Never Land

Melaina fled the underwater palace the moment she could to get away from her father and the king and Nereus … she was completely thrown. In all her life she never considered she would be anything more than she was. She was high enough to be respected by the other families but there was never even a fleeting thought that she would marry into the ruling family of mermaids. She had seen Nereus but never thought of him as a future mate.

It wasn’t that Nereus was unattractive because he wasn’t. He was actually quite handsome for a merman with his blonde hair, strong bone structure, and toned body. He was strong and good and never once was he one of the other mermaids or mermen that poked fun at her. In fact, he had stood up for her on occasion and only now did she realize why. He must have known for awhile that she would be his mate. Years, perhaps, maybe ever since he was young. That put an uneasy thought in her head and she began to swim faster to try to expel the thought from her mind. If Nereus had known for awhile then so did her father and he never once mentioned it to her. Instead, he sprung it on her out of nowhere and she felt betrayed by that. How could she ever think about being married to someone that wasn’t Harry? At the thought of him, she broke for the surface hoping to see him. She needed to talk to him, touch him, kiss him.

“Melaina!”

She turned and saw Harry making a beeline for their spot and nearly slipped on some rocks to get to her quickly. She swam for him as fast as she could, beating him by only a few seconds, and waited for him to catch his breath. She needed to tell him what had happened, though, so it was best that he couldn’t speak right away. “My father promised me to Prince Nereus, Harry.”

If he felt like he couldn’t breathe before, there was no word for how he felt after hearing that. His blood ran cold and he felt faint. “You can’t marry him! I love you.”

“I love you, too. I don’t know how to stop this unless I miraculously grew legs then of course my father would have to break off the wedding though I’m not -”

“Melaina, that’s it! I came to tell you that we have to go back to that island where we got the flying powder from to send the kids back but didn’t you say that there was other magic there? Is there something there to make you human?”

“I-I don’t know … there could be … I can help you get back to that island. You’re going to have to be careful, though. Zayn’s ship has been roaming a lot closer to the shore these days. It’s like he’s waiting for something …”

“We’ll handle him.” Harry gave her a big smile and cupped her cheek, bringing her up to kiss her sweetly before pressing his forehead to hers. “Can you imagine it? If I could make you human … we could finally be together.”

She could imagine it – she had been imagining that since she met him. All she had ever wanted was a mortal life with him since that day. As much as she loved the water and being with her family, she felt as though she didn’t belong in the sea. Not as much as she felt she belonged on land. She truly believed as though it was her destiny to walk on land with Harry, stroll the beach hand in hand or run through the forest. She had lived a long time in water and she felt as though it was her time to live on land. “You’d be stuck with me for a very long time …”

“I think I could live with that.” He kissed her again then took a deep breath. “I should get back and tell the others that we have help on the sea this time. Perhaps it’ll go more smoothly.”

“What will you do about Captain Zayn?”

“I’m not sure – hopefully Liam or Tiger Lily will have a plan about that.”

“I could get some sea creatures to help you … to distract him. The sharks are always happy to help with the promise of a good meal.”

“I don’t want you dealing with sharks … we’ll figure this out. In the meantime, I have only one thing to ask you.”

“What’s that?”

“Don’t marry Nereus. Please … just … I’ll do whatever it takes to get the power to make you human.”

“I promise to try not to – you’ll have to hurry though. Mermaid weddings, though a great affair, happen very quickly.”

“Wait for me.” He kissed her again before heading back to the house to talk to the others. He wasn’t sure how to tell them – they weren’t huge fans of mermaids and he knew that if he mentioned help from the sea creatures they would ask her to assemble the sharks to distract Zayn’s ship. Sharks were unstable. You could never trust them. One minute they would be on your side then the next they would turn on you and eat you whole. Harry could never put Melaina at such a risk – he would rather die first.

“Guys, I have something to run by you.” He said, seeing his friends, and the newcomers, all sitting around in a tense silence. All eyes shot to him and he felt his face flush.

“Where did you run off to? We searched for you.” Liam said, looking his friend up and down. Harry always seemed to come back with his pants wet and he never really understood why. He supposed it was because Harry liked to think on the beach. He was mostly right.

“I went to talk to Mel – the mermaids. I know we said it would have been easier with some help last time we got the powder and now we could have it this time. A mermaid has offered to help us get to the island … distract Zayn or just help us get there quickly or whatever we need. She knows the island well – she’d be of great assistance to us.”

“We don’t work with mermaids, Harry.” Liam said, exasperated. “We only mentioned it last time because Louis nearly drowned.”

“I did not.” Louis said, to which Liam, Harry, and Jodie all scoffed simultaneously.

“You know how they are. They don’t like us as much as we dislike them. It won’t do any good. We got it fine on our own and we’ll be fine this time.”

“Maybe we should listen to this mermaid.” Jodie offered, having Liam turn to look at her in confusion. “I’m just saying that we have extra cargo this time – maybe it won’t be so bad for extra help.”

“Wait, we have to go with you?” Evelyn asked, tensing all over.

“If we left you here, Zayn would find a way to snatch you up.” Louis explained, grabbing her hand. “Jodie is right, Liam. It’ll be harder this time. Maybe she could even get the sharks to ward off Zayn from the island so we can get there without him knowing.”

It was Harry’s turn to tense all over. “No sharks.”

“That’d be the only way mermaids could help us … by giving us a distraction from Zayn.”

“Liam … sharks are dangerous. We can’t.”

“What does that matter? It’s not as though we have a treaty with mermaids. They’re safety isn’t our concern.”

“But, we can’t just let them get hurt for us.”

“They’d do the same if it was the other way around.”

“No … we …”

“Maybe there’s another way.” The option came from the unlikely source of Evelyn.

It was then Harry realized she knew his secret.