Linda Gayle Read online

  As quickly as it had grabbed her, the dolphin let her go about ten feet below the surface. Lyric opened her eyes, saw the flash of the darker dolphin passing her, then focused on the surface and began to kick. Suddenly, something on her shoulder stopped her—a heavy weight, like a…a hand. Lungs burning, heart racing, Lyric stared wildly at the impossible. Long, brown fingers curled around her right shoulder. Which were attached to a hand. Then a wrist…then a tattooed arm. That belonged to a serious-looking man whose black hair floated around his head like thunderous cloud.

  She opened her mouth to scream.

  Before the woman could suck seawater into her lungs, Rahiti gripped her arm and futilely kicked for the surface. His legs felt so weak, not at all like he remembered. Fortunately, the woman was in even more of a hurry to reach the top, and she dragged him up with her. When his head popped up into the sunlight, he took a deep breath of air through now-human nostrils. Ah! The glory of it filled him so strongly, he nearly forgot the girl in his arms who was trying desperately to peel his fingers from her arm and swim away.

  “Let me go! Help!”

  For a moment, he could only stare at her. A woman. Their woman. Her skin felt warm and smooth beneath his hand—yes, hand! He held on tighter. Her hair fell over his wrist. And she smelled like the ocean but also of female. Very agitated female. He expelled his breath suddenly, almost forgetting how to breathe as a man.

  “Your name,” he whispered. Unused for so long, his voice croaked. She’d stopped struggling and now just treaded water along with him, trembling, her lips turning blue from what must be shock. “Your name, woman,” he said again, more strongly this time.

  “Lyric.” He could see her teeth chattering. “Lyric Deponte. And who the hell are you?”

  A man who wants to smile and sing and know you and love you… Would this last? Would he turn back into a dolphin should she look away? His heart bursting with too many emotions to name, he said, “I am Rahiti.”

  She snorted skeptically. “I thought that was the dolphin.”

  “I am…was the dolphin. And that”—he nodded toward his friend, who swam past them—“is Moana.”

  “Him I know. You…” Her wide eyes—green eyes shot through with gold—took him in, gaze trailing over his face, his chest. She bit her lower lip and shook her head. “This is impossible.”

  Moana bumped him, coming to pause beside them. His poor friend—why had he not changed? Taking Lyric’s hand, he placed it on Moana’s side. “Look at him. See him. He is also a man. You’re the one, the one to save us.”

  She snatched her hand away and pushed back from him, paddling as she spoke. “Look, I don’t know what the hell is going on or what you’re doing out here with your pet fish, but I’m going in.”

  Moana flipped and disappeared in a dive, his abrupt movements clearly displaying his despair. “Moana!” No. If she left them, Moana would be trapped in that body forever, and Rahiti might change back if she rejected him. He swam after her, but his limbs refused to obey his commands the way his dolphin tail had. His clumsy splashing got him nowhere, and the water closed over his head. Despite thrashing his disobedient arms and kicking with his weak legs, Rahiti sank. He tried to call for Moana, but he’d lost the connection to the dolphin’s mind when he changed, and the woman would probably be glad to see him drown.

  So, after all this time and so much effort, this was how it would end. Perhaps this was how the god had always intended.

  As he surrendered to the inevitable, Rahiti stopped struggling and let his body sink into the depths. He watched the sunlight dappling his arms and torso. He refused to mourn. At least he’d die a man, a warrior. He would accept his fate. He closed his eyes and thanked Kanaloa for allowing him to enter paradise in his true form. Then he begged the great god to spare Moana. When he thought of his friend, a terrible sadness lanced through him. Moana, who had stayed by his side since the dawn of this curse, who had cheered him through his darkest days, who had convinced him not to lose hope.

  He asked Kanaloa for one last thing—that he and Moana would be together in the next life.

  As for the woman, he begged that she would forget she’d ever seen them.

  Just as his toes touched the cool bottom, someone took hold of one of his hands floating above his head. Lyric! The most beautiful sight he’d ever seen. Her strong hand gripped his, and she began to kick, pulling him up. His body was so weak he could barely aid in her rescue effort, but Rahiti did what he could. Just when he thought his inadequate human lungs would explode, their heads cleared the waves. Now he held on to her with a death grip.

