Page 28 of Chasing Tail
Taron sulked, but he lowered himself into the water. I joined him. If losing my tail was itchy and irritating, getting it back was downright painful. My tail dried out, and I had to peel it off to get my legs. My legs had to fuse together, and my feet turn into fins to get my tail back in the water.
It wasn’t instantaneous and seemed to take forever. Finally, Taron pulled me into his lap and held me tight while I bit down on my lower lip so hard, I tasted blood. I wanted to shriek my way through it until it was over, but I didn’t need Beck rushing in to check on me.
It was endless and probably the most pain I’d ever experienced. I’d been cut by poisonous coral, stung by jellyfish, and been bitten by some nasty fish that just so happened to be poisonous and very tasty. That wasnothingcompared to this.
I was watching the progress when I could actually open my eyes. My purple and blue scales were coming back, but it wasn’t over yet. I still had feet. I couldn’t help it. When my feet started to lengthen to form a fin, it was so painful, I couldn’t stop myself from shrieking.
My fin came quickly, and the pain stopped, but it was already too late. Beck kicked the door in and came charging in. He saw me sitting in Taron’s lap in all my mermaid glory. Beck’s mouth fell open, and he looked at us in utter shock.
“Holy shit. There’s a fucking mermaid in my bathhouse. I need a minute. This is amazing! Wow. You’re beautiful, Kishi.”
Taron tightened his arms around me so much, I could barely breathe. He was growling at Beck. I honestly didn’t want to hurt him, but I was helpless in this small pool without a weapon. Taron and Beck were similar in size, but Beck had way more experience fighting like this than Taron did.
“Woah, hold up a minute,” Beck said. “We’re all friends here. Do you realize what kind of danger you’re in from my father? He’s willing to tryanythingto save my stepmother. He’ll kill anyone he wants, hoping to use their organs and magic in a cure. He’s gone through every known species on land. We can try to keep you safe from him, but maybe it would be best if you went back home to the sea.”
Beck and his brothers weren’t my enemies. They weren’t even remotely like their father. I knew then, and there I could trust them. Beck’s eyes were glued to my tail. Land dwellers never saw my kind. Now that I knew how painful it was, I had a feeling the mermaids that came to land rarely got wet, and if they did, it was never in front of people.
Beck wasn’t trying to use me for anything. He’d never seen a mermaid before, but he didn’t want to keep me here for his own amusement. He didn’t want to own me. He wanted me to go back where I was safe. But my people would never be safe as long as the druid king lived.
“We can trust him,”I said to Taron.
“Unless you can’t,” Beck said. “I know my father, and I know he’s resorted to terrible magic that any druid knows doesn’t work for her. His kingdom is a major port, and everyone who goes out to sea knows to avoid certain waters because of an agreement with the merfolk. He violated that agreement, didn’t he?”
I nodded. I really wished I hadn’t pretended I couldn’t speak. If I had known about this whole bathing thing and that it was so painful to get my tail back, I probably would have played this differently. But, unfortunately, it was only a matter of time before one of them found out I was a mermaid, and they were pretty damned intelligent figuring out most other things too.
“I need to get Callum and his potion. I’ll get Forrest too. We need to know exactly what he’s done, and it’s high time we heard your story from your own lips. He’s gone too far this time and needs to be stopped. Do you need help? It seemed to hurt you when you changed.”
My secret was out. Beck probably had a million questions about Taron since he clearly had legs. Taron bared his teeth at Beck and hissed. He was okay with touching and kissing. Taron probably knew as much as I did, we could trust him, and we needed him.
But my tail was sea business. Beck may have seen it, and I trusted him to keep it secret, but touching it and helping me with it was something that was between Taron and me.
