Captivated Ch. 05

"Come on, Charly..." she whispered, "you can do better that that." She took deep breaths and focused on calming her heart. But once she calmed herself enough to at least remember the tune, she began humming and the transformation commenced. When it was complete, she dived into the water and disappeared into its blackness.

* * * *

Royce was angry and confused. He kept ramming his fist against the door until it hurt, but despite that pain and the fact he was banging his knuckles until they were raw, he couldn't stop. It was as if he were obsessed!

"Open up, Charly! Open up!"

"Royce?"

He paused when he heard his brother call him and he stopped his knocking before he snapped his head around and looked over his shoulder to see Ryan standing behind him looking confused and worried.

"What are you doing, big guy?"

Royce frowned and looked a little dazed.

"What?"

"What are you doing banging on Charly's door?" Ryan asked. Then he frowned as he eyed his brother's somewhat confused expression. "Are you all right?"

Realizing he must look like a stark raving mad idiot, he dropped his fist and turned as he looked at his younger brother. His handsome face was set to despair but at least he looked sane again. He ran his hand back through his raven hair and shook his head, barely feeling the sting of his hand.

"I don't know, Ry. I don't..." He paused as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he opened them and looked at his brother's concerned face. "It's her, Ry."

Ryan looked a degree more confused. "It's her...what? I don't understand what you're telling me."

Royce stepped off the small porch and walked over to his brother, looking earnestly into his brother's confused eyes. "The virgin."

Ryan's eyebrows shot up. "Um, Royce? Charly's a mommy. She's no virgin—"

"—I'm talking about the virgin from that night, five years ago. The night your sea stone was stolen."

Ryan's angular jaw dropped as he stared at his older brother in shock. "You're kidding me."

"No." Royce shook his head. "It's her," he said as he stalked past his brother and headed away from the lighthouse.

Ryan turned and rushed to fall in step with his brother. "Do you think she's the one who took the sea stone?"

Royce stopped and snapped around to look upset at his younger brother. "Didn't you hear what I just said?"

"Yes, of course I did," Ryan said with a curious frown. It was clear that his brother didn't want to talk about sea stones. He wanted to talk about Charly. "So you believe Charly Meeren's the virgin you slept with that night. If that's true, you should look a helluva lot more jubilant than you do now, shouldn't you? At least now you know you didn't seduce a—"

"—How old is Charly's oldest child?"

Ryan frowned and shook his head. "I don't know. People on the island aren't talking, Royce, and I can't get them to say anything about Charly's children other than—ohhh...wait a minute!" he exclaimed in dawning. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

"I need answers, Ryan. I need to know if that night with her produced a child." He then turned and marched away.

"IF she's the one who was with you that night—"

"—I know she is," Royce said with unwavering confidence.

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because she kissed me."

Ryan stopped in his tracks and threw out his arms. "You're basing all of this on one kiss?!" He shook his head when his brother didn't stop but took the steps up to high ground where he parked his rental Humvee. "I can't believe he's basing his entire theory on a kiss," he added beneath his breath before he threw himself into a sprint and caught up with his brother.

* * * *

Charly swam at high speed, and as she felt the soothing sea water flush along her skin and face, she felt all tension, stress, and worries wash away. She was swimming just to get away, to clear her head...and then she felt her lungs aching for fresh air as she became aware that the sea water had become noticeably warmer—and she knew she'd been swimming for at least two hours!

How time flies when you're panicked.

Her aching lungs and the warmer water around her told her that she'd long ago left the colder Atlantic waters around Mount Desert Island, and now found herself in a more tropical environment. This could only mean that she'd arrived at her special cavern; one she discovered by accident long ago on one of her many excursions. She paused as she looked around the clear water for any danger, and when she was assured there weren't any she sped up to the surface for that fresh haul of oxygen.

She broke water and exhaled loudly before she spat the sea water from her lips. Her dilated mermaid's eyes scanned the dark shoreline clearly visible to her under the moonlight. She discovered she'd been on auto-pilot since leaving Mount Desert Island because she recognized her destination.

She'd arrived to the waters of Bermuda. The tall cliffs in the distance were familiar to her.

After taking a deep breath, she dunked her drenched head beneath the surface of the water, dived downward and made her tail fins briefly breach the surface of the water before it slid silently under.

She swam toward the island, but was temporarily knocked off course when suddenly something big and longer than she was came rushing out from the black depths of the sea. Only her quick thinking, instincts, and maneuvering skills saved her from what could have been a dangerous collision with what appeared to be a giant fish on the attack!

Shark?

She swerved in blinding speed but to her surprise, her attacker was just as skilled at maneuvering as she was, and no matter how hard or fast she swam, it was closing in on her! She had long ago promised herself that she'd never harm another creature if she didn't intend to eat it. She's won many deadly fights with the top predators of the sea in the past, killing more than her fair share, but as a guardian of the fauna of her underwater home, she promised herself she'd never kill again unless she intended to eat it or to defend herself.