  “It’s not far to shallower water,” she said, gusting through clenched teeth with her efforts. “Whoever you are, I can’t just let you drown. Crazy dolphin-man,” she muttered, then looped her arm around his chest and pulled him along, swimming on her back. Rescuing him. How humiliating. Rahiti’s warrior soul cringed at the idea of a woman saving him, but then again, as much as he was willing to accept his death, he’d be glad to accept life as well.

  He tried to kick to help, but she gasped out between breaths, “Just lie still. It’s easier that way. Let me do the work. What the… Are you…are you naked?” Her voice rose to a squeak at the end, and Rahiti rolled his eyes.

  “Dolphins usually are,” he replied. If Moana saw him now, he’d never stop laughing. Where had Moana gone? “My friend,” he said. How strange his voice sounded, deeper than he remembered, but at least he knew Lyric’s language. He and Moana had spent much of their time learning human speech and culture by studying tourists, sailors, and fishermen. Their agile minds needed to stay busy, and they’d always hoped it would serve them when this moment finally arrived. “The other dolphin—did you see him?”

  “He’s right over there, following us. To your left.”

  Thank you, Kanaloa. He’d returned. However, even as he watched Moana gliding beside them a man’s-length away, he recognized his friend’s sadness. He didn’t swim with his usual exuberance, and he didn’t meet Rahiti’s gaze when he surfaced. Why hadn’t he changed as well? Lyric was the key. She had to accept them both.

  “Here.” She slowed, her grip loosening until he could turn to face her. “I think… Yeah, I can touch bottom. Which means you can, too.” She pulled them a little more toward shore before releasing him, and he found he could steady himself chest-deep in the gently rolling waves. He held on to her upper arms more for balance than to make sure she didn’t get away again, but that thought crossed his mind as well. Hostile suspicion filled her gaze. “Okay,” she said, “now that you’re safe, explain how you got out there without me seeing you.”

  “But you were seeing me,” he said, daring to stroke his fingers over her arms beneath the water. She still trembled, and her lips were the shade of the sky at twilight. She couldn’t stay in the water much longer. “I was the dolphin. You have broken the curse and turned me back into a man. You knew our names.”

  She shook her head. “So…you guys are supposed to be the cursed warriors who fought over the same girl?”

  “Yes! You know the legend. Kanaloa has brought us together at last, after—”

  Her dry laughter and raised hand cut him off. “Okay, I get it. Henri and you are in on some kind of joke. Or Nina set this up to get me out of my funk. Wow, some people just don’t know when to quit.” She turned and started half hopping and half swimming toward the shore. “Look, buddy, you did a great job, you and your trick dolphins, but you can go home now.” When he caught up with her, she glared at him. “Your near drowning was pretty convincing, too, I gotta say. What are you, one of the trainers at the dolphin center or some kind of local entertainment?”

  She spoke so fast, he could only understand half of what she said. He didn’t know what a dolphin center was, but clearly she thought he and Moana were not who he claimed. Moana still swam a distance away, undoubtedly counting on Rahiti to fix things. Right now, just keeping up with the girl as she walked faster in the shallower water was
all he could manage. Curse his feeble legs.

  “Wait!” he pleaded. “I can prove to you that we are who I say.”

  Her beautiful green eyes flashed over her shoulder, but she didn’t stop walking. “Yeah? How?”

  Yes, how? Good question. He waved toward Moana. “I beg you, if you will just go under the water as you did before and look at Moana, he will turn into a man. His true form will be revealed. The god has promised.”

  “Copacabana?”

  Rahiti furrowed his brow. Then he touched his brow with his fingertips to feel the wrinkled skin. Just to be able to do such a small thing was a miracle. It gave him the strength to say, “I don’t know what that means, but I do know that if you weren’t the god’s chosen, I would not be standing here in front of you as a man.”

  Hands on her slim hips, she eyed him up and down. “A really naked man. Do you always go around like this? Can’t you at least put on a little…seaweed leaf or something?”

