A Mermaid's Ransom (Daughters of Arianne 3)

He considered her, his gaze shifting around the bathroom, to the one window. The brief flash of emotion startled her, so that she put her hand back on his arm. "Dante, I'm safe. No one is going to hurt me here. This world is different. At least here it is," she amended, having a brief thought of war-torn African countries.

"Someone can hurt you if they wish. I did."

She met his gaze. "And yet, here I am, back safe and sound. Believe me, being kidnapped through a dream portal was not part of my usual schedule. If I need anything, I'll call out. Okay?"

His grip loosening reluctantly, he nodded.

He didn't go far. Dante moved the several steps to the bed, sat down and stared at the door. Distracting himself, he tested the bounce of the mattress, bemused by it, pressing down with his hand. He considered dismantling it to figure out how it came back into its shape that way, but her disappearance behind that door made him too uneasy. He rose, pacing.

Rationally, he knew she was correct. What little he'd seen was a very different world from what he'd known. Even Hell had been different, as Lucifer said. When the time began to stretch out such that he'd considered tearing Hell apart stone by stone to get free and find her, he'd been allowed to explore with supervision, learn about the workings of the Underworld, gain an understanding of the redemption that the souls there had to endure. Dante found a calm familiarity to the pain and suffering that soothed his agitation to a manageable level.

He was not soothed now, even though, being inside her mind, he could know everything she was thinking. Any threat to her would be known to him instantly. Yet he'd said it himself. The greatest threat she'd experienced in her short life had been him. He'd caused her the most pain and terror. As such, Jonah and the others hadn't perceived his agitation as a desire to confirm she was all right, that she was recovering properly. To give her blood if she needed it.

Truth, he couldn't understand his feelings right now, either.

He'd returned her to her world at a risk to his own objective, in order to preserve her life. That entirely unexpected compulsion had turned him on his axis. Given that, this inexplicable protectiveness was merely a bump on that same road.

It was also irrational. This was her world. She had powerful allies. Jonah, the seawitch, David. She thought of them as her family. But Dante didn't know about family or allies. He knew about minions, those forced to serve through fear, trickery and threat. Alexis's perception of how he felt to be here had been startling. Yes, no, I don't know.

In the Dark One world, he'd understood how things worked, and Alexis had been completely his. He'd fought his way up from the bottom, and knowing the road behind and ahead had a comfort to it. From his brief time here, he was uneasily aware this world might require a different skill set than the ability to kill the strongest rival and therefore bring the others into line. If that was all he knew, how was he going to succeed, find a position of strength and hold it? Who would take advantage of his weakness if he couldn't find such a position?

While he was aware of the metal band on his neck, he also knew the threat of pain would not stop him from fighting or killing if it was necessary. Pain was only a deterrent to someone who feared pain. But he didn't like her being behind closed doors. Where was she?

The door opened then, and Alexis was there, smiling at him and bringing that unfamiliar warmth into his chest. The warring factions battling in his mind stilled. He could tell she was worried she couldn't stay balanced, help him the way he needed to be helped, because she was too overwhelmed by her desire for him. He had no problem with her desire. It was a weakness he could exploit as needed. The problem was he had a similar difficulty when he inhaled her scent, touched her body, sensed her willingness to be with him. Her openness made him feel . . . not in a cage. After being trapped for so long, it was as if he had wings like the angels, capable of stretching as far as he wished. As far as he dared. Perhaps that was the problem. In his world, only one kind of fear had to be conquered.

"It's soft, isn't it?"

He noticed then he had one hand clutched in the quilted coverlet. He glanced down at it, then at the other things he hadn't taken time to notice, too caught up in her body, soft and available to him. Pillows. His mother had given him so many images in her mind, words to go with them, so he knew these things. Things had also been brought to the Dark One world, reinforcing that knowledge before they were inevitably destroyed. But knowing and touching, experiencing, were entirely different.

"Why does your father call you Seabird?"

"It's a nickname. A term of affection," she amended, "because I'm an angel and a mermaid both. Nicknames come from looking at someone and thinking they're like something or someone else." She gave him a half smile. "Do you look at me and think of something from your world? A marsma, for instance? I can hop."

"You are like nothing else I know."

