Return to Atlantis: a Fantasy Romance (Kingdom in the Sea Book 1)
Page 16
Because aside from the occasional moment of appreciating his good looks, she felt nothing for him. Cosmas wasn’t the man she dreamed about kissing at night, and he wasn’t the man who had dominated her thoughts since the moment she saw him at a beachside bar in Galveston.
22
Closure
Humans may have fucked up a lot of other shit throughout the centuries, but they did one thing right when they invented coffee. Irritable from his lack of sleep, Manu sipped the sweet black brew and observed the tidy lines of new recruits in the training yard before him, thanking the gods he wasn’t instructing today—merely an observer.
Some of the lads were just shy of adulthood, youngsters desperate to make a difference in their enormous kingdom or to earn a living to help their families. A few came from as far as hundreds of leagues away for training, some from distant colonies, others from farmland on the Atlantian outskirts, the eldest sons of share-croppers who worked the land for nobles too good to get their hands in algae.
It was a shame more of the noble-born didn’t take after their princess.
And there he was thinking of her again. All trains of thought led back to Kailani for some reason, no matter how much he tried to focus on his day.
Kai shouldn’t have occupied Manu’s mind as often as she did, but the woman was inescapable. He thought about her at all hours of the day, whether he was training, teaching, or attempting to sleep in his bed each night. There, she was a persistent thorn in his sleeping schedule, a barb burrowing into his subconscious, because then he dreamed about her.
In short, he was in hell. A hell where the woman of your dreams floated beyond your reach, absolutely unattainable. Not only was she royalty, but she belonged to a good friend he respected too much to make a move on her. Cosmas didn’t appear to be too excited about potentially courting the princess, but the man could be strange, accustomed to rich and spoiled mer heiresses throwing themselves at him. They found it sexy that he was both highborn and a Myrmidon, a risk taken by too few of their haughty counterparts.
In the old days, even a few centuries past, it wasn’t uncommon for high mer to enter the military. He wondered what led to the change—when it changed. As long as he’d been alive, mers like Cosmas were an anomaly, a rare breed envied by their peers for their bravery and honored by the commoners for their sacrifice. As if being wealthy and more magical than others made them greater.
Pondering these things took his mind off of what was becoming a very troublesome and concerning addiction to the princess, which was why he’d needed a few days off for his sanity. He’d given her some crab-and-eel story about wanting her to rest, but the truth was that when focused and motivated, she’d turned into a damn machine.
A mer stepped up to his side and saluted. “Commander. You have a visitor.”
“Who is it?”
“Princess Kailani’s handmaiden.”
“Amerin?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll meet her in my office. Have her wait for me there.”
When he reached the room, Amerin had taken a seat opposite his desk with her hands folded in her lap. She’d dressed in a sleeveless silk dress and wore her braids decorated with polished coral beads. In a word, he’d call her pretty—delightfully cute, but too impish for his tastes.
“Greetings, Commander. I hope I didn’t pull you away from important matters.”
“Likewise, I hope I didn’t keep you waiting too long. What can I do for you, Amerin?”
“I come on behalf of Princess Kailani.”
His heart gave a violent thump against his ribs before common sense told him to calm. There were a dozen reasons a woman could send her handmaiden to a mer on her behalf. “Why is that?”
“She doesn’t know that I’m here, but…” Thank the gods. He relaxed. “She misses her family. I thought perhaps…” Amerin bit her lower lip, looking shy. “I could be wrong, but you like her, don’t you?”
“Everyone likes the princess.”
“Yes, they do, but with you I sense it’s more than the loyalty a mer feels for his queen, more than a liking in the fraternal sense, and definitely more than any amicable sort of friendship. I see how you look at her when no one else is present, when it’s only the three of us. You forget that I’m there. It’s all right. Most people forget that I’m present, but I like it that way. It allows me to see the things most would conceal from others.” When he didn’t respond, she carried on. “What I see when I watch the two of you is mutual interest.”
Manu said nothing. He didn’t dare confirm such a foolish notion with the woman’s personal servant, knowing she was bound by loyalty to repeat anything Kai asked about.
“You do want her. Oh, don’t worry. I don’t plan to share my suspicions. They are, after all, only suspicions.” Amerin giggled. “But you should have seen your face when I suggested you could possibly feel romantically for her.” Then she tilted her head. “Or at least, something lustful.”
“I don’t.”
“You’re a liar.”
“I—”
“But that’s not why I came. We’re off the topic now. I came because my princess worries about her family and how they’ve fared since you took her away. You may have been under orders, but you snatched her, giving her no chance to say goodbye to her loved ones.”
“I didn’t realize she had loved ones then,” he growled.
“Now you do. And now you can fix it. So…what do you say, Commander? Do you have it in you to visit the surface world for a chat with our princess’s mortal kin?”
“They’re not even her kin. They’re humans who took her in and raised her, but they’re not related. They’re not blood.”
Amerin tilted her head. “No, they’re not. But given how you feel about your blood, one would think you’d realize that relation isn’t everything.”
He didn’t respond. Did everyone across Atlantis know that he had an asshole for a father?
