by Loki Renard
“I got you! I got you!” She laughs. “I got you with the zapper!”
“That’s her favorite prank,” Raine informs me. “It’s a toy from Earth. It gives people little shocks.”
“Your face!” Sapphire smirks. “I know what a handshake is! I’m not stupid! I’m almost ten!”
Suddenly, I sense the connection, so powerfully it is almost overwhelming. I see my expression laid on fresh features. She is part of me. There can be no doubting it. The mixture of arrogance, intelligence, and a complete commitment to deception is very me.
“She’s your daughter,” Raine says.
“Yes,” I agree. “She is. Sapphire, would you like to learn some new tricks?”
“What kind of tricks?”
I put my hand on her shoulder and smile down into her treacherous little face. “All of them. First, we’re going to learn how to turn frogs into…”
“Other frogs?” she guesses wildly and incorrectly.
“Talking frogs.”
Sapphire’s eyes open wide. “Talking frogs!?”
“Yes. Very talking frogs. Who wear clothes.”
She grasps my hand tight and beams brightly, turning her head toward her mother. “I like him now, mama!”
“I like him too, baby,” she smiles, then looks up to meet my eyes. “I like him a lot.”
Epilogue
Many happy weeks later…
Raine
I was terrified that Tanuk and Sapphire would not get along, that too much time had passed since her birth, that Tanuk would not accept Sapphire and that Sapphire would be too attached to her human shard to be able to connect with him.
I no longer worry about that. The two of them bonded near instantly over a shared love of misdirecting and messing with those around them. Helios and Ragnar are glad enough not to have the chaos of these two on the island where the golden palace resides, though we visit them every now and then. They are yet to visit us on Tanuk’s island where we all live, but I am sure that will happen one day.
There can be no denying that there has been a shift in power on Okeanus. Tanuk was a minor deity when we first met, but with the power of the people living on his island, I sense his strength growing every hour, every day. He is not alone. Sapphire is also growing and becoming more like her father every day.
It is a sunny afternoon on the island. I am lying on the beach while Sapphire plays with some of the other children from the other shards. Tanuk’s island is quite a bustling place now, with houses popping up all over the place to suit the new inhabitants. We live in a cottage at the foot of a waterfall. Tanuk allowed me to choose it. He still prefers his den, but a hole in the ground covered in fur is no place to raise a family.
“Mama! I’m going to make the water go funny colors!” Sapphire declares, running toward the water. This is a game she likes to play, turning the waves into rainbows. I watch indulgently from the sand, glad she’s entertaining herself, not to mention the other children who are not blessed with the same gifts.
Lucy is dozing beside me. She visits us often now. I think she missed me a great deal in the hour I was gone. Or perhaps she just likes seeing her much older sister in comparison to herself.
I close my eyes for a moment, listening to the laughter of the young ones. This is heaven, knowing that my family is safe and happy. This is peace. True peace.
But it does not last long.
“Who DARES disturb my WATERS!?”
The ocean swells and the waves crest and then crash with a sound like a fierce growl.
“Who is interfering with my ocean?!” Triton comes charging out of the waves, his trident held high, his gruff features twisted with annoyance.
Sapphire laughs and flees the scene with her friends. Running away is her go-to move, one she learned while living on Earth evading Entity. She’s far faster than anybody else on Tanuk’s island. There is no chance of her being caught for almost anything, which will cause its own issues I am sure in due course.
For the moment, it puts her out of range of the angry ocean king who only emerges from the waves when spectacularly annoyed. He has emerged seven times in the past seven days. Each and every time it has been Sapphire’s fault, though she’s never there when he shouts at the world.
He focuses his ire on me instead.
“Raine! The ocean is my domain! If you cannot keep your infants out of it, I swear by all that is unholy I will…”
“Hello, Triton.”
Lucy pops up from the sand like a blonde jack-in-the-box, an instant broad smile painted on her pretty face. She’s wearing a very skimpy bikini made of string and shells.
If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was lying in wait for him all this time. She smiles her bright greeting at the angry ocean god and his face transforms.
“Miss Lucy, how are you?”
“I’m very good,” she smiles, turning her head slightly to flash a wink at me. “How are you?”
“Much the same,” he says, scratching his head with the point of his trident. “I didn’t know you were here. I thought you would be at the golden palace.”
“I’m staying with my sister,” she says, twirling a strand of golden hair around an elegantly long finger. To this day, Lucy manages to make me feel as though I am a hefty barbarian, though Tanuk assures me I am as feminine and desirable as any goddess.
“Oh. That’s nice.”
The content of the conversation is tedious, but also hilarious to me. Triton is a monster of a god. He looks every inch the beast who controls the ocean, with broad shoulders, that brilliant sea green hair and matching eyes, an abdominal plane rippled enough for mermaids to do their washing on if they were so inclined.
He is fierce, merciless, unyielding. His waters have taken the souls of many thousands of hapless sailors over the years, but he forgets almost all of that when he sees Lucy. They’re absolutely smitten with one another, but neither of them seems to know what to do about it. It is greatly amusing, to see the powerful, gruff beast of an ocean god seem almost nervous.
“Don’t worry about Sapphire,” she says. “She’s just a kid.”
“I’m protective of my ocean,” he tries to explain. “Nobody else is, but I am. They think it is just fish in here, but there are dolphins too, and they get upset when the water gets polluted with pranks.”
“Mhm. I know. I remember when you took me down there once.”
“Yes. Well,” he says with a cough. “I should be getting back. The ocean needs me.”
“Okay, bye,” Lucy waves. She’s smiling, but I can tell that she is disappointed. I don’t know what she expected to happen, but I guess having the object of her affections disappear into the great blue ocean wasn’t it.
“He doesn’t like me,” she whines the moment Triton returns to the waves.
“He likes you,” I say. “The way he looks at you is the way a man looks at a woman when he wants her.”
“Then why doesn’t he take me into the water like he did that one time? He doesn’t want to touch me.”
“He does. You’re beautiful. You know you are. There's not a man on Okeanus, mortal or immortal, who doesn’t want you.”
“Except Triton.”
It’s driving her mad, the way Triton refuses to seduce her. I’d enjoy watching her not be able to have what she wants, and I have in the past, but now it is getting a little sad.
“Why doesn’t he like me? Am I too old?”
“You’re not even nineteen yet,” I sigh. “I doubt it is that you are too old. Perhaps he does not want to take another daughter from Helios and Ragnar. Maybe he is trying to keep the peace on Okeanus.”
“That’s not it,” she says. “He almost kept me, the first time I was down there with him. He showed me his palace. He even showed me a bed chamber… but the moment he touched me, he recoiled. There’s something about me, Raine. Something he can’t stand.” Her eyes are beginning to fill with tears. Poor thing. It is traumatic for Lucy to want something she cannot ha
ve. That has literