She squeezed him tightly and then released him. "My dear friend, I said that I would help you, and you have been a man of your word. That is so rare." She paused, kissed him quickly, and stared at him. "I love being your friend, thank you for being mine," she whispered, brushing his mouth and drawing away. "She's angry about my biting you, isn't she? I can feel it." Carlos looked at the gorgeous creature for a moment, but there was no reason to keep up the ruse. He nodded. "Yeah."
"Oh," she murmured, her jewel-green eyes becoming genuinely sad. "Then, I have to give her a gift... an exchange. I must let her know I meant no harm."
"Naw, that won't be necessary," Carlos said with a weary sigh.
"Yes it is," Zehiradangra said, smiling widely as her gaze went to the waves. "Don't let her stay angry." She clapped her hands excitedly. "A pearl. That is it--"
"No, Damali doesn't need--"
"Oh, yes, Carlos. What goddess can resist? Pearls are mystical. Teardrops of the moon, thought to be the passage of angels through the clouds... I insist. It is your mystical birthstone, too."
He chuckled. "I'm a Scorp. Topaz is my stone."
She wagged her finger playfully. "No, no, no. That is your zodiac stone. Your mystical birthstone, oh man of deep passionate waters, is the pearl... In my culture, it is your Ayurvedic birthstone. It is the oldest known organic gemstone worn by brides, a symbol of purity and innocence--which she is. Do not allow Cain to make her his wife. He has had many; you have had none but her. This is unfair and unbalanced. She must know that you two are linked through your mystical birthstone to her innocence. This will be my gift to quietly tell her, I meant no harm. Let me do this, please?"
She didn't wait for him to answer as she walked toward the water, beginning to skip like a child as she approached it. She bent down and touched the sand, feeling the grains of it as the water's attention tickled her feet. She stood, spun around, and laughed. "Carlos, it is so different from Cain's pool! I had forgotten how alive and how vast the sea is... oh... I shall find something magnificent for her, do not worry!"
She ran into the waves and splashed about. Carlos watched her from a faraway place in his mind. He remembered Damali's communion with the surf at night in St. Lucia, how she laughed and splashed as though seeing waves for the first time.
A deep sadness weighed on his soul. A creature as lovely and good hearted as Zehiradangra had been captured and kept in a large fish tank devoid of full sensation? Cruel. He now better understood why Cain had water everywhere in his palaces... it was for her. He would have offered her no less, if that was all he could do. It was also clear to him now that she was Cain's main woman. He knew it like he knew his name as he watched her dance with the rolling tide, sliding in and out of it, and then finally transforming into the elongated, pearl-scaled beauty that could no longer resist the pull of the sea.
That's where she belonged, a free spirit open to the seas of the world.
Laughing, alive, ignited by nature. Mystical, wondrous, unbridled, no boundaries. Cain could capture all the sensations he wanted within his still, artificial tanks, but he couldn't give this odd beauty what she needed... room to stretch her wings and fly.
"Fly away, baby," Carlos whispered. "Find the roof of the world, the depths of the sea, and never look back."
There was no resistance in him as he watched her gleaming body form rising and falling flashes of dawn-lit scales, each hump surfacing to quickly submerge in a sea serpent dance. Dance with the waves... forever, my friend.
"Are you mad?" A deep male voice thundered, almost knocking Carlos down.
Cain instantly appeared by his side. Nonplussed, the territorial outrage made a half-smile tug at Carlos's mouth. "Fair exchange is no robbery, my brutha."
Cain glared at him and then the sea. "Zehiradangra, I forbid you to go any farther!" Cain paced a hot path back and forth along the water's edge, and then he spun on Carlos when her body disappeared under the blue-green surface. "You young, stupid fool," Cain spat. "Hey, like you told me," Carlos said with a casual shrug, "if you can't keep your