Commander, Please Spare Your Little Merman

Pain greeted Nolan Shaw when he woke.

His lower back hurt. So did his ass, his tailbone, his chest, and his neck.

"Ah..." he hissed.

He was tangled in the sheets of a five-star hotel suite. Strands of pale pink hair showed beneath the white blanket. As soon as he opened his eyes, he remembered what he'd done last night.

He'd forced himself on a human man.

He flung the covers aside and saw a shimmering pink fish tail.

Morning light fell across it. The pale pink fins were translucent, and their colors shifted whenever he moved. Sunlight caught the scales and made them sparkle.

Then the tail changed before his eyes. It became two long, straight legs with smooth, unmarked skin.

Delighted, Nolan raised one leg. "I can change back whenever I want now. Mating really does help me stay human."

Beside the bed sat a tidy stack of bills. Human money.

He ran his fingers over the notes and counted them in his head. Eight thousand dollars.

The gentleman from last night must have left it.

"He even left me money. That's sweet," Nolan murmured.

Then he caught a fistful of his pink hair and pulled at it in frustration.

He hadn't asked the man's name. How was he going to find him again?

Mating with a human let a merman keep his legs on land, but he had to do it regularly. If his tail returned, the Zenith Research Center could catch him and do cruel experiment on him.

Its researchers would inject serums to force him to shift. They would peel off scales, gouge out tear ducts, cut away webbing, and breed new species...

He'd escaped that lab only yesterday. The memories came rushing back, and he shivered.

"I need to find him once a week," Nolan muttered. "I didn't even get his number!"

Despite the ache in his body, he got out of bed and put on his shirt. He was about to grab his pants when footsteps sounded outside the hotel door.

Tactical boots. Their measured tread was too faint for a human to hear, but Nolan was a merman.

Every instinct told him to watch the door. He went rigid.

Bang! The walls shook.

The front door burst inward.

Wood from the heavy security door and pieces of the entryway decor flew across the room. Fine white smoke billowed in. The curtains whipped about, and the crystal chandelier swayed overhead with a frantic clink.

Nolan stood in the middle of it all. Black figures advanced through the smoke and blocked his way out.

Six people came through the doorway.

They wore black capture gear, riot helmets, and heavy tactical vests. A gold-plated wolf and hawk insignia shone on each chest. All six guns were aimed at him.

Red infrared beams caught his eyes. Before he could move, three sights fixed on his forehead.

Two more pointed at his heart.

"Put your hands on your head!" a deep voice instructed from the doorway.

Nolan's stomach dropped as he stared through the smoke. His heart pounded so hard it hurt.

Click!

Someone had chambered a round.

His own heartbeat roared in his ears.

He remained beside the bed with his bare legs exposed. He hadn't managed to put on his pants.

They'd come so quickly that, for a moment, he couldn't make himself move.

Then he looked down at his legs, and the panic eased a little. He slowly straightened his back and tried to steady his breathing as he reassured himself.

Right now, he looked human.

There was no tail to give him away.

"Let us search, and nobody gets hurt," a rough voice called out.

"Check every corner!" the adjutant yelled from the front. His team spread out from the doorway and passed Nolan as they searched the suite.

Still beside the bed, Nolan gripped the stack of cash. His breathing came fast and unevenly.

Could he kill all of them before they had time to react?

If even one survived, things would get worse.

He stayed where he was and made no move to hide.

The fear was real. So was the urge to strike before they did.

Minutes later, the team returned. "Commander Watson! No sign of the merman." They reported together.

Boots thudded across the threshold. Nolan felt the room grow smaller as the commander entered.

"Secure the intel. Keep looking," the commander, Vincent Watson, said in a low, rough voice.

"Yes, sir!" the team replied.

A sharp trace of freshly extinguished cigarette smoke reached Nolan first. He looked up at the smell.

Vincent stood near the entrance. Unlike his team, he wore no heavy bulletproof vest. His black shirt fitted close beneath a shoulder holster, and he pressed the gun in his hand against a nearby tabletop. He looked almost bored, which only made Nolan more afraid.

Vincent had a face that was hard to look away from and harder to trust. His eyes reminded Nolan of a wolf watching its prey. Even while he stood there doing nothing, he seemed ready for violence and untouched by it. His hair was neatly cropped, and a faint scar near his brow gave his good looks a dangerous edge.

Once Nolan saw his face clearly, he stumbled back. His fingers loosened, and the eight thousand dollars scattered across the floor.

This was the man he'd mated with last night.

And that man was the commander of the Protection & Control Bureau.

The realization left Nolan close to breaking.

He'd slept with the person he feared most.

His hands tightened into fists.

Vincent narrowed his eyes. Silence settled over the room.

Nolan met his gaze for a second, and then looked away. He couldn't stop his hands from shaking.

What was he supposed to do now?