Seduced by the Sea Lord

Chapter 5

"Mer?" Lucy repeated, feeling like an idiot. "As in mer...maid? Queen?"

His aquamarine gaze was so intent. In the dim light, the gold threads shone iridescent. "Embrace your destiny. Join with me."

Torun's words awoke something in Lucy's soul.

"Join with me and become my mer queen."

She longed to say yes. She longed to run her hands across this warrior's broad pectorals, down to his tapered waist. She longed to give him even temporary happiness and rediscover her own in the process.

But she couldn't.

Because that was crazy talk.

Torun had a shiny dark bruise on his forehead. It must have scrambled his brain. He'd also drunk gallons of salt water. And didn't dehydration cause hallucinations?

His earnest, chiseled face awaited her answer.

Hmm. She didn't have much experience with temporary insanity. Was she supposed to go along with the hallucination or try to return him to reality?

He'd been through a lot today.

Lucy touched his rough jaw. "I wish I could."

"Good. I grant your wish."

"I wish"—she emphasized, stroking her index finger along his powerfully masculine jaw, trying to ignore the answering pulse of desire in her body—"but I'm not the mermaid-queen type."

"You are." He squeezed her. "I have seen a thousand women on the shore. You are mine."

Oh.

Wow.

He had seen a thousand women and chosen her.

Stardust fell on her soul, twinkling with beauty and promise.

Why did her good intentions keep getting derailed? Why was she so tempted to forget her responsibilities and throw herself at this strange warrior?

Perhaps it was the way he towered over her, powerful and gorgeous, and begged her to join with him.

Well, since he begged her...

"Sorry," she repeated, more to herself than to him, "but I'm definitely not. And once a doctor checks you over, you'll know that too."

"On behalf of the mermen of Sireno, you must accept my claim."

Thinking he was a merman was a totally plausible hallucination. He had survived drowning.

"Mermen? So, there are more than one of you, huh?"

He nodded.

"And are you all men who are half fish?"

"We are not fish." He lifted his noble chin. "Nor are we men. We are marine warriors."

Uh-huh.

"Well." She pointedly cast her gaze from the top of his dark head to the bottom of his normal human feet. "You sure look like a man right now."

"I shift in the water."

Wait.

His feet had seemed oddly large and flat, like fins. And his skin had been oddly slippery as a fish. What about the tattoos? They were iridescent, almost like scales...

What if it wasn't a knock to the head? What if it wasn't a delusion from near drowning? What if he was telling the truth?

"We must go now to Sireno," Torun continued. "It lies ten songs from the atoll."