Dear Miss Davos,

Excusing my English, we have faith we are your family in Athens, Greece. You and Sofia Davos are the children of Stavros and Helena Davos? You are Keeper?

It is of our understanding that Stavros and Helena are no more. I am to search many years for Helena and family. I find your restaurant on the computer. If you are these maidens, please write to me now. There is much importance. Please to take most cautions, you are in danger. I am Maria Karras, aunt. TELL NO ONE. Be of haste!!!

I kiss you, beloved maidens, and pray for you,

Maria Karras (sister from Helena Karras Davos)

 

“Oh, my God,” Nia murmured as she finished reading the e-mail on her desktop computer. Her heart pounded and her mind raced.

We might have family. In Greece. We might not be alone in the world after all. But what kind of danger could we be possibly be in? We’re nobodies. What’s a Keeper? Is this woman trying to ask me if I own the restaurant?

Her face tingled as she reread the e-mail. With trembling hands, she freed her riot of black curls from her prized tortoiseshell clip, holding the clip between her teeth as she re-wound her hair into a chignon. It was a nervous habit. Tendrils grazed her temples and forehead as she put the clip back in place. It had belonged to her mother, and it was one of her most treasured possessions.

Maria Karras, aunt. Davos is such a common Greek name. But she got our parents’ names and our names right…except that it’s Sophie, not Sofia. Is this some kind of Internet prank?

Narrowing her thickly fringed, dark Grecian eyes in thought, she looked across her tiny, messy office to her little sister Sophie, who was curled up cross-legged inside the bulging storage closet like a cat. Sophie, engrossed in her new book, was oblivious of the boxes of linens, dishes and cooking implements stacked around her. Nia would have panicked inside such a hidey-hole; she was extremely claustrophobic.

Stripped down from the many layers she’d donned against the Montreal winter to one of Nia’s pink T-shirts and black tights, Sophie was reading the latest fantasy novel by one of her favorite authors.

Nia understood Sophie’s love of fantasies and happily-ever-after. Orphaned at the age of five, now eleven and nearing puberty, with a frazzled older sister who worked long days to keep their Greek restaurant going—it wasn’t the kind of life a sweet little princess should live.

If Maria Karras was Ma’s sister, she could tell them so many things they didn’t know. About her childhood, and her life before their births. Ma had disliked talking about herself, and she had died a mystery. Maybe this bolt out of the blue would give them answers—to all Nia’s new questions as well.

Sophie unfolded her long legs and hunched forward, self-conscious of her blossoming figure. “Why are you staring at me?”

I think we have an aunt. We have family, my darling. Except…there may a catch. They may be crazy…or our mother might have a past she kept hidden…and that’s catching up with us.

“Just because,” Nia said.

“I love you, too.” Sophie smiled sweetly and went back to her book.

Nia turned back to the desktop and searched the Internet for “Keeper.” Embarrassingly, the first thing that popped up was a feminine product, and then an entry for a character in a computer game.

She tried to frame a response to Maria Karras. She knew what to say: Dear Ms. Karras, I think you may be our aunt. My mother was born in Mykonos. Please tell me what sort of danger we may be in.

But the truth was, she was afraid, and not just of the warning in Maria’s message. Nia was a veteran of dashed hopes. The centerpiece of her messy alcove desk was the bouquet Nico had sent over a week ago—roses in winter, their petals dead and dropping all over her tax forms. The accompanying card crowned a stack of receipts. It was inscribed with a single word: Adio. Adio to their engagement, to someone to share her life with and to a father figure for Sophie.

Why? Because she’d been “too busy.” Caring for Sophie and running a business hadn’t left much time for romance.

“And I want to raise children of my own,” he’d added—the final blow. He wasn’t the first man to run scared at the thought of an instant family with an eleven-year-old.

She picked up the loose petals and dumped them in the little metal trash can. She really should just throw the flowers out. Who was more upset over the breakup, she or Sophie? Two hearts were wounded, of that she was sure. She wasn’t actually sure if Nico had a heart.

She didn’t want another disappointment so soon after that one. What if Maria Karras’s next e-mail said, I’m so sorry, but my sister Helena was born in Cyprus?

At least she wouldn’t have to worry about being in danger.

“Gia sou! Hoopa!” The cheers in the private room sharing her office wall were followed by the crash of a plate.

“Uh-oh,” Sophie said without looking up from her book. Nia groaned and reached for her slingback pumps. She slid them onto her black-stockinged feet and smoothed her charcoal wool skirt as she rose. A tug of her tailored white blouse and a touch-for-luck of her mother’s gold cross, and she was ready to stop the bachelor party in the private room from running up an enormous bill.

She glided into the room adorned with the mural of the Greek islands to see a dervish of young men in white shirts and dress trousers whirling in the center of the room with handkerchiefs in their hands and mouths. The tipsy bridegroom was about to hurl another plate against the wall, under the mistaken impression—no doubt gleaned from movies—that this was customary in Greek circles.

The happy man was Polish, and he was getting married to a Greek girl in two days. He didn’t know it, but Nia had severely undercharged him for his bachelor party. She knew how much—make that how little—bus drivers made in Montreal. Too bad restaurateurs made even less.

But he was young and in love, and it was her secret gift to the couple.…

“Mes amis!” she called out, clapping her hands. Her French was definitely improving; when she’d first moved to Montreal from Chicago three years ago, no French Canadian had been able to understand a single word she said. “S’il vous plaits—”

And then the room exploded.

The ceiling burst apart like a shattered plate and rained down fragments. Smoke and flame poured in, searing her eyes and her lungs. Masked figures barreled in, aiming submachine guns at the groaning men on the floor. The invaders moved methodically, turning in circles.

Sophie, Nia thought frantically, trying to crawl toward the door. The bridegroom writhed beside her, groaning. Then she saw the barrel of a weapon pointed straight at the man’s chest.…

No, not at his chest.

At her.

Her mind went blank. The image of the weapon shrank to a pin dot and Sophie’s face took its place.

Sophie, run. You’re in danger.

The man reached down and roughly grabbed her arm. He started to pull her along the floor. She shook her head and he dug his gloved fingers into the flesh of her bicep. It hurt.

“No,” she rasped; it came out as a croak followed by a fit of coughing.

Then he went down, crumpling to his knees, falling in an ungainly sprawl onto his side. There was a large, smoking hole in his armored back. Another hooded, masked man stood behind him.

“So-Soph—” she pleaded as he bent his knees and threw her over his shoulder, firefighter style. Machine gun fire roared and tat-tat-tatted; men screamed in pain; the restaurant was an inferno.

“Attends,” she begged. “My sister…”

They were outside. He threw Nia into the open door of a black panel van and landed on top of her.

“Vite! Vite!” he bellowed, as he whipped off his mask. He had dark eyes in a craggy face. Men piled in after him, and the van shot away from the curb like a bullet.

“My sister!” She was yelling in English, her voice screeching like a cat; she couldn’t remember a word of French. “Sophie!” She flung herself at the man, grabbing his armored shoulders, pushing her face nose-to-nose with him. “Let me out!”

“Alors, mademoiselle,” he said. “I am Gils de Devereaux, of the House of the Shadows. We are going to headquarters. There you will speak with our Guardien. He will help you.”

“But she’s back there! She’s there now!” she shrieked at him. “You’re leaving her! Listen, Maria Karras—”

Danger. Tell no one.

He raised his glove and made a circle, murmuring soft words that sounded like Latin. The sudden, overpowering fragrance of oranges and roses surrounded her, as if someone had wrapped her in a warm, scented blanket. Her terror faded and she became still, drowsy.

Deep inside her mind, she was still screaming. But her cries grew progressively muffled, even to her own ears, and to her heart. Her burning lungs stopped hurting; her eyes no longer watered. Something sweet and cool trickled down her throat. He was pressing a vial to her lips and she was drinking it down as if she were dying of thirst.

“Bon,” he said. “Now rest.”

She sank into the man’s arms and the world went black.

 

“Earlier today, the Keeper Sophie Davos was taken,” Jean-Marc de Devereaux reported, turning from Gils, his ops commander, to address Erik. Dressed all in black, Jean-Marc walked to the brilliant stained-glass window bearing the coat of arms of his ancient magical family, the House of the Shadows—a white bird flying from a castle tower and a gauntleted hand reaching out, whether to seize the creature or set it free remained unclear. The motives of House Devereaux were often equally murky.

In a large sliver of cobalt glass, Erik caught his own reflection, a foil to Jean-Marc’s dark looks—Norse through and through, with long, straight blond hair, dark cerulean eyes, and the rough-hewn features of a Viking. He wore a dark blue sweater, blue jeans, a navy blue watch cap and black sea boots. He was the Guardian of the North Sea—a Gifted magic user like Jean-Marc; however, unlike Jean-Marc, he was not fully human. Never had been, never would be.

For that, he thanked Njord, God of the Sea.

Since his legs were killing him, Erik sprawled in the ornate Louis XIV chair placed for him beside Jean-Marc’s ceremonial throne of gold and jewels. His own, back home, was made of coral, gold and pearls. He left the pacing to Jean-Marc.

