When I awoke on Monday, two days after Kieshala had informed me and Kara about our mating and what that meant, the cramps in my abdomen were thankfully gone. From what Kieshala had said, this meant that my third metamorphosis was likely over and I was now a fully fertile Naethari. Our teacher of everything Naethari had told us that it could take a few days to finish but we were all thankful for the timing.

Pierce had come in for the weekly inspection of his investment the day before and, while the cramps had made me and Kara uncomfortable, focusing on giving a good performance under the direction of our ‘trainer’ allowed us to ignore the discomfort. None of us wanted to give Pierce any reason to be unhappy with us. That would have been considerably more difficult if Kara and I had started our first kima’tah and had nothing but sex on our minds.

Our first mating heat was supposed to begin soon after the completion of the third metamorphosis and was supposed to last anywhere from five to seven days. Kieshala said that it was going to be easier for us to resist the urges to procreate during the last day or two when our hormones began to balance out again. Hopefully, Kara and I would be at the tail end by the time that Pierce came for his next inspection so we could concentrate well enough that he wouldn’t become suspicious. Tail end, get it? Because we have tails.

Kara didn’t particularly care for that joke when we were discussing things over breakfast. Jenny liked it though, she always liked the fish jokes. To be fair though, Kara just might have been distracted and a bit irritable if she was feeling anything like I was. Sure, the cramps were gone but we both had a very irritating rash on our bellies that had Maddie concerned until Kieshala told her that it indicated that our mating heat was beginning.

Heat was right. I was getting warm all over, especially in my nether region. I could resist the sexual urges, for the moment, but it was getting more difficult with each passing minute as we finished breakfast, and Maddie and Kieshala put us to work on our training. That didn’t last as long as it normally would have though as Maddie decided to have us all break for lunch an hour earlier than usual. “Is it noon already?” Jenny asked in surprise when Maddie called for us to stop.

My sister looked pointedly at Kara and me and shook her head. “No, Jenny, but it’s pretty obvious that our sisters can’t stay focused. They’re too distracted, and if we keep trying to push it right now someone is going to get hurt.”

I looked down at my magenta-scaled tail in shame. I had been trying to focus, really I had. Kara smelled so good though and I was having trouble keeping my thoughts on anything other than entwining our tails right there and then and showing her how much I wanted and needed her, how much I loved her. There was this burning need eating me up inside to make love to her until neither of us could keep going any longer.

It wasn’t just being horny; it was a bone-deep instinctual need that was doing everything that it could to overwhelm anything else not of immediate importance to my survival, or Kara’s. I desperately needed to mate with the woman I loved and to make damn sure that at least one of us ended up pregnant. I needed her to bear my child and I needed to bear hers as well. It was a strange feeling.

“I’m sorry,” Kara and I said in unison. She looked like she felt as bad about it as I did but she also looked like she was fighting just as hard against the urge to just ignore the others and start going at it then and there. The only thing really stopping me was how awkward it would be doing that in front of our respective sisters, especially since Jenny was so young. Given the glances that Kara kept casting toward her kid sister, I figured that we were on the same page mentally about that as well.

~ There is nothing to be sorry for. I have never been through the kima’tah myself but I have seen others go through it and I was taught about it when I was going through my second metamorphosis. This is your first kima’tah, you are both young and are still getting used to being Naethari, so it is understandable that this will be difficult for you, ~ Kieshala said sympathetically. Then for Maddie’s benefit, she added aloud, “It is only going to get more difficult for them until the heat has passed.”

Maddie let out a long sigh and nodded. “It’s not that big of a surprise, I guess. I’ve been talking with Nat on the phone at night. I let her know about the situation and I’m trying to keep her updated. She was worried that it might be difficult for the two of you to think of much aside from getting laid while going through this. She’ll probably have all sorts of questions about it when she gets back from Coral Springs.”

“How is Nat holding up?” I asked, feeling guilty about being too distracted to think of asking about her earlier. Kara was gently stroking my shalkai and a soft moan escaped me, seeming to get everyone’s attention. I turned bright red and Kara quickly pulled her hand away. She looked as embarrassed as I felt. Damn, did we need some alone time.

