They met on a stone bridge curving above the palace’s aqua garden, overlooking a field of flourishing soft coral interspersed with clusters of rock. Practically every stone featured some living creature, hermit crab, or striped feather duster wobbling in the gentle current.
Kai loved this corner of Atlantis. Here, despite the bubble surrounding the entire city, they were submerged beneath yards of pristine water.
“And how has your training progressed with Commander Manu?”
“As well as can be expected, I guess. He is a good teacher.” Aside from a few immature quibbles, she had no true complaints. The mer pushed her frequently, and he urged her always to do her best, to outperform her previous achievements and grow as a warrior.
“Excellent. I’m glad to hear it. And how are you adapting to the rest of life in Atlantis?”
“It’s…different.”
“And you’re happy here?”
If he wasn’t both her uncle and an authority figure, she would have shrugged. Happiness could be considered subjective. Was she cared for? Yes. Did they provide for her needs? Yes. Had she made friends and new acquaintances? Certainly.
But she wasn’t happy. She missed Sadie and Sunshine and wondered if they thought of her as frequently as they crossed through her mind.
“Not yet,” she answered truthfully. “But I will be.”
Aegaeon leaned forward, resting his elbows against the rail. “I appreciate your honesty. Ianthe and Neptune raised a wise girl. Brave and smart.” Before the frown could even tug her lips down, he added, “As did your mortal surrogate mother. But I didn’t call you here to kiss your tail. Tell me, what can I do to improve your outlook toward the city?”
She shook her head. “It isn’t anything concrete. I miss elements of my old life and how things used to be, but I understand I’m needed here and it isn’t about my happiness now. It’s about the safety of Atlantis.” All her life, she’d wanted to belong, and now that she’d finally found home, that sense of inclusion was still missing.
He nodded. “You may have guessed, but I called you to discuss a particularly sensitive matter, and I hope you do not take offense to my prying. Your…relationship status. Are you unmated?”
“Definitely.”
The stunned look in his eyes faded after a moment. “I imagined you would have at least taken a companion. I worried for some time that you were forced to leave them behind.”
“No.” She shook her head. “Never came close,” she uttered, gut clenching with dread.
His shoulders dipped with relief. “Despite how much we’ve needed to talk, I didn’t want to overwhelm you with too much, too soon.”
The implication stretched tension down her spine. No good could ever come from the words “we need to talk” regardless of how they were phrased. “What have I done wrong?”
“Done? Nothing. Please, it isn’t anything you’ve done wrong; it’s what I hope you will do.”
She arched a brow. “What can I do to help?”
“I won’t pretend I wouldn’t prefer to remain regent of Atlantis, but it isn’t my role to keep. The responsibility belongs to you. Until you are capable of leading the city, I will do my best to maintain the peace in your stead.”
“Thank you. I think. I’m definitely not ready, but I’ll do everything I can to prepare for when I will take my place as queen. It’s…surreal, though. Little girls above the surface dream about being princesses and queens. I never did.”
“Perhaps deep down in your subconscious, you knew you already were.” He smiled. “Now I am afraid I must get to the heart of the matter. The general visited me to voice a concern. I’ve neglected to teach you the extent of your duties. Much of what I do day-to-day in the name of preserving this kingdom can be accomplished with you by my side. Will you attend court with me each day? How else are you to learn your responsibilities if I do not share them with you, right?”
“Of course.”
“Thank you. There is one other thing. The reason for my question regarding your personal life.”
She watched his expression change, a solemn mask sliding into place where warmth had been seconds prior. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”
“Probably not,” he admitted sadly. “I need you to consider taking a husband from among the high mer.”
Her belly dropped to the floor, and nausea rippled through her chest until she thought she’d puke. “A husband?”
“No ruler can lead Atlantis alone. Your mother, the most powerful queen to lead our kingdom, took a husband as her equal to pick her up in times of sorrow, to guard her during times of weakness, and…to conceive you.”
