Chapter 1

Ariel

“Gather the swimming hookers,” Pirate Doug bellowed, stomping through the lobby of the resort in his absurdly dated puffy shirt, knee high boots and breeches. “We’ve got a problem.”

I rolled my eyes and tried not to laugh—or groan. He wasa Pirate and he wasfive hundred years old… but come on, did he really have to dress like a Captain Hook wannabe?

“They are not hookers,” my sister Tallulah hissed at her questionably intelligent but very hot—despite the bad fashion choices—mate. “We’re Mermaids and if you can’t remember that I’ll twist your Johnson into a pretzel.”

“Aye, my bad,” Pirate Doug amended with a wide grin as he snapped his fingers and conjured up a steel pecker protector. “Gather the Mermaid hookers.”

I giggled as I watched my sister’s eyes narrow dangerously at her idiotic other half. He was every kind of ridiculous, but he loved Tallulah to a distraction and she loved him right back. Training the dumbass to have social skills was taking up an inordinate amount of my sister’s time. Which left running our Bermuda Triangle island tourist business to me and my two other sisters—Misty and Madison.

I was getting bored. And if I was being honest… I was jealous. Not that I didn’t want Tallulah to be happy. I did. I adored my sister. I just wanted to have my own adventures and find my true love too. And I certainly wasn’t going to discover him stuck on Mystical Isle running a tourist trap for humans…

With an exasperated huff at her mate, Tallulah left the lobby and went back to work. However, Pirate Doug being the randy idiot that he was, copped a quick feel of her bottom as she exited. My sister’s squeal of delight made me close my eyes and shake my head. I really didn’t know what she saw in the dummy, but he clearly made her happy.

Me? He drove me nuts.

“Ariel, my lovely blue haired sister-in-law,” Pirate Doug said as he swept grandly up to the front desk that I was manning. “Have you seen my arses?”

“Okay, first of all… gross. As far as I know you only have one ass and if you have more than one I really don’t want to hear about it,” I said with a slight gag.

“Not my arse on my backside,” he explained. “As fabulous as it is, the world couldn’t handle more than one. I’m talking about my crewof arses.”

My lacking in the brains department brother-in-law was referring to his Pirate crew—Bonar, Upton and Thornycraft. And he was correct. They were arses. However, they’d grown on me in the six months they’d been living on the island. They were missing more brain cells than Pirate Doug, but they were funny and bizarrely sweet. Understanding them was a slight challenge as they mostly spoke Pirate, but they’d become the brothers I’d never had and didn’t really want.

“They’re on the beach leading the human guests in Sunrise Yoga,” I told him.

“Sweet Poseidon on a bender in a rum distillery,” Pirate Doug said, paling considerably. “That’s a shite idea. Might be bad for business.”

“Why?” I asked growing alarmed.

We’d just reopened our resort. After a drawn out war with the odiferous and toothless Sea Hags, we’d had a lot of rebuilding to do. Even though we now had a truce with the Hags, the damage had been done. We needed paying human guests if we were going to survive in the competitive tourist trap business.

“Upton is very flexible—can lick his own nards. Not sure that will be an appetizing sight before the morning meal.”

“Are you fucking kidding?” I shouted, jumping out from behind the front desk and sprinting toward the colorful seashell encrusted archway that led to the beach.

“No, I’m fucking your sister,” Pirate Doug replied in confusion, running right on my heels.

“No, I meant… never mind,” I huffed. Trying to explain what one meant to Pirate Doug was a losing proposition that could take weeks or years. Most of us had simply given up.

I stopped short and sucked in a horrified breath as I came upon a terrifying sight. Upton could indeed lick his nards and was proudly demonstrating much to the shock of the guests. He was twisted into a position that appeared incredibly painful. A few humans were snapping photos with their phones. We reallydidn’t need Upton’s face in his bits all over the internet. I was not of the mind that thought all publicity was good publicity. A Pirate with his lips touching his nards was notgood publicity.

“Enough. Take your freakin’ balls out of your mouth,” I shouted. Never in my two hundred years on this Earth had I ever used those words together in a sentence. I covertly aimed a blast of magic directly at the object of Upton’s tongue’s affections.

Luckily the humans had turned their attention to me and missed the sparkling blue spiral of magic that landed exactly where I sent it. It was a well known fact that Mermaids and other immortal creatures were gifted in the enchantment department, but it was best that the mortals didn’t actually witness all we could do.

“Me nards are on fire,” Upton screamed as he sprinted his naked self across the pristine white sand and into the ocean to cool down his balls. “Ariel, yarr a blue haired, cod faced, tar stain,” he grunted right before he submerged his flaming testicles in the salty water. “Ye might be pretty to look at, but yarr an evil wench!”

