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Chapter Eleven

Niera paced the boardwalk, shivering beneath the heavy jacket she’d borrowed from Annise. The moon loomed, large and white behind scattered clouds, casting a bluish hue over everything touched by its light. Her pouch of crystals rolled between her fingers, tucked deep in the jacket’s pocket.

“Maybe this isn’t a good idea. It’s apparent the saltwater isn’t doing your nerves any good,” Annise said. The pity in her tone firmed Niera’s determination to stick this out. She wasn’t giving up. She was too close.

She wanted Alistair beside her, safe and curse-free.

Holly appeared in front of her on the boardwalk, sand puffing up around her paws. She gave them a brisk shake.“He’s down the beach. One of my friends is staying with him. You must hurry.”

Niera gasped. “He’s returned.”

“You must go alone.”

Niera spun to Annise and grabbed her shoulders. “Wait here for me. Please. I’ll be right back.”

“Nier—”

“Please.”

Frowning, Annise nodded. Niera thanked her quietly. Holly trotted toward the ramp to the beach. Despite the cold air and her frozen appendages, Niera removed her sneakers and chased after the calico.

The evening air blew with the promise of a storm as it washed away the moonlight behind thick, gray clouds. Tangled within the briny air, she scented something different. A crisp cleanness she’d detected so many times before.

Right before a snowstorm.

She hastened her run. Holly paused a few yards away, waiting for her to catch up. The beach tapered up, sand dunes growing by the foot, saw grass sprouting in thicker chunks as she went. Rocks roughened the soft sand until she found herself stumbling over coral and rock to reach the spot where Holly perched on a dune.

“I promise you, it’s Alistair. Don’t be shocked.”

Shocked?

Niera climbed against falling sand to the top of the dune, and peered into a dip between her dune and the next.

A creature both handsome and incredible clawed away from the water that lapped at the iridescent cape of an indigo tail. The lower body had a multitude of purple-hued scales that melted into a very muscular, very human-type waist and back, but the skin was a gray-purple shade that blended with the scales. Ash-blond hair plastered to a face with razor sharp angles and large eyes.

The hands, those claws.

Translucent membranes created webs between fingers, and fingers tapered into sharp, pointed nails.

“Alistair?”

The creature stopped clawing the sand. His head snapped up and pupil-less eyes stared at her, filled with sorrow and regret.

“Niera.”

A strained sound escaped her throat as she slid down the dune and scrambled to his side. Alistair pushed himself over and sat upright, the bottom of his tail flapping hard against the sand and rocks.

She grabbed his hand and cupped his cheek, ignoring the difference between her skin and the slick, leathery texture of the merman before her. None of that mattered. Alistair had returned.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, tucking a chunk of her hair behind her ear. His touch was airy, careful, the tip of his claws barely brushing her skin. “Curses. They’re fickle, like your Fates.”

Niera shook her head. “I don’t understand.” She took in the sight of his tail—his tail!—urgency roaring in her head. “You were able to break the curse. But…but…”

His tail flapped again. “Breaking the curse meant returning to my true form. A form I can’t change. Merfolk are merfolk. We aren’t shifters.”

“No,” she whispered, cupping his jaw and forcing him to look at her as he tried to avoid her gaze. “No. This can’t be it. There’s got to be something we missed. SomethingImissed.”

“Niera, I would have sacrificed my world underwater to be with you. That was my plan. Unfortunately, for the curse to be broken, I had to return to my original form. I sacrificed us to save you.”