Erik knew Jean-Marc had other pressing concerns. He had recently located the long-lost heiress of the House of the Flames in New Orleans. Erik also knew that Jean-Marc was in love with her, whether Jean-Marc realized it himself or not. The heiress was under attack by the House of the Blood, the third of the three original French Houses. He figured that once Jean-Marc debriefed him, he was on his own. The Guardian of the Shadows had a different battle to fight. The world above was going to hell.

“And she’s Keeper of the Jar of Naxos,” Erik filled in, ignoring the stabbing pains in his thighs, bemused, as usual, by the strange sensation of two appendages extending from his hips. Two long appendages; the rest remained as it was. He was a male, after all, whether man or sea king.

“Oui. One of two. The other is her sister, Nia. We got her out,” Jean-Marc told him. “She’s here.”

Erik raised a blond brow. “Two? Good. I’ll take this Nia to the Jar and—”

“Nia Davos doesn’t know where it is. She doesn’t know what it is. She didn’t even know she and Sophie were Keepers,” Jean-Marc said. “Nor that the Gifted even exist.”

Erik was shocked. She’d been kept ignorant of her exalted position? In his realm, those who bore heavy responsibilities were never allowed to forget it. He, of course, was a prime example. Not that he was complaining. He had undergone the ancient trials by ordeal to claim his right to be Guardian of the North Sea.

Jean-Marc walked over to a pool of water set in a large stone basin carved with arcane symbols and sigils. The Guardian of the House of the Shadows moved his hands, conjuring. He gestured for Erik to join him.

Erik groaned silently at the thought of walking across the vast, cavernous room, but he did as the other Guardian requested. He really should come on land more often; maybe then it wouldn’t be so difficult to use his legs.

Together they gazed into the bowl of crystal-clear water. Jean-Marc moved his hands across it, and the water solidified into a field of crystal. Inside the prism of swirling indigo, purple and black, the silhouette of an amphora, an ancient two-handled Grecian vase, began to glow. He clenched his fists and gazed at the find. It was the Jar of Naxos, a weapon of terrible power, one that had eluded him for decades.

He studied the boxy, earth-colored shadow surrounding the Jar, noting the ancient Greek lettering and arcane runes.

“Still in the original chest, and not yet opened. But if someone has a Keeper and the location of the Jar…” Jean-Marc said.

Erik felt the heightened anxiety crackling between them. Though the other Guardian shielded his thoughts, Erik knew they shared images of carnage and destruction.

“I’ll speak to Nia Davos now,” Erik said.

“Well, here I am,” a voice said from the doorway.

Both Guardians turned; Erik was thunderstruck. Faen, the woman was a beauty. Her dark eyes were enormous, her lips lush and beckoning. Long curls of blue-black hair tumbled down creamy white shoulders. She wore a beautiful nightgown made of yards of near-transparent white silk, which she had gathered up and held across her torso to create some layers. The effort served only to accentuate the high firmness of her breasts and her gently rounded hips.

Celibate for over a hundred years, Erik was still very much a male. And his masculine need responded to the sight of her.

He felt her thoughts, swimming sensually toward him. No, not just her thoughts; she herself. Her essence—the qualities of spirit, body and mind that made Nia Davos uniquely Nia. As if she herself were a jar of magical power, and he were the Keeper…the only one would could open the vessel.…

Perkele, he swore. How can this be? She is Calling me. She’s not a daughter of the sea, and no full human should be able to Call anyone, much less a Guardian.

Or so I have always believed.…

It was the truth of the gods; he had been tempted by women, both of land and of sea, many times before, and would be again. But he had no woman, and would have none. He would die—if he ever died—alone. It was still a challenge to ignore her song.

I’m here on a mission to save my people, he reminded himself. Not to lose myself in a siren’s beckoning.

For her part, as she gazed back at him, color rose in her cheeks.

He’s incredible, she thought, obviously unaware that he could read her mind. He wasn’t surprised that she was mesmerized by him. Wasn’t that the way of it, the folk of the sea able to beckon human beings to their sides with a glance or a whisper?

To their sides, but not to their hearts.

And yet, I am moved.…

Her lips parted and she stared at him for one, two, three seconds. Exhaling, she broke contact and averted her gaze.

He was impressed by her ability to do so. Of course, he wasn’t singing to her, as she was to him. He had not yet met the woman who could look away then.

“Mademoiselle Davos, how did you come here?” Jean-Marc asked her, breaking the silence. “Where is the woman who was caring for you?”

“My jailer? Taking a nap,” Nia said.

Plucky. Erik almost smiled. Jean-Marc closed his eyes and Erik knew he was sending someone to check.

“You’re not a prisoner,” Jean-Marc said. “I thought you understood. You’re a Keeper. You have inherited the obligation to guard and protect a magical object. We believe it was your mother who passed this duty on to you. In the case of you and Sophie, you must Keep the Jar of Naxos, and—”

She looked at Erik. Please, don’t be crazy like this guy, she thought, still clearly oblivious that he could hear her. Her plea was followed by a breakwater jumble of thoughts, veiled ones, about a long-lost aunt and danger….

“You’ve made a mistake,” she snapped. “We’re not Keepers. I don’t know anything about a jar. Give Sophie back and let us go.”

“What do you know about the men who invaded your restaurant?” Erik asked her. “About your aunt?”

Her face went dead white and her lips parted. “That’s how you people found us, isn’t it? Through that e-mail. You were spying on us.”

“Why would we do that?” Erik asked.

She was shaking from head to toe, barely hanging on. He thought about singing to her, but magic use by other Houses was forbidden on Shadows territory. Besides, Jean-Marc was more than able to conjure a calming spell for her if he chose to.

“Let me see my sister,” she begged. “I’m just a restaurant owner. That e-mail was a prank.” She advanced on him, her hands balled into fists. “Give me back my sister!” she shrieked at him. “Sophie! It’s Nia! Where are you?”

Erik glanced pointedly at Jean-Marc, who moved his hands. The scent of oranges and roses permeated the air and Nia Davos sank to the floor, unconscious.

“We’ll leave now,” Erik told Jean-Marc. “Can you give her some clothes?”

“A bag’s been packed,” Jean-Marc informed him. “Bonne chance.” Good luck. Jean-Marc looked down at Nia. “Have a care with her. She may the only thing standing between you and destruction.”

“Or the cause of it,” Erik bit out.

“And this ‘Keeper’ position passed through my mother to me,” Nia said, as a beautiful Scandinavian woman in a dark blue suit placed a plate of steamed fish, wild rice and asparagus on a large tray in front of her. Nia was wearing a China blue sweater and a black-and-blue-checked skirt that grazed the tops of neat flat boots and was slit up to her knees, revealing black tights.

She had not dressed herself, and there was no way she would eat the food—even though she was starving. There was probably something in it that would knock her out again.

“So the Guardian believes,” the woman replied.

Her name was Birgid, and the two of them were on a private plane headed for the North Sea in Scandinavia. Birgid had won a bit of trust from Nia by calling the local hospitals for her while they boarded. The Polish bridegroom was in critical condition. Nia’s restaurant was a smoking ruin.

And Sophie was still gone. Apparently the men who had kidnapped Sophie were not the same ones who had kidnapped Nia.

Birgid had tried to explain things to her, tell her who she was. And who Erik was. What he was.

Crazy. All of them.

“And the reason I never knew I was a Keeper was because my mother abandoned her post. For love.”

Birgid nodded again. “Perhaps one could find a nicer way to say it than ‘abandoned.’ Since the Jar was missing anyway, there wasn’t much to hold her.”

The other plush seats in the cabin were occupied by a dozen massive Scandinavian men wearing sidearms beneath navy blue suit jackets. They’d been in flight for about twenty minutes, and she hadn’t stopped demanding to speak to Erik, who had disappeared shortly before takeoff. For all she knew, he wasn’t even on the plane.

“I want to talk to Erik.” She had demanded to speak with him at least once a minute since they’d boarded. She was practically shouting. A few of the men eyed her, and Birgid put a soothing hand over hers.

“Let me see what I can do,” she promised. She straightened and walked toward the rear of the plane. Nia stared down at her food. She really should eat something. But how could she?

She lowered her head and thought about her sister, and then her restaurant, praying, in her way, for her employees and customers. And for her own sanity. Tears spilled and ran the length of her nose.

“Oh, God, oh, my God,” she whispered.

She wept in silence. Then Birgid reappeared and dipped down beside Nia’s seat.

“He says he will see you, but he wants you to be prepared,” she said. “He will remain in his natural state, as when he was born, to prove to you that he’s telling the truth. He will see you alone. His men have vacated the tank.”

“The tank. Which he is inside. On an airplane,” Nia said, fresh hysteria building up inside her.

Birgid set her teeth together and pulled back her lips in an empathetic grimace. “It is not pleasant for them, so he asks that you be efficient.”

“Efficient?” Nia was boggled. She couldn’t even say another word as Birgid picked up her unused napkin and daubed her tearstained face with it—freshening her up for her meeting with the great and powerful Erik. Then she led the way to the back of the plane.

There was a little elevator in the galley, shaped like an old-fashioned telephone booth made of matte metal. Nia hesitated as her claustrophobia blossomed. Entering such a tight, confining space would be like climbing into a coffin.

