Merlicious-2

China Blue Eyes, June E. Bradley
Lorelei is welcomed to the undersea community of Seacrest, but conflicts and learning
to survive in the turbulent environment interferes with her mermaid transformation.

The Young and The Restless, Alexis Ke
Washed up on the beach and accused of murder, Zion must convince policewoman
Tatyana he’s not what she think he is; or is he?

Freedom’s Quest, Monique Lamont
Lialani is locked in an aquatic theme park, weeks away from becoming the main attraction,
with resident marine biologist Kyle her only hope of freedom.

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EXCERPTS

China Blue Eyes
by June E. Bradley

  South China Sea – 1857

 Alone on the beach, Lorelei walked toward the foaming surf and rolling waves. Palm trees swayed lazily along the white sandy shore. Waves lapped in slow motion at the pristine sand before returning to the sea. Trees and volcanic seamounts dotted the landscape. Sand dunes lined the beach where white crystal sand reached an aquamarine sea, beckoning her to explore its wondrous depths.

She stepped into the water and walked until submerged. She was surprised when she realized she didn’t need air to breathe. Alarm raced through her as the sea current pulled her deeper. She forced herself to relax, and a peaceful feeling seeped through her body. Finding a level area, she stretched her arms and looked about.

The land under the sea was similar to her home above water. There was a cultivated area in front of her filled with lush green plants and what appeared to be trees growing underwater. She thought this to be strange, but it didn’t frighten her. Everywhere, there were well-attended gardens. The fragrant, somewhat salty, scent of flowers and plants was, although strange, very pleasant. Their leaves and blossoms beckoned her to explore. Red, white, purple, blue and gold flowers peeked out from their green foliage. She had never seen such strange blossoms. They invited her to enjoy their exotic forms and to enter a path leading to fountains and lawns of green sea grass that hinted of a quiet and peaceful place. There was not another person to be seen in this peculiar setting. The only other life around her was some exotic fish lazily swimming about.

She hoped John, her husband, wouldn’t worry about her. When he went to sea for months at a time, she worried something would happen to prevent his return to her. This time she was the one who was away.

She had no memory of how she came to be in this beautiful sea world. At the end of the path, she found an old open gate. Hung on it was a jagged wood plank with antique lettering carved into it. She deciphered the archaic writing to read ‘Vel Com Ye To Zeakreast.’ “Welcome to Seacrest!” she exclaimed. Lorelei remembered the legend of the mystical world of Seacrest. She recalled from when she was a child her grandmother entertaining her for hours with tales of Seacrest, the land of mermaids, mermen and other weird sea creatures.

The excitement of her discovery was tempered when she realized she was in a very unusual site on the seabed. Instead of being cold and murky, the sun shone through the water. The calmness of the water revealed clear blue skies. She could even see puffy white clouds moving across the blanket of blue above.

The gates she entered swung closed behind her. Lorelei made her way down a path and stopped when she saw a handsome merman and a gorgeous mermaid swimming toward her.

They were smiling as they waved a friendly greeting. She thought she heard them say, “Welcome, Lorelei. We have been waiting for you.”

They were close enough for her to notice they didn’t move their lips. Lorelei thought, “How come?”

The merman answered, “Sound does not transmit too well underwater. It has a very short range and becomes garbled by distance. So we merfolk developed a thought-talk that enables us to communicate underwater. It allows us to talk to any semi-intelligent creature in our waters.”

The merman was every girl’s dream. Tall and muscular with dark golden skin and wavy blonde hair tied with a leather band that hung below his shoulders. His eyes sparkled like emeralds.

They made a handsome couple. Those were the only words she could use to describe them. The mermaid was beautiful and self-assured. She was shorter than her mate and was the most alluring woman Lorelei had ever met.

“I am Gemma, Princess of the Mermaids. This is my mate Lars. Welcome to Seacrest, Lorelei. We hope you will enjoy it here.”

“What is this place?” Lorelei was nervous and not sure what she was doing there.

“It is a way-station. A place for people who are sick and can’t return to Earthland, which is what we call the air world above the sea.”

“Am I dead?” Lorelei asked, frightened and unsure.

“No, just very ill,” Gemma replied.

“You can’t be serious?” She couldn’t think straight enough to ask more questions.

“For now, this is where you’ll live,” the golden haired Gemma told her.

“I don’t want to live here. I want to go home,” Lorelei complained.

The Young and the Restless
A Mermalicious Tail
by Alexis Ke

 Chapter One

      “Did I not tell you to be quiet?” Neptune’s voice vibrated through the lyceum.

Many times before when he’d been this angry, he’d stomped and caused earthquakes that sent tsunamis across the land.

“But—”

“Silence!”

A wave pushed Zion down into a bow.

“You were warned not once, but twice. Why do you defy me?” Neptune’s voice carried sorrow, grief and anger.

Zion opened his mouth, closed it and lowered his head when Neptune raised his trident.

“I will only tell you this once more.” Neptune’s tail waved, and the water parted before him. “We do not belong on the land. It is not that we can’t go there but that it has been done with proportional disasters. Your place is here, among your own people. Do not, and I mean do not, question my authority again. You will not like my wrath.”

Zion lowered his head in seeming submission, turned and swam to the far side of the sea to brood. No one understood him. No one cared about the future. Only Zion had the vision of walking among the land lovers. Only Zion dreamed of finding the secrets his people had hidden from them for so many years. And, by golly, he was going to find them.

“Wrath indeed. How dare that pompous old fool tell me what I can and can’t do?” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them.

