Read Online One Soul To Share by Lori Devoti - Free Book Online

swallowed,
fighting again to hide his hurt.
    Minutes had passed. Sarina wasn’t returning.
Perhaps the sea hag was right. Perhaps Sarina had tricked him.
    “What will she do with the soul?” he asked.
He needed to know. Needed a reason for her desertion.
    Melusine curled her fingers into her hand and
pulled her body back. She studied him from under lowered brows. “I
can’t lie to you. Did you know that? You have to love me without
tricks, with my tail visible, with all truths laid out.” She
muttered to herself, cursing, he guessed.
    When she looked back at him, her expression
was as hard and cold as the marble floors in his family home. “So
when I say the mermaid tricked you, that she brought you here fully
intending to give you to me as she might hand off a shell or other
worthless trinket, you know I speak the truth.” Her tongue darted
out again, forked in strange opposition to her claims that she had
to speak truth.
    But despite that, Nolan believed her. He’d
known all along the mermaid had reasons of her own for agreeing to
be his guide, and he’d known those reasons went beyond the payment
he’d offered her. She had, after all, already been looking for a
male companion, testing them… and now he knew for what.
    His stomach clenched, and he had to fight to
keep his gaze on the sea hag. He wanted to look away and hide the
emotions he was afraid she could read on his face.
    “Ah, I see you already knew that. Good.” She
smiled and swayed back and forth a bit on her tail. Then, sucking
in a breath which caused her breasts to rise and fall, she replied,
“The soul is her sister’s. Mermaids and their souls are separated
at birth. Most spend their lives looking for a replacement.”
    “But Sarina has hers.” He knew now why the
vial was so important to the mermaid.
    Melusine inclined her head. “Her mother was…
unusual. Ianthe had the love of Poseidon. He granted her one wish.
She asked that any daughters she bore be able to keep their souls.
He agreed. In fact, he threw in a bonus. He gave Ianthe hers
too.”
    “But her sister lost hers?” Nolan asked. The
tale sounded impossible, but what about mermaids could sound
possible?
    “It was taken from her by pirates, over one
hundred years ago. Ianthe fought them, and while she saved her
daughters’ lives, she lost her own life and Allera’s soul.”
    “And you found it?”
    Melusine smiled, a slow, wicked tilt of her
lips. “Mermaids attract men, and I needed a man.”
    “You stole the soul?” Any sympathy Nolan
might have felt for the creature before him dissipated.
    “I told you, pirates did. I just saw an
opportunity and took it.” She snapped her tail against the yacht’s
deck. “You would judge me for that?” Her eyes narrowed. “Mermaids
are no better than I am. They’re half fish, yet men flock to them,
declare their love, give up their lives—for one kiss.” Her tongue
appeared again. Nolan ignored it and her tirade. He was watching
the kelpies.
Water horses.
    If he could reach one, could he force it to
take him back to shore and, hopefully, Sarina? He’d grown up in his
family’s stables; he’d been riding horses since he was three. He
had never met an equine he couldn’t handle.
    How different could a water horse be?
    And what options did he have? Stay here with
the sea hag?
    It wasn’t an option he chose to take. When
she turned again, he bolted to the side and leapt, targeting one of
the largest kelpies, a silver Percheron-size animal that nipped
when another of its kind got too close.
    The creature had spirit. Hopefully, enough to
break away from the others and get Nolan back to shore. Once there,
he’d… He didn’t know what he’d do, and he didn’t have time to think
about it further. As his chest and legs hit the kelpie’s back, the
creature reared up and screamed. Then it lowered its head and
plunged into the sea.
    o0o
    Water rushed past Nolan so quickly he
couldn’t believe he wasn’t washed from the