“How the hell am I expected to lead an army if I’m pregnant?” she blurted out.
Aegaeon chuckled. “I don’t mean for it to happen right this moment.”
“I hope not this moment,” she deadpanned, hoping to diffuse the awkward situation with a little humor. “They have terms for that kind of thing on the surface, Aegaeon.”
When she cocked a brow, he grinned. “We have similar words for it here in Atlantis, I assure you. What I meant is, it doesn’t need to happen in the immediate future. Your parents were wed for centuries before they chose to have you.”
“Oh.” She nibbled her lower lip. She liked Aegaeon. Compared to most people she’d known on the surface, he was real and honest. He held nothing back from her.
And she liked that the mer had an actual sense of humor, not at all some stuffy dictator compelling her to fall into line or else. He’d given her nothing but choices since her arrival.
“The most important thing, however, was that the possibility of your birth existed. Our people waited anxiously for more than four hundred years to see a child born from their two beloved rulers.”
Four hundred years. The idea of being married to anyone so long churned her stomach and flooded her mouth again with sour bile. She couldn’t even find a man to date on Tinder, and this guy wanted her to marry someone.
“There is no need to make your decision now. I merely ask you to consider it. If so, there are ample young mers of quality from outstanding noble clans eager to meet you.”
“And I’ll have the final choice? There aren’t any unusual traditions or rules I need to know about before I agree to this, are there?” She shuddered, imagination running wild with the worst-case scenario—her uncle marrying her to a bloated, ancient, and graying old noble with a whale paunch and nothing in common with her.
She’d swim back to Galveston before she agreed to that, no matter how much she liked Aegaeon.
A wrinkle notched between his brows. “Unusual traditions?”
After she explained everything she’d ever read about the old traditions of medieval England and their predisposition for marrying young girls to ancient rulers and doddering lords old enough to have fathered them, her uncle snorted back a laugh. His shoulders shook with amusement, and then he took her hand, squeezing it.
“No. Certainly not, Kai. Ultimately, the final choice will always be yours. My duty is merely to facilitate the meetings and ensure you’ve met our best and brightest. You’re free to deny or accept whomever you desire, and of course, to court as many as you’d like at once.”
“As many as I want?”
“Romantic exploration is standard in our culture. Young mers often go through a period of courtship with many potential mates until they choose to enter an engagement with one partner. A little competition is good for them.” Aegaeon grinned. “I was one of seven pursuing Nammu.”
Kai found that difficult to believe, but maybe mers were gluttons for punishment, masochists who liked to be sneered at and talked down to. “So, a bunch of guys may fight over me? What happens when I make a choice?”
“As you dismiss them, a good sport will take it in stride and thank you for your time. Once you’re down to your final pick, however, monogamy becomes expected, much like what you’re accustomed to seeing on the surface. Will this be acceptable?”
Dating a lot of hot guys and potentially watering the sexual desert? It sounded too good to be true. “I’m down for it. When does it begin?”
“Tomorrow.”
11
The Suitable Suitor
A trio of entertainers played on a low stage at the edge of the restaurant’s dining floor. Kai sat opposite Lord Fridericus, a handsome mer with the features of an Italian runway model. His dark violet hair fell beyond his shoulders and skimmed the small of his back, woven with dozens of pearls and polished gemstones.
If there was one thing she liked about Atlantis, it was that sexism and racism didn’t exist, though those had been replaced by another evil—classism. Mers like Amerin didn’t have the same rights as high mers, all because she’d been born into a family of servants.
Kai loathed the system.
It wasn’t fair that parentage dictated their entire future. At least in America, a person born into unfortunate circumstances could claw their way to the top after running a startup business out of their garage. In Atlantis, a housekeeper would always be a housekeeper.
“Princess Kai, you honor me by accepting my invitation to dinner this evening.”
It wasn’t like I had much of a choice.
