Rulers of the Deep: Mermen's Captive

By Madelaine Montague

According to the tales passed down over generations, the mythological creatures had been known to lure the unsuspecting to their deaths. Dr. Mortensen and the hunter, Damien, were so awed by their discovery, so enthralled with the beautiful creature Damien had captured—they had to wonder, could it be that there was some substance to the myth?

The last thing Angie remembered was trying to help the man in the water. When she wakes up in a lab her first thought is that she’s going to end up as a dissection specimen, but the men who’ve kidnapped her have entirely different ideas of what to do with her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Concepts Publishing
• Release date: Oct 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005996758

Book preview

Rulers of the Deep:

Mermen’s Captive

By

Madelaine Montague

© copyright by Madelaine Montague, June 2008

Cover art by Alex DeShanks, June 2008

ISBN 978-1-60394-

Smashwords Edition

New Concepts Publishing

Lake Park, GA 31636

www.newconceptspublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

Chapter One

Exhilaration was still pumping the blood wildly through his veins as Damien guided the trap into the hatch of Dr. Miles Mortensen’s laboratory. As soon as the door had sealed, he moved around to the entrance and pressed the buzzer for admittance. The door slid open after only a brief wait, but Damien was still impatient as he moved inside and waited for the inner lock to open.

You’re back! Miles said unnecessarily.

Damien couldn’t help it. He grinned at the hopeful look on Miles’ face. I caught one.

The expressions that flitted swiftly across Miles’ face increased Damien’s amusement. A terra-biped?

Damien feigned a nonchalant shrug. That’s what you paid me to trap.

Miles still looked torn between excitement and disbelief. I didn’t expect you back for months. You’re sure?

Irritation flickered through Damien. It looks like the pictures.

From mythology? They really look like that? He almost looked surprised. Is it alive?

Damien had expected some shock. Hell, he’d been shocked himself when he discovered Miles was right and the things really did exist—he’d suspected he’d been hired and sent on a fool’s errand—but he was starting to get a little irritated. As far as I know. I had to put it out. It’s a little one—I think a juvenile maybe, certainly not full grown. It wasn’t very strong, but it still put up a hell of a fight—nearly got away two or three times before I could get the net off and shove it in the trap.

Anger spawned of disappointment, tautened Miles’ face. I wanted a live one. I need a live one to study.

Damien’s lips tightened. Well, why don’t you have a look at it?

Miles looked startled. It’s here?

Of course it’s here! Where the hell else would I take it?

Miles whirled and dashed toward his lab before he could say anything else. Damien followed more slowly. He hoped to hell it was still alive. He didn’t relish having to go after another one. Although he wouldn’t have admitted it under torture, the place he’d had to go to capture one gave him the creeps. Of all the areas he had hunted, it was hands down the worst—more like something out of a nightmare than a real place.

Beyond that, he felt an unaccustomed twinge at the thought that he might’ve killed it. He was a hunter. Hell, he wasn’t used to bringing in living creatures—certainly not anything like this that wasn’t even supposed to exist.

The image of his first sight of it flickered through his mind and his gut twisted. It was a beautiful, delicate creature. It’s huge, blue eyes had looked so frightened he felt a little ill at the thought of seeing them dim with death.

Miles was plastered to the viewing window, staring at it when he entered the lab. He couldn’t detect anything about the doctor’s posture to tell him one way or another whether it was still alive and his belly cinched a little tighter. After a brief debate with himself, he moved close enough to peer at it through the glass. Narrowing his eyes, he studied the chest and saw with a mixture of relief and dismay that it was still moving—barely—the creature was still completely unconscious, though, and that made him uneasy. He hadn’t thought he’d hit it with enough current to knock it out this long.

But what the hell did he know about it? He’d never seen one before. It wasn’t like the things he usually hunted.

Miles glanced at him. It’s still alive—for now anyway. Let’s just see if we can keep it that way long enough for me to gather a little data.