“I—I can’t go in there,” she said.

“It will be all right,” Birgid assured her, knowing nothing, of course, about Nia’s extreme phobia. “He’s waiting.”

“Right,” Nia muttered. She stepped inside and broke into a cold sweat as Birgid shut the door over her face, like the lid of a casket.

With a low hum, the floor lowered. The elevator slid down a metal shaft, and Nia began to pant. Her heart went into overdrive. Panic set in; her throat closed up and fear pressed in hard, as if she had just been thrown, trussed with weights, over the side of a boat and she was hurtling toward the bottom of the sea. Get me out, get me out.

Just she began to lose control, the elevator slid to a stop on smooth hydraulics, and the door clicked open. About ten feet away from her, inside what appeared to be the plane’s cargo hold, there was a circular tank of churning water about ten feet across. Erik stood inside it. Bathed in sweat, her heart fluttering and her pulse throbbing way too fast, she wobbled out of the elevator and faced him.

“Bad, was it?” he asked her.

Does he know about my claustrophobia? she wondered, staring at him.

He was visible from the waist up, his arms draped over the edge, his chest bare. His pecs were well-defined, his collarbones ranging across smooth skin stretched over broad shoulders and biceps. His blond hair was swiped away from his forehead, and his blue eyes gazed placidly at her. Blond brows framed his blue eyes. His nose was straight, his cheekbones high and wind-roughened. His lips were generous, but not too lush, and there was a deep dimple in his chin.

He took her breath away. And as she gazed lower…

No. I won’t look. She had thought Birgid was speaking metaphorically about “who” and “what” Erik was. He couldn’t be a…no…he wasn’t…but she thought she saw scales.…

“I am Erik, Guardian of the North Sea,” he proclaimed. “You are Nia Davos, a Keeper, and your trove is the Jar of Naxos. You were born to Keep it, and you will die Keeping it. Once we find it,” he added under his breath.

She sensed this was some kind of formal greeting. She tried to swallow and answer him, but she couldn’t. Her throat was dry as sand.

He cocked his head. “Go ahead and look at me. Satisfy your curiosity. After all, you satisfied mine.”

She took a deep breath and licked her lips. “You think you’re a—”

“I am a protector, a wise man, a giver of health,” he replied. “That is what I am, in the mythology of the old Norse folk. My folk.” He pressed his body against the tank and began to hoist himself upward on powerful arms. “Look. Get it over with.” His voice was flat and cold, almost…angry.

She kept her gaze fastened on his face, breathing deeply. She was frozen, afraid to look. None of this could be real. Because if it was, then Sophie was even further out of her reach than she could possibly imagine.

Shadows moved across Erik’s face. He said something low and guttural; it sounded like swearing. As the water churned, he lifted his chin, opened his mouth…and called to her.

She didn’t know how else to describe it. A barely perceptible hum caressed her ears, her face, her bare skin beneath her borrowed clothes. His voice stroked the round tops of her breasts and trailed over her nipples, then moved lower, to her flat stomach and the dusting of black hair over her sex. Then his voice became a mouth, and a tongue.…

And his wet hands filled themselves with the sea-foam of curls around her face as she stepped up to the glass and offered her mouth to his.

I want him, she thought fiercely. It had been six months since she’d had sex with Nico. In August, he had told her he wanted to wait until the wedding; celibacy was sexy. Little did she realize that he’d been planning his escape even then, and sleeping with someone new.

I want him inside me.

He cupped her chin and cradled the back of her head, singing to her of lust, and desire, and pleasure.…

Then he tipped her head downward, and forced her to look.

“No,” she protested, but he held her fast.

Below a hard stomach and six-pack abs, she saw a large penis, fully erect, and balls nesting in blond hair. It was beautiful.

Then her eyes traveled lower, to his tail.

His tail.

Her heart thudded. A scream threatened to swim out of her mouth but the pressure of desire sealed it in. The tail was long, at least five feet, maybe six, and the scales were sea green and ocean blue inlaid with a silvery sheen, almost like enamel. It undulated in the tank, ending in a large, dual fin ribbed with thick bands of blue and green.

And he sang to her, lulling her, pleasuring her in some strange, magical way. She flooded with wet heat and groaned deep in her throat.

“Oh…she whispered, running her hands along his arms, stroking the muscles of his forearms, the silkiness of the fine hair on his skin. Her eyes half-closed, her breath came in long gasps. She could feel her body tensing with desire. Her hips started to move; she pressed herself against the glass, moving her legs apart.

“Erik…”

She felt something odd course through her, like the pulsing of her own blood; it was a powerful, sensual vibration coming from deep inside her own body, and it was part of her, not him. Almost like a net, it rose out of her, then up and over him, catching him, drawing him toward her…she knew it, heard it, somehow…oh, it was wonderful.…

Abruptly, he stopped. As if she had been slapped, she blinked, coming back to herself. What was she doing? Mortified, she staggered backward and wiped her face with her hands.

“I-I-” she stammered, but he held up a hand to stop her.

“I apologize,” he said, burning her with his intense blue eyes. “I shouldn’t have done that with you. To you,” he amended, his voice catching oddly. “I thought it would make things easier.”

“Done…?” she echoed. “What…?” Her body was still pulsating; she had been building toward release and now she was simply…overwhelmed.

She whirled on her heel, turning her back. Hugging herself, she said, “You…hypnotized me. Like those other people.”

“Ja. In a sense. I Called you,” he said. “As you…Called me.” His voice dropped to a near whisper.

“I did no such thing,” she said. “I don’t know how to hypnotize people. Or…or what you did.”

“I was unaware that humans were capable of it,” he said, ignoring her denial. “You are human, are you not?”

“What?”

He sighed. “Please, Frøken Davos, I only Called you so that you would look at me. And you did. So let’s move on.”

Wow, he was cold. And manipulative. One moment, he had had her writhing with desire—and she knew he’d been aroused as well…or was that part and parcel of the “enticement”? For all she knew, his equipment wasn’t even functional…just camouflage intended to mesmerize human women into…what? What did he want of her?

She tried to clear her throat. “Could you please not do it again? I have enough to deal with without being slipped the magical equivalent of a date-rape drug.”

There was another pause. “If you will agree to refrain as well.”

“I told you,” she said. “I didn’t do anything.” She wasn’t certain that was entirely true, but she certainly hadn’t done anything on purpose. “You don’t need to manipulate me. You’re my only key to finding my sister. I know that. So…”

She turned back around to face him and her mind went blank. He was so compelling, handsome in a way that was unearthly, attractive in the literal sense of the word. She wondered if he was still “charming” her. She felt powerless, and anger flooded in, taking place of her arousal.

“Stop it,” she demanded.

He shook his head without breaking eye contact. “I’m not doing anything, either.”

Then why was she so deeply affected by him? She felt a bone-deep, sensual pull; rather than making things easier, she was so distracted she could barely think.

“Let me try something,” he said. “Is that better?”

Despair hit her like a slap. Suddenly she felt cold and lost, alone, and in the shock, she slid to the floor. In her mind’s eye she saw Sophie’s face. Was she alive? Was she dead? She was only eleven. What if someone hurt her? What if they raped…

“My Sophie…”

She began to wail. Her heart broke with each sob that pushed up and out of her chest. Tears streamed down her face until she was choking on them; the salt was as bitter as the coldest depths of the Atlantic, off the coast of Quebec. She felt herself sinking, drowning in fear, gasping and fumbling as she sank to the cement floor.

She wept for what seemed like hours, or maybe years. Then she heard the singing, gentle and low, and her eyes closed. Her sobs subsided as she felt arms come around her. He was doing it again, soothing her. This time, she welcomed it. She couldn’t function at this level of terror.

 

What is happening to me? Erik thought as he watched her fall apart. Part of him wanted to leap out of the tank and go to her; another part opened his mouth to Call her, soothe her, ease her breakdown. But he was shocked and alarmed at the effect she had on him.

No human woman has ever Called me. One said she loved me, but we never had a connection such as this. That would have come after our wedding night, when she joined me in the sea.

Had she not betrayed me first.…

“Nia,” he called softly, unable to stop himself; but she was so upset she didn’t hear him. Better that way.

He closed his eyes and summoned Gunnar, his second-in-command, and asked him to take Nia back to the main cabin. Then he sank below the waterline, hoping the churning waters would drown out the sound of his misery.

Her sobs echoed in the icy chambers of his heart. He felt a thaw.…

Nei, never, he reminded himself. He had refrozen his heart by pushing her out of his mind. The result was on the floor, drowning in her misery.

It was better that way.

 

Erik, she thought, as she was lifted from the floor and cradled against a hard masculine chest, one muscular arm under her arms, the other beneath her knees.

With some effort, she opened her eyes. It wasn’t Erik who held her; it was another man, with short red hair and a red beard. When she began to struggle, he sang to her. She stopped, staring up at the stranger who was carrying her toward the elevator.

Then he said, “I am Gunnar, Erik’s second. I will Call you, Frøken, and ease your distress.”

She looked over his shoulder at the tank. Erik wasn’t in sight.

