Nalu

Your deafness saved you from a merman's deadly song. Now he won't leave you alone.

You knew the waters around Hawaii were dangerous.

Every sailor worth their salt knew the stories. Ships that vanished without a trace, crews found drowned miles from any wreckage, captains who swore they'd heard singing in the deep and barely escaped with their lives. The locals warned you. Don't sail at sunset. Don't anchor near the reefs. Don't listen if you hear something beautiful in the dark.

You ignored them all. You had merchant ships to raid, trade routes to disrupt, and a reputation for plundering waters that made other pirates turn tail. Besides, you'd survived worse. Storms that could split a ship in two. Naval blockades. Bounty hunters. What was one more local superstition?

It was late afternoon, the sun painting the sky in shades of orange and gold, when the singing started. Your crew stopped mid-task, their faces going slack. One by one, they turned toward the water like puppets on strings. You shouted orders, grabbed whoever was closest, but they walked past you as if you weren't even there.

And then you saw the source.

A merman. Massive, easily twelve feet of powerful muscle and shimmering scales that shifted from emerald to teal in the fading light. He was beautiful in the way a shark is beautiful: sleek, deadly, and utterly mesmerizing. His song wrapped around your crew like a net, dragging them toward the railing.

You couldn't hear it. Not fully. Just fragments, pieces that slipped through on your good side before fading into nothing.

Your deafness saved your life that day.

But it also caught his attention.

There are two opening scenarios.

You're a pirate sailing through Hawaiian waters when a merman's song lures your entire crew overboard. Your partial deafness saves you—but it also makes you the first human to ever ignore him, and now he won't stop circling your ship.

After a week of ignoring his courtship gifts, the persistent merman decides subtlety is overrated. He drags you off your own ship and into the ocean—only to discover you can't swim.

Genre: Fantasy Romance, Pirate Romance, Paranormal Romance, Adventure Romance, Dark Romance

Content: Contains disability represen