At least the view was nice, even if the guy wasn’t her type, beyond his incredible physical looks. Fridericus’s dolphin-leather suit hugged his muscular body like a second skin. When Amerin had offered her similar, she’d balked at it, distressed by the sentient creatures she once swam alongside dying to provide clothing—but Atlantis was not a vegetarian society, and they put every scrap of the creatures to use, including their teeth. So she stuffed her judgment where it belonged.
“I… Your leggings are nice,” she muttered. “It’s dolphin, isn’t it?”
He brightened. “It is. Thank you for noticing, Your Highness.”
On the third week of her arranged dates with the noble sons of Atlantis, Kai recognized one shortcoming among her suiters: noble-born men were ridiculously pretty, and pretty was not a favorable physical trait for her.
Though it wasn’t their prettiness and fair features that turned her off, as she’d spent hours drooling over the elf lord Thranduil while watching The Hobbit last year. What bothered her was that prettiness was the only defining feature among them. They had nothing else. No substance.
By the end of dinner with Fridericus, she couldn’t claw her way out of his company fast enough.
“Is the companionship not to your liking?” Aegaeon asked when she joined him for court the next day in the reception chamber. Soon, the Council of Lords would be meeting for their seasonal review of Atlantis law. As they were the kingdom’s royal advisors, he was obligated to listen to their advice, though he’d already told her he rarely took it. She looked forward to attending the meeting and discovering why.
Kai did not, however look forward to answering Aegaeon’s questions about her string of failed dates. She blinked at him. “That was a random question.”
“Not so random, my dear. Now answer the question.”
She wondered what he’d been told and by whom but sighed as she settled into the throne beside him. “They’re fine men, but not my type. Perhaps someone more…” She gestured, searching for words, hating to sound shallow but unable to bond herself to a man who spent more time in front of his mirror than she did. “Someone more masculine. Rugged.”
“I hadn’t known that to be your taste. How big and rugged are we talking?”
Her cheeks warmed a bit. “I don’t know. Like…broad shoulders and taller than me.”
“Larger than I?”
Her face flamed hotter than a torch. Talking to her uncle, with whom she was still developing a relationship, about what she found visually pleasing in men was not her idea of fun. “Quite a bit larger, please.” She and Aegaeon were only about eye to eye.
As the corner of his mouth tipped up, she got the feeling that he was restraining a bigger grin. “Of course. So you’re into whales instead of dolphins. Got it.”
“Uncle.”
“What?” he asked innocently.
“If you set me up with some blubbery man—”
Laughter shuddered through his shoulders. “Sharks then? I’m only teasing. I think I have an idea of what you’re looking for. I’ll flesh out your pool of suitors with some variety. A little from all three fields, perhaps?”
“Haha,” she said dryly, though her shoulders sagged in relief. “I’m not against, uh, larger men, as long as they take care of themselves.” She couldn’t imagine another dinner or evening stroll with a man worried about chipping his nails or getting algae on his fine clothes. To her, nothing could beat going for an evening swim through the cultivated wilderness.
It seemed quite a sad waste, their noble-born men gifted with such a beautiful talent for transforming yet unwilling to use it for anything but fashion.
“Thank you, Aegaeon. Perhaps someone with an interest in aquatic animals, too?”
His brows jumped up, and then a big grin crossed his face. “I know just the mer to send to you next. Have no worries.”
“Something tells me I should be even more worried.”
“Don’t. Trust me.”
Nearly two days later, Aegaeon summoned Kai to the palace courtyard to meet her next suitor.
Her uncle stood beside a man of impressive stature, shorter than Manu—weren’t all of them shorter than him?—but tall enough she didn’t have to hunch over to speak with him. He was the finest specimen to don a military uniform, with Manu as an exception once again, the ruler against which she measured all mers. That man was just sin in sharkskin.
Unlike the others with their waist-length tresses, this man wore his green-black hair cropped to his shoulders. Friendly turquoise eyes crinkled at the corners when he saw her.
