for something that could be yours."

  Jeenai watched his older brother stretched out lazily on his back. "You're talking about the sea hag."

  Krall rolled his eyes toward Jeenai. "Who other? She can give you what you want, oh, my brother. Legs instead of a tail. The ability to breathe air, not water. She can make you into a split-tail. But at what price, oh, my brother? That's what I ask you."

  Jeenai thought of the human woman. She'd felt right in his arms. His heart and his cock leapt at the thought of her in his arms again. "I will pay the price, Krall."

  "I know it sounds crazy, Frannie, but it happened." Helena turned off the burner when the kettle began to whistle, then fixed herself a mug of Earl Grey. Extra sugar. Cream. Her eyes and nose still burned today from the saltwater, but she felt curiously energized, otherwise.

  "You almost drowned last night and you make it sound like something out a fairy tale." Francine's voice was disapproving even through the long-distance connection. "This is reality, Helena. You could've died last night, if what you're telling me is true and not some dream."

  Helena blew on the tea. "It wasn't a dream."

  "You really want me to believe some gorgeous lifeguard pulled you out of the water--"

  "Threw me out."

  "Threw you out of the water, then just disappeared?"

  Helena sipped the hot drink and sighed with pleasure at the taste of real cream. "That's what happened."

  Silence. Francine sighed. "Are you really all right?"

  "I'm really all right!" Helena turned and looked out the kitchen window to the glimpse of beach beyond. "Fran, it was really amazing. He was amazing."

  "A guy who can breathe underwater and is strong enough to throw you to shore would count as amazing."

  "When you put it that way," Helena said, "it does sound nuts. I know."

  "Maybe you had an out-of-body experience."

  "I don't think so." Helena's nipples peaked beneath the cotton T-shirt she wore. The memory of her mystery man's lips caressing hers had just shot a bolt of pure desire straight through her. "I was definitely in my body."

  "Don't go swimming at night by yourself any more! Promise? Not even if it is to meet hunky men. Okay?"

  "Okay. Yes. I promise." Helena laughed. "I'm sorry I worried you."

  Francine snorted, and Helena could imagine her friend rolling her eyes. "I'm still worried."

  "Don't be. I'm fine," Helena said for what felt like the hundredth time. "I have to go."

  They wished each other good-bye. "I'll call you in a couple days," Francine said.

  Helena didn't have the heart to tell her friend not to call so often. "Okay. Talk to you then."

  Helena looked out to the beach again. The pale blue glimmer of sky she'd seen earlier had gone a dark and foreboding gray. It looked like it was going to storm. Even as she watched, a fork of lightning split the gray. A moment later, the sound of thunder came to her ears.

  Helena left her tea on the counter and pushed through the screen door to stand on the porch. She shaded her eyes to stare out at the roiling ocean. The beach, which earlier had boasted several umbrellas and a few families, was now deserted. Even the sand looked gray beneath the storm clouds.

  She could see something moving on the surface further out. What was it? A tornado on the water?

  Her feet moved of their own will. She left the kitchen and went to the beach to see what was dancing on the water. She'd heard of water funnels, but had never seen one before. The swirling silver tunnel danced on top of the water, bending and dipping like an old-fashioned lady in a ball dress bowing to her partner. Helena's nipples tingled again at the sight. Her pulse beat rapidly in her clit. She shook her head. What on earth was happening to her?

  Waves crashed and pounded the sand. The funnel grew closer. It looked to Helena like the neck of some ancient beast, some sort of dinosaur. A sea monster.

  The hag lived deep. Jeenai swam to the outskirts of her territory and paused. The sand here shifted subtly from brown to gray and then to black. The vegetation hung limp and pallid, with twisted branches and sagging, ugly flowers. She'd built a wall of bones--animal, human, even some of the Carrageenai. A fish hung, flopping, from the ribcage of a split-tail sailor who wore a garland of phosphorescent moss around its neck.

  The water was colder here and Jeenai shivered. The Carrageenai could adjust their body temperatures rapidly to accommodate the changes in the sea depths, but he wasn't a fish. The cold water still affected him and made him slow.

  Her guards seized him before he'd made it halfway to her door. Jeenai didn't fight them, since his reactions were not at their usual speed and because it would be considered an affront to the hag if he killed her guards before asking her to grant him a favor. Instead, he hung in the tentacles of her trained squid and tried to ignore the clacking of their sharp beaks in his face as they threatened him.

  "Put him down." She gestured and gave a low, trilling noise from deep in her throat.

  The squid released Jeenai and retreated. He rubbed his arms where their suckers had abraded his skin.

  "My pets have left their kisses on you, I see." She gestured for him to swim closer. "You want something from me." She added a leer and a tail flip that changed the subtext of the phrase to something sexual.

  "I want to become a--" He almost said split-tail. "Human."

  The hag lifted her chin and pondered him. "You can't be human. You want to walk on land and breathe air. You want to have sexplay with a human woman. But you can't ever be human, yourself."

  "If I have all those things, if I can do those things, that will be enough."

  "Will it?" The hag laughed. Her hands made fluttering shadows on the wall. "I'm not so sure, mal."

  Anger rose in his chest. "It's not for you to decide."

  Again, she laughed and tossed her hair. Her skin was smooth and unlined and her breasts high with puckered nipples. Her gaze bore into his as she fingered the reddening circles. He caught the scent of her arousal.

  "If that's what you want, then you shall have it." The hag smiled. "But nothing I grant comes for free."

  "I know that."

  "And even if I could give this to you without charge, I can't change the truth of what's going to happen." The hag swam closer to him and entwined herself around him. Her tail stroked his as her hands found his belly and stroked upward. "I can take away your tail and give you legs. But I can't give you what you want from her, which is that human emotion they call...love. I can't make her love you."

  He stayed upright beneath her wandering hands. His penis slid from its slit, though he felt little desire to engage in sexplay with the hag. She reached for it, clasped it, then squeezed.

  "Do you want to know my price, mal?"

  "Of course I do."

  The hag laughed until her hair swirled around her body. "I think you can guess."

  Her red nipples told him that answer. "You want the fuck from me?"

  She looked around. "From who else? You're the only mal here."

  Jeena looked at her smooth skin, the tail as black as ink next to her pale upper torso. Her hair, too, was white streaked with black. She had very unusual coloring, and she would have been immensely appealing to him...before he'd lost his heart to the human woman.

  "If all you require is the fuck, I will pay that price, madame."

  The hag narrowed her eyes at him. "Not only the fuck, my fine mal. I also desire a child of you. I want your seed."

  This was a more complicated issue. "Then I would have responsibility to you and to the child."

  "You'll be living above the surface