Page 7 of Riding the Tide

“Oh shit!”

His mate’s yell snapped his attention back to the boat. There were voices raised in anger, and they were close to his mate. Too close. Worry gripped him. He eased closer to the ship with the dolphins following alongside him. As he got closer to the boat, a scream cut through the air, and a body sailed over the side.

Mate!

He didn’t consider the repercussions. He dove under, and with a powerful thrust of his tail, aimed for where his mate hung suspended in the water. One dolphin gently poked the human, but nothing happened.

Above him on the boat, Marcus heard screams and shouts. There were the sounds of running feet and someone blew a whistle. A lot. The sound made his head ache, but he had more important things to worry about.

Marcus wrapped his arms around his mate and turned, swiftly swimming away from the ship. Seconds later he broke the surface still holding his mate securely. The dolphins surfaced with him. In their stress their concerned clicks sounded more like a squeaky door opening. Marcus pressed two fingers to the human’s throat, feeling for his pulse.

Relief made him giddy when he found it. Then he pressed his ear to his mate’s mouth and almost cried when he felt a puff of air. He was breathing. From the ship, a spotlight flashed over the ocean by men frantically searching the area around the boat.

Marcus didn’t know what to do. The human was obviously unconscious, but he didn’t know if that was because he hit his head on the way down or because something happened before he fell off the boat. Maybe the shock of falling overboard made him pass out.

Agonized, he stared at the boat. Humans could probably help his mate better than he could, but… but… he couldn’t leave his mate floating in the water. A dolphin nudged him gently, almost as if pushing him away from the boat. No, he wouldn’t leave his mate in the hands of those humans. It was because of them his pretty little human was in this situation.

He’d get Kannon, and even Brett, to help him. Between the two of them surely they had enough connections in the human world to help his mate, if he needed help. Decision made, he swam toward a cave to transform.

Now that he decided on a course of action, he needed to transform before his mate woke up. That was something the poor guy didn’t need to hear or see as soon as he opened his eyes. Then Marcus needed to get dressed. Stashed in the cave was an assortment of clothes kept in waterproof bags.

He was going to have to explain… and he had no idea where to evenbeginwith that. Shit. What had he gotten himself into? Maybe this wasn’t the best idea after all. He entered the cave and swam as far as he could. He pulled his mate up on the sand. There were only small waves lapping at the beach, so he wasn’t worried about the human drowning.

Then he dragged himself completely out of the water and plopped down. He stared up at the top of the cave where several holes let moonlight in. Even though he dreaded the transformation, for once he wished it would hurry up and start. Almost as if his very thought started the process, the color of his tail lightened, signifying the skin drying out.

He tried to calm his breathing, but his breath froze in his lungs when he heard the human a few feet from him moan.No! Not yet!He fanned his tail with his hands even though he knew the action was ridiculous and wouldn’t help.Come on, come on, come on.He shot another quick glimpse at the human. Dammit, were his eyes fluttering?

The bottom of his tail tingled. He clenched his teeth as the pain from his tail ripping stormed through him, making him queasy. The flipper part of his tail split, and the tear continued up his body. It made him green about the gills every damn time, and his stomach threatened to revolt. The two parts separated and slowly morphed into human legs.

The fins devolved into feet, and finally the transformation ended. The process never lasted long, thank fuck, but it still hurt like a bitch. Still, he closed his eyes, taking a few seconds to reorient himself.

“W-what in the ever-loving hell are you?”

Marcus’ stomach dropped.Please, no. Tell me this isn’t happening.Opening his eyes, he looked at the man sitting half in, half out of the water. “I… fuck.”

“Well… okay. Good to know, but that doesn’t really answer my question, but… Hey! You speak English! Excellent.”

He was tempted to say he knew his ABCs and 123s, too, but he managed to keep his smart mouth shut for once.

“You’re a merman, aren’t you? Holy shit on a stick, you’re a merman. I mean, you got to be. You have a tail… Okay, I mean youhada tail. And I saw a… a… You had gills, even though I can’t see them now. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck—huh. Sorry, guess I should’ve said merman. And I’m pretty sure I saw fins at your wrists, too. Wow, okay I think I hit the babble part of our evening.”

Marcus blinked. That was a whole lot of nothing he said just then. Babble described that perfectly. But babble was the least of his worries. He was screwed. So, so, screwed. They weren’t supposed to tell humans what they were. Okay, technically he hadn’t told the human… he had just showed him.

Ha! Little late to worry about that now. Not only did the human see him in his merman form, he watched him transform. He winced. Andthatwasn’t something he’d wish on his worst enemy.

“Do you have a name?”

Did he have a name? If this didn’t beat fuck all, and it certainly wasn’t how he envisioned this playing out. Not that he spent a whole lot of time envisioning much of anything concerning a mate. Especially since he’d been determined to stay single. Boy, that certainly changed.

“Um, are you okay?”

Now the human—the human who fell off a fucking boat—was asking ifhewas okay. “Yes, I’m okay. Just a little overwhelmed.”

“You? You’re overwhelmed? Dude, how do you think I feel?”

This was simply beyond anything. Why wasn’t his human completely freaking out, and he was just sick of calling him “the human.” “Okay, just hold on a second. Let me get dressed—”

“You have clothes here?”

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