“He swims alone, our Guardian,” Gunnar said. “He is forbidden love, a warm woman, children. He is kept apart, and so he stands ready to die for us, at any hour of any day.”

“How horrible,” she whispered.

Gunnar shook his head. “Nei. He is revered. And it gives meaning to a life that otherwise would have been unbearable to him. You see, long ago, his heart was broken. But now he has no use for it, and so it doesn’t trouble him.”

“Broken?” she murmured, going boneless in his arms. She welcomed the relief, no matter how it came to her.

“By a woman. A human. Who couldn’t bear to love him as he was. As he is.”

“Couldn’t bear…?” she said. “What do you mean?”

Gunnar grunted as if he himself were in pain. “It was Kirstinne, his betrothed. Rather than lie with him, she killed herself. Over a century ago.”

They deplaned onto an oil rig that rose like a fortress out of the harsh North Sea. Massive towers and pipes, cables and outbuildings crowded the cubelike structure, yet it was strangely silent, as if it had been abandoned. No lights were on; no one was home.

Nia was fitted with a lightweight bullet-proof vest and a thick parka, but she was chilled to the bone as the security guards surrounded her. Their weapons were drawn and they wore headsets, speaking to each other as they moved her through the rig in a serpentine manner.

“You’re the Keeper,” Birgid explained. “Only you can open the Jar of Naxos. And we must find it first, before the people who have your sister do.”

“Because…?” she asked, as their heels rang on the deck and the wind screamed at them.

“If your sister opens it for her captors, they will receive the Jar’s power.”

One of the security guards cleared his throat, and Birgid gave him a quick nod.

“Erik will explain it to you.”

The guard who had cleared his throat shined a red-beamed flashlight in front of her. In the bitter wind, her boots clanged over huge metal plates as they walked quickly to the side of the rig, where a sleek white ship rocked in the fierce swells. It bore no markings.

Birgid said, “Erik will address the crew. Then I’ll show you to your cabin.”

They boarded the vessel. Nia followed Birgid as she moved down narrow corridors until they reached a metal hatch with a foot-high lip seamless with the floor. As they descended into the room below, watery reflections shimmered over the metal ceiling, and the smell of sea water was pungent.

“The Guardian,” Birgid said quietly, pointing. Nia looked in the same direction and gasped.

The security guards from the plane were massed in force, and at least a dozen other people in dark blue jumpsuits stood in front of a semicircular tank that reached chest height. The wall of the tank was opaque, a dark turquoise ringed with shells in intricate patterns that looked Celtic to her uninformed eyes.

About five feet from the curved wall, Gunnar and five other men—mermen—floated in the water, visible from the tops of their heads to the sharp indentations of their pelvic bones. Except for arm bands of beaten gold around their biceps and cuffs around their wrists, they were naked. Their chests were broad, their pecs well-developed, and their abdomens were flat and muscled.

Behind them, Erik was seated on a throne made of coral that shone with golden clamshells and conch shells from which pearls swirled in intricate patterns that looked like words in another language. A gold crown studded with jewel-encrusted shells and rows of grape-sized pearls gleamed atop his long, straight blond hair. His bearing was regal, his head held tall and his shoulders square. He was bare-chested and, like his men, he wore gold arm bands and wrist cuffs. His arms were veined and muscled, like the statues of the ancient Greek gods that were part and parcel of Nia’s heritage. In his right fist, he held a gleaming golden trident.

“Poseidon,” Nia whispered, and what Erik was—who he might be—really hit her. She thought of what she had done in front of him, how she had responded to him, and realized it was happening again. She was literally drowning in passion…and something else.

And what about him? she wondered as his gaze snapped to meet hers. She flushed and tried to lower her eyes, but she couldn’t. She simply couldn’t.

“Some would call him a sea god,” Birgid whispered back. “But not us. To us, he is Erik. Our Guardian. And while you are with us, he will be yours, as well.”

“Let us begin,” Erik said in English. “We will speak in English, for the benefit of our visitor.” He gazed hard at her, and her body flared. Her heart quickened. “We have with us a Keeper of a magical object sacred to the Gifted. She is Nia Davos, and she is the Keeper of the Jar of Naxos.”

“A Keeper,” someone whispered in a hushed, awed tone.

The assembly turned as one and stared at her. Then they all sank to one knee and lowered their heads. Erik’s men bowed their heads; he did not.

Her lips parted; she turned to ask Birgid what she should do…only to find that Birgid was kneeling, too.

“It is traditional for there to be one Keeper for each relic. But the Guardian of the House of the Shadows learned that there are two. Our Keeper has a sister, named Sophie. Sophie has been kidnapped,” Erik continued. “We have identified her abductors. They are Odin’s Warriors, the renegades who broke from the magical House of the Ravens.”

Birgid gasped and looked up at Nia. Her face was white. Murmurs of apprehension wove around the room as the others got to their feet. The mermen poised before Erik stared stonily; a muscle jumped in Gunnar’s cheek. Erik raised his free hand, and the noise died away.

“Of course they want to get to the Jar first, and force the Keeper to open it. Thanks to the presence of Frøken Davos, we have been able to triangulate a probable location for U-355, the German submarine that was carrying the Jar to Adolph Hitler when it was sunk by an enemy torpedo in 1941.”

Nia blinked at him, confused.

“There is a bond between the Keeper and the Jar, and we have used that bond to trace our target,” he elaborated, apparently for her benefit. “This is a tremendous accomplishment, one possible only because Frøken Davos sails with us.”

There were murmurs of appreciation. Nia gave her head a shake. She didn’t want her presence to matter. She wanted to rescue Sophie and get out of here.

And leave him forever?

He looked at her again, lips parted, forehead wrinkled. Then he turned his attention to the crowd.

“We’re sailing for the Swedish archipelago. We are heavily armed with magic and conventional weapons. Our cause is just, and the sea belongs to us.”

“Njord protect us,” Birgid murmured.

“When we reach the dive site, I will accompany Miss Davos to the wreck, to retrieve the Jar.”

“Wait a minute,” Nia said. She blinked at him. Dive site? She raised a hand. Erik ticked his glance toward her and held up his own hand, signaling her to stay silent.

“She will open the Jar and I, your Guardian, will receive the power it contains. Then I will destroy our enemies and rescue the other Keeper.”

“That is all,” Gunnar boomed. “Man your stations.”

Nia descended the stairs as the others swarmed toward them; she drew strong reactions when people realized they had just come face to face with her. With the Keeper. She moved past them, almost running, coming up to the half circle of mermen.

“Dive site?” she said to Erik.

He laid his trident across the arms of his throne and swam toward her. The other mermen glided to the back of the tank, giving them as much privacy as possible.

“In a submersible. Similar to the one Ballard used with the Titanic,” he said.

“Wh-what?” She felt dizzy, sick. She knew what he was talking about; she’d seen something on TV about Ballard’s expeditions.

“It’s more advanced. And safe. I’ll accompany you. Inside the submersible.”

She quaked. “How…how deep will we go?”

“Very deep.”

“They won’t make Sophie do that—”

“They will make her do whatever it takes. They are Odin’s Warriors. Heartless. Ruthless.” His blue eyes glinted like chips of ice. “And so we must do whatever it takes as well.”

She looked down at her shaking hands. She was so afraid she felt ill.

He laid his hands on the edge of the tank, the veins on their backs prominent. She saw the cords of muscles in his shoulders, the strength of his profile, as he reached down and scooped up water, trickling it over his face.

“Fear is very powerful. We Vikings use strong emotion to arm us in battle. Have you heard of the Berserkers? We gather our rage and turn it against our enemies. Nothing on earth is more feared than a Viking Berserker, even to this day.”

And you’re one of them? She tried to imagine him in a fury. It was surprisingly easy to do.

“Even more feared than Odin’s Warriors?”

“Nia, I’ve protected the House of the North Sea from all her enemies for over a hundred years. I won’t let my people down now.”

A beat. “I’m not your people.” And yet, he had called her Nia for the first time.

“Nei,” he said frankly. “But you are the Keeper, and I need you.”

“To get the Jar first,” she filled in.

He tricked more water on his face. “Listen to me. The force inside the bottle could rip apart the sea bed, call up kraken and other monsters from depths that have not been opened since the days of the Giants. It could send this planet into a dark age of evil.”

She shuddered. “I never knew such a world existed.” She unclipped her hair, wound it, clipped it back. “I hate knowing it.” Her voice started to rise. “I just want Sophie back, all right?”

“The Gifted world has changed. The old alliances are shattered, and some have betrayed us to the Dark Forces. In the old Norse legends, a final battle destroys the world, and most of the gods perish trying to defend it.”

“So you think this is part of that?” Are you trying to tell me you think we’re going to lose?

“The gods knew of the battle. It was prophesied exactly when each one would die, and how. And yet, each of them was willing to fight the battle anyway.” He looked hard at her.

“But…”

“A warrior does what a warrior does,” he said.

“I’m not a warrior,” she told him.

“You are.” His eyes bored into her. She felt the connection, humming through her body and soul. Her very bones thrummed with energy. And from his look, he was feeling something, too. His hands tensed; his body was as taut as a spring.