Her cheeks pinkened, and he sensed that had pleased her, but she crossed the room to pick up the folded clothing her mother had left her. "Feel free to prowl around and look at things while I'm getting ready," she said. Rummaging in a dresser, she pulled out some more things. When she went back into the bathroom, she left the door open, so he cautiously did as she suggested, rising and touching the pillow, picking it up to squeeze it, turn it over and examine it.

"When I was young and stayed over with human friends, what we call slumber parties, we'd have pillow fights." She looked up in the mirror, seeking him, then her eyes widened. She turned. "Wow. So that one's true, too."

He raised a brow, and she gestured to the mirror. "No reflection. Guess that's why vampires are so good-looking all the time. Since you have no way of checking if your hair is out of place or you have something smeared on your chin, genetics makes you out of Teflon. It all slides off or falls back into place." When she gave a quick, easy grin, the surge of warmth came again, though he sensed something more tentative and wary behind the pleasant facade. He left it alone for now, since he felt a similar way when they were not coupling as they'd just done.

"Pillow fight?"

Putting down the brush she'd been working through her hair, she picked up an extra pillow that had been left in the chair by the bathroom door. Clutching the top two corners in her slim hands, she took a swing at him.

He blocked it, halting her follow-through and shoving her against the wall in the same flow of motion. Taking her off her feet earned a startled cry, but he held her there, searching her mind. What she'd thrown at him had been harmless. Soft. Why would she use that as a weapon?

It's a game. It's not meant to harm anyone.

She was trembling. He'd frightened her with his speed. Her hands, so fragile and breakable, were clutching his shirt at the shoulders, her pulse racing. Dante swallowed, brought her back to her feet. "I do not know about games."

"It's play. Let me show you." Giving him a searching look, she bent and picked up the pillow, holding it out for his examination before she took the open end of the covering over it, twisting the excess fabric into a handle. "See, when you're at slumber parties, you grab up pillows and hit each other with them." She gave him an arch look, still tremulous at the corners of her mouth. "Okay, don't go crazy here, but I'm going to swing it at you, to demonstrate."

She let it hit him in the side. Then, with an impish grin, she took a stronger swing at his head. Dante ducked it, but she was already turning and managed to hit his hip with more force. He circled the bed, considering, and picked up the other pillow. "What's the goal of this . . . game?"

"Just to have fun. There's no scorekeeping in pillow fights. Technically. I've known some people who think it should be an Olympic sport." As he probed her mind, she quickly picked up his intent. Images appeared for him, filling in the blanks. Then she decided to hop up on the bed, giving herself a height advantage, and took another swing at his head.

He dodged it, retaliating with a swipe that hit her thigh and knocked her legs out from under her. He'd attempted to hold his strike, but she landed with a decided bounc

e on the intriguingly springy mattress. "Oof. Good thing I went for the bed."

He peered down at her, then his gaze went lower, to where her nightshirt had slid upward, nearly revealing her pretty sex. Thinking about the soft give of the mattress and pillows, he recalled the way those tender lips had spread for his cock, taking him in deep. Though his mind was not open to her, Alexis obviously read his emotions, for she scrambled back to the other side, leaving the pillow. "I'll get dressed," she said hastily. "Otherwise, we might never get back to my place today. Have you walked down to the beach yet? Oh . . ." She turned around again. "Can you go out in sunlight?"

"I was told by Mina that I could, that my Dark One blood dulls the effect that sunlight normally has on vampires. I can't stay out in it long, though, and she recommended something she called sunglasses . Very dark ones," he added.

"Good point," she agreed. "We'll stop somewhere to get those first thing. You're going to be unsettling enough without someone seeing your eyes."

"Humans don't know about beings other than themselves. I find that odd."

"So do all of us. I mean, the nonhumans who live here." Alexis shrugged. "For some reason the Goddess allows humans to decide whether to believe in angels, mermaids or worlds like yours as a matter of faith. After the Mountain Battle, it was weird how many of them rationalized it into something else. They decided they'd imagined seeing angels because of the trauma of fighting off alien attackers."

She rolled her eyes. "Since then, there've been stories that the Dark Ones were bioengineered soldiers being tested out by some country. I guess it works best for us to hide our identities, except from the few humans who would understand. As a whole, they really don't. They need to control what they don't understand, or they destroy it. Even my closest friend doesn't know what I am, and she's clairvoyant."