perched on rocks, waiting for the winner to leap over Rainbow Rock and claim the golden trident.
Jet had envisioned this moment for years. She gathered speed, dived downward and then thrust upward, breaching water. As she crested the rock, she savored the moment—the drops of water coating her naked breasts, the dark blue and purple tail-fin scales glinting in the afternoon sun and her sleek, muscled torso poised in a perfect arc before diving under the sea.
She slowed and came to a halt at the winner’s platform, a tall, flat boulder where the head judge sat upon a chair of abalone shell, trophy in hand.
She’d done it! Finally she’d won the grand prize.
Jet held out her hand. Firth, a Blue Merman and former winner, was the honorary head judge. He examined the rock and scowled, blue lips twisting over sharp, pointy teeth.
She looked past him and spotted her mother and cousins seated in the first row, smiling and waving.
Orpheous swam to her side and Firth scowled at his fellow clan member. “You dishonor us. Yet, I must perform my duties.” He addressed the crowd. “Jet Bosarge is the winner,” he said flatly, then thrust the golden trident into Jet’s right hand.
Her arm was still numb from the injury but she managed to close her fist over the solid gold trident, which nearly matched her height. Jet stomped the base of the trident in the sand three times and chanted, “As descendant of Poseidon, I claim my reward.”
Instead of the thundering cheer Jet expected, the whistling and applause was decidedly lukewarm. Large swarms of merfolk swam away, moving on to the highly anticipated Siren Song event. Even her mother’s chair was now empty.
“You know how this works,” Firth said, nodding at the trident. “On land, the trident will shrink to the size of a charm pendant. It contains a onetime wish, good for one year.”
Jet bowed her head, eager to get away and watch Lily win the siren contest, but a strong hand closed over her arm. She frowned at the green talons and long fingers resembling seaweed.
“Not so fast,” Orpheous said, rubbing her arm suggestively. “Come with me and meet others in your clan.”
His breath smelled like fish guts and Jet tried not to visualize those jagged teeth ripping apart some tasty amberjack. “Go away, you thug fish.”
Orpheous was seriously getting under her skin. Damn it, she was a Bosarge woman, descended from a long line of mermaids well-known for exceptional beauty and intelligence.
He shrugged. “Deny all you like, but I see Blue in you.”
Jet smacked his midsection with her tail fin and he doubled over. She swam as fast as an eel and made her escape. At the crowded Siren Song competition, she saw her family had not saved a place for her at the front of the stage.
Jet regarded her mother and the rest of her family with new eyes. Every one of them was gorgeous, even by mermaid standards: petite, curvy bodies; pale, gleaming skin; lovely pastel hair tints and varying shades of blue eyes spanning from the lightest ultramarine to the deepest cobalt. All dripping with feminine allure and charm.
Not for the first time, Jet considered her own black hair, cut short to prevent drag in the races, and eyes so dark only a hint of brown radiated from the irises. Mom had even chosen the name “Jet” because of their color. No, she wasn’t a precious gem like Ruby or Sapphire or Pearl. Jet was nothing more than fossilized wood that had fallen into stagnant waters; so common it could be found on most beaches.
Clearly, she was no delicate aquatic flower like Lily.
A hush swept over the crowd as Lily swam to the front of the rock and took her place. Lily raised a hand and the crowd hushed again.
It was hard to call what came out mere singing. It was a symphony of sound, the epitome of tone meeting strength. Judges swam a hundred yards away, measuring the distance of the sound vibrations.
Jet closed her eyes and let the notes wash over her. Even though Lily could charm humans above, her voice was at its purest undersea with the crystal notes melding in the currents.
Jet gave a little shake and studied the seascape. All the hard training had been for naught. No one cared that she’d won the Undines’ Challenge. She scanned the crowd, all in awe of Lily.
At least she had the trident. She would return home, and when Mom arrived later, she would use the trident’s onetime wish. Jet tried to catch her mother’s eye to wave goodbye, but Adriana’s gaze was locked on the fair Lily. Typical.
She pictured Orpheous’s leering face. You are one of us.
Was this why most merfolk shunned her? Why she felt like an outcast even among her own family? Could it be that her bloodline was mixed with the shunned Blue Clan?
Soon, she would demand the answer.
Perry’s back. Two words that shook Jet’s world, but not in a good way. She’d returned home from the Poseidon Games two nights ago, exhausted, when her cousin Shelly had broken the news.
Jet sighed as she scanned the bored, impatient crowd packed inside the government-services waiting room, its ambience a curious mixture of sterility and shabbiness. The old building was painted an institutional green and smelled faintly of disinfectant, mold and stale coffee. In the lobby, cheap metal folding chairs were set up in rows.
Outside, the morning rain beat down in gusting sheets. Jet eyed the few people roaming Main Street, searching for a certain build, that certain shock of brown hair and chiseled profile.
Stop it. You’ll see Perry soon enough. And oh, how she’d make him pay. That rat would get on his knees, by Poseidon, and beg her forgiveness before she sent him on his way.
Oh, no. Huge mistake. She shouldn’t have pictured him in that position, those brown eyes staring up at her naked body with hunger. Jet squirmed. Think of something else. She closed her eyes, imagined swimming the warm waters of the Florida Keys and scooping up antique cuff links and coins sunk in ships hundreds of years ago, like a child picking up dropped marbles on a school playground.
It wasn’t helping. Jet placed a hand over her stomach. Sexual need fierce as a knife wound seared and twisted her guts. Damn, she hated that part of her mermaid nature that intensified sexual hunger. It could be a hindrance if she saw Perry after this meeting as she’d planned. But she had to face him eventually and see what he wanted. She would have to keep her sexual need under control and send him away with the tongue-lashing of the century.
Ugh, tongues lashing. Now she could taste his lips and tongue in her mouth, his long, slow, languid kisses that made her frantic with desire in nanoseconds.
There she went again. She was the biggest fool on the planet to pine for Perry’s kisses. He’d been out of prison for weeks. If he’d been languishing in a jail cell for the past three years, missing her and regretting his betrayal, he’d have shown up long before now. Forget him—he’d done the unforgivable.
“Jet Bosarge,” the receptionist called out.
She grabbed her backpack, and the man seated
