What the Tide Brings

Chapter 27 - Liam - Too Much of a Good Thing

For the next two days, Liam managed to convince Kaelin to stay close to home; he didn't say it, but he was worried about the possibility of another run-in with the mermen. Kaelin's arm still bore the telltale red marks from Arlen's big, meaty hands. Kaelin kept insisting they find the others, so Liam had to find ways to distract her. Mostly, because she wanted to run off halfcocked and force one of the mermen to tell her where they were keeping their stash of the Thrall.

They spent most of their time in the living room, watching television, which she found fascinating. Later, he dug out an old box of Trivial Pursuit to use the questions like flash cards—mostly because he didn't know the majority of the answers anyway—to teach her more about the human world. It wasn't long before she grabbed the cards from him to scan each one. Once those were gone, he showed her Grandfather's encyclopedia collection, which she tore through in under two hours. She looked at each page in turn, quickly flipping to the next. At first, he thought she was just looking at the pictures, until she started spewing random facts that he didn't know about places and things he'd never heard of, such as pteronophobia being the fear of being tickled by feathers.

By the third day he'd run out of ways to entertain her, and she wanted to go out to look for her sister. He could no longer hold her off, so he agreed.

Kaelin went to the kitchen and filled the sink with water. She dipped her finger in and closed her eyes. Liam stared as the water began to glow. To his shock, images appeared beneath the surface, showing her sister, as if they were laying on the ground looking up at her. The perspective jumped around, following Amaya's progress. She was walking under some trees, it was impossible to know where. The park maybe.

When the view switched again, a hulking man with golden brown skin appeared beside her. He was one of the two mermen who attacked Kaelin the night Liam saved her from drowning. The muscles in Kaelin's jaw tensed, yet her eyes remained closed. He could only assume that she was seeing the same thing he was in her mind.

The sound of the front door being unlocked carried through the kitchen door, which was propped open. He couldn't let anyone see what she was doing. They would have a lot of questions. It seemed that Kaelin hadn't noticed the noise, so Liam grabbed her wrist to pull it from the water. The moment he touched her, he was immersed in the scenes playing out in the sink. His vision was distorted, like peering up from beneath the water, but now he could hear what the two in the vision were saying.

Amaya sighed deeply, clearly annoyed. "I do not know how to find her here. This place is not like the ocean, I cannot simply call out to her with my mind as I would ordinarily."

The large man grunted beside her. "Arlen believes that you can do it." He had the deepest voice Liam had ever heard. "You know her better than anyone. You understand how she thinks."

Amaya made a small, amused noise, not quite a snort, but not a full chuckle either. "Arlen is thoroughly mistaken. Not I, nor anyone on land or under the sea, knows how my sister thinks. She is the most enigmatic creature to ever have lived."

"You had best hope that is not true, for the sake of your clan." The merman—whom Liam somehow knew was called Peleg—spoke with menace. "Moab is very nearly ready to call for a war against your father for breaking his oath."

Amaya stopped to gape at him. "Because my sister escaped from a betrothal?" There was a note of suspicion in her voice. He knew that tone well, though he had never met or spoken to the girl in his life. He was starting to think that his mind was melding with Kaelin's. That much became clear when he started recalling her memories of another bronze-skinned man; this one older, with a golden tail and braided brown hair. It was Moab, Liam remembered him, from Kaelin's story, but he'd only caught a brief glimpse of the merman before. Now, he saw why Kaelin felt intimidated at just the mention of the name. He gave new definition to the term barrel-chested. His core was thick and incredibly muscular, reminding Liam of the professional wrestlers on TV.