Immediately, his head began to spin. The pressure became almost unbearable. It was like the time he swam to the shore and watched the others as they played on the beach. He’d stayed topside too long and become water hungry. But why was it happening now? He was nowhere near the white sandy beach he longed to walk on. Water surrounded him. The dizziness flooded his sensations, alarming him.

“I must get help.” His words were garbled, even to him. Muffled. His vision went black and his eyes fluttered then closed before he could summon help.

* * * *

“Give him some room!”

“Where’s the oxygen? Is he breathing?”

“Does anyone know CPR?”

Voices floated around his head. Zion tried to turn over and felt a sharp pain shoot through his body. The loud groan that pierced the air came from his throat. His head hurt, and he couldn’t distill the strange sounds wafting in and out of his mind. Sirens? Yes, sirens.

“Give him some room,” a voice said again. “What happened, man?”

Zion forced his eyes open, blinked away the grit and salty water and stared out into the faces of the people pooling around him.

“What happened?” he coughed out. “Where—” He didn’t recognize his own voice. The strange syllables and sounds he understood but didn’t know why. Was it not his native tongue?

“Get these people out of my way.” A woman’s voice rang out over the crowd.

People began to move back, opening a wide berth around Zion as he lay on the beach. “Get something to throw over him—a blanket, anything.”

Zion glanced down at his body. He was nude. He moved his gaze up to the woman who started shouting orders that everyone obeyed without question.

“What’s going on?” His throat hurt. His voice sounded harsh and dry.

“You tell me.” She kneeled down beside him. Her gaze traveled down and back up the length of him. “Anyone ever tell you this is not a nude beach?” She glanced at the lifeguards and laughed. “Shucks, this whole country is no-nudity in public. A shame too.” She glanced back at his body, trailed her gaze up his muscled legs and expertly sculptured hips, stopping briefly at the junction of his thighs and continuing to his face.

The people burst into loud laughter.

“What’s your name?”

Zion stared into her eyes, blinked and shook his head.

“You deaf? I said, what’s your name?” She spoke in a slow and deliberate manner. “I’m Detective Tatyana Selbie.” She glanced over her shoulder toward the lifeguard. “Where did you say you found him?”

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 Chapter One

“Child in distress!” The commanding shout crackled through the handheld radio.

Lialani’s body jerked into full alert. Rising with urgency, she lifted the binoculars from her chest to her eyes. Gazing through the twin circles, she searched the aqua shoreline. She turned up the radio and grabbed her rescue can in preparation.

“Station four, Blindman’s Bluff, south southea—”

She didn’t need to hear anything else. She snatched the black optical equipment from around her neck and discarded her t-shirt. Her muscles tensed, and heat seared her veins as the adrenaline shot through her body. She launched herself through the station doorway and raced down the ramp, clutching her gear in hand as she automatically secured the Velcro strap around her wrist.

The first contact of her bare foot hitting the unrelenting hot sand sent a jolt into her calf. Ignoring it, she ran toward the bluff at full speed. Her heart beat in time with her pounding footfalls. She could feel the blazing rays of sun heat up her caramel latte-colored skin as she raced toward the emergency.

“Help my baby. Someone help, my baby,” the distraught mother screamed and waved her arms hysterically from the rocky cliff. “Myy baaaby…” The woman’s voice shrieked in soul-drenching agony as her knees gave way, and she collapsed onto the large jagged rock bed.

Onlookers gathered at the site.

Arms swinging, legs pumping, Lialani advanced on the uneven bluff with determination.

Guard. Serve. Save. She repeated her unit’s creed, focusing her thoughts on the rescue as she skillfully tackled the rocky surface of the San Diego coastline.

Surefooted, she navigated over the slick path until she saw the end in sight. Frantically, she looked over the white-capped surf as it rhythmically crashed into the side of the precipice. She spotted the crown of the small brown-haired child as it slipped below the waves seventy-five yards away. In faith, she dived off the cliff. She released the bright day-glow orange rescue can as she broke through the water’s surface.

An icy chill ran across her skin as her arms and legs sliced through the salty current toward the descending child. No thought to the fact she’d forgotten her goggles, she pushed forward. She anticipated the sting of the water in her eyes, but it never came. Almost too quickly, her eyes adjusted to what the lifeguards in her unit called aqua vision. The child was another sixty yards away, but Lialani could clearly make out her form—a little girl in a pink and yellow bathing suit with a Disney princess on the front.

Lialani’s arms swung over her head as if moving through air. No struggle or force exerted, she was amazed how easily she had become one with her element. Colors became vibrant, and the sea caressed her body like hands of a long-forgotten lover. Her senses came alive. She could feel every strand of hair on her body; they seemed to play with the ocean. Her skin tingled.

Lialani’s ears perked up as unrecognizable sounds called to her. Vigilant in her goal, she pulled her arms along her side and propelled herself toward the midnight depths, a determined attempt to reach the little girl now fifteen yards away. In a missile dive, she forced herself into depths other lifeguards would not subject themselves to without knowledge.

I won’t stop. Lialani’s voice rang out clearly in her mind.

Everything blurred as she increased her speed. Her legs now numb, she could no longer identify each individual kick, but she still pressed on.

For a moment, her lungs burned as if they would burst with the need for oxygen. Bubbles floated by her face as she expelled carbon dioxide from her lungs.

Wanting to scream and cry, Lialani cut through the water. Reaching out her hand, she grasped the brown hair floating free like silk in the water. Wrapping her hands around the strands, she squeezed a thick lock in her palm as she hauled the girl up. Pulling the child into her arms, she swam toward the glare of the sun’s watery reflection.

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