“Nat is in rough shape emotionally, I think,” my sister admitted while frowning at us both, once she was sure that we were paying attention. “The funeral and will reading are tomorrow and the local police said that her parents were likely run off the road, but with no witnesses, they can’t be sure whether it was accidental or not. They’re keeping an eye out for vehicles being brought into nearby body shops that could have been involved. Mom, Dad, and some friends of the family are keeping an eye on Nat twenty-four hours a day until she’s back here. Mom and Dad have been helping her with packing up her parents’ house and selling off everything but a few small keepsakes too.”

“She’s selling everything? I don’t think I would have been able to do that with our home and everything,” Kara put in sadly. It pained me to see her with such a sad look on her face. Maybe I should try to make her feel better? I could think of so many ways to make us both feel good. Dammit, Naiya, focus on the conversation, not sexy times with Kara.

“Nat knows that there is no use in keeping anything. With Pierce’s money and contacts, anyone who has a hand in breaking you girls out will likely end up being on the run for the foreseeable future. Having a stash of ready cash on hand will be far more important if any of us are going to live under the radar,” Maddie explained.

I nodded in agreement. “Mom and Dad always told us not to get too connected to our home. It’s just a place and we could have to give it up at any time if things went bad on a job. I guess that they’ll be doing the same thing?”

“Yeah, they’re selling off everything but a few photos and keepsakes, and the combat gear, of course. It’s already in the works. Mom and Dad’s team worked for an investor once, just before I started working with them, they saved his daughter when she was taken hostage. I guess he also buys houses to renovate and flip. He’ll buy both places and the furnishings for market price, no questions asked, and he’ll pay cash. They’re going to transfer all the funds from our accounts to Aunt Carmen too. She’ll do some ‘cleaning’ and drop off the cash in untraceable bills to the usual drop-off point after a few days.”

Aunt Carmen was a former mercenary of Argentinian descent who had worked with Mom and Dad until taking a bad leg injury. She was muscular, intimidatingly large, covered with tattoos and scars, and looked every inch the mercenary that she had once been. Since ‘retiring’ she had gotten into money laundering, not because she needed the money but because she was bored and clean funds were sometimes a necessity for others in her former line of work. Even though she was kind of terrifying to people who didn’t know her well, the woman had a heart of gold.

Speaking of women with hearts of gold, my mind and eyes once again drifted toward Kara. My mate was so wonderful and beautiful, and damn did she smell good. I moved closer to kiss her, caress her, and show her just how much I needed her at the moment when I was vaguely aware of Maddie saying something else before our lips and bodies could make contact. I shook my head to clear it as I tried very hard to focus on something other than my mate again. “Huh?” I asked.

“Dammit, we’re not going to get anywhere with you two until this is over,” Maddie said with a frown. “I was just asking Kieshala if there’s anything that I should know about this heat thing.”

“It will get more difficult for them to think of anything but mating, or occasionally feeding, as the heat grows,” Kieshala told us with a serious expression. “They could get violent if anyone unfamiliar or hostile gets too close while they are in a mating frenzy. They should be fine if any of us or Natalie approaches, but our captor, his guards, or anyone with an unfamiliar scent could be attacked.”

“Dammit, when I told Nat about this mating heat thing she was worried that something like that could be a possibility. Let’s hope that both of them are over the worst of it before Pierce’s next visit or we might have to get creative. Worst case scenario, we might have to improvise an early escape,” Maddie grumbled.

“Couldn’t you just tell him they’re sick?” Jenny asked.

“We could run the idea by Nat but it could go bad in a lot of ways. Pierce would want those assholes in the lab to look them over, and possibly check if they’re pregnant as well, after what they did last time they took them to the labs. That’s the last thing we want and I’m not letting them near any of you if I can help it. If they somehow take the girls’ currently elevated hormone levels as a sign of pregnancy then Pierce will have people watching you girls more intently, which would complicate any escape plan,” my sister explained with a shake of her head. She let out a sigh and shook her head again. “I’ll go get your lunch and then give Nat a call. She should know about this, and I want her opinion before we do anything.”

Maddie discussed things with Natalie through most of lunch. Once we were finished eating and my sister had disconnected the call, she let us in on what had been decided, though I was finding it hard to concentrate on anything but Kara now that my belly was full. The plan was to place me and my mate into the plunge pool in the sauna room until our kima’tah had passed or we were able to think somewhat clearly again.

