MICHAEL KEPT CHATTERING SO MUCH DURING DINNER THAT
Angel hadn’t known whether to be relieved she wouldn’t have to contribute to the conversation or to worry he’d accidentally blow her cover.
Actually, she’d almost blown it herself. Human food wasn’t totally new to her, thanks to the occasional cap-sized vessel and the undersea wedding reception her parents had held for her brother Reel and his Human wife, Erica, complete with their favorite Human foods, but burgers hadn’t been part of her experience.
She’d almost swooned when she bit into one. The combination of flavors and textures… And of course, the dry bread and condiments that hadn’t been watered down… The burger was to die for. The flavors were so different. Stronger. Better.
And the beverages… She’d passed on the milk Logan had insisted Michael drink, but the iced tea was deli-cious. Fresh water, too, and even a sip or two of grape wine, so different from the kelp wine Mers had. What an experience for the palate. And the chocolate cake Logan carried out… it almost brought tears to her eyes.
She’d tasted chocolate before on the rare occasion and could smell the cake’s sweetness. Charley, her fa-ther’s advisor, could go on and on about the consistency of cake. She couldn’t wait to try it.
“Should we sing?” Logan looked at her.
Sing? He wanted her to sing? Here? In front of his son? Usually when Human males wanted a Mer female to sing, it wasn’t appropriate for children.
“You know ‘Happy Birthday,’ right?”
Ah. Right. She remembered that tune from Human Cultural Basics 101. “Of course I do.”
Logan lit the candles on the cake, and Angel tried not to stare at the flames. They fascinated her. While tem-peratures in Atlantis were regulated by the heat of molten lava that flowed beneath the sea bed, flames were a for-eign concept. She was going to have to experience this fire phenomenon up close while she had the chance.
She leaned forward, catching the hair that swept over her shoulder before it could catch on fire. She didn’t want to experience it that closely.
Logan cleared his throat, and when she looked up, he quickly averted his eyes. “Ready?” he asked, his voice deeper than before.
Angel glanced down. The peekaboo hole in her dress gapped forward. That explained the throat-clearing. Thank the gods Logan was such a gentleMer—man. She pressed one hand against the bodice of the dress, tucked the hair behind her ear with the other, and sat back. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
Logan cleared his throat. Angel looked at him.
He looked back.
“Are you guys gonna sing or what? I want cake.” Michael hopped up and down in his chair.
Logan cleared his throat again and spun so fast to look at Michael that Angel thought the man might fall out of his chair.
He tapped the rim of Michael’s cap. “Ah, sure we are, sport.”
He started the song then and Angel quickly caught up. Beneath her melody, he had a very nice voice. Tenor. On key. It could be a bit stronger, but that wouldn’t take much work.
His lips formed the words properly—not that she was looking at his lips or anything—but perhaps he could lengthen that “you” note. His technique wouldn’t take much tweaking. He breathed at the right moments, not straining to hit the high note, soft when he should be—
She suddenly realized she was singing solo. She stopped, mid-dear Michael.
“What?”
Both males stared at her, Logan with a strange gleam in his eye and Michael with a breathy, “You sing like an angel, Angel.”
No, actually, she sang like a… Siren.
Oh Hades. Her voice. She’d forgotten the effect it had on Humans. Especially adult males. Logan, his pupils almost nonexistent—the classic characteristic of Siren Song enchantment—was clearly under its influence.
“Uh.” She cleared her throat and took another sip of that delicious wine. “I, um, that is… I guess I like to sing?” She shrugged her shoulders, going for nonchalant.
Big mistake. With the way her voice was working on Logan, his eyes went right to her breasts.
And wouldn’t you know… they reacted. Now she knew what bras were for and was sorry she hadn’t worn one, and, whoa, Michael should not be seeing that. She
crossed her arms, then rested her elbows in front of her on the table.
“When do we eat it?” She didn’t care if it was a stupid question. She raised her voice an octave and went off-key, going for a neutral expression to get Logan’s mind off her. But if that look he wore was any indication, she’d say those stories she’d heard of Humans dying with smiles on their face after being lured into the depths by Sirens were true.
But what woman wanted a man bewitched by her voice into a conditioned response? Not her. A man should want her for her personality and mind first, then her body. This blind lust her enchanted voice created was just that… blind.
And the lust?
Well, okay, that was real. But only because of the enchantment of her voice.
Uh huh. And he hadn’t almost kissed you earlier.
Right.
Okay, fine. He wanted her. But she didn’t want lust.
She wanted love.
With a Human?
No, that’s not what she meant. Angel huffed, an-noyed that she was arguing with her subconscious while Logan’s subconscious, conscience, ego, id, identity, whatever, had apparently gone into lustful hibernation. “Yo-hoo… Logan… ” She waved her hand in front
of his face, praying to the gods that her nipples had gone back into hiding.
She glanced down. No such luck.
And, tracking Logan’s gaze, she saw that he’d noticed.
“Logan!” Michael walked around to his father. “What’s wrong with him, Angel?” He turned his big, brown eyes to her. The worry in them affected her every bit as much as her voice had affected his father.
First she reminded him of his mother, then she scared the daylights out of him by hypnotizing his father. Some babysitter she was turning out to be. Logan would never let her stay now.
“Nothing, Michael. Your dad will be fine. Let’s get him a glass of ice water. That should help.”
She hoped.
Because while she had a vested interest in not seeing Logan as a man, he had no similar reason.
And that look in his eyes said he definitely was see-ing her as a woman.
She was singing.
Harry lifted one side of his head out of the water. Oh yeah, that was Angel. The Dinner-That-Wasn’t. And she had her sights set on that Human. Heh—true to form.
Sure, Mers could claim that they’d evolved from earlier times when everyone had the run of the sea, and demand that sharks do the same to qualify for that Representative’s seat on The Council he was angling for, but when flipper came to fin, instinct won out.
The best part was, if she played up that angle and lured the Human to the water, the child was sure to fol-low, and Harry would get the best of both worlds.
Not only would he be able to capture Angel and ransom her back to The Council—his plan before she’d done the unthinkable and climbed aboard the Human’s
boat last night—but now he’d have two Humans to savor. Question was, which one should he eat first?
Ah, gluttony. Such a hedonistic pleasure. But there was a problem. That boat.
Harry tapped the end of his head with his tail fin. That boat was too big for him to take on by himself.
Shit. He was going to need help—much as he hated to admit it. But the prospect of taking her hostage and getting a two-course meal was too much to pass by.
He gave one last look at the beach. Tomorrow night he knew right where she’d be.
He and the boys would be waiting.