“It is my honor to meet you this fine eve, Princess Kailani.” Dipping forward into a low bow sent his dark hair coursing forward to frame his handsome face. “I am Commander Cosmas.”
Kai’s gaze darted from Cosmas to her uncle. “Uh. Hello.” Then she searched the yard for her actual date. The man in front of her looked like he chewed up whale bones and spit them out.
“Kailani, Cosmas is the youngest nephew of my dear wife’s sister.”
“Wouldn’t that make him…?”
“My nephew by marriage, but of no blood relation to you. I consider him among the finest of the mers in my acquaintance.” The corner of Aegaeon’s mouth quirked. “And should he prove otherwise or do anything to contradict my fine opinion of him, I certainly don’t mind seeking a replacement to lead our cavalry units. As he will be shark bait.”
“He’s my date?” she blurted out at the same time Cosmas gave him an alarmed look.
“Yes.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes. I did promise to do better by you, didn’t I? There couldn’t possibly be a better match. Cosmas is the most suitable of all suitors to whom I could present you. Thank me later.” Aegaeon looked so damned proud, his chest puffed out, that she didn’t have the heart to shatter his hopes and point out this handsome mountain of man-muscle didn’t fit the job description.
The moment Aegaeon left earshot, Cosmas gave a low, nervous chuckle. “I hope he’s joking about making me shark bait. I promise to have impeccable manners.”
“If I’ve learned anything about my uncle, it’s that he has a healthy sense of humor. I imagine that’s why you’re here today.”
Cosmas blinked. “What do you mean?”
“You. Me. This arrangement. I think he’s having a joke at my expense.”
The Myrmidon commander’s mouth flattened into a tense line. “You seem startled, Your Highness. Am I not to your expectations?”
“It isn’t that. I hadn’t expected a military man. Aegaeon led me to believe I’d only be courted by nobles. Uh, high mer.”
“I am a high mer.”
Her attention darted to the insignia on his shoulders. “But you’re a Myrmidon.�
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“That I am. There are some among us high mer who voluntarily enlist in the corps, Your Highness. While we are few, we do exist.” His quiet smile soothed her raw nerves and eased the twisting sensation in her gut.
“Oh. A rare breed then.” She nibbled her lower lip, thankful her darker skin rarely showed a blush. “It’s nice to meet you. Uh, so, what are our plans?”
Was it going to be another boring dinner during which her companion strove to impress her with his knowledge of fine dining etiquette and art?
“I don’t know yet. I thought I’d play it by ear a little and see what trouble we can get into.” Cosmas offered her his arm. “Shall we?”
Kai sucked in a breath. Here goes nothing.
If it came down to it, she could always pretend the Atlantian food didn’t agree with her again and sprint away to the nearest restroom.
“I can touch it?” Kai asked, reaching out.
“You certainly can,” Cosmas said, looking keenly smug.
“I can’t believe it’s so big.”
“Things are different in Atlantis.”
“But is it supposed to be so soft and squishy? I can barely grip it.”
Cosmas rolled his eyes. “Be gentler.”
“I am being gentle.”
The baby octopus resting on the palms of her submerged hands had to be the cutest and the weirdest aquatic animal she’d ever held. It was absolutely adorable, dusky purple and blue, and a creature she’d have never touched if the merman hadn’t passed it to her and promised it was safe.
As Atlantis wasn’t anywhere near Australia, the land where anything colorful and aquatic had to be poisonous, she took his word for it.
“Are you sure that they enjoy being held?”
“They do. Now, they’re a little too young to be on their own, so they’re socialized to enjoy physical contact.”
“I’ve never seen this species before.”
“There are many species accustomed to the depths and bred to withstand the change of pressure, that you won’t find in the rest of the world. Thousands of years of magic and selective breeding have produced these little ones.” Cosmas reached into the shallow pool. One of the octopus babies wrapped around his wrist and clung to him, forcing him to withdraw it from the water. “Hello there, darling. No, we aren’t going for a swim today.”
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