Mermaids tail, p.1
Mermaid's Tail, page 1
Mermaid’s Tail
TJ Bell
MERMAID’S TAIL
by TJ Bell
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Cover: Raquel Lyon at Crooked Sixpence Book Covers
Editor: Julie Sturgeon
Copyright: 2023 by Tami Lund LLC
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License Notes
All rights reserved. This book is copyrighted property of the author and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes without express, written permission from the author or publisher. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to purchase their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer.
Thank you for your support.
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All entities, locations, businesses, etc. in this book are strictly figments of the author’s overactive imagination and are not to be construed as real.
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Questions, comments, or desires to seek permission to use any part of this book for your own purposes should be directed to tjbellauthor@gmail.com.
Created with Vellum
Contents
Author’s Note
About this book
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Epilogue
Try this book next…
Chapter One
Books by TJ Bell
About the Author
Author’s Note
This book was previously published under my pen name, Tami Lund, in the Songs of the Deep limited-release mermaid anthology. With the exception of switching pen names, no other aspects of the story have changed in the re-publication of this book.
About this book
Mermaid’s Tail
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The need for revenge is as deep as the sea
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Fifteen years ago, Asia was tossed over the side of a ship and left for dead. Galene, the first mermaid, and Poseidon, the god of the sea, saved her and turned her into a mermaid.
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For fifteen years, Asia has been biding her time, waiting to seek her revenge.
* * *
But now that she finally has her chance, she runs into a roadblock in the form of Conall Nowak, a handsome human man who takes her breath away and gives her all the feels…and makes her wish for a future that cannot be.
* * *
Because she is a mermaid, and Conall has a secret.
* * *
He knows who tossed Asia overboard.
Chapter One
Generally, Asia enjoyed her job. Thwarting sailors and fishermen who drew too close to that section of the ocean above her home—the pod of mermaids tucked deep beneath the sea—was usually fun.
She had a dark side, naturally—she was a mermaid, after all—and deceiving humans fed her inner bad girl in a way that nothing short of a good drowning could.
And she did it all without ever leaving the water.
The last time she’d been out of the sea was the day she drowned—more accurately, was tossed overboard—and Galene, the original mermaid, had saved her. She’d given Asia the ability to breathe underwater, had turned her legs into a fish’s tail. Then Galene’s magic had forced shimmering, purple scales to grow over most of Asia’s body.
The turning had been a long and miserably painful process, made twofold by the fact that Asia had not understood what was happening until it was over and she was part fish instead of fish food.
“You have a new assignment,” Bella, the head of security, informed her. Sometimes, it irked that Bella had been chosen for the job instead of her, but truthfully, Asia would rather be out there in the open sea, her tail fin flapping, her body undulating furiously as she chased off sailors, than down here dealing with personnel issues and bureaucracy. She’d only been fifteen when she’d been forced to trade her human life for life as a mermaid, but she recalled enough of the human world to acknowledge that neither world was run all that differently.
“I just cleared the waters,” Asia replied. “Are you saying there’s another ship encroaching already?” They had to have been going at breakneck speed, because when she’d left the surface a few hours ago, there’d been nothing on the horizon.
“Not exactly,” Bella hedged, and why was she fidgeting with her blue-green scales like she had something to say and wasn’t exactly keen to say it? “But my intel says they should be near enough by tomorrow. I need you to intercept them.”
“Okay.” This wasn’t anything different from what Asia did every single day.
“And I want you to board their ship.” Bella glanced up at the dim light that only just filtered down to their depths. “We are exactly at the right time in the lunar cycle. You will be able to shift into human form.”
Asia shook her head. Dark tendrils of hair floated through the water. “Nope. Not happening. I do not go on land.”
“It’s not land, it’s a ship. In the middle of the ocean.”
“You mean like the one I was tossed from, fifteen years ago?” Was Bella nuts? Why did she think Asia got such a thrill out of waylaying ships, sending them far away from the pod?
She had issues. And they were directly tied to being tossed from a boat in the middle of the ocean and getting turned into a mermaid. And she wasn’t the only one. The only way to become a mermaid or merman was to nearly drown, to be on death’s door, and be awarded Galene’s gift of life. Anyone would have issues after that experience.
Bella sighed, as if she’d expected this argument. “I understand how you feel, Asia.”
“Yeah, you do. So why—”
“I’ve been working on this assignment for months, for years, truth be told. I’ve exhausted all other options.”
“You’ve…” Why was Asia just now finding this out? She was the best of the best at guarding their piece of the ocean against those asshole sailors. If there had been an ongoing investigation, she should have been part of it, damn it.