Damien nodded, feeling a vague sense of nausea that annoyed him, wondering if he was starting to get too squeamish to do his job. It’s so delicate, he murmured. I was too busy trying to subdue it to really notice. I hadn’t expected them to be colorful. They aren’t in the books. The scarlet capelette is what really caught my eye.

Miles nodded. I can see why it would. Beautiful. It’s so beautiful, he murmured, a touch of awe in his voice. It never occurred to me ….

Discomfort stirred in Damien. He’d felt the same way—stunned. Do you think it’s a male or a female?

Miles scanned it slowly. Hard to say. I might have to dissect it to find out.

Damien’s belly clenched. Anger surged through him and an odd sense of possessiveness. He’d caught it. If the bastard was just going to take it apart, he could keep his damned pay. He’d take the little thing with him—not that he had a clue of how he was going to take care of it. What the hell did you want me to catch it alive for if you were just going to dissect it?

Miles turned to glare at him. I wanted it alive so I could study it. I don’t plan to dissect it unless it dies—but if it does, that’s probably all I’ll get out of it.

Damien’s face hardened, but he kept his opinion to himself. It was still breathing and it had taken a while to get back to the lab. If it had survived this long, he thought it was probably going to live—if the doctor didn’t do anything to change that.

Miles, he discovered, had gone back to studying it. This flesh here looks odd, he said, more to himself than Damien.

What looks odd about it? Damien demanded, even though he knew Miles wasn’t really talking to him.

The texture doesn’t seem consistent with the rest of it. It’s wrinkled. I think it might be shedding. I’m going to take a sample and have a look at it under the scope.

Both possessiveness and reluctance wafted through Damien that time. He clenched his teeth, struggling with the urge to tell Miles just to keep his damned hands off of it. Maybe he should decline the pay and take it with him, he wondered? He’d been too damned high on adrenaline at catching it to consider how he felt beyond that, but now that he’d had a little time to consider it he realized he didn’t particularly want to give up his prize.

He sure as hell didn’t like the idea of Miles picking it apart. He hunted for food, not trophies, and he always did his best to kill as quickly and cleanly as possible.

Miles, he discovered, was looking at him. I’m going in. Stand by in case it comes around and attacks.

Damien nodded grimly, following him into the chamber and watching him while he opened the trap, removing the top half and setting it aside. His stomach churned as Miles began pulling at the flesh and finally took a scalpel and cut it. I’ll be damned.

Damien, who contrary to orders, had averted his gaze, looked at the creature again. What?

Miles didn’t say anything for several moments. Instead, from what Damien could see—and he really didn’t want to see—he began to clip more enthusiastically at the loose skin. Gods! He was going to fucking skin it alive? He clenched his hands into fists, struggling with the urge to grab Miles and slam him against the far wall, and beat him unconscious.

I don’t think this is flesh at all—in fact—it isn’t.

Perplexed, not sure he believed him, Damien inched a little closer so that he could actually see what Miles was doing. Surprise flickered through him when he saw that Miles had peeled the wrinkled skin back to reveal satiny smooth flesh beneath instead of the raw flesh he’d expected. Enthralled, he moved closer. Miles turned to glare at him for getting in his way, but Damien ignored him, studying the creature in fascination as Miles cut the remainder of the wrinkled covering away. Maybe it was shedding and it just hadn’t fallen off yet? he speculated.

Maybe, Miles said, sounding distracted. I’ll be able to tell more when I can see it under the scope.

Damien barely heard him. He was staring at the rounded globes on the creature’s chest. Each was tipped with a pink bud that had stood erect when Miles had cut the covering off.

Female.

Damien sent a quick look at Miles and then moved closer to examine the genitalia he’d discovered. Parting the lower limbs, Miles probed at the area with his fingers. Damien’s breath stilled as he stared at the matching scarlet thatch that surrounded the genitals. His throat closed as he watched Miles part the slit and peer at the dark pink petals of flesh between the creature’s legs.

It was definitely a female, he thought, feeling strangely lightheaded all of a sudden.

