Hello all my lovely friends! I know you guys have to be wondering what I’ve been up to. Well, for the most part, I’ve been actually taking some time to organize my thoughts and focus on the next adventure I’m going to write. After many, FALSE starts and a few backtracks… I BELIEVE I finally have figured out how I want to proceed…. Here’s a peak at the story I am building now….

Time stood still for Danielle as she stared at the same dark storm blue eyes she had seen in so many dreams over the years. That face. . . Nothing could make her forget that face. Even the loss of the dreams had not erased the shape of his face or the tone of his skin from her memory.

Slowly, she let her gaze rove over him. He was exactly as he had been in her dreams. His skin was pale and almost luminous. His hair, which seemed to flow in the water was a dark, almost blue black He was as beautiful as she remembered from her imagination.

She took in the masculine frame of his chest and torso, the tight curve of his abdomen. Then finally, the dark, almost metallic contrast of his tail. It was the same shade of his hair. She could imagine if he were to stand on legs, he would probably stand well over seven feet. The length of his tail hinted as much.

Her breath left her in a rush and she felt faint. Almost as if he sensed it, his hand moved to touch the glass between them, drawing her eyes. Slight webbing was easily recognized between each finger. Before she could think better of it, she started to lift her own hand to place opposite his, but stopped suddenly as she came back to herself. “What in the hell am I doing?’ she whispered as she backed away

Wake up, Danielle! She screamed to herself silently, even as she continued to stare at the Merman before her. This isn’t happening! This can’t be happening! “He isn’t real!” She exclaimed softly.

Jack chuckled wryly. “Careful, Miss Ryder. You’ll hurt the fishes’ feelings.”

She turned from the tank to glare at Jack. “I don’t know who put you guys up to this, but it isn’t funny and I sure as hell am not laughing.” With a false bravado she honestly did not feel, she turned and began toward the door, only to have one of Jack’s thugs step into her path.

Clenching her fists, she started to try to pass him. When he again blocked her, she threw up her hands in exasperation. “What do you jerks want from me? I don’t know anything about the man in the tank. My best guess is it’s a hoax. Like some crazy prank my Editor put you up to in order to give me hell because I just finished the Mermen series.”

She shrugged helplessly, shaking her head. “That’s just the sick twisted kind of thing Kendra would do to me! She hates that I’m done with the stories and I want to move on to something new.” Even as she said it, she knew she was grasping at straws. There was no way on God’s green Earth that Kendra could have EVER found a man who was so completely perfect to pretend to be the beautiful Merman she had met in her dreams.

Jack cleared his throat. “Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but that fish in the tank is not an actor, who is playing some part. Miss, Ryder, I assure you, he is real and he is everything your stories say he is. His tail changes color in various water temperatures. He can breathe air. His genitals are located underneath a kind of natural protective covering which is part of his tail.”

Feeling a growing sense of alarm, she looked from Jack to the Merman as she corrected him. “If he breathes air, he certainly isn’t a fish. He’s a mammal. You are merely insulting him by referring to him in such a way.” She sighed, turning back to the agent. “I still don’t know what you want from me.”

Jack had the nerve to look impatient. With a roll of his eyes, he gestured to the specimen angrily. “We want to know how everything about it is all common knowledge to you! When were you in contact with it and how many times! Are there others? And if you’ve fucked it, we need to know that too because you could very well be contaminated!”

Without even thinking, Danielle slapped the pompous man so hard, his head snapped back. “How dare you!” she screamed. “I am a law abiding citizen and I pay my taxes! I haven’t ever seen this creature and if I had, I’d be a whole hell of a lot smarter than to tell you, you damn donkey faced mule!”

She immediately regretted her temper when Jack’s face went from mildly cordial to stone cruel. His hand clamped over her wrist and he pulled her toward him none too gently. “I don’t believe you! I think you’ve been fish fucking for a while now and bitches like you make me sick!”

Turning back to the others, he barked, “Sedate the fish and get him out of the water. Put him in the holding cell.” Then he turned back to her, glaring. “I wonder if he’ll shed the tail to fuck you while we watch!”

He pulled her along roughly as he went. Danielle’s eyes widened at his words and she shook her head violently. This wasn’t happening. How could this be happening? Wasn’t she still in America? Surely they couldn’t do this. Her fear was beginning to be so deep, her teeth were chattering and she felt the tremors of it running through her body.

This monster was going to throw her in a room with it? Horrified, Danielle silently amended her thoughts. That’s not fair! You don’t know. He’s not human, but he is as much if not more of a victim as you are.

The words sounded right. She knew the poor creature in the tank was a victim of a crazy society that violated anything they didn’t understand or was different. Her emotions were in a turmoil and she couldn’t stop the way her imagination started running wild on her.

What if the beast was feral? What if the second they threw her in the room, it attacked? She really felt sorry for it. Truly she did. But the idea of being forced to have sex with something that had a tail sent her into survival mode.

Digging her heels into the ground, she screamed for all she was worth and tried to pull away. She had to get away. Maybe if she could break his grip, she could get out that door and if nothing else, find a place to hide. She’d just stay hidden until the bastards gave up looking.

Unfortunately, the agents had anticipated her refusal to comply with their requests. She almost didn’t feel the needle when it pricked the side of her neck. Her eyes widened in horrified shock and she looked at Jack with an expression that was reminiscent of a deer caught unaware by a cars headlights.

The fight went out of her immediately and as she sank to the ground, her voice cooperated long enough for her to get out one whispered word. “Why?” Of course, before Jack could consider giving her an answer, everything had faded into nothing and her world went black.