She and Nat felt that this would give us some privacy during this time. If Pierce or anyone else asked about it then Natalie would deal with it. Her idea was that they were isolating us from the others because we had a cough and fever, and were displaying heightened aggression while sick. So Nat was going to check on us regularly and treat us until we were feeling better. After all, there was no way she would trust the people in the lab to do it after I had come back tortured.

With that in mind, Maddie unlocked the sauna room that hadn’t seen use since it had been cleaned up after Kieshala had joined the rest of us in the big pool. It was a good thing that neither Kara nor I could think clearly enough to remember what had happened in that room before that as Maddie led the way inside and we half-slithered and half-crawled after her. There was nothing to remind us either, as the room looked and smelled fairly sterile.

Both the room and the pool were clean and kept at a comfortable temperature and the pool was circular, roughly twelve feet in diameter, and eight feet deep. While that wasn’t enough space for the usual daily use of a pair of Naethari, Maddie and Nat thought that it should serve well enough while we were in heat. It was intimate and nothing else really mattered to Kara and me at that time.

The rest of that week was kind of a blur, disjointed hazy memories of making raw passionate love to Kara, only really stopping to sleep or to eat the food that Maddie and then Nat had set out for us. By Saturday afternoon, Kara and I were merely very horny and able to think somewhat clearly again so we were back in the big pool with the others. Thankfully, we didn’t have to worry about Pierce’s weekly inspection the next day since he was supposed to be on some sort of business trip for the weekend.

That business probably wasn’t all on the up-and-up from the sounds of it. Mom and Dad had apparently been monitoring the estate and from the number of goons that had left with Pierce, the business either wasn’t strictly legal and he wanted some protection, or he was planning on using some muscle to intimidate someone into seeing things his way. That, or to make someone disappear. Given what had happened to Kara and Jenny’s family so Pierce could buy out their father’s company, the latter was a distinct possibility.

I thought that it was a shame that Nat and Maddie had finally been informed about how and when we’d be moved and that we had already planned the escape around it. This would have been a good opportunity to make a break for it, with Pierce out of town and a skeleton crew guarding the estate and the bunker beneath it. I wasn’t going to complain though since Kara and I were still going through the tail end of our kima’tah and didn’t feel like doing much, other than having sex.

It was late Saturday night, probably close to midnight if my internal clock was somehow still accurate after the week that I had had. Kieshala and Jenny were fast asleep and Kara and I had just finished another session of making love. I was wrapped tightly in Kara’s embrace and for a time I didn’t move, content to just stay there in her arms with her tail wrapped possessively around mine as we began to drift off to sleep.

A distant and sharp cracking sound caught my attention, adrenaline swiftly bringing me completely awake. That sounded like a gunshot. After a moment, the sound was repeated and slightly closer this time. I was already shaking Kara and starting to move, even as she snuggled closer and mumbled, “What’s wrong, Babe? Your heart is racing.” The sound of the door being unlocked woke my mate up in a hurry; we both knew that nobody should be visiting this late. Once the door was opened, I caught the scent of our visitor along with the familiar scents of blood, gun oil, and gunpowder.

Kara must have caught the scents at the same time as I did because we were both instantly in motion. While she was trying to uncoil her tail from around me, I was focused on shifting my hands to slip out of my cuffs before our unexpected visitor could find the light switch and get her bearings. As soon as I had slipped my cuffs, I made my way toward the edge of the pool and got out of the water as quietly as possible as I once again summoned the tingling sensation of my magic, pushed it into my tail and fins, and concentrated on having nice familiar human legs and feet.

~ Kieshala, Jenny, you need to wake up, ~ I heard Kara telling the others as my tail and fins finished shifting and I made my way as quickly and quietly as I could manage toward the door. Thank goodness for Naethari vision, not to mention the other senses. While she was still fumbling in the dark for a light switch, I could still see as well as I could in daylight. By the time her fingers touched the light switch, I was halfway to her.

