Chapter One
“That’s it, nice and slow.”
Merletta made her voice as encouraging as she could, noting the frustration on the guard’s face. Griffin was irritated enough by his own limitations—he didn’t need her impatience as well.
The guard took a shaky step across the sand, then another. Just as Merletta was thinking he’d gotten the hang of it at last, his knees gave way, and he dropped onto the sand.
“Why is it so hard?” he burst out.
Merletta tried not to smile. “Because it’s an entirely new skill that your body has no experience with,” she told him calmly. “I’m sure it was the same when you were learning to swim, you just don’t remember.”
Griffin sighed, looking up at her from his knees. “August and Paul seem to have mastered it.”
Merletta looked across the beach, this time allowing her grin to break free at the wobbly gaits of the other two guards as they crossed toward the rocks. “I don’t know if I’d say mastered.”
“Did you find it this hard?” Griffin pressed. “When you first found out about your legs?”
“Harder,” Merletta assured him promptly. “I had no one to teach me.”
Griffin shook his head. “It must have been terrifying, when you first dried out.”
She nodded. “It was. I was all alone, and I was certain I was dying. It took all the courage I had to get out of the water again after I finally made it back in. It was weeks before I could make the change without being afraid that this time it wouldn’t work, and I’d shrivel up like the stories say.”
The young guard—she guessed no more than ten years her senior—shivered slightly. “I certainly thought you were mad when you first told us we could grow legs if we just let ourselves dry out. If I hadn’t seen you do it first, I would never have been willing to take the risk.”
Merletta smiled secretly to herself. She didn’t blame him for his skepticism. Honestly, she’d found it satisfying seeing their dramatic reaction to her performing her practiced wriggle to get from water to land, activating the change that gave her legs. Griffin had needed far more than one demonstration to be convinced. He hadn’t been persuaded to try it until he’d seen August, his senior guard, successfully change back and forth three times.
Merletta chose not to remind him of that fact. The man was already collapsed on the sand, after all. It wouldn’t kill her to allow him a tiny shred of dignity.
Temporarily abandoning him, she made her way across the beach to the other two with confident strides. Memories of her own early days with legs seemed distant now. She had no difficulty walking, running, even jumping. She hadn’t realized how proficient she’d become until she was called upon to teach others. Compared to August and his two guards, she was a master.
“Merletta,” August greeted her, without taking his eyes from his feet.
The senior guard might be a little wobbly, but his legs were strong, as his tail was when he was in the water. Merletta could see the muscles bulging in that part of his legs that emerged from the scaled shorts—all that remained of his tail once the transformation from merman to human was complete. She assumed that the men’s shorts, like her own skirt, could be pulled away from the hips like snakeskin if desired. She’d never asked, of course.
“You’re doing well,” she told August. “When I come back, we should try to increase your speed.” She grinned. “You’ll like running.”
“When you come back?” August repeated, with a shrewd look. “Does that mean you won’t be here tomorrow?”
“It’s a rest day,” Merletta reminded him. “I’ll probably stay in the triple kingdoms.” She drew a deep breath. “Next week is my final week before my third year training commences, you know. I think it’s time for me to approach your wife.”
August stilled, his eyes brightening. “You’ve found a way to speak to her without witnesses?”
“I think so,” Merletta said cautiously. “I’m going to try, anyway. And I think I should do more than speak to her. I think I should bring her out here.”
Paul paused on his progress past them, raising an eyebrow. “Bring her here? To the island?”
Merletta shrugged, her eyes still on August. “I don’t know your wife well enough to be sure,” she told him. “But if it were me, and a near stranger told me the man I loved was alive, when I’d thought him dead for months—”
For a moment she faltered, her mind flying unbidden to Heath, and what she’d felt when she hadn’t known whether he’d survived the spear wounds these very guards had inflicted on him.
“Anyway,” she said, pulling herself together, “I wouldn’t be content to just take their word for it. I would insist on seeing myself.”
“She’ll feel the same way,” said August simply. “But I’m not sure it’s wise.”
“Neither am I,” said Merletta frankly. “But I don’t intend to make that decision for her.”
August’s face twisted into a rueful smile. “She’ll like you.” He sighed. “I can’t deny I’m desperate to see her.”