“Don’t look at me like I just stole your pet seahorse,” Bella chided.
Asia jutted her chin and crossed her arms. The action lifted her purple scale-covered breasts.
Back before she’d been tossed overboard, when she hung out near the docks, she’d overheard plenty of sailors as they speculated about the existence of mermaids. Generally, sailors believed they were a myth, a legend used to explain away mysterious occurrences like a competent swimmer or captain falling overboard and presumably drowning even though a body was never discovered.
As with all myths, the tales grew exponentially with time.
Sailors had convinced themselves that mermaids were all naked from the waist up. Half the allure was the desire to see a woman’s breasts, even if the bottom half of her body was a fish’s tail.
Now that Asia was a mermaid, she knew how wrong they were. Every mermaid was different—not unlike humans, she supposed. Her scales, for example, extended up, from her tail all the way to her breasts. It looked like she was wearing a strapless evening gown.
If a sailor were to ever catch a glimpse of her, he’d be disappointed indeed.
“There is a reason I was chosen as head of security over you,” Bella said.
Asia’s flippers quivered. She hadn’t known Bella was even aware she’d expressed interest in the position.
Bella sighed. “Do you want to know the reason?”
What she wanted was to be done with this conversation. “Just give me the assignment,” she snapped.
Conall loved the sea. Out here, on a ship far, far from any shoreline whatsoever, it was so peaceful, despite the memories this trip evoked, the edge of what he supposed was grief—or, more likely, bitterness—simmering just below the surface of his subconscious.
That sensation was a large part of the reason he’d stayed away from the ocean for as long as he had. He’d feared it would be too overwhelming.
He kept bracing…and then nothing happened. And as they were at this point, so far out to sea that he could see nothing but roiling, churning water and endless moonlit sky, he was good. He could quit anticipating and just sit back and enjoy.
“Ahoy, matey!”
He grimaced. “Butch,” he said shortly.
Butch Rutgers considered himself a historian. Conall considered him an idiot. Nothing he’d drunkenly spewed since they’d cast off had any basis in fact. And here Conall was, about to endure another onslaught of utter nonsense.
“Keeping an eye out for mermaids?” Butch asked, clapping Conall on the shoulder before stepping up to the rail. He reeked of beer. The one thing Butch was exceptionally good at was drinking everyone under the table.
Conall glanced down at the barrel-aged bourbon in his own glass. He wasn’t a big drinker, but on occasion, he did appreciate a nightcap before heading off to bed. Butch, by contrast, liked to start drinking around noon and not stop until he passed out.
Butch had informed Conall that he was guiding them around the mermaid pod sailors whispered about in the taverns of shipping towns.
The man was fascinated with that chunk of the ocean, had studied it more extensively than any other person in the world—or so he boasted. He also claimed that was the reason the captain of this ship had invited him aboard for this journey.
They were traveling from A Coruña, Spain, to Portland, Maine. Conall had a job interview in Portland in two weeks’ time; he was finally
There had been no justifiable reason except curiosity to choose this method of travel over booking a flight.
And maybe to prove something.
He wanted to negate the rumors. The whispers that mermaids had killed his father. The insistence that it hadn’t been a drowning, a freak accident that could have happened to anyone, even a sailor with decades of experience under his belt.
“Haven’t seen one yet,” Conall said carefully. He didn’t even believe in the legendary creatures, not that Butch listened when he’d told him as much.
No one alive could claim they’d seen one, although plenty had stories of fellow sailors who’d supposedly died as a result of their meddling. The fact that bodies often were not recovered only enhanced the stories.
Conall thought that part the most ridiculous of all. There were plenty of carnivores in the sea that would happily devour a dead body—a perfectly logical explanation for not having recovered someone who had drowned in the middle of the ocean.
“Me neither, but we will,” Butch said, his voice pitched low, like he was afraid someone might overhear their conversation. No idea who he was hiding from; Butch normally told his mermaid tales at full volume.
“Our captain thinks I’m taking us around the mermaid pod, but really, I’m taking us right over top.”
Conall jolted, sloshing the liquid in his glass. Maybe he didn’t believe in mermaids, but he did have a healthy respect for the sea, and when sailors for generations said to stay away from a particular area, it was wise to abide by their warnings.
“Why would you do that?” As curious as he had been when he’d booked this trip, he’d honestly believed they would go around the mysterious section of the sea where his father had died. He’d not truly wanted to sail right over it, for fuck’s sake. He’d just wanted…
What? What had he been hoping for?
