Divine Scales Read online

  His eyes fluttered open. Cerulean blue orbs flicked to her face, fuzzy at first but growing sharper as the prince regained his bearings. She kept singing softly, hungrily devouring the sight of her handsome prince as he woke. The corner of his mouth rose slowly, a perfect slope of pale smooth skin, and she inhaled sharply. His lips looked so soft, so inviting. She couldn’t resist.

  Marcela dipped her head, giving in to the urge to taste him, to feel the slide of his mouth against her own. The tang of salt mixed with a clean wisp of flavor, like the scent of spring on the wind. A palm touched the back of her head and then his fingers carded through her hair as he pulled her closer.

  Her heart leapt into her throat as he parted his lips, inviting her inside. He let her explore, let her slide her tongue over the velvet texture of his lips and the slick perfection of his teeth. Then her moment of dominance was up, and he took over the kiss, sweeping his tongue into her mouth as though he could consume her. She moaned softly as his fingers flexed against her scalp and he rose up off the sand, chasing her even as he held her close. Excitement fluttered in her chest and bubbles erupted in her stomach.

  After a few glorious moments that were over all too soon, he slowly pulled back and eased his shoulders onto the sand. He looked at her with such heat in his eyes that it was all she could do not to melt away.

  “You’re awake.” She trailed a hand down the broad expanse of his muscled chest, her words swept away by the dying winds.

  Patricio glanced around, wincing and raising a hand to his head. He pulled his fingers away and found them slick with blood and coated with sand.

  “You were struck by the mast of the ship,” she told him gently. “You fell into the water.” She hesitated. “I should have taken you to the dock. You need a healer’s attention.”

  “I’m a fast healer,” he assured her smoothly.

  His gaze was intense, nearly a solid weight as it lingered on her lips. Marcela ducked her head, unaccountably shy all of a sudden. He rinsed his hand in the next wave to wash over them and a tendril of Marcela’s crimson hair curled around his fingers. He raised his hand, letting the lock slide across his palm. She could hardly breathe through the thrill of having him touch her, of speaking to him with her body still pressed against his, her body still shivering with the pleasure of his kiss. He looked down and she had a flash of uncertainty as he took in her lower half and the shimmering jade scales reflecting the moonlight finally peeking out from between dispersing stormclouds and fading lightning.

  “A maid of the sea.” He sat up quickly, peering out at the waves. “The ship. Are the men all right?”

  She swallowed twice, the heat in his eyes when he’d looked down her body stealing her voice for a moment. “Yes. I believe they all survived. My people towed your ship to shore.”

  He relaxed, leaning back against the sand, the hint of a dimple in his left cheek. “I owe you a debt.”

  “I would do anything for you,” she blurted out. Heat stung her cheeks, but she didn’t look away from his sapphire gaze, couldn’t look away. She could still taste him, still imagine the sensation of his mouth on hers. With every passing second, she yearned for him more, rational thought fleeing beneath a strange, heavy mist. Her world dwindled down until it was nothing but her and the angel.

  In a flash Patricio’s good humor vanished. He pressed his lips into a thin line and shoved himself into a sitting position. She fell back at the sharp movement, squeaking as he wrenched his wing out from under her. Sand bit into the heel of her hand as she caught herself against the beach.

  “What’s wrong?” Her voice sounded small and pathetic even to her own ears, but she didn’t care. All she cared about was the shadow darkening the prince’s features as he shoved himself to his feet.

  “The merman wearing all the gold. You share a bloodline?” He shoved a hand through his hair.

  Marcela winced. “Gaspar. He is my brother.”

  Patricio shook his wings out in harsh, fluttering movements. “He was your brother.” He gripped the hilt of his sword, squeezing it as if he could exorcise the frustration fraying his nerves.

  Marcela ran a hand through her hair, trying to focus on what the angel was saying. “What? What are you talking about?”

  “Your brother was taking advantage of ships in distress. Instead of saving the sailors’ lives, he was pulling them off the ship and threatening to drown them if they didn’t hand over their valuables.” His eyes darkened until they were black pearls set in his perfect face, as cold and unfeeling as a great white’s. “He’s dead.”

  A memory flashed through Marcela’s mind. Patricio on the side of the ship, the flash of his blade as he brought it down on something hanging over the side. Gaspar, she remembered. He killed Gaspar.

  She looked up into Patricio’s face, noticing the tightness around his mouth, the firm set to his shoulders, and the rigidity of his spine. He met her gaze like a lion facing down its prey, daring it to run, to try and escape. He threw his justice out there for her to view, openly challenging her to question his execution of justice. She sat up straight, meeting his gaze with a steady one of her own.

  “Thank you.” She put a hand over her heart. “You’ve done us a great service ridding us of his evil.”

  Patricio’s lip curled in disgust. Without another word, he whirled around, took a few running steps, and launched himself into the air. His wings beat at the wind as if punishing it for some horrible crime. He climbed higher and higher, circling around a few times then soaring toward the castle looming at the top of the rocky cliff in the distance. Marcela reached out a hand as if she could call him back, pain tearing through her as if an invisible thread connected her to the departing prince.

