Page 44 of Riding the Tide

Blair raised his head. “Yeah?”

“I remembered something about mating I forgot to tell you.” Marcus turned onto his side so he could see Blair better. “Nisha told me—before I met you—bonded mates are eventually able to speak telepathically to each other.”

Blair blinked. “Wow. Not sure how you could’ve forgotten that, but cool. So not only do I get gills, but I’ll be able to speak to you in my mind?”

“That’s what I hear.”

“Huh.” Blair scratched his belly. “Odd, though. I wonder how that came about.”

“Well, it’s really helpful when your mate is a mer.”

“What do you mean?” Blair sat up.

“Look at it like this,” Marcus said sitting up, too. “You can’t talk underwater, right?”

Blair nodded. “Of course not.”

“Right. Human vocal cords are not made that way,” Marcus said. “Mers can make sounds like whales and dolphins, but that’s not something you can do. I guess, over time, the ability to speak telepathically developed so human mates could communicate with us underwater.”

“I can hear you in my head, but you can’t read my mind, right?”

“No. Two totally different things.”

“I think that’s good.” Blair winked at Nisha. “When you give me the second bite, that’ll happen for us?”

“That’s what Nisha says, yes. It takes some time for that to develop, from what he said, too.”

“You know, I don’t see any cons to this mating deal.”

“I’m very pleased to hear that.”

“Speaking of mating and merfolk, I was wondering something.”

“What?”

“Do your people have a written history?”

“No, unfortunately. There are rumors of cave drawings scattered throughout the world in underwater caves, but I have no idea if that’s true or not. Mainly we pass our history down from generation to generation by stories.”

“Huh. Well, I guess I can understand that. Paper and water don’t exactly go well together. Does anybody have a clue how long you guys been around?”

“According to the things I’ve heard we were once fully human millions of years ago, but slowly moved to the ocean to hunt and live. As time passed, we evolved to fit our new habitat.”

“I… Fascinating. I guess it makes sense, in a way. Part of your merman form does look humanoid.”

“True. You might find it interesting that hundreds of years ago the islanders here worshiped us as sea gods. They know better now, but they still treat us with respect and awe. They take note of us when most humans don’t.”

“I wonder if that has something to do with their cultural beliefs.”

“It’s possible.”

Blair shrugged. “We’ll probably never know. Anyhow, I’m getting hot. Ready to go for another swim?”

“Always.” Marcus followed Blair over the side of the boat.

They swam for little while then came back aboard. It didn’t take Blair long to notice Marcus needed to drink several glasses of water a day to keep hydrated.

Later that evening Blair anchored the boat not far from a small, uninhabited island Marcus told him about. After dinner they planned to return to the water.

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