Page 57 of Hooked By a Hero
“I will answer all your questions as soon as I can,” Caspian’s voice sounded in his head, his mouth still smiling without moving. “But now, we should return to the beach and help save the others.”
Elias’s eyes went wide, both at the way they were communicating and at the reminder that Lady Adelaide and the others were not out of danger yet. “Dick?” he asked in his mind, still uncertain about speaking that way, as if he had only begun to learn a new language.
Caspian’s smile dropped and he shook his head. “I tried to save him, but he insisted on fighting me for the treasure. He drowned.”
A knot of conflicted feelings formed in Elias’s gut. He was relieved that Dick had met his just deserts, but he hated the loss of any life.
“Ruby’s treasure?” he asked next.
Caspian shrugged and nodded below them. “We can come back for it later. It shouldn’t be difficult for us to find it again.”
That in itself felt like a miracle. Elias nodded slowly, then let Caspian drift back and take his hand.
“Come along,” Caspian said. “Swimming should be second nature to you now. I’ll initiate your transformation for you when we reach the shallows, but that will probably come easily to you as well.”
Elias did not know what to begin to think as he and Caspian swam toward the shore. As soon as they started to move, Elias realized he knew precisely where they were in the water and what direction they were going, as if his body had developed some sort of compass as well as a tail and fins. He burned with curiosity about how the transformation had happened, what his anatomy was like now, and how he could study himself and Caspian both. The kiss of transformation had taken away all his pain as well as making him into something else, and hewas eager to know whether that was a one-time occurrence or whether being a merman endowed him with some sort of greater healing properties.
Elias wanted to know so many things, but when they reached a point where the water was shallow enough to stand, he felt like the lower half of his body shuddered for a moment, and then he was kneeling in the sand, his head above the water.
“See?” Caspian told him as he nudged Elias to stand up. “I told you it would come naturally.”
Elias stood and adjusted his feet under him. “I accomplished that?”
“You did,” Caspian told him with a wink.
A wave of embarrassment filled Elias as he realized his trousers had torn during his transformation. The waistband had remained intact, however, so the tattered garment hung around him. Combined with the long tail of his shirt, he was shielded enough to avoid deeper embarrassment. Caspian was completely naked, however, but he did not seem to mind at all. All the same, they would need to find new trousers for both of them as soon as possible, especially if they would be around women.
“The women!” Elias gasped, remembering the horror Lady Adelaide, Emily, and Miss Winters had been subjected to.
Caspian remembered as well, and together they raced up the beach.
All was not lost, however. Woburn and the other men who had run onto the beach with Caspian appeared to have engaged with the mutineers attempting to steal the women while Elias and Caspian had been dealing with Dick and the other man. The mutineers had been subdued, and the ladies were huddled together near the signal fire. They gawped at Caspian, eyes wide, as he strode toward them, gloriously naked, moonlight shimmering off his scaly legs.
“Where have you two been?” Woburn called to them as he and one of the other survivors marched one of the mutineers up to a spot where several of the other villains had been sat. He, too, looked twice at Caspian’s unusual state.
“Dick and one of the others tried to take the other boat and row away with Ruby’s treasure,” Caspian answered, veering to where his and Elias’s packs sat near the signal fire from earlier. He quickly found his spare pair of trousers and put them on. “They have been dealt with.”
That seemed to be enough of an answer for the others. The explanation concealed more than it revealed, leaving Elias with a heavy pit in his stomach, but there was no way to explain the full truth without raising more questions.
That was the heart of things, really, and very likely the reason Caspian had taken so long to reveal his full self to him. There was no easy way to explain what had happened and who he was now. All Elias knew was that he would never be the same.
Twenty
It seemed wrong for Caspian to be as happy as he was when so many traumatizing things had happened to the people he had come to think of as his friends. But for all the tears of relief and upset that the ladies were shedding as he and Elias walked out of the surf and onto the dry sand of the beach, for all the shouted commands that were being thrown about by the men as the mutineers who had been caught were dealt with, and for all the turmoil that was yet to come, Caspian had never felt happier.
“You’re alive!” Lady Adelaide said, pushing herself up from where she’d been sitting on a fallen tree near the signal fire, her face streaked with dirt and tears, and rushing to greet Caspian and Elias as they came forward. Emily came with her. “Dear God, you’re both alive. We were certain you had perished.”
Caspian was grateful to find his spare pair of trousers ready for him to slip on, especially when it looked like Emily might throw her arms around him to hug him in relief.
“It is Dick that has perished,” Caspian said, smiling sympathetically at the distraught woman.
As he’d supposed, that knowledge seemed to set Lady Adelaide at ease. It also sent her into another round of tears that resembled tears of joy.
“What happened out there?” Mr. Cartwright asked, looking suspiciously at Caspian and Elias. “As Lady Adelaide said, we were certain beyond any doubt the two of you were gone.”
“We saw the boat capsize and sink,” one of the other men said. “When you did not emerge, we believed the worst.”
“We did emerge,” Elias lied, his face red, though in the dim light of only the moon, the signal fire, and the torches a few of the others had lit, it would have been hard for anyone else to tell. “We were far out, however, so I am not surprised that you did not see us.”
