Book Title: ENSNARING THE SIREN - Haven Cove #3
Character Name: Nireed
A features editor at the Haven Cove Daily joins Nireed, a mermaid that lives off the coast of Haven Cove, Maine, for a dockside interview.
Reader discretion is advised: This interview contains dark humor and candid realities about vicious merfolk life.
Nireed, can you tell us about where you live?
(Interviewee flicks tail) The ocean?
Where your pod lives within the ocean.
In an underwater city, about a day’s swim from here. Our foreparents carved it into the side of a sea cliff, creating the tunnels and caverns where we live.
How often do you encounter humans?
For a long time, never. We stick to the deep as much as possible. It’s quieter there. Your boats are noisy.
Is that why you’re wearing earplugs? There’s a lot of shipping traffic in the harbor today.
Yes. It hurts to be too close.
Do you want to talk about the mermaid study you were a part of at the Haven Cove Marine Research Center? The Haven Cove Daily has covered it extensively in the past, including an exposé on the study’s ethical issues, but we’ve never heard your side.
It’s hard to talk about. I only wanted to help my pod, and the study did, in the end.
But at your expense. Do you regret it?
No. I would do it again, if I had to. But I hope once was enough.
I want to talk about something else now.
Of course. Let’s keep it light then. What’s your favorite food?
(Nireed perks up) Someone with a decent amount of thigh meat, otherwise, it’s not worth the effort. Organs are tasty, but you need to be careful around the abdominal cavity. It gets…messy.
The less hairy they are the better, too, but that’s hard to come by.
(Interviewer shifts uncomfortably)
I mean…spam.
What’s your biggest pet peeve?
Being dry.
Greatest disappointment?
Beer. (Nireed leans forward, whispering) Did you know that’s not seafoam on top?
No, no it is not. What’s your greatest source of joy?
Riding storm waves. The higher the better.
Kind of like a rollercoaster.
I don’t know what that is, but if it goes up really high, then crashes down really fast, yes.
What else do you enjoy?
Scaring the Coast Warrior.
Who’s the Coast Warrior?
A Surface Dweller that sometimes drops from the sky into merfolk territory from something called a Hel-i-copter. A very good swimmer, surprisingly. He wears these funny looking fins on his feet and rescues people. Or, well, tries.
Tries?
If I don’t eat them first.
Why do you…you know what, nevermind. We’ll circle back to this. Does this Coast Warrior have a name?
His name is Reid.
So ‘Coast Warrior’ is a nickname?
Yes. He tells me he’s a part of the ‘Coast Guard’, but ‘Coast Warrior’ sounds better.
Does he call you anything?
I told him once that my family used to call me ‘Starfish.’ He hasn’t stopped using it since. I don’t understand why.
It sounds like you have an interesting relationship with Reid.
(Nireed blushes) Relationship? No relationship. He’s trying to rescue my enemies.
(Interviewer gives her a pointed look)
(She sighs) I guess he’s not bad looking for a Surface-Dweller.
You haven’t tried to…eat him, have you?
No. He poses no threat to the pod.
But someone is threatening the pod. Who are these enemies you mentioned?
(Nireed hisses) Fishermen. There are some who’ve been targeting the pod, snatching us up in their nets.
Our investigations team at the Haven Cove Daily will definitely be looking into that. What would you say to the people, or uh, Surface-Dwellers who might still be nervous around merfolk? And who don’t want to get eaten by the pod.
Try to capture us, and we’ll eat you. Don’t try to capture us, and we won’t eat you. (Shrugs) Simple.
Haven Cove #3
As a rescue swimmer for the U.S. Coast Guard, Reid Kruetz has a healthy respect for the ocean and its dangers but conducting search and rescue operations in heavy seas is just another Tuesday.
That is, until two high-profile cases bring him to Haven Cove, Maine, a small coastal town known for its vicious mermaids. While on a case, the crew he’s meant to rescue is yanked into the deep, never to resurface again, and he’s brought face-to-face with an amber-eyed mermaid, her lips red with blood. But there’s more to her than stunning, deadly beauty, and she leaves him alive with a message he can’t ignore: her kind are being hunted to extinction.
Nireed and her merfolk kin are fighting for survival. While recovering from the brain virus that ripped apart their community, a new threat dwindles their numbers. A nefarious group of fishermen are targeting their kind, using their favorite delicacy to lure them in.
Dead or alive, she will not be captured. Not ever again.
And yet, if she’s to protect her own people without destroying the tenuous peace between merfolk and humankind, she will have to learn to work with the infuriatingly handsome human who tried to save her enemies. But it soon becomes clear that there’s another threat to her life at sea, and it isn’t any net, but the surface-dweller seeking to ensnare her heart.
Romance Paranormal [City Owl Press, On Sale: August 6, 2024, e-Book, / ]
By night, Desirée M. Niccoli writes a blend of vicious romance and cozy horror, featuring monsters, villains, and the supernatural, often served with (mostly) emotionally intelligent characters and heart. By day, she is a public relations professional living the nomadic military life with her husband and two cats Pawdry Hepburn and Puma Thurman. Although born and raised in Pittsburgh, Desirée has since lived in coastal Maine (where her spooky heart truly lies), Maryland, and Connecticut.
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