She could all but feel the warmth of it, just beyond the reach of her fingertips, struggled to swim closer while her strokes faltered.
Not strong enough. Despair flooded her at her own weakness, at the frail human need for air when all she craved was nearly within her grasp.
It all blurred—light, pulse, song—as her body went limp. She began to sink in the blue, her hand stretched toward the beauty.
Hands grabbed her. Helpless, she breathed in water as she was propelled forward.
Blinding light, sudden warmth. Then nothing.
Annika dragged her up, broke the surface of the water. In the cave, that water seemed to sing as it flowed up and over rock. Light shimmered blue as moonbeams.
“She has no breath.” Weeping, Annika hugged Sasha to her as Bran shot up beside her. “Can you help her?”
“Yes, yes.”
He wouldn’t lose her. Boosting himself onto the wide lip of rock, he pulled Sasha up. He pressed a hand on her heart, pushed power there. And lowering to her, gave her his breath.
For an instant that lasted a lifetime, he knew true fear. He wouldn’t be enough. He would be too late.
Then her heart stirred under his hand.
She coughed up water. He turned her gently as the others surfaced, and kept his hand pressed to her heart when she gasped in air.
“There you are now. I’ll never tell you it’s just a dream again. There you are, a ghrá.”
&
nbsp; He lifted her, cradled her, as she shook, laid his brow on hers, rocked them both.
“What happened?”
Riley climbed up, took a hard look at Sasha’s face. “You decided to go diving without a tank.”
“I . . . like the dream.” She groped for Bran’s hand. “I was on the boat, sketching, then . . . I heard the music. It was like dreaming again. I had to find the song, the light.”
“Nerezza.” Riley bit off the name.
“No, no. It wasn’t dark or cold. It wasn’t evil. It was beautiful.”
“Evil hides in beauty.” Doyle hauled himself up with them.
“No. I’d know. I can feel. It called for me. None of you heard it?”
“Something, when we got closer to the cave.” Riley looked up, around. “This cave that isn’t on any map.”
“And the light.” Bran stroked her cheek, wishing to will the color back into it. “It guided us to you.”
“You saved me,” she told him, but he shook his head.
“Annika. She got to you first, pulled you in here. She’s faster than any of us in the water.” He glanced back at her. “Understandably.”
“I couldn’t let the sea take her.”
Annika knuckled a tear away. Her sinuous, luminous tail curved through the water. “With legs I would have been too late.”
Sawyer, still treading water, his gaze still riveted on the sway of sapphire, emerald, hints of ruby, slowly reached out to touch the shimmery, translucent fin with a fingertip.
“You’re a mermaid. Well, kick my ass. That explains a lot.”