Alex had run out into the water, and he’d gone out deep enough for it to crash over his waist when Gemma finally reached him.
They didn’t even speak when she got to him. She pushed herself out of the water and threw her arms around him. She was cold from the water, and when his arms wrapped around her back, they felt hot against her skin.
He held her tight to him and kissed her more fiercely than he’d ever kissed her before. There was this panicked insistence to it, like he couldn’t kiss her deeply enough, and Gemma loved it. She put her hands on his neck, pulling him closer to her.
He was lifting her out of the water as they kissed, and her tail pressed against his legs and stomach. Gemma clung to him desperately, and she never wanted to let him go.
Eventually they had to stop so they could breathe, but Alex still held her close to him. He rested his forehead against hers, his eyes closed as he breathed her in.
“I missed you,” he murmured, and kissed her on the mouth again, more gently this time.
“I missed you, too,” she said, wanting to sob. She’d been so certain she’d never see him again, and now she was afraid that she’d never be able to let him go.
At that thought, she returned to kissing him frantically. In the back of her mind, she knew the sirens were nearby in the house, and Alex would have to leave very soon if she wanted him to live. So if she only had a few moments with him, she had to make them count.
His hand moved down, pressing against the smooth scales of her tail, which rose up to the small of her back. Nobody had ever touched her tail before, and the warm touch of his skin sent pleasurable shivers down to her fin.
“Wow.” Alex stopped kissing her so he could look down at the iridescent scales, which shimmered in the early morning light. “So … you really are a mermaid now?”
“Yeah.” Gemma laughed and looked him in the eyes. “I kinda am.”
“So you two are done making out now?” Harper asked, and Gemma looked over Alex’s shoulder to see Harper standing behind him. She’d been so excited about Alex that she hadn’t even noticed her sister there.
Harper had gone out far enough so the water was just lapping against her feet, and Daniel was standing a bit farther back on the shore, looking uncertainly from Gemma to the stark white house on the beach behind them.
“You have to go,” Gemma said. Seeing Harper and Daniel’s unease had snapped her out of her romantic notions, and she realized how dangerous this could get.
“Alex gets a kiss, and you tell me to get out of here?” Harper raised an eyebrow. “No way. We didn’t come all this way to leave you behind.”
“I appreciate that, and I’m glad to see you—all of you,” Gemma said. She’d pulled back from Alex enough to comfortably talk to Harper, but his arms remained around her. “I truly am. But you need to get out of here.”
“We’re not leaving without you,” Harper said. “I don’t care if I have to drag you out of here kicking and screaming or stab those horrible she-devils in the eyes, you are coming with me when I leave.”
“You have to go,” Gemma insisted.
“Gemma, I’m not leaving without you,” Alex said, and she turned to look at him, staring up into his deep brown eyes. “Last time you left, I was unconscious and couldn’t stop you. But this time I’m wide awake, and I’m not letting you go.”
“You don’t understand,” Gemma told him plaintively. “They’ll kill you if they find you here.”
“Then we should really get going,” Alex replied.
“No, I can’t go with you,” Gemma said. “They’ll come after me, and then they’ll hurt you and Harper and Daniel to punish me.”
“Gemma, you’re not listening to me,” Alex said. “I am not leaving you. So if you stay, I stay.”
“Alex!” Gemma wanted to push away from him, but his arms felt too good and too strong around her. “They won’t let us be together. If they see you, they will kill you.”
“Come with us,” Alex said. “Leave with us right now, and we’ll find a way to stop them.”
“I don’t know if there is a way to stop them,” Gemma admitted sourly.
“There’s a way to stop everything. We just have to figure it out,” Alex assured her.
“You don’t know what the sirens are like,” Gemma said, but her resistance was wearing down.
“Do you want to stay here?” Alex asked. “Do you want to be a siren?”
“No,” she said emphatically.
“Then let’s get out of here.” He lowered her into the water, and stepped back away from her, toward the shore. “We’ll find a way to get you free, but the first step is leaving here.”
She bit her lip and glanced up at the house. It was dangerous to leave, that was for sure, but it was also probably the only chance she had of ever figuring out how to break the curse. Penn sure as hell was never going to tell her how.
But maybe if Gemma worked with Harper and Alex, the three of them could figure out how to change things. It was the best chance she had to escape this life.
And based on the way both Harper and Alex were looking at her, Gemma wasn’t sure if there was anything she could say or do to get them to stop looking for her. She knew Alex was dead serious when he said he wouldn’t leave without her.
If she wanted to keep him alive and rid herself of the curse, the best way to do it would be to leave. And if she was going to leave, she ought to hurry and do it before the sirens woke up.