Hell, he wasn’t even sure.
“I know about you,” Butch said, leaning on the railing and angling his body toward Conall. “I know about your dad.”
Conall lifted his glass and drained the contents. It wasn’t nearly enough to help him through this conversation, damn it. He ought to walk away, escape to his cabin. Butch was plenty drunk enough at this point that he’d probably not even remember that they’d talked.
Conall stayed where he was.
“Don’t you want to know?” Butch asked.
“Know what?” he said tightly.
“What really happened to him?”
He ground his teeth. “Even if I thought the reports were wrong and something else did happen, how is sending us across the section of the Atlantic Ocean known for its high number of drowning deaths going to prove or disprove anything?”
“If we pass over their pod, I guarantee we’ll see a mermaid.”
“That’s a bold statement.”
“Trust me. I know what I’m talking about.”
Conall didn’t trust anything about the guy, except that he’d pass out at some point—probably soon—and wake up tomorrow and do it all over again. Butch was nothing if not a creature of habit.
“The key, of course,” Butch continued, “is to get through without the mermaids luring one of us to our death.”
Conall pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay, let’s go with this insanity for a minute. What’s going to happen, Butch? Why would a mermaid lure one of us to our death?”
“Anger. Bitterness. Revenge.”
“Are you saying someone on this ship has wronged them in some way?” No one on this ship—except Butch—claimed they’d ever had any interaction with mermaids. In fact, this ship was staffed with some of the most logical, don’t-care-about-mermaid-myths sailors Conall had ever experienced. Which was exactly why he’d chosen to book passage across the ocean.
Butch had been the odd man out, but Conall supposed everybody needed comic relief once in a while.
Turning a full circle, Butch stretched out his arms like the ringmaster at a circus. “Maybe not directly, but somewhere, someone in each of our personal histories has, without a doubt.” He pointed at Conall. “And you have the most direct, most recent link.”
“My father,” Conall said, and son of a bitch, he was not really buying into this nonsense, was he? “His body was recovered,” he reminded the drunkard. “Cause of death: drowning.”
Butch shook his beer can in Conall’s face. “I did my research. He’d been a sailor for twenty-five years. He was a swim instructor in high school. He’d been good enough that he probably could have gone to the Olympics if he’d not decided he’d rather captain boats instead of do laps in a pool.”
All true, and all public knowledge. Easily accessible, too. The man had died only three years ago, and the story had been splashed all over the internet. Conall had no idea his father had been so famous in nautical circles until his death.
Infamous was probably a better word.
“And he wasn’t a good man,” Butch murmured, his bleary gaze locked onto Conall’s face.
Shit. He really needed another drink. Or to walk away.
“I know it sucks to hear that about your own old man, but you know it’s true.”
Goddamn it. “You did your research. Congratulations.”
That, too, had been splashed all over the internet. His father’s misdeeds. How poorly he treated his crew. How he mistreated women.
Hell, most of the articles Conall read had implied his father deserved what happened.
“That’s why they killed him,” Butch said. “Revenge. Because he wronged one of them.”
“He wronged a lot of people.” Including his own son. “And yes, he wronged a lot of women. Human women, not mermaids.”
“I not only did my research, I was there.”
Conall fought hard not to react. He probably failed. Because, yeah, he knew what Butch was alluding to.
“What do you mean, you were there?” God, why did he even ask? He didn’t want to hear Butch’s account of things; he’d read plenty, had discussed it ad nauseum with his therapist.
Butch swayed closer. Conall could see the spiderwebs of veins in his bloodshot eyes, could practically pick out his favorite brand of beer by the stench of his breath. This man was going to drink himself into an early grave if he didn’t change his habits soon.
“I was on the boat. On that trip. The one where he threw the girl overboard.”
* * *
Man accused of tossing girl overboard released due to lack of evidence.
* * *
That had been the first headline after his father’s arrest and subsequent release. Hell, Conall was surprised they’d even put cuffs on him, considering there was no body, no proof that a girl had even been on the boat in the first place. All they’d had to go on was the account of a single person onboard the vessel. They couldn’t even pinpoint a specific missing girl who might have been the supposed victim. Five teenaged girls had gone missing from the coastal towns within a fifty-mile radius of the village from which the ship had set sail. Three had been recovered since—alive—but two were still missing, and last Conall had checked, no one was actively searching for them.
Even though the alleged incident had occurred well over a decade ago, both girls could still be out there, somewhere, very much alive. The accusations were not true. His father had been far from a saint, but killing someone was a stretch.