She was also aware that she only had two choices in this dazzling chase: flight or fight. She chose flight.

Pushing herself to top speed, she torpedoed through the warmer waters, feeling her lungs already aching since she was expending more energy than usual. But no matter how fast she flew through the water, the big blue fish was literally on her tail. She had no other choice than to make a sharp turn and to try to get behind the large school of fish that were trying to hide behind her.

Her trick was pretty successful up until she discovered that the larger blue fish chasing her had no problem following her! It was as agile as she was, so she knew the time for flight was over and the time to fight had begun.

Swimming in fast circles to slow her speed, she snapped around in the water to defend herself. But just as she geared herself up to do just that, her mouth opened in a silent scream when the creature was already upon her, quickly wrapping what felt like a thick tentacle around her body again, trying to incapacitate her movements.

It suddenly grabbed her long hair and then her arm. She struggled with all her might as its tentacle wrapped tighter and tighter around her. Suddenly she felt arms and hands reach out to her and wrap and grasp her—arms and hands? Squids didn't have arms and hands!

Caught in what felt like an unbreakable embrace, she felt her lungs begin to ache. She knew she needed to surface posthaste or she'd drown. Survival instincts kicked in as her tail slapped around and her own arms and clawed fingers came to life, scratching and shoving against a hard chest that felt like bone plates, all the while feeling that thick tentacle tightening around her viciously thrashing tail.

She had one weapon left to defend herself. She used what little breath she had left in her lungs, pulled her head back as she gathered what strength she had left, and then shot her head forward as she shrieked at her attacker who was still hidden by her own floating hair.

The result was instantaneous!

The school of fish scattered, the water whirled around her by the force of her voice, and she was immediately released! She decided not to stick around to see what her attacker was—maybe a giant squid with tentacles that felt like arms and...hands...and she snapped around and shot away, speeding through the warmer water as fast as she could, heading for the underwater entrance of her secret grotto.

Now closer to the surface where the moonlight was brighter, and now with her hair no longer obscuring her view, she shot up enraged eyes and bared teeth before she suddenly stiffened to find, not the giant deadly beak of the feared Architeuthis squid reaching for her, but a pale but handsome face and a pair of pale blue eyes surrounded by floating long black hair some ten inches long.

Stunned, she stared up into this man's striking face above hers, not yet fully comprehending what he was. All the while, as she seemed frozen in shock, he was busy! His strong fingers laced in her floating hair as his thicker, stronger tail acted like an anaconda snaking tighter around her tail as both mer-creatures hung suspended in the water.

What was he doing? What was he planning?? Was he going to kill her? Was she PREY?!

That thought suddenly terrified her and that, in turn, gave her renewed strength. Without thinking, she grabbed his head and her webbed fingers dug hard into his gills located right behind his ears. It had the effect she was after when he suddenly roared in pain and shot back from her, releasing his hold on her, and it displayed his powerful and smooth chest and surprisingly ripped body.

She wasted no time. With a single hard swipe of her oversized tail, she propelled out of his reach and up to the surface. Unfortunately for her, he regained himself much too quickly and gave chase only this time she didn't stop at the surface for oxygen but breached the surface in a spectacular spray of water, flying in a high arch over the rippling sea surface before diving back down into the water at least twenty yards from where exited it.

Those twenty yards didn't give her much advantage when she felt his hand grab for the narrowest part of her tail, and she threw herself into a spin before he could get a good grasp. Then she shot through the water, vigorously slapping her tail fins, and brought herself to her fastest speed yet.

Panic gave her that extra speed, but it was an uncontrollable speed. She suddenly felt sharp things scratch her elbows and fins and she knew she was entering shallower water but she'd reached her fastest speed to date and, unfortunately, couldn't stop. She suddenly cried out when in the next second she broke the surface and in a huge spray of water, launched into the cold air at blinding speed, pretty much out of control.

She screamed as her arms and tail flapped uselessly in the air before she came crashing down on the rocks with sickening bone shattering force. Her screaming immediately stopped when she hit the hard and unforgiving rocks at the far side of a small patch of beach, and her journey finally ended on the sands of the small beach where she rolled for a while until she laid completely still and in full mermaid's form.

Wading in the frothy water just a few yards from where she lay, the handsome merman blinked long black eyelashes over dilated blue eyes full of confusion and curiosity. He watched the pretty mermaid on the beach, but she didn't make a sound. He cocked his head this way and that to pick up the faintest sound when he finally heard a strange noise coming from her. It wasn't one of those ear-piercing shrieks only females of his kind possessed, but above the slapping water, he could hear a soft moan.

To be continued

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