  Her heart broke to see him go.

  Chapter Two

  Patricio snarled as he tipped to the side, broad shoulder slamming into the frame of the balcony doorway. Pain shot through his shoulder like a hot claw raking over his flesh and the spasming of his nerves reignited the throbbing in his head. The world swam for a minute and he stumbled as he landed in his bedroom. He swayed, blinking to try and regain his bearings, spreading his wings to help balance him. Hunger pains stabbed at his belly, no doubt a response to the massive well of frustration churning inside him. Between the blow to the head from that blasted mast, his sudden plunge into the ocean, and the besotted mermaid, it was a struggle not to turn around and fly right back out his window. Surely even on a miserable night like this he could find a sinner stumbling the streets of the village? A soul ripe with all manner of atrocities…

  Slowly, he turned back to the open door leading to his balcony, noting with simmering annoyance the crimson slash of his own blood on the edge of the doorway. The wind and rain had calmed. The moon was full and bright, lighting up the sky with a soft, silvery glow. Some people would venture out, perhaps a drunk who had ridden out the storm in the pub. The local pub was a veritable magnet for sinners seeking to drown their guilt in the numbness that followed too many bottles of elderberry wine.

  The hunger pains grew from a sharp-toothed gnawing to full on stomach rending pain. Heat flooded his body, tongues of flames licking his flesh, burning him from the inside out. He drew in a deep breath, closing his eyes to better concentrate on the scents drifting up from the foot of the mountain. Searching for the sweet scent of sin…

  “How can you ssstill be hungry? Wasssn’t the merman enough?”

  Metal flashed and a whoosh of air heralded the unsheathing of his sword. The sounds, the motions, all flowed in a dance more familiar to him than his own breath, comforting, empowering. In seconds he’d dropped into a fighting stance, searching the room, prepared to cut down whoever had dared intrude upon his private quarters. He was in precisely the right mood for an intruder. Patricio’s lip quirked, a pleasant buzz in his blood. Saved me a flight down the mountain.

  “Show yourself if you want a chance at mercy.” Patricio firmed his grip on the hilt of his broadsword, the heavy metal growing warm
in his hands. His offer of mercy sounded as half-hearted as he’d meant it.

  “Tesssty, aren’t you?”

  Something flickered through the air, like the flash of light across a bed of diamonds. The whisper of scales against metal teased Patricio’s ears and he whirled around to face the source. His gaze landed on the intruder and his stance wilted, wings drooping and shoulders slumping forward.

  “You’re a cuelebre.”

  The small serpent hanging from the ornate golden wall sconce flicked its ribbon-like pink tongue out at him, beady black eyes blinking slowly. “Yesss.”

  Patricio let his sword sag in his grip, squinting at the slim intruder. It was hardly the length of his arm, and half as broad. Its pale body looked white, blue, or silver, depending on how the light reflected off of its diamond-shaped scales. If he looked closely, he could barely make out its iridescent wings tucked into the sides of its sleek form. Small flaps of skin on either side of its face wavered slightly in the breeze from the gaping balcony door and it tilted its head at him.

  “You’re the smallest cuelebre I’ve ever seen.” Patricio sheathed his sword in disgust. It would be embarrassing to use such a mighty weapon against such puny prey.

  The serpent tilted its head farther and farther to the side until it was looking at Patricio upside-down. “Do you have a favorite robe?”

  Patricio crossed his arms and huffed out a breath. “No. Get out.”

  The snake continued to turn its head another one hundred and eighty degrees until it was upright again, its entire body twisting to accommodate his new position. “Do you value your bed?”

  Without meaning to, Patricio turned to look at the furniture in question. Truth be told, he did value his bed. With his wings, it was often difficult to get comfortable, and he’d searched the kingdom for months until he’d finally found someone capable of constructing a bed that was large enough to accommodate his wingspan and soft enough to let his body settle past his wings. With a bed that was too firm, he risked crushing his wing any time he rolled over. Sleeping was his one refuge, the one time he could escape his curse and simply…be. His bed was his haven.

  The tiny serpent apparently took his silence for confirmation. It sailed through the air, wings giving it lift while its tail propelled it forward. Patricio took a startled step back, barely avoiding being whipped with the end of its thin tail. It landed on his bed and writhed on his sheets in a zig-zag pattern. Smoke rose from the bed, filling the air with the cloying scent of singed linen. Everywhere the serpent’s body passed, it left a scorchmark, black lines burning at the edges with soft orange flames.

  “Stop that!” Patricio stalked across the room, ready to snatch the snake up from his bed and wring its long neck. His head wound throbbed, but he ignored it.

  The cuelebre zipped off the bed, moving too fast for Patricio to track him. He clenched his hands into fists, scanning the room for signs of the serpent’s sparkling scales. “I’ll cut your wings off and tie you in a knot on the nearest mast.”