  Even her mere gaze sent a thrill through him, and that part of him that her attention wandered over so casually began to respond. One of her eyebrows rose right along with it, but he could never have sex with her without Moana there as well. Desperately, he begged again, “Do this one thing. If Moana does not become a man, then I’ll return to the ocean. You will never see either of us again.”

  She said nothing, crossing her arms over her chest and staring out at Moana, who swam in a solitary circle in the deeper water. Rahiti held his breath. Perhaps it was his dolphin instincts still at work, but he sensed she wanted to believe.

  “All right,” she said. “This is crazy, but…” She tugged her mask down over her face again. “Well, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” Then she laughed and tossed a hand. “You wouldn’t believe me. Ha!”

  Left baffled by her strange words and mannerisms, Rahiti let out his held breath in a gust when she sloshed toward him. “I am grateful—” he began, but once again she held up her palm.

  “Look, let’s get one thing straight. I go check out your fish friend, and then you go home, and not the way you came. I thought maybe you were faking it out there, but I’m not going to be responsible in case you weren’t and you drown. I’ll play your game, and then you take your dolphin and head back to whatever aquarium you came from. Okay?”

  Grasping only some of what she said, he nodded. What a strange woman. As he followed her swaying hips into the deeper waves, he thought, beautiful but very strange. Perhaps the world had changed even more than he and Moana had anticipated.

  Without hesitation, Moana swam over to them. His emotions—fear, worry, hope—rolled over Rahiti like the tide, and Rahiti caught his friend’s beak in his hand and rubbed the broad, smooth head. Tears pricked his eyes. Tears. A long time for those as well. Returning to the sea with Moana would not be the worst thing. In their ancient tongue, he murmured, “It will be all right, my friend. I will never leave you.”

  Beside him, Lyric heaved a dramatic sigh. “Okay, so now what do I do?”

  “When you turned me into a man, you saw me first as a dolphin in your world, on the surface. But when you enter our world, the sea, you will see us as we truly are.” He slid his hand reassuringly over Moana’s back. “See Moana as he once was. His true form.” He couldn’t help the note of desperation in his voice when he turned to her and said, “The god has promised.”

  He thought it wiser not to mention the god had also promised she would be their mate.

  Chapter Three

  Amazing. Impossible. Scary. Exciting.

  What the hell.

  Lyric kept her hands balled into fists to hide their trembling from Big Naked Dude with the equally Big Naked Cock. He couldn’t be Rahiti the dolphin. This dolphin in front of her couldn’t be Moana the man. She couldn’t be standing here in the middle of a tropical lagoon trying to convince herself to just dunk her head under the water to look at a fish. Mammal. Dammit.

  She was, though.

  With his broad hand spread across the head of the bobbing dolphin, Rahiti, if that really was his name, gazed at her with pleading, liquid eyes. For such a powerful-looking man, he had the eyes of an angel, and she couldn’t resist them. She’d seen those eyes before, too—in her fantasy this morning. Goose bumps broke over her skin that had nothing to do with the tiny waves tickling her thighs. Something really weird was at work here. Maybe she’d superimposed this guy’s face on her fantasy man’s, but there was something incredibly familiar and, well, although his dick seemed very happy to see her, despite Rahiti’s otherwise-agitated state, Lyric couldn’t believe he meant her harm.

  Then again, overconfidence and trusting had been her downfall before.

  “Okay, let’s get this over with,” she muttered. “Do I have to touch him or anything?”

  “I don’t think so. I touched you first.”

  She bit her lower lip. “Okay, here goes nothing.”

  Taking a breath, she bent low in the water, keeping her eyes closed until her face and mask were fully submerged. Crap, what if he really did turn into a man? It took her a few seconds to work up the guts to open her eyes again, and when she did, she wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed.

  With a big exhale, she straightened again, pushed up her mask, and slicked back her hair. “Nope. Nothin’ but fish.”

  Rahiti’s big, dark eyes went wide. “It can’t be. Kanaloa would not be so cruel…”

  Oh, God, no one could resist that look. “Well,” she said, “maybe it’s because he’s still partly out of the water. See? The water’s too shallow here. Let’s go out farther.”