“I’ll leave you to think about it,” Amerin said, rising gracefully from the seat. She then set a wrapped bundle on his desk.
“What’s that?” He eyed it with as much trust as he’d give a lump of fire coral.
Her cheeks dimpled when she smiled. “Something from the princess.”
Something told him to decline the gift, but his curiosity got the better of him and he tugged the sparkling twine binding it. The packaging fell apart to reveal a pair of golden starfish tucked in an open coral box.
Manu stared at them. He really stared, because part of him thought if he continued to look at them, they would morph into something that made sense.
“Well,” Amerin said, still grinning cutely, mischief in her eyes. “I’ll leave you to it. Good day, Commander.”
The gift couldn’t be correct. Though they weren’t in Pacifica, he knew the traditions well, branded into him by his mother as a child. A starfish given there symbolized one thing, and one thing only, when gifted to another mer: love.
Were it any other matter, Manu would have approached his father. But since his father was a world class dick, he bypassed the general and requested a private meeting with Regent Aegaeon in the man’s personal office instead.
He rehearsed his request in his head on the way. Worst-case scenario, Aegaeon declined, and when his father found out, he spent weeks in shitty assignments until the man got over it.
Manu reached the door and paused instead of rapping his knuckles against the thick panel. The usual pair of guards weren’t at their post. Something struck him as amiss, though he couldn’t place it, and the fine hairs on his nape rose, his arms breaking out in goosebumps.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Aegaeon was saying. Someone replied, their voice an indiscernible hiss in the otherwise quiet room. Manu knew he shouldn’t eavesdrop, but he strained to hear the other speaker. “I told you, the risk is too—”
“Lies.” The voice sounded female.
The room fell silent again. A chair scraped against stone.
“Enter,” Aegaeon called. Then the door swung inward to reveal the high mer lord sitting behind his desk, a warm smile on his face.
Manu stepped inside and shut the door behind him. “Good day, my lord. Thank you for agreeing to see me today.” Somehow, he resisted the urge to check out the room, though nothing stood out of place. Had anyone left the office, they would have had to pass him, he was sure.
“Any time, Commander. You’re a little earlier than I expected, but my office is always open to you. Now, what brings you here to see me?”
He had to steel his nerves and prepare for pitching the ludicrous idea to their interim ruler. After a deep breath, still feeling quite ridiculous, Manu said, “I’d like permission to return to the surface. For Princess Kailani.”
Aegaeon’s brows rose. “To what purpose?”
“She worries about her mortal family. I fear the distraction prevents her from attaining her full potential.”
“And what do you hope to accomplish during this visit?”
Ignoring the perspiration slicking his palms, and the niggling self-doubt arising—borne from years of listening to his father’s negativity—Manu raised his chin. “Provide them assurance of her safety. Explain what she wasn’t given the chance to say.”
Unconvinced, Aegaeon leaned back in his seat and crossed his legs. “They’re mortal. What good does it do to tell them the truth?”
“They wouldn’t be the first surfacelanders who know about Atlantis. Thousands work with our kingdom each year, Your Grace. They import and export our goods.”
“And you believe they’d keep their silence?”
“I do. Princess Kailani thinks highly of them both. Notifying them of her survival would provide her with much-needed closure to focus on the tasks ahead. She’s already seen tremendous improvement since the events at Fare, and I believe she’ll only continue to grow once her past life related to the surface is behind her.” The traumatizing events at the Pharae colony had been a decisive chip in her stubborn psyche, chiseling a facet in the otherwise unpolished jewel known as Kai.
It hadn’t broken her, after all. It made her shine.
Aegaeon didn’t speak for some time. He rubbed his face and cradled his cheek against one palm, elbow supported by his armrest. Manu held his breath.
“All right. Request granted.”
Fuck, yes. He didn’t pump a fist in victory before their interim ruler, however.
“If this is what you feel is necessary for Zephyr—Kailani’s happiness and emotional well-being, who am I to stand in the way? Will you leave at once?”
“If permitted.”
“Then please, by all means, leave as soon as possible. The earlier she is able to move forward from her past life, the better. Perhaps we can make arrangements for her to meet her mortal friends in time, once she’s settled into Atlantian life.” His fair brows slid inward. “Or invite them to visit her. They would not be the first humans.”
“Perhaps,” Manu agreed, still celebrating the victory. He’d visited the man with every expectation of failure.
A worry line creased Aegaeon’s brow. “But what of her training in your absence?”
“I plan to visit Commander Cosmas. During my absence, he can provide her a week of instruction with the sharks. We can’t expect her to be a well-rounded Queen of Atlantis if she’s never ridden a battle shark. Who better to teach her to ride than our cavalry commander?”
“Excellent point. Go with my blessing, then. Cosmas will make an adequate substitute in the meantime. There’s no better time to begin training her water magic than now.”
Less than three days after leaving Atlantis behind, Manu stood on Galveston’s golden-brown shoreline and wondered what the hell he was doing. Traveling to the Texas city had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now he sorely regretted allowing Amerin to talk him into her little scheme.
When he’d set off from Atlantis, he’d had every confidence in the simple plan of giving Kai’s mortal family the closure they deserved.