  A small fire erupted on his bed and he cursed. He whirled around and snatched up a pillow to beat out the flames. By the time the fire was out, the center of his bed was a smoking mess of blackened cloth. He sucked in a few lungfuls of fresh air, trying to find his center even as he searched for the miserable little wyrm. His hand drifted to the hilt of his sword.

  “Sssize doesssn’t matter,” came the slithering voice. “Ssshe’sss a little mermaid, but ssstill worth a sssecond look.”

  Patricio kept searching the room, watching the shadows for signs of glittering scales. “Little mermaid?”

  “Yesss. The one who sssaved you.”

  The mermaid. Patricio paused, for a moment, hearing the sirena’s song, feeling the drug-like calm settling over his body. Fuzzy and feeling a peace that was mournfully unfamiliar to him, Patricio had been only too willing to surrender to her surprise kiss. At seven feet tall, a surprise kiss was unheard of to him—he was far too tall for even the most enterprising of the kingdom’s young ladies to attempt it.

  Heat simmered inside him as he remembered taking control of that kiss. It had been too long since his personal demons had receded enough for him to pursue something as trivial as arousal. Feeding had consumed his hedonistic tendencies, far outweighing the need for feminine company. The kiss with the mermaid suggested perhaps that assessment had been a bit hasty.

  She’d tasted like the wind off the ocean, the tingle of salt underneath a flavor that was too sweet to resist. Temptation personified, she’d coaxed him deeper under her spell, seducing him with her soft lips and lush curves. The heat of her body nestled against his sparked something inside him he hadn’t felt in too long a time.

  “I would do anything for you.”

  The pleasure of the memory shattered as the mermaid’s voice drifted back to him, heavy with the false adoration that befell those affected by his curse. Patricio forced his mind away from the memory, steeled himself against the physical pleasure. He curled his lip into a sneer. “I have no time for simple-minded females.”

  “Ssshe wasssn’t ssso sssimple-minded until you cursssed her.” The cuelebre suddenly spiraled out of the shadows. The tip of its tail was tucked into its mouth, its body forming a perfect circle. It rolled out of the shadows like an escaped wagon wheel and then disappeared into the void under his bed.

  Patricio squinted at the spot where the cuelebre had disappeared from. There’s something wrong with that thing. He stomped over to his bed and fell to his knees, peering into the darkness underneath. “What did you say?”

  “I know all about your curssse.” The cuelebre’s voice came from across the room, higher than the floor. “Not too sssmart to offend a witch. Ssshouldn’t have killed her brother…”

  A memory leapt to the front of Patricio’s mind. A thin, crooked man with black hair and a pock-marked face. His grimy skin still bloody from his last victim’s fight for his life. Patricio could smell the sin on the man’s soul, the seductive call to his shining blade, the metal vibrating in his hands, hot with the magic that would release the man’s sins from his flesh. His stomach twisted with hunger just thinking of that day, the black mist that had fled the man’s bloody wounds…

  “He was a coward who sacrificed his fellow man in the hope of attaining the gods’ favor.” He stared off into the past as he stumbled to his feet. “He was evil.”

  “Yesss. But his sssister loved him.”

  Patricio waved off the memory, firmly blocking the wailing of the witch’s mourning from his mind, and concentrated on searching the room for the intruder. “More’s the pity for her. If she really loved him, she should have been grateful that I sent him into his next life with a clean slate.”

  A serpentine snicker drew his attention to the other side of the room and he spotted the serpent hanging from another torch. It was to the side of the balcony, the torch protected from the elements only by the thick curtains on either side of the doorway. The stone beneath it glistened with the spray of rain.

  “No mercy,” it taunted. “How…jussst.”

  “What are you doing here?” Patricio drew his sword, tired of playing games. He tightened his grip on the hilt as he slowly stepped toward the serpent.

  “It’sss alwaysss bessst to try the easssy way firssst.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The mermaid. Ssshe likesss you. You ssshould give her a chance.”

  “It’s the curse,” Patricio spat, firmly clamping down on the small part of him that had lifted at the serpent’s assertion. “Those feelings are no more real than the sickening devotion of any other person unfortunate enough to be related to a sinner.”

  The tip of the cuelebre’s tail twitched. “Ssso righteousss. No regretsss?”

  “None.” Patricio swung the blade through the air, aiming for the center of the snake’s body.

  The cuelebre flicked its tail to the side, zipping through the air before the blade could kiss its scales. The torch cracked and
crashed to the floor, the flame dying a sizzling death on the wet stone.

  “Ssshe liked you already. Would have liked you without the curssse.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Patricio rasped. “She’s tainted now, her mind nothing but mush where I’m concerned. It’s not real.”

  “Suit yourssself.”

  He caught a flash and turned in time to see the serpent curled up on the floor. Its body rolling upward in the closest thing it could manage to a shrug.

  “The easssy way isss not the only way…”

  “What are you talking about?” Patricio shouted as the cuelebre spread its wings and sailed into the air. He received no answer as the wyrm swam through the breeze and vanished outside into the night.