“Tonight I’ll sing you to sleep. You’re going to need your strength.” His voice was a caress. She flooded with heat, and with something deeper…with a strong, deep desire to know him, to touch him.

“Don’t come near me,” she said hotly. “Just leave me alone.”

She turned to go. Her foot hit the first stair.

“You know I can’t do that,” he said. “Nor, actually, do I want to.”

Her lips parted; she turned back. He had dived beneath the waves, and all that she saw of him was a flick of his tail.

I cannot have feelings for her.

Erik swam among the rocks in the refreshingly frigid waters beside the ship. Underway for nearly two days, his people had conjured a finder’s spell, searching for the precise location of the wreck. Each hour they lost was an hour Odin’s Warriors might seize the advantage. How had they found the Keepers? If he could discover that, he might be able to figure out if they knew where the Jar was as well.

His ship, the Hjerte, had dropped anchor on the farthest reaches of the Stockholm archipelago, a place of unearthly beauty. The sun was setting, casting blood shadows over the dozens of snow-covered, purple islands. The view was spectacular, but it did not move him the way it moved other men.

I cannot have feelings for her because feelings like those are dead in me. She is a weapon like any other. My life is weapons, and protection of the House. It is not a personal life. That is the fate I asked for, and the fate I have.

Because Kirstinne broke your heart, a little voice whispered inside him. You sought the Guardianship so that you could never be hurt again, and the ice walls grew up around you. Didn’t Gunnar insist that you wished to become Guardian for the wrong reasons?

Only because he wanted to be Guardian himself.

Look. Look at her, how frightened she is, yet how determined. Look at her body. That face. It could launch a thousand ships. From a once-proud line of Keepers, gone underground. Which Davos Keeper lost the Jar of Naxos to Hitler’s Nazis? Her grandmother? She said her aunt claimed her mother disappeared after she fell in love with Stavros Davos. Maria Karras knew of the Keeper lineage, and searched for years to find Nia and Sophie.

Had I known such a woman walked in the world above, I would have searched for her, too. The Jar is a weapon. Nia is a treasure.

He sank beneath the waves to wash such thoughts out of his head. But he couldn’t do it. Beneath the surface, he heard her Calling to him. Absurd, impossible. And yet, her song filled him to bursting. He could barely think.

He breeched the surface in frustration.

Aboard ship, his land-dwelling followers were giving Nia a quick lesson in how to handle being inside their submersible. The bulbous compartment sat on long cylinders that looked like pylons. It dangled by its crane over the stormy waters.

He was dreading going down in it as much as she was; he would assume human shape in order to accompany her, as he would be unable to stay out of water that long in his natural form.

She’ll be so frightened, he thought, remembering her extreme reaction to the elevator in the plane. By reading her thoughts, he knew she was terribly claustrophobic. But we need her influence to pinpoint the Jar’s exact location.

But what if the worst happens? What if the only way I can prevent Sophie Davos from opening the Jar for Odin’s Warriors is to kill her? And if Nia herself poses a threat—if looks as though they’re going to grab her, I’ll have kill her. Nei.

Nei.

His body surged with the rhythm of the sea. He scowled and dipped his face in the icy water, struggling to still his warring emotions. He dimly remembered the joy he had felt when Kirstinne Larsen had agreed to become his bride. His eager anticipation of their life together, below the surface.

Why hadn’t she told him of her fears? Instead she’d taken a man to her bed, a human man, the night before she was to join the sea folk forever. And then, drowning in shame, she’d jump off a cliff, unable to bear the thought of growing a tail and having his children.

All human women are faithless and cowardly, Gunnar had advised him. That was when he sought out the Guardianship, turning his back on love. Let other men have their women. He had married the North Sea.

Now with his keen eyesight he watched Nia from his home, the waters. He could see for fathoms in the turbulent ocean. He could dive deep; he could swim like a dolphin. He pitied humans, who would never know the rapture of his world. He pitied her; aside from her quaking fear, she was lonely and sad. He’d done some checking into her life. She was essentially a single mother, and her restaurant wasn’t very profitable. His need to protect…

She is not mine to protect.

He couldn’t stop staring at her. What kind of love was Nia Davos capable of, to put herself on the line like this for her sister?

Captain Magnusen, his ship’s captain, stood at the rail and looked at him. It was their signal that he they were ready for the first dive.

 

“Oh, my God, oh, my God,” she whispered, trying to breathe deeply, as Erik had instructed her. Knobs and switches covered the interior of the spherical compartment in which they sat. They were both wearing loose parachute pants and blue T-shirts with Hjerte printed on the breast pocket. Both of them had on boots, and she noticed that he occasionally made circles with his ankles, as if he were in pain.

They were still descending. It would take two hours. Then they would have two hours to search, and two hours to go back up.

She wanted to tear the sphere apart and swim to the surface. She wanted to pass out. She was too afraid.

I have to do this. For Sophie. And…for Erik and his people.

He had shown her a few simple magic spells to prove the existence of the Gifted world to her—igniting a fire with a snap of his fingers, levitating a chair—until she finally accepted that there was a magical force inside the Jar that could be used for good or evil. It was a sort of turbo boost, and it would grant the Gifted on whom it was poured unbelievable strength for a night and a day. Or…. it could be poured into the sea, and cause horrible chaos…and allow demons to rise from fissures in the watery domain.

It had been her family’s job for millennia to protect the Jar from all Gifted, everywhere. Only a Keeper’s hand could open the Jar.

The sphere bobbled, and she began to freak out. Her white fingers clenched her tortoiseshell clip as she shut her eyes.

“I’m going to sing to you,” he told her.

“No, I can handle it,” she said quickly. She didn’t know what she was more afraid of—being buried inside this tiny steel bubble in the depths of the North Sea, or losing control of herself as he Called her. He was not her boyfriend, or her lover; she barely knew him.

That’s not true. You do know him, she thought. You know he’s sensual, and fearless…and not available.

But he began to sing to her, Calling her, and warmth and calmness overtook her panic. She took deep breaths, steadying herself. Wiping the sweat off her forehead, she nodded without looking at him.

“Thanks. It-it’s a weakness,” she said.

“Nei,” he replied. “You’re a warrior, as I said. To feel such terrible fear, and yet go through with this…it’s quite admirable.”

“Okay, thanks,” she murmured.

“Nia, try to trust me, just a little.”

“How can I?” She frowned at him. “This is all happening because of you and your…world. You kidnapped me. I was unconscious, and next thing I knew, I was on a plane. And now I’m here…with a merman.”

“A merman who is a Guardian. A protector.”

She concentrated on the grainy monitor, searching the black depths for the sunken U-boat. Brilliant klieg lights illuminated the teeming waters. She had imagined the sea would be clearer, more like what she had seen in movies. In reality, it was a rush of swirling white particles in an endless field of shadow.

“I have to trust you,” he pointed out. “For all I know, you’re one of them, Odin’s Warriors. And you allowed us to bring you here so that you could tell them where it is.”

“Don’t be stupid,” she ground out.

“I’m trying to show you that we both must trust the other.”

“I have some issues with trust.” She put her clip back in her hair and inhaled slowly. She was still afraid they would run out of oxygen. She had asked why they didn’t wear masks or diving gear; he’d explained that at these depths, the pressure would crush them if the hull was breeched. They could sit here naked if they wanted.

I won’t think about that now, she thought.

“Look,” he said quietly.

She complied, and heart clogged her throat. There, before her, the klieg lights of the submersible illuminated a smooth, angular shape. It was too regular to be organic…it had to be manmade.

“It’s U-355,” he said.

“God.” She was chilled. He’d told her they believed that the old-fashioned German submarine had gone down with all hands. If that were true, she was staring at a mass grave.

The camera passed along more of the hull, revealing a gaping hole in the side. It looked like a sunflower made of rust or coral; she didn’t know what she was seeing.

“Now we send in our little camera and take a look. Mark one,” he said as he flipped a switch.

All the lights extinguished, inside the vessel and out.

“Why did you do that?” she cried.

A beat. Two.

“Perkele,” he said. “I didn’t. Don’t worry. The backup generator will come on.” She felt him moving, heard him flicking switches. Nothing happened.

Three beats. Four.

“It’s getting cold,” she said as goose bumps broke out along her arms and back.

“Nei, it’s not. You’re just afraid.” Click-click-click. He swore again. “My torch isn’t working.”

“Torch…”

“Flashlight.” He grunted.

Five. Six. Seven.

“Oh, God,” she whispered. Her voice shook

Ten.

“Bloody hell,” he muttered in English.

Twenty-five.

“Gunnar will know something’s wrong. He’ll pull us up.”

“Will it take two hours?”

“Ja.” He sounded reluctant to tell her. “Our air is circulating. Our life support systems are functioning.”

“Will—”

“We’ll be all right.”

In the dark, at the bottom of the ocean. In this tiny, cramped ball.

She ran her hands through her hair. Then she heard his Call again, lower and more sensuous, calling to her nerves, her blood, her heartbeat. Desire seeped into her abject fear like brandy, warming the cold places, the icy recesses of her terror.