Too late to turn back. He’d stood up to his father for it, even accepted that somewhere across the ocean, Cosmas Stormshark was probably teaching the most perfect woman in all of Atlantis how to straddle a beast capable of swimming one hundred miles an hour. The fastest sharks in all the world lived in their kingdom, a crossbreed between a mako shark and a skiafin. The latter was an endangered magical species found cruising only at the bottom of the Mediterranean.
As much as he wanted to envy Cosmas his fortune, his fellow commander deserved a good woman, though he didn’t understand the mer’s reluctance to marry her. In his eyes, Kai was more than the best. What she lacked in training and strength, she made up for with intentions. Heart. Love.
He’d already decided that the pair of starfish had to be a joke or Amerin meddling in their business. Kai barely knew Atlantian culture, so it seemed foolish in hindsight to believe for a moment she’d learned about rituals in Pacifica. There, a young merwoman who decided to accept a potential mate’s courtship gifted him with a pair of starfish.
Fuck. He had to get her out of his head. And a good way to start would be by addressing the task that brought him to mortal shores. Putting all thoughts of Kai from his mind but those that mattered for his mission, he ventured from the beach and approached the front of her family’s house. The white two-story building stood on wooden stilts overlooking the beach, though the front of it straddled a stretch of green grass. One flight of steps took him to the front door. He knocked.
“Just a minute!” Then the door opened, and the blonde woman on the other side peered out, kind blue eyes studying him. “May I help you?”
“I am looking for Sunshine Queen.”
“That’s me. Do I know you?”
He sucked in a deep breath and thought back to what he’d rehearsed during the days of travel. “Not personally. I’m a friend of your daughter.”
“Sadie?”
“Kailani.”
Her grip on the doorframe tightened, turning her knuckles white. “I…I’m sorry to be the one to share this news with you, but my daughter is gone. She…” Her shoulders trembled, and she blinked away the moisture swimming in her eyes. “She’s gone.”
“Yes. She is,” he agreed in a gentle voice. “May I come inside to speak with you? I won’t take more of your time than what’s needed, but I have something I must show you. Something your daughter would want you to see.”
“Yes, yes, of course. Forgive my manners.”
“Forgive mine. I’m Manu, and it’s my honor to meet you.”
Sunshine gestured for him to follow her. After shutting the door, she led the way to the kitchen and moved a kettle to the stove. It was then that she raked her gaze over his sharkskin suit, noticing it for the first time. “You say you were a friend of my daughter?”
He didn’t sit. “I am a friend of your daughter. You are right that she is gone from this place, but I came here to pass along a message. She wanted you to know she’s returned to her people.”
She dropped a mug. Bits of ceramic skittered across the floor.
“And she also wanted you to know she is well, that she is not dead. She is home again where she belongs, but she will never forget you. She hopes you’ll one day forgive her for leaving as she did. And that in time, she may even be able to visit.”
Time stood still. He waited for her to order him out, to scream, to deny his words or claim he was insane. She did none of those things. Instead, she broke into tears and clutched a hand to her chest.
“Thank you,” Sunshine breathed, shoulders shaking, a sob shuddering through her body. “Thank you.”
“Thank you?” He’d expected an argument about it, given how infrequently mortals accepted the existence of magic when it wasn’t in front of their eyes. When she didn’t scream and demand he leave, he crouched and picked
up the broken pieces.
“I always knew Kai was special. Always knew there was something different about her. I thought…” Her shoulders shook. “Thank the goddess. No…thank you.”
“You believe me?” Manu asked, straightening to set the pieces of shattered cup on the counter.
“Why wouldn’t I believe you? Kai was…” Sucking in a few breaths seemed to calm her shudders. “I knew from the moment they brought Kailani to my doorstep that she was different from other children. But I loved her. I loved her for so many reasons. There was never a moment she didn’t make me proud.”
Funny how he felt the same way. Despite her struggles and the moments when she drove him mad, he couldn’t ask for a better student. Though it would have been nice if she wasn’t the sexiest warrior goddess to ever pull on fish scales. “She is amazing, and I consider myself fortunate to be her friend.” Though it was a strange and unusual kind of friendship.
“She doesn’t know I’m here.” He couldn’t help the smile curving his lips. “But she will soon. Take this.”
When Sunshine held her hand out, he placed a palm-sized clam shell upon it. “What is it?”
“A way used to communicate within Atlantis.”
The older woman’s eyes grew wide, but she slipped her thumbnail between the two shell halves and popped it open. “Atlantis?”
The inside glowed with a mirror shine, the mother of pearl interior enchanted to connect to another paired device. The lower half reflected the viewer’s face in dazzling definition, or whatever they were transmitting to the other participant of the conversation. The top half displayed the ceiling of Kailani’s personal chambers.
“Honestly, Amerin,” Kai’s voice echoed from the open thing. “I don’t have time to play with toys. I have history lessons in fif—”
“Kai?” Sunshine blurted into the shell.
All noise on the other end of the line went silent. He stood close enough to see Kai’s face when she appeared in the reflection. She screamed. “Mom? How are you—how did—?”