  Rahiti brightened. “Yes. Of course!”

  Without anyone telling him to, as if he already understood, Moana swam out a few yards, turned, and waited for her. All righty then. Wading in until she could swim, Lyric made her way toward him. The dolphin submerged, and the wake he left shimmered with gold and silver, dazzling her for a moment. Something subtle shifted in the air, as if the whole world held its breath, and once again, goose bumps pebbled her skin. Seeking reassurance, she glanced back at Rahiti, who nodded solemnly. If he was an actor, he was a hell of a good one.

  Lyric licked her lips, took a breath, and dived.

  She opened her eyes behind the mask. Fully submerged, the dolphin swam up and down in short arcs before her as if it was trying to make her see him. Well, whatever Rahiti was hoping for, it wasn’t…

  The water around the dolphin dimmed as if someone had turned down the lights. Lyric blinked, and in that blink, something happened. In the clear Pacific before her, in water that was too clear to mistake him for anything else, a man appeared. Another naked man, slimmer than Rahiti, just as golden-skinned and gorgeous, and grinning at her.

  She bolted to the surface, her gasped, “Ohmygod!” bursting from her mouth before her head had cleared the water. New Guy surfaced in front of her, and then with a gurgled yelp, he sank again. Rahiti shouted for his friend. What the heck, couldn’t these guys swim? Who grew up in Polynesia without learning how to swim? Lyric dived again, found the frantically flailing New Guy, grabbed his arm, and hauled him the short distance to the surface. With a few sure strokes and an arm around his muscular chest, she had him in the shallower water with Rahiti.

  New Guy—Moana?—struggled to stand, and Rahiti reached out and grasped his shoulders then embraced him. Arms around his friend, he said something in what she guessed was the island’s native language, musical, soothing words that seemed to calm the trembling Moana. The sight of the two incredible men hugging made Lyric’s insides warm. She pulled her mask away from her eyes and set it on her forehead to get an unobstructed view. There was no mistaking the affection between them. New Guy, Moana, turned to her. “Thank you,” he rasped. Guess it took a while for the voice to come back.

  To come back? What was she thinking? Oh my God, she’d just seen a dolphin turn into a man. Two men. Shock and disbelief poured over her like an icy shower and held her rigid even as Moana reached out to her, slid his han
ds over her arms…and kissed her.

  She gave a little squeak as his lips pressed softly against hers. He tasted…salty.

  “Hey,” she said. “Don’t—”

  Tipping his head, eyes bright with what she could only interpret as wonder, he pulled her closer and kissed her again. Too shocked to move, she let him. Yeah, because she was shocked. Not because the touch of his lips on hers sent sparkling tremors through her, melting her muscles from shoulders to toes. Not because he tasted like sun and surf. Not because of the sexy moan he made when his tongue slipped over her lips. That had nothing to do with it.

  When she didn’t resist, he suckled her lips between his and drew her up against his smooth, firm, naked, and, oh yes, very aroused body. The prodding of his hot dick against her belly finally made Lyric yank back. “Hey!”

  He took advantage of her openmouthed protest by diving in again and deepening the kiss, his tongue sliding into her mouth while she leaned back, maybe not trying to get away quite as much as she should have. For a dolphin, the guy knew how to kiss. His hand slid down to her butt, and all sorts of crazy things started happening inside Lyric’s body. Hot, wet, needy things. She wanted to grind her butt into his gripping fingers. She needed to feel that stiff cock inside her. Surrendering a throaty moan, she dug her fingers into his shoulders for just a second before sanity came rushing back. With a gasp, she tore her mouth from his, hauled back, and slapped his face as hard as she could.

  Moana staggered back, holding his cheek. He nearly fell, but Rahiti caught him under his arms and set him upright again. “Easy, Moana. You must give yourself time to regain your strength.”

  “He’s plenty strong, believe me,” Lyric protested, still feeling the urgent heat of his body impressed onto hers. “Jeez, is this how you thank me for—for turning you into people?”