Camille quickly gathered her things and threw them haphazardly into the duffel bag on her bed; a couple of changes of clothes, her purse, passport, other documents, and over a hundred thousand in cash and various valuables that she had been secreting away since she had started screwing Edward. The keys to the Mercedes SUV were already in her pocket. She figured that Edward owed her at least the money and the vehicle for being such a lousy fuck and such a stingy asshole.

It would take Edward a while to realize that they, and Camille, were missing. He hardly paid her any attention these days anyway and he hadn’t even noticed the damage to the Jag yet, from when she had run that bitch Emerson’s parents off the road the week before. By the time he did realize, she would be long gone and would have her revenge.

Killing that bitch’s parents had been so satisfying, seeing the heartbroken look on her face when she arrived at the house the next morning. She wanted Emerson and Chan to suffer. She wanted to take away everything that they held dear. Emerson’s parents had been a good start but she knew how to get her revenge on both of them now. The mermaids and their trainer. Both Chan and Emerson seemed to care about them.

Until now, thoughts of trying to maintain her relationship with Edward had held her back. She might not be able to communicate, but she could still watch and learn. What she had learned was that not only was Edward eyeing other women, but the mermaids were to be moved to their new location in less than two weeks. Her window of opportunity was closing. If she wanted her vengeance, then she needed to get it tonight while Edward and most of his guards were out of town.

She had hoped to kill the blue-haired mermaid trainer since it seemed that she and Emerson were now in a relationship but she was too alert during what few opportunities had presented themselves, almost as if she was constantly expecting someone to try to murder her. It didn’t matter, she had already taken out Emerson’s parents, and killing the mermaids would hurt her too.

It was Chan that she wanted to make suffer the most anyway, and she knew just how to do it. She would kill the pink-haired freak’s fishy friends one by one before finally killing Chan. Maybe once the freak was dead then this curse that she was under would die along with him. And she had just the way to do it. She doubted that even those mermaids could survive a bullet to the head.

She shouldered the bag and then picked up the gun and the spare bullets that Edward kept inside his nightstand, putting the latter in her jacket pocket. She wasn’t sure what type of gun it was but it wasn’t the first time that she had used a firearm. Her father had been a firm believer that women should carry a gun for defense and know how to use them. It was the only thing worthwhile that the old bastard had taught her before he and her mother broke up when she was sixteen, he took the family fortune with him, and left them destitute. Scratch that, he’d also taught her the value of an ironclad prenup.

Other than the guards patrolling the grounds outside, Camille would only need to deal with the two inside the bunker itself; one in the bunker’s security room and the other guarding the hallway to the labs and the pool where the mermaids were kept. She had overheard them talking earlier, complaining about being short-staffed that night and she knew that the bunker was soundproofed enough that nobody should hear the gunshots. By the time anyone realized what she had done she would be long gone.

She made her way into the basement where the thick metal door to the bunker sat, though it took some effort to get it open on her own and then close it behind her. The security room that monitored the cameras was just inside the bunker doors. It was some sort of converted broom closet or something and there wasn’t much space inside, where Phil was half asleep at the desk. He started to stir at her approach but she didn’t give him a chance to do more than that before shooting him in the head, his blood and brains splattering all over the desk and the security screens.

Without another thought, she headed down the hallway where Gary was scrambling to get out of his chair beside the lab and trying to decide whether to draw his tranq gun or his cattle prod. “Miss Hart, you…” A second bullet cut off whatever protest he had been about to make and Camille walked past his body, careful to step around the pooling blood.

She didn’t want blood on her shoes, they were Jimmy Choo originals. She had to be careful not to get any on her dress either as she crouched to snatch Gary’s keycard. That potential crisis was averted easily enough though and her outfit was unspoiled as she approached the door to the poolroom to swipe the borrowed card. She couldn’t be sure if Edward had changed the access code, but cards for security didn’t need one, in case they needed to get inside a room quickly.

The poolroom was dark, too dark for her to see clearly, the damn pool didn’t even have any lighting beneath the water. Since she had only ever been there when the mermaids were already awake, she had to search for the light switch. It felt like forever that she was fumbling around before she finally found the switch. The light half-blinded her and by the time her eyes had adjusted, she saw Chan halfway between her and the pool and running toward her. Camille was surprised that the freak had legs for a moment before her survival instincts kicked in and she frantically raised her gun to fire.