Seduced by the Sea Lord

Chapter 14

In the bright midmorning sun, Lucy tightened her dive weights around her torso, shouldered her tank, partially inflated her buoyancy-control vest, clamped the regulator with her teeth, and held her mask in place with the palm of one hand. She rolled backward into the water.

Turquoise ocean closed over her head.

Her breath whooshed in her ears, an astronaut entering a new world. Bubbles escaped to the shimmering surface.

Up above the surface, Cash appeared over the end of the boat. He waved.

Gracie stood behind him. She held the Sea Opal, looking not at Lucy's departure, but staring, mesmerized, into the gemstone's white depths.

A pang of separation stabbed Lucy.

Cash had convinced her that the risk of losing the Sea Opal beneath the waves overpowered her irrational need to keep it close to her heart. He was right. She'd immediately turned it over to Gracie for safekeeping. Now that it was gone, though, she desperately wished for it back.

Lucy rolled over. Somewhere in the depths below, she'd find Torun...

He hung upside down, watching her.

She kicked.

Her big plastic fins propelled her through the water. Keeping one eye on her altimeter and the other on her oxygen gauge, she swam down to his level.

The nude warrior tossed her a cocky grin.

He was unencumbered by gear. No oxygen tank, unless it was invisible, and no weights or BCD to control his buoyancy. Yet he floated, neutral, like it was the most natural state in the world.

Lucy flipped over and hung upside down too. She couldn't duplicate his smile. If her lips curled, she'd break the seal around her mask and regulator and spring a leak.

He floated closer.

The dappled shadows made hard, ridged patterns on his face and body.

Was he really a merman?

No. There had to be a trick. The world freediving record was seventeen minutes. Tribesmen who'd never been observed by an Olympic judge might last even longer.

She really should have gotten him examined by a doctor.

He made a purring noise in his chest and gestured to the deep. Was she ready?

She grabbed her grease pencil and wrote on her wrist-sized white slate. "Let's go."

He kissed the patch of skin on her cheek exposed between the rim of her mask and the edge of the regulator, then darted away.

Fast! Holy moly, he darted like a missile.

She struggled to keep him in sight, pumping her fins hard. Wasn't she in terrible shape? The guys she used to dive with would never have let her live this down. She gasped, using up her oxygen way too fast, and pushed herself harder.

Torun paused, a dot in the distance, and zoomed to her side. He thrummed in apology, and, while she laboriously kicked, he hovered beside her without even seeming to paddle.

He'd claimed to have gills on his back, but she only saw tattoos and rippling muscles.

What augmentation allowed him to swim so careless and free?

Oh! He'd snuck on some gear after all: long, flat scuba fins just like her. Hers were magenta plastic, and his were the same tone as his skin, complete with gold tattoo swirls. Neat.