The legs jerked abruptly.

Miles leapt back, almost knocking Damien down in his rush to put some distance between himself and the creature. It’s waking up! Grabbing a piece of the flesh he’d cut away, he bolted for the door.

Damien was rooted to the spot, though, paralyzed as he watched the lids covering the eyes flicker and abruptly open. For a long moment he stared at the beautiful blue eyes he remembered and then the creature sprang into wild movement. Scrambling away from him in mindless terror, it plummeted off the bottom half of the trap and hit the floor with a sickening thud. Consternation filled him. Without considering the possibility of danger, he surged toward it. When he did, it opened its mouth and released a sound that rattled his ear drums, felt as if it would shatter them.

Wincing, he fell back, stared at it for a moment and finally retreated, closing the containment door.

White faced, his eyes so wide they looked like they’d pop from his head, Miles was standing at the observation window. "Are you out of your mind? We don’t know anything about these creatures! It could’ve killed you!"

Damien’s ears were still ringing painfully, but he was too stunned to feel pain anywhere else—if indeed the sound it—she—had emitted was capable of harming more than his hearing. At least there’s no doubt it’s very much alive, he said wryly.

* * * *

Pain was the first thing Angie had any awareness of. It wasn’t intense pain, but it was all encompassing. Every muscle in her body ached as if she’d clenched every single one so tightly that they’d cramped.

That wayward thought prompted a flood of memories, but they were too jumbled in her mind to grasp and sort.

Abandoning the effort, her mind switched to sorting the impressions flowing into her from her senses instead.

She was cold and wet, lying upon something hard. She could hear voices, but she couldn’t understand what they were saying. Her mind’s pursuit of understanding lifted her a little higher toward consciousness and she became aware of … fingers probing her sex. That jolted her wide awake.

The moment her eyes popped open, her brain snapped the image of two men—completely unknown to her—standing over her.

Not completely unknown. The one tall, heavily muscled one with black hair, she remembered instantly. He’d thrown a net over her, dragged her from the boat when she leaned out to help him in, and beneath the surface of the water.

Then he’d jolted her with something electric.

Scrambling away from the two men, she screamed. One of the men left immediately. The other, the one who’d nearly drowned her, surged toward her. She screamed again.

He winced and then retreated toward the door, closing it, sealing her in.

Angie stared at the door, too terrified for a while to wrap her mind around anything. She was cold and wet, though, and her discomfort eventually penetrated her fear enough to redirect her mind.

Dismay filled her when she saw her clothes had been cut away. The front of her shirt was slashed and her shorts and panties were completely gone. Why would they cut her clothes off, she wondered blankly?

Uncurling finally from the tight ball she’d been holding herself in, she examined herself for injury as it occurred to her that that might be what they’d been doing, trying to remove her clothes to treat her for some kind of injury.

There wasn’t a sign of a cut, though, no huge missing sections of flesh from a shark bite or something of that nature.

Not that she remembered anything like that happening anyway ….

The room was bright, but the light looked strange, had an odd blue-green cast to it. When she lifted her head to look around, she discovered that both of the men were standing at a window, staring at her. She screamed again when she discovered that, covering herself and glancing a little wildly around for a place to hide.

The room was empty, though, except for the strange gurney she’d been lying on when she’d first come to.

Where the hell was she?

Ignoring the men for the moment, she focused beyond them at the room behind them and discovered it looked more like a laboratory than a hospital.

Shivering, she closed her eyes, trying to think.

She couldn’t remember much of anything after she’d gone into the water besides the sheer terror of discovering she couldn’t breathe and she couldn’t fight her way to the surface.

It must be a hospital, she decided, even if didn’t really look like any hospital she was familiar with.

Then again, it was undoubtedly a foreign one. It hadn’t just been her state that had prevented her from understanding what they were saying. They hadn’t been speaking English. Beyond that, they’d been too far from the states for her to have been air-lifted to a hospital there.

She struggled for a short while to try to recall where they’d been and what country she might have been taken to, but they’d been a long way from land in any direction.

