Page 15 of The Merman's Betrothal
Theman he’d been kissing’sfriend popped his head out of the water, as though he’d just been chilling down there for a whole minute. He looked around furtively. ‘We should hurry, Your Highness. We’re too exposed here.’
Theman he’d been kissingsimply nodded and hooked an arm round Rory’s collarbone. Then he dove backwards, wrenching Rory away from the jetty with terrifying ease.
Rory flipped upside-down, now pinned to the chest of theman he’d been kissingand being towed down, down under the waves.
Survival instinct took over and his body fought back. Rory blindly kicked and punched at anything he could reach, all his dizziness and confusion narrowed onto the single pinpointthought that if he didn’t escape the clutches of this bastard that he woulddie.
The grip around his chest tightened. A hand tried and failed to calm his flailing limbs. A jumble of strange musical sounds filled Rory’s ears, almost like two alarmed voices singing to one another. He couldn’t get free. Water spilled into his lungs and he convulsed, choking, suffocating. He couldn’t tell if it was his heart or his lungs that felt like they were going to burst, but certainly the space inside his rib cage was suffering a ricochet of explosions.
Before he blacked out, Rory wondered if anyone would miss him. Ol’ Doaty’s voice echoed in the dark behind his eyelids. Or was it his father’s voice?
Yer a useless prick, Rory. You ain’t done nothin’ the world will miss you for.
Chapter Six
Fionn stared at the unconscious man in his arms with a sinking feeling that was rapidly approaching horror.
This was all wrong. His soul mate’s skin had failed to turn blue when he met the water. He didn’t seem to recognise Fionn as a kinsman when they met, and even worse seemed to be fighting against his help. Why wasn’t he breathing?Where were his gills?
‘Your Highness?’ Neacel trilled with a petrified tremor. ‘I think he’s drowning.’
His soul mate was drowning.
Fionn jolted into action. He sped to the surface, launched his mate onto the jetty and felt frantically along the sides of his throat for gills.
Neacel followed and batted his hands away. ‘You need to give him air. Here, breathe in his mouth.’
Neacel carefully tilted his mate’s head back and instructed Fionn how to deliver a rescue breath. Then Neacel lay his hands on the man’s chest and started pumping it up and down.
Within a few compressions Fionn’s mate spluttered, took a shaky, rattling gasp of air, and began to breathe. Neacel rolled him onto his side. He was still unconscious.
Neacel’s voice practically squeaked with nerves. ‘I think he’s too cold.’
‘Too cold,’ Fionn echoed, feeling numb.
They both stared at the man before them. Neacel hadn’t dared say what must have crossed both their minds.
Fionn’s soul mate did not have blue skin. Fionn’s soul mate could not breathe underwater. Fionn’s soul mate was troubled by the cold. He was wrong, wrong, wrong.
Or, even worse, human.
It was too much for Fionn to contemplate right now. He decided to set that thought aside and deal with it later. Just as he had decided to set aside his disbelief of soul mates, for now.
Fionn had already dealt with a battering of life-changing revelations this evening. It was enough to come to terms with the idea that he, of all people, might have afated mate.He whose own soul was already supposed to be signed away to another. Was it a cruel joke or a serendipitous means of escape?
Whatever he believed, he was clearly bonded to this man, and that made him Fionn’s mate.
Meanwhile, Neacel was rooting around in the stranger’s pockets. ‘He has a wallet,’ he said thickly, like it confirmed the worst. ‘Do you want to know his name?’
Fionn took a small plastic card from him which had his mate’s picture on it.
‘Rory Douglas,’ Fionn read aloud. ‘Is this an address?’
‘It is probably where he lives.’
‘On land?’ It felt like a stupid question at this point, but Fionn needed the clarification. He needed to be really sure.
‘I don’t know what to tell you, Your Highness.’ Neacel fiddled with the wallet. It held a collection of other colourful plastic cards and some loose change. The leather was cracked, well-worn. Its owner had used it for a long time. ‘We might find out if we take him there.’