The only part of his insult he’d gotten correct was my hair color and the fact that I was attractive. All Mermaids aka Sirens were beautiful. We were created by Poseidon to lure innocent men into our traps. That practice was now totally old school. These days the only traps we ran were for tourists and we dated immortal asshats not innocent men—or at least I did.

A Mermaid’s hair and eyes were set from birth. My color was blue, Tallulah’s was lavender, Misty’s was emerald green and Madison’s was pink. Each Mermaid’s hair and eyes matched and were unique to them. No two were alike. However, the color of our tails changed with our moods and our fashion choices. Later today when I had time to hit the water my tail would be shimmering black—I was feeling grumpy and Upton’s disgusting contortionist act certainly didn’t help.

“So sorry about that,” I said to our guests with a smile plastered on my face that I prayed to Poseidon didn’t look fake. “Please come back to the lodge. Breakfast is served—that is if you still have an appetite.”

A shell-shocked looking group of mortals slowly made their way back to the festive outdoor restaurant at the resort. Upton, having realized he was soaking his injured nut sac in salt water continued to shriek like a girl. Thornycraft, Bonar and Pirate Doug were laughing.

I wasn’t.

I reallyneeded a vacation or an adventure… or at the very least a day off.

Another day in paradise was sucking the big one.

***

“Upton did what?” Madison asked with her eyes squinted at me.

“Licked his own nuts in front of fourteen paying human guests. Two of them were children. I’m expecting a few lawsuits or at least some therapy bills,” I replied, plopping down on the rainbow velvet couch in the luxurious quarters that I shared with my sisters. It was wildly colorful and eclectic—just like us. Tallulah had moved to her own lovely cottage on the other side of our island with Pirate Doug after they’d mated. This was a very good thing as they tended to be loud.

“Like put his ballsin his mouth?” Misty inquired, trying not to laugh.

“Yep. And from where I was standing it looked like his nose was stuck in his crack,” I replied with a shudder at the horrifying memory.

“Pirates are just all kinds of wrong,” Misty said, shaking her head and sitting down next to me. “What are they?”

“What are who?” Madison asked as she snapped her fingers and conjured up three Pina Coladas. “These are virgin,” she promised as she handed one to me and one to Misty. “Not that a porno exhibition on the beach at seven AM doesn’t merit some rum, but I figured we can start getting soused at lunch.”

“What exactly areUpton, Thornycraft and Bonar?” Misty repeated as she retrieved a bottle of rum from the stash we kept hidden under the couch. She topped off her own drink and handed me the bottle.

I took a healthy swig and winced. It was next to impossible for a Mermaid to get seriously drunk, but I was going to try. The day ahead was most certainly going to be filled with mind numbing surprises. Pirate Doug still wanted to have a meeting.

“According to our sticky-fingered brother-in-law, they’re arses,” I said with a giggle as I took another swig.

“That’s a given,” Madison agreed and took the bottle from my hands. After chugging the remainder of the rum, she hiccupped and giggled. “But what kind of immortal species are they? I know they’re older than dirt. I just don’t have any clue what they are.”

“Well, Pirate Doug is a Vampire and heir to Poseidon’s throne. I know for sure the arsesaren’t Vamps,” Madison said.

“How?” I asked.

“No sunscreen,” she replied. “Ol’ Dougie can’t go outside without 100 SPF slathered all over him.”

“Right,” I said, trying to imagine which kind of creatures the idiots could be. “Well, most animals can lick their nards. You think they’re some sort of shifter?”

“Possibly,” Misty said. “But in the battle with the Kraken, none of them shifted.”

“Hmm,” I said. “Maybe their species is better left a mystery. There’s only so much alarming news I can handle today.”

“Speaking of alarming… does anyone have any idea what Pirate Slug wants to discuss?” Madison asked.

“Nope,” I said, standing up and wanting to get it over with. “However, if the jackhole suggests were wear Hooter’s uniforms again during work hours, I’ll castrate him.”

“Here,” Misty said, clapping her hands and producing a dull butter knife.

“What is this for?” I asked, examining it.

“For memberremoval,” she said with a naughty grin. “Our brother-in-law can regenerate his limbs and otherstuff. If you’re gonna remove his Johnson, you’re gonna make it hurt.”

My grin spread wide across my lips.

I loved my sisters so much.

Having my own true love like Tallulah did would be awesome, but until that time came all my love and affection was reserved for my devilishly fabulous sisters.

Not exactly the perfect situation, but for now it was pretty damned good.