Hold me, comfort me, she thought, but he made no move. He must know how afraid she was; what would it cost him to put an arm around her? Yet he sat beside her in the darkness. She smelled him—clean water and salt—and she wondered fleetingly what she smelled like to him. Then the panic drowned out her musings…and Erik drowned out the panic. In less than three minutes, she was asleep.

 

She didn’t wake up until much later. She was in her bed in her cabin, lying naked beneath the blankets. She wondered if Birgid had undressed her.

The cabin was more like an undersea grotto. The walls were painted in sea greens and blues and decorated with delicate traceries of cloisonné and enamel shells.

There was a soft rap on the door. It opened, and Erik stood on the threshold. Light spilled from the hall, casting silvery streaks in his wet wheat-colored hair. He was wearing a long indigo robe decorated with an embroidered conch shell and a trident—his House’s icons, she guessed. Sparkles of water clung to his long eyelashes. He was wearing open-toed leather sandals, and she stared at his well-muscled calves and feet, fascinated by the tufts of blond hair on the knuckles of his toes. Maybe she had only dreamed he was a merman.

“Hvordan har du det?” He blinked, as if he had just realized he’d spoken to her in Norwegian. “How are you?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. She paused. “Did we almost die down there?”

There was a long pause. She sat up in her bed, pulling the sheets up to her chin as he entered the cabin, shutting the door behind himself. He looked at her for a long time, then he walked over to the porthole and stared out.

“The sun is setting,” he murmured.

“Have you had any word about—”

Erik turned around. “Frøken Davos. Nia,” he amended. Then he fell silent again.

“Sophie,” she whispered, leaping out of the bed.

“Nei, nei,” he said quickly. “We’ve had no word.”

She gazed up at him. “Then what?”

He stared at her, his eyes taking in the sight of her body, separated from him only by a sheet.

“Hitler knew a lot about magic,” he began. “With magic, we are able to ward places we want no one else to enter. U-355 is warded. That’s why the submersible failed when you and I went down.”

“Failed—”

“We…you were closer to dying than I allowed you to know.”

A cold shock made her jerk as the reality of his words hit home.

“We sent the submersible down several more times, unmanned. Each time, the magical field damaged it. The last time, it completely shattered. It’s gone.”

She thought of Sophie and her heart began to flutter like a trapped hummingbird.

“At the time U-355 was sunk, no one knew about merfolk,” he continued. “And so, Hitler didn’t have it warded against us.”

She brightened. “You went down. You got the Jar.”

“We swam down, and we found it, but we couldn’t take it.” As if the effort cost him, he tore his attention away from her and looked back out of porthole. “When we tried to get the Jar out of the wreck, it delivered a powerful magical shock.”

“Oh, I hope no one was hurt.”

He lifted his chin; the setting sun cast his profile in a nimbus of bloody gold. “Gunnar has been badly injured.”

She covered her mouth in horror.

“He’s strong.” His voice was hard. “So now we know for certain that only a Keeper can retrieve the Jar.” He hard at her with his deep blue eyes. “You.”

“But you just said that the submersible is gone,” she said, perplexed. “Do you have another one? One that has some kind of protection against…”

She trailed off as he studied her, as if willing her to figure out where he was going. When she didn’t, he walked back toward her, towering over her as she sat naked in bed. She felt his body heat, inhaled his scent. He smelled clean, like the ocean. The robe gapped open, and she saw a sprinkling of blond chest hair on the molded hardness of his chest.

“The way we are built,” he said, “we can assume human shape. It’s not natural to us, but as you have seen, it is possible. And a male can use that shape to help a female assume our shape.”

“W-what?” Her voice was small.

“I can change you to be like me.”

She went cold. She could think of few more bizarre and terrifying things that could happen to her. She looked down, and saw his veined feet in his sandals. Not his natural shape.

This is my natural shape. This.

“We need to get the Jar,” he said, his robe brushing the side of the mattress. “We’ve detected Odin’s Warriors with our scrying shells. They’re almost here. We have to do it now.”

“Do it…”

“Change you. We need to mate. My seed inside your body will cause the transformation.” His deep blue eyes blazed. “And it will happen because you will be cradling my child.”

“What?” she cried. “Your what?”

“You will be the keeper of my child. I can will it to happen. I am a Gifted. And as such, your body will change to—”

“No,” she said, shaking her head, pulling the sheet against her chest and leaning backwards. She nearly fell and caught herself by pushing her right palm into the mattress. She scrambled away from him. “No way on earth.”

“I can force this on you.” His tone was as cold as Arctic ice, despite the high color in his cheeks. “And if you refuse, I will.” He put one knee on the bed. The robe parted, revealing a strong, muscular thigh. He was powerfully built, and as she watched the vein in his forehead pulsate, she realized he was as desperate to protect his people and his ocean as she was to protect Sophie.

She had never been more frightened is her life.

“Please, no,” she murmured. “Erik, don’t do this.”

“You can’t refuse me,” he said. “It’s not up to you.”

He reached for her.

Erik wrapped his hand around Nia’s right wrist and eased her backwards as he laid his full weight against her, capturing her beneath him. He felt the softness of her breasts, her tight belly, and the strength in her arms as she tried to push him away.

“No,” she gasped, “stop.”

In the Viking times, warriors raped their female captives as a matter of course. He was much stronger than she was; he could make short work of this, take her and be done with it. His world hung in the balance; he had to change her and force her to go down to the U-boat. Romance and words of love be damned.

I haven’t slept with a woman in over a century. I’m the Guardian. I’m celibate. And childless. If I do this…I will rejoin the very community I promised to remain apart from, in order to protect it.

I shouldn’t. I should order someone else to change her. She’ll carry the child of another man, then…

But he couldn’t stand the thought. Nia was…his. His to guard, to protect and to fill with his power. Ridiculous, absurd.

Then he crushed his mouth over hers. She tried to purse her lips together, but they opened with a gasp as she writhed beneath him. His tongue stole inside the warm recesses of her mouth. He probed gently as she fought against him, and he felt the surging tide that rose inside her as he caught both her wrists in one of his, rocked slightly, and filled his hand with her right breast. He felt the telltale stiffening of her nipple. She was aroused, yet as tense as someone facing their execution. He pulled back, opened his mouth and sang.

I will pleasure you, human woman. I will give you ecstasy such as you have never known. The net I cast around you is woven with the skilled fingers of the sea’s great lover.

You are the pearl, the shimmering sunshine on the water in a sea of delight. I will give you more joy, more delicious sensation; you will fall in love with my body and yearn for it, even as I join myself to you. I am the Guardian, protector of your pleasure.

His voice trickled over her like warm, perfumed water; then a little stronger, like the bubbling pressure of a current, the sound molded her muscles and kneaded them; drew goose bumps on her skin. His lay his mouth over hers again; drawing her breath into his lungs, expelling his into her. Her lips were soft and warm. As he kissed her, he trailed his fingernails over her shoulders and collarbones, lingering at the hollow at her throat, teasing the swells of her breasts. The sheet was still pulled across them. He caught the edge and yanked it downward.

 

Her last bastion of defense was gone as he ripped the sheet away. His skin was smooth and hot. His penis pushed against her flat belly, and he moved his hips, letting her feel the length, the warmth.

He kissed her as he sang to her: on her lips, her nose, the hollows of her cheeks. Nibbling on her earlobe, he whispered his song into her ear.

I will take you into a kingdom of joy; you will swim in rapture. The vast ocean of sensation I offer you is endless.…

Despite the excitement his manipulative “Calling” elicited in her, she was furious. He thought he had to drug her with his song, and then rape her. Didn’t he know she would do anything for Sophie? If he had given her a little more time, she would have said yes. She had been afraid, and now she was just…used.

She struggled, humiliated at the sheer depth of her desire. His heart thundered against her breasts. His tongue swam along the arched column of her neck. His breath misted her cheek, her lips.

“Nia,” he said, forcing her legs apart. The heated air touched her sex; then his finger found the pink pearl, and caressed it. Despite everything, pulses of pleasure built inside her; her toes curled and she rocked her pelvis toward him, unaware of her movements. He had tight hold of her wrists, and he held himself above her for an instant, staring into her eyes.

She felt that link, that strange bond, moving out from herself to him. He cried out, throwing back his head. And she knew the real source of her anger was not that he was forcing her to do this, but that she wanted to be with him. Not just because of the wild attraction between them, but because he was who he was…despite what he was. A passionate man…a man for whom smiles came hard. A wounded man, who nevertheless did what he had to. Set apart, lonely, determined…but how could she tell him any of that, now that he had done this without her consent?

“Nia,” he whispered, “Min Nia.”

 

Nia cried out from the sheer sensual overflowing fullness; he was big and long, and he caressed places that had never felt a man before. His song promised every wish fulfilled, each need answered…there and there, this way, harder, slower, oh, please.

Yes, there. Yes, here. Ja, harder, slower, ja.

Vil du bli med meg?

Will you come with me?

Then she lifted her head and he knew she saw his tail, his hips undulating as he thrust into her; his song lulled her senses away from shock and into joy, sheer and complete. They moved together, swam together; and he felt her body shifting, her bones and muscles reforming…he knew it could hurt terribly. It was one of the reasons Kirstinne had leaped off the cliff.

