Page 15 of Ensnaring the Siren

“Shut up. No, she wasn’t.”

“Oh yes, she was.”

“You’re delusional.”

Perez snickered, adding an evil lilt at the end, but otherwise let it drop.

They were halfway back to shore when Hatcher clasped his shoulder. “You good, man?”

Unlike their pilot, the dropmaster looked shaken. Gray even. “Yeah, just freezing my balls off.”

“When she yanked you under, I thought we’d lost you. Just like those fishermen.”

And he had, too, for one heart-stopping second. “She was messing with me. Didn’t mean anything by it.” He wasn’t sure if he was defending her to reassure Hatcher or to soften the man’s view of mermaids. “We’re not a threat to her.”

“What do you mean?” Hatcher’s pale, blond brows furrowed. “‘We’ this crew? Or ‘we’ the Coast Guard?”

“Both.”

“Kruetz’s new friend just wants Nautic’s fishermen to stop killing her family.”

“She’s not my…”

Hatcher’s cheeks flamed red. “She could’ve killed him!”

One hundred percent true, but she didn’t. “It’s all right,” Reid said, trying to reassure Hatcher. “She didn’t hurt me.”

“It’s not all right! Eight people were killed by mermaids this week, and you easily could’ve been the ninth. How are y’all so calm about that?”

Reid lifted his hands for the dropmaster to see, both trembling, and not from cold. “Do I look all right to you?”

Hatcher buried his face in his hands, groaning. “Perez, you freaking out too?”

“Nope,” she said a little too cheerfully, emphasizing the ‘p’ with a pop. “I’m great.”

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Forgive me if I’m more suspicious of a corporate fishing company than I am of the woman who lives in the sea.”

“Yeah, well, the corporate company hasn’t killed anybody,” Hatcher shot back. “And the people they hire are just doing their jobs.”

“You so sure about that? Kruetz’s mermaid says they have killed people. Her people.”

“If they’re just following orders…”

This needed gentle correcting. “Following orders doesn’t excuse someone of wrongdoing.”

“That,” Perez agreed.

Slumping in his seat with an aggravated sigh, Hatcher stared at the cabin ceiling. “We saw people die. But fuck me for being concerned, I guess.” He drummed his fingers in an erratic, impatient rhythm along his knee. “Let’s, for argument’s sake, say I believe mermaid’s telling the truth. That doesn’t mean I trust her with my life.” He pinned Reid with a hard look. “Or yours.”

Chapter

Six

The Coast Warrior’s name was Reid.

And an incredibly strong swimmer for a human. While he’d never match the sheer speed or grace the merfolk had, Nireed could appreciate the brute strength and willpower of his movements—arms knifing through the water in quick, efficient strokes, legs kicking out behind him, the strange black fins he wore on his feet propelling him faster while also conserving energy.

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