She heard a deep rumbling of voices and opened her eyes again, discovering she could hear the two men talking to one another. Or rather, she heard the man with black hair say something to the one with golden brown hair. The second man stared at her hard and finally moved away from the window. A few moments later, she felt warm air begin to blow into the room. It raised more goose-bumps on her skin, but after a few minutes she began to feel warmer. Her jaw stopped cramping from the effort of trying to keep her teeth from chattering.

Why am I here? she asked in a quavering voice after a few minutes. What is this place?

The two men stared at her as if she’d grown another head and then looked at each other.

* * * *

It’s … she’s trying to communicate, Miles said in surprise, rising excitement in his voice. She’s intelligent.

Damien frowned, turning to look at her again. He felt oddly … tense, almost lightheaded every time he looked at her. It worried him, made him wonder if she’d done something to him, though he discovered he was reluctant to say anything. Partly that was because he realized Miles already suspected she was a dangerous creature and he didn’t want to say anything that might convince Miles that she was too dangerous to keep alive for study. But partly, he realized, it was because he actually knew exactly what it was about her that made him feel that way and it wasn’t something he particularly wanted to examine. You think? he asked a little hoarsely, realizing the queasy feeling in his stomach was certainty even though he’d asked. You’re saying it isn’t an animal?

Miles sent him a look. Of course it’s an animal! We’re all animals. I’m suggesting this creature must be more intelligent than I’d thought—certainly more than the myths suggest.

Damien swallowed with an effort. She’s frightened, he said, trying to keep any inflection from his voice. It would be bad enough if she was a dumb beast. I don’t like this.

Miles’ jaw tightened. I don’t like it any more than you do, he said coolly, but we can’t learn about them if we don’t study them.

Damien turned to consider him assessingly. Clearly, regardless of what he’d said, Miles didn’t give a fuck whether she was intelligent, and scared half to death, or not. He was too much a scientist to consider anything of more importance than his quest for knowledge.

Miles’ lips tightened. If you’re so worried about it being frightened, help yourself. Try to soothe it. You’re supposed to be so damned good with animals. Don’t blame me, though, if she stings you or something!

If she had stingers, she would’ve done that when I caught her, Damien pointed out. She was fighting for her life, then.

Miles shrugged. As I said … it would actually be helpful if you could tame her, at least to handling. Don’t let it get loose in my lab, though.

Damien gave him a look. I don’t know a fucking thing about these things! he snapped. This isn’t like training a damned dolphin!

And very likely she isn’t even as intelligent as a dolphin! I don’t see why the same methods wouldn’t work, though. An animal is animal.

Feeling his throat close, Damien turned to look at her again a little doubtfully. She did emit sound waves that were nearly as painful as the dolphin was capable of. He wasn’t sure his ears could take any more of that at the moment without rupturing. She seemed a little calmer now, though. What do think she might eat?

Shrugging, Miles studied her thoughtfully. "I’ve got no idea. The above is practically desolate, though, from everything I’ve heard. Probably pretty much the same things we eat. We could try some table scraps. If it doesn’t seem to affect her adversely …."

Damien frowned. He didn’t particularly care for the idea of coaxing her to eat something that might hurt her. Aside from the fact that he didn’t want to hurt her, it might break what little trust he managed to build by feeding her. Something fresh might be better.

Miles narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. This should be the first order business, he said decisively. We need to determine what it eats to keep it alive anyway. Why don’t you go gather an assortment of fresh food and I’ll see what I can find that it might be interested in in the preserver? Then, we’ll fix up a tray with the different things and see which it finds most appealing?

She, Damien said, an edge to his voice.

Miles nodded. Right. He studied Damien. Don’t get too attached to it. I can see you’re thinking along the lines of a pet, but I need to study it—I sent you after a lab animal—and it may not live.

Damien felt a faint flush rise in his cheeks, but he didn’t deny it. Instead, after studying her a moment longer, he turned and left. Wait until I get back, he said, pausing at the door.

Miles chuckled. Oh, don’t worry about that! I’m not ready to go near it until I’ve had the chance to study it a little more and make sure it isn’t dangerous!

* * * *

It unnerved Angie when they didn’t respond to her questions. It seemed to spur a rather lengthy and involved conversation between them, though. She listened intently to the voices muffled by the glass that separated them, trying to figure out what they were talking about. Try though she might, she couldn’t figure out what language they were speaking.

When both of them turned to leave, she eased upward to see if she could tell where they were going.

A jolt went through her when she’d risen to her feet.

Both men were stark naked!

That discovery was almost as jolting as waking to find herself in this strange place to begin with, but not quite as jarring as the discovery that the skin below their waists was an almost iridescent blue-green, patterned, with odd little protrusions near their ankles that looked almost like narrow fins. She’d almost decided that they must be wearing something, even though she could clearly see their buttocks, when she realized that both men had the same fin like protrusions on their elbows and wrists and those were clearly bare. She could see that their entire upper bodies were bare, though their skin was as pale as hers, almost pale enough to look like white, form fitting knit, except that their faces and hands were just as pale, which she was sure precluded that possibility.

Under the circumstances, it wasn’t nearly as big a shock to see that both men had hair that flowed almost to their buttocks, but it still came as a surprise.

This just got more and more weird!

When they’d left, she moved to the window and stared at the room beyond her cell. Nothing in it looked more than vaguely familiar, but there was some similarity to the equipment that made her more certain that what she was looking at was a lab. The benches alone seemed to suggest that and there was a … sterility to the place that added to that impression—no gurney of any kind that she could see.

She was still staring at the room when the golden haired man returned carrying a tray that was covered with a cloth.

Her belly clenched with fear at the sight of the tray, images springing into her mind of medical instruments. He set it down and lifted his head to look at her.

She backed away from the window. Abruptly remembering she was naked, she covered her breasts with her arms.

He frowned, his gaze instantly sharpening at the movement. After hesitating a moment, he strode across the room toward the window.

Her gaze zeroed in of its own accord on his groin, her eyes widening.

Definitely naked, her shocked mind registered.

My god at the tool he was swinging!

She was so focused on it that he walked right up to the glass before she recovered her wits. She wasn’t sure she would have then except that the wall below the glass cut off her view, effectively breaking her mesmerized focus on his cock.

Reddening, she jerked her head up and stared up at him.

Christ! He must be nearly six and a half feet tall!

Either that or he was standing on something.

She hadn’t realized her jaw was at half-mast until she scurried further from the window. Closing her mouth, she moved as far away from him as she could, backing into the far corner.

She discovered his gaze had dropped. Belatedly recalling that she was as naked as he was from the waist down, she shifted one arm to cover her breasts, and dropped a hand down to cover her thatch.

His head jerked upward to meet her gaze when she did.

He tilted his head curiously, his eyes narrowing, though the expression seemed more thoughtful than angry.

He turned his head away after a moment, looking at something beyond her view, and then began to speak, gesturing toward her.

The black haired man appeared at the glass a moment later, studying her as curiously as the other man had.

The oddest sensation flickered through her.

She felt, suddenly, as if she’d woken to find herself in a zoo—as an exhibit.

After a moment, the black haired man disappeared again. Her belly tightened. She didn’t know why it unnerved her. She should’ve felt relieved that she didn’t have both of them staring at her.

It connected in her mind why she’d been uneasy when she heard the door latch click. She jerked her head toward the door as it slowly began to open, her heart leaping into her throat. After staring at it, too frozen with fear to move for several moments, she managed to make herself move.

The cell was small, though. There wasn’t anywhere to run.

She dodged behind the odd-looking gurney, cowering on the floor, trying to force her chaotic mind to think.

He was carrying the tray she’d seen the other man bring in and she thought for several moments that she might pass out from sheer terror. He stopped just inside, carefully closing and locking the door behind him.

For several moments, he