He made it not hurt; he sang her through it, past it, into it. He Called her with the sweet words of the sea folk, designed to entice, to lure, to delude.

But he meant them.

He meant them.

Yes, come with me, into the waters. Come with me and be my beloved, my cherished queen, the soul of my heart; my heart beats in your body; your air is my air.

 

“Erik!” she cried as unimaginable ecstasy roared through her, overwhelming and unexpected. One moment she was riding the wave, the next, she was the wave. He held her tightly, moving faster. She felt herself changed, changing—changed, changing. He shook his head from side to side and gritted his teeth.

“Ja,” he cried. He bucked hard, and a warm jet pulsed inside her core. Erik’s seed swam in her as together they crested the swells. The ecstasy rolled away, and they rested in a tangle of arms…and tails.

My tail.

Gasping, she stared down at her tail. It was a silvery blue, with a wavy pattern to the color, much slenderer than Erik’s, and her fins were lacy and delicate, like a goldfish’s. She didn’t want to touch it, afraid it would be cold and slimy. It was hard to believe that it was part of her, that it had happened…and that he had forced her into it.

“You…bastard,” she whispered.

“Now Sophie has a chance,” Erik reminded her.

Then he shifted and slid off the bed. He had legs again. She didn’t know how he changed so thoroughly and instantly, but he moved slowly, as if he were in pain.

He scooped her up in his arms and carried her to the cabin door. Her tail dangled over his arm and she covered her breasts with her hands as he opened the door.

On the other side, Captain Magnusen and the crewmen who had helped her train for the submersible were gathered. Also, Birgid, who lowered her head and whispered, “Tusen takk. Thank you.”

Surrounded by people, Erik jogged with her in his arms down the corridor and out to the starboard side of the ship, where a lifeboat hung over the water. He set her inside and nodded at the captain, who yelled something in Norwegian. At once the lifeboat plummeted toward the surging ocean.

She tried not to scream, but she couldn’t help it. Then, as soon as the boat hit the water, Erik took her hand and jumped, on human legs, into the water, bringing her with him.

“No,” she begged, reflexively holding her breath, clawing at him to get back to the surface. But Erik dragged her down, down into the pitch darkness, into the icy waters. She writhed in panic, certain that something had gone wrong, and that she was going to die.

They went down, farther, and suddenly—

I can see. I can breathe.

He had transformed, and they were diving headfirst into the deep waters, the depths where the U-boat lay. Fish schooled around them, and showers of tiny animals swirled in the currents. She smelled the salt. She tasted…him.

Can you hear me? he asked her. In her head. He was communicating with her through telepathy.

Yes. Can you…can we read minds?

Ja.

She blinked.

Have you always been able to read my mind?

He didn’t answer, only increased his speed. They were racing to get to the wreck before Odin’s Warriors. She understood the need to focus, and to her amazement, swam as well as he did. Her movements were natural, and she felt a tremendous freedom she had never known before, as if her body finally worked as it had been intended to.

He extended his arm and she saw the hulk of the U-boat, half-buried in sand—and around it, his men, armed with spear guns. Erik put on a burst of speed and dragged her along behind him, coming up abreast of a pair of men guarding the huge breach in the U-boat’s hull, which before had looked like a flower of rust and coral. She could see inside—how she didn’t know—and braced herself for scenes of death by drowning.

Erik went in with her, leading the way. She didn’t know what she was seeing—a piece of machinery, sections of rusted hull and jagged sheets of a metal, a crusted rectangle—perhaps part of a bunk bed or a cot. No skeletons, thank God.

And then, lying unceremoniously in a corner, shoved under what appeared to be a sink, was a dark wooden crate about the size and shape of a carton of dishes. Every inch of the crate was carved with Grecian figures, silhouettes of men and women adoring a woman standing on hill and holding a jar. The solo figure was surrounded by jags of lightning.

Open it. Hurry, Erik said.

Just then, an explosion rocked them both off their feet.

 

Perkele, Erik thought as the roof of the U-boat crashed over their heads. He threw himself over Nia, struggling not to come in contact with the box. Gunnar lay near death from having touched it.

I’m all right, she told him, looking up at him over her shoulder. Her hair swirled in the water, and he was momentarily so stunned by her beauty that he forgot what he was doing. She didn’t know that she was still Calling to him. But she was only minutes old, as far as the sea knew.

He lowered walls around himself, trying to drown out her song. He had to protect her. He raised himself off her and grabbed a metal pipe that had shaken loose. He handed it to her as another explosion rocked U-355.

Erik! Hurry! It was Mats, one of his men. Erik smelled blood in the water. He heard cries of pain.

Bash it open, he told her. I can’t touch it.

She gripped the pipe in both her hands and thrust it down on the wooden box. It dented the wood slightly. He bit his cheek, frustrated that he couldn’t do it for her, knowing that if he was injured, it would make it harder for her.

She hit it again. Again.

He heard more cries. Smelled more blood.

The wood splintered. She threw down the pipe and grabbed the pieces, pulling them away.

We might damage the Jar, she said. Then, as he looked on, the interior of the crate radiated light so intense it was nearly platinum white. They shielded their eyes.

As she reached for it, figures fleet as manta rays rained down on them from above, forcing in the remnants of the roof. They wore black skin-diving suits and masks. Their evil permeated the water like poison.

A spear shot past his head. He shouted, Nia! He threw himself between her and their attackers. Something hot and agonizing bloomed inside his back, near his spinal cord. Pain radiated through his body. The spear was tipped with poison, and perhaps a magical death-curse as well.

Njord, he begged his god, stop them. Save her.

He began to lose consciousness. Inky blackness engulfed him, and he heard his heart slowing.

Erik, she called to him. Called to him. Her voice was sweet and soothing. He was dying, and her voice would make it easier.

As he hung limp in the water, she sang to him of the joy of their union. She didn’t know it. But it was in every sound she uttered.

She really does love me, he thought wonderingly. She had slept with him as a human woman, and taken his seed, and she loved him.

Nia Davos, in another life…in my life…

I am so sorry.

Uploaded by Coral

Spears crisscrossed the space as Nia grabbed with both hands and worried the splintered section. A swimmer was coming for her. Through his tinted mask, she saw red, glowing eyes. Odin’s Warriors weren’t human. It frightened her so badly that for a moment she lost track of what she was doing.

Then the eyes ticked over her shoulder. Another diver was approaching her from the rear.

Help me! she called to Erik’s men.

The one behind her gripped her shoulder and yanked. He didn’t realize her hand was curled around the lip of the box; his added muscle power got the crate open.

She reached in and grabbed the Jar. It was smooth clay, and it felt hot to her touch. At the same moment, the swimmer in front of her—one of Erik’s men—was thrown backwards as a spear entered his chest. Two more swam around him, coming straight for her.

The assailant behind her loosened his grip. The younger one looked at her and gave her a thumbs up as he and the other man swam over to Erik, who was inert, and brought him to her. Other mermen engaged three of the other divers.

Hurry, the young one begged. Maybe the power will save him.

Erik was dying?

Nia lost track of the fighting and chaos around her. The wreck shifted and shuddered, debris tumbled down, there were explosions and cries. Spears and knives slashed at the men, streaming blood into the water.

Sharks, someone said. There was more movement around her. She glanced at the young merman who was holding Erik.

Open it, I beg you. He is my Guardian, he said to her.

It was a double-handled clay jar, glowing hot. Between the two handles, the neck was sealed with what appeared to be wax and wrapped with black cord.

She unwound the cord. It floated away. Then she pried her fingernails under the wax seal. It lifted up, all of a piece.

Something inside glowed with an unearthly white light. She tipped over the jar as if to pour the contents over Erik. Lightning shot out and engulfed him in a ball of platinum fire.

No! she cried as the flash fire licked at his face, arms and chest. His body jerked and convulsed, contracting. He rolled in the water, the flames racing along his body.

Erik, she begged. Help me.

Then his eyes opened. They were the deepest blue possible, and wild with fury. His face was a grimace of pure rage, lips pulled back from his teeth, his veins bulging, his fists balled.

Light raced around him; he glowed at the center of a corona of changing colors, like the Northern lights. His incandescence lit up the water. He threw his head back and opened his mouth. A roar blasted out of his chest, sending shockwaves through the ocean and scattering the enemy divers, who tumbled head over fins. Then he charged after them, grabbing the first one by the flippers, yanking him backwards, killing him and speeding after the next. His men saw what was happening and gave him space, swimming away, turning, watching.

The sharks attacked the wounded divers, and Nia gasped and turned her head. The feeding frenzy boiled the water. Blood mushroomed around the crazed sharks as they fought over the bodies, tearing them to pieces.

Erik, she called, seeing him swim upward, but the young merman grabbed her wrist.

He is Berserker, he told her. Stay well away.

She could understand everything he was saying. He was grinning, pleased and proud, thrilled at the sight of his frenzied protector.

I need my sister. Please help me get to her.

Erik is a Viking, he said. He will take whatever he wants. Nothing will stand in his way.

Please, she said again. She sang to him, and his grinned broadened.

So new to our ways, and yet you already know how to charm me. Very well.

He laced his hand with hers and pointed upward. She held the Jar in her right fist, and together they swam away from the undersea slaughter. Other mermen joined them, smiling at her, thanking her. No one seemed to mind the terrible aftermath of the battle.

As a group, they broke the surface. There was another ship on the horizon, a bizarre, nightmarish, black vessel, its conn tower painted with the skull of a raven wearing a Viking helmet. The deck was churning with thick, ebony smoke and the ship was listing. There was a hole in the hull and it was taking on water.

Nia, Erik called. I have your sister. Stay there.

“Sophie,” she screamed. Her voice echoed and vibrated over the water. She started swimming, shaking off her escort as he tried to stop her. Faster, past floating dead bodies and cargo as it bobbed up from the other ship’s hold. She raced toward the ship, searching for Sophie.

Then she saw Erik, standing aboard the demonic-looking ship as a man, legs spread wide apart. Sophie was curled in his arms. Blood gushed down his right leg.

Below him in the water, she hailed him. He walked Sophie toward a lifeboat and set her in it. Sophie sat up on her own. She was all right. Erik released the lowering mechanism and climbed inside. Sophie saw Nia and waved.

Nia waved back with both hands, laughing and screaming Sophie’s name. And then it hit home what she had done; what had happened. She couldn’t run a restaurant, or pick up Sophie from school.…

And I am carrying a child. She didn’t know how she knew for certain that she was pregnant, but she did know.

She burst into tears, gazing at the vast ocean that separated her from her little sister and everything she knew. The mermen looked at her and kept their distance. Then the younger man glided over to her.

“Frøken,” he said gently, “you do know that the Guardian lives apart from us? When we’re home, he’ll go away…”

Nodding, she lowered her head. “No regrets,” she murmured. “I’d do it again in a heartbeat, to save my sister.”

“Then you are a Guardian, too,” he said in a low, awed voice.

“How is she?” Erik asked Nia as she swam to the rocks where he lounged, nursing his energies, savoring the victory from three days previous. The Jar’s spell had permanently gifted him with increased strength and endurance.

There was still more power in the Jar of Naxos. Nia had misunderstood; she’d thought that once the Jar was opened, that would be the end of it. But she would have to protect it and guard it for the rest of her life—and if something happened to her, the burden would fall to Sophie. Sophie was thrilled—it was like one of her fantasy novels come to life.

“She’s doing so much better than I would have expected,” Nia reported, her voice flat, coming up beside him. She gazed down at her tail, and his. Another thing she hadn’t realized was that he had changed her for good. She was a daughter of the sea now, for the rest of her life—which would probably be very long, as merfolk were practically immortal.

“The leader of Odin’s Warriors told Sophie that when she opened the Jar, the ocean would boil and the demons they worshipped would come through. So…we did what we had to.”

“Good,” he said, watching as rivulets of seawater surged into the indentations on the rocks. He lifted his face to the wind, and his hair streamed behind him like a battle pennant.

A long silence formed between them. It grew cold, and solid, like a glacier. She touched her abdomen gently, communing with the little life inside her.

“You didn’t have to force me,” she said finally. “I just needed time.”

He looked at her with an unreadable expression.

“We didn’t have time.”

“For God’s sake, Erik, if you’d just read my mind, you would have known the truth.”

“I did,” he said. “I read it while I was taking you. While I was singing to you.” He cocked his head. “People lie to themselves all the time. Kirstinne told me she could handle life under the sea. I searched her mind. She believed that with all her heart. And I believed her.”

She bit her lip and looked away. He was never going to let her in. She could see that now. The father of her child was as removed and distant from her as if he were back in Montreal, and she was here.

“Did you tell Sophie about your aunt in Greece?” he asked.

“Yes.” Nia had e-mailed Maria Karras and confirmed that she was their aunt. They had yet to speak on the phone, but that was coming. Maria had known of their legacy as Keepers—and she had starting searching for Nia when a sinister-looking man had come into her taberna—she ran a restaurant, too—asking questions about “a special jar.”

“The Jar belongs in Greek waters,” Erik said.

“Yes.” They had discussed that briefly. She would have to go to Greece to live. What did that mean for them? Would he visit his child, or stay out of their lives?

He reached down and trickled water over his face, then over hers. It was an intimate gesture, the only one to occur between them since he had single-handedly destroyed Odin’s Warriors and sent their black ship to the bottom of the ocean.

“Maybe one day Sophie will choose to become one of us,” he added.

Us. There was no us. She knew that. She didn’t know how he felt about that; he was shielding his thoughts. She didn’t know how to do it, and she knew that he must have heard her heart breaking at the thought of her strange new existence with a child, alone.

“Let’s swim,” he said, diving into the breakers. He kept hold of her hand and took her with him. She splashed into the turbulent water.

Together they descended to the depths, where beluga whales frolicked and silvery fish nuzzled her shoulders and cheeks. Giant kelp waved and undulated. It was a wonderland, one she had never known existed. She glided beside him, trying to concentrate on the beauty around them and not on him, fighting not to reveal her wish that things were different.

She knew that Erik had chosen to become Guardian to free himself of ever loving again. As far as she could tell, he was still free.

Erik took her through a giant kelp reef and showed her banks of coral. Then they swam back to the Hjerte and came up through the airlock into the tank where he had held his briefing. Erik’s mermen floated in the tank.

The room was packed with people. The first person Nia saw was Sophie, standing with Birgid in front of the assembly. Sophie’s hair was brushed and curled, and she was wearing some of Nia’s clothes.

The second was a fully-recovered Gunnar, floating in his accustomed spot, his complexion pale in contrast to his bright red hair and goatee.

Erik exchanged looks with Gunnar. Nia could feel the tension in the room—it was so intense it literally made her squirm. Something was going on. Something big.

“Let us speak aloud in English, so Sophie can understand us,” Erik said. “Everyone here speaks English.”

“Very well. Guardian of the North Sea, we have talked,” Gunnar began, taking in the mermen with a sweep of his arm. “As you know, great Erik, our tradition requires that our Guardian live a loveless existence, without a wife and family. That he be ready to die for us every moment of his life.”

“I know this well, Gunnar,” Erik said. “I accepted my vow with a willing heart. And I broke it to save my people.”

“Keeper of the Jar of Naxos,” Gunnar continued. “We know why the Guardian changed you, and that you carry his child now. And for that we’re grateful. But this is our tradition. The Guardian most remain celibate, and a bachelor.”

“Oh. I see,” she murmured, forcing back her bitter mortified tears. Did this have to happen in public—Erik’s renunciation of her so that he could go back to the life he had led before she’d shown up?

“And that is why Erik will be our Guardian no longer. He is freed from his obligation.” Gunnar tapped his chest. “I am the new Guardian. As I should have been over a hundred years ago.”

Cheers rose up, and Erik’s face broke into a wide smile. All the men, including Erik, inclined their heads in deference. Birgid and the other humans sank onto one knee. Sophie stood watching, her eyes glittering, then bobbed a sort of curtsey.

Nia bowed her head as well. Then Gunnar swam past her to Erik’s throne. Erik trailed behind him, then dove beneath the surface, rising with his glittering crown in his hands. He held it high.

Then the assembled mermen sang:

Joy and long life, Erik, our Brother, who relinquishes the greatest honor of our House, for the love of hearth and home.

Greetings to Gunnar, our Guardian, who gives up all ties to this world so that he may leap into the next when his time arrives. Apart yet one with our House, he protects, he guards, he slays.

Erik placed the crown on Gunnar’s head. The two men clasped forearms, and Gunnar’s face gleamed with pride.

Then Erik swam back to Nia. He kissed her on the lips and faced the company.

“This is my woman, if she’ll have me,” he proclaimed. “The Keeper is the mother of my child. If she wills it, we will join hearts tonight when we reach our House, and enter it as a family.”

He looked at her. Trust me, he thought to her. I’ll be as good a husband as I was a Guardian. I’ll protect our child as I did my House.

Oh, God, she thought. I’m so scared.…

“We’ll go to Greece, where the Keeper will tend the Jar,” he said. “With my new little sister.” He smiled hopefully at Sophie.

“Oh, wow,” Sophie cried. “This is so amazing! This is cool! Nia, you so totally have to say yes!”

Erik gazed at Nia with love, but she felt his deep fear, cold and bottomless as a trench, and understood it. For wasn’t she also a veteran of dashed hopes?

I’ll sing you through it, she teased gently. She looked over at Sophie, who was giggling, and blew her a kiss.

“I’ll throw a wedding bouquet over the side of the ship,” Sophie told Nia.

“Such is the tradition,” Erik told Nia. “There will be hundreds of land dwellers, those who know of us, throwing bouquets into the water tonight. And we’re required to make love as many times as there are bouquets.” He grinned at her. “I’ll sing you through it.”

“And I’ll listen,” she replied. My heart will listen.

“Greece is beautiful,” he said.

“I’ve never been there.”

“I was there once, about fifty years ago. There are ships beneath the water, and undersea grottos and temples. The water is so blue.”

“I can’t wait,” she said.

“You don’t have to,” he replied.

Then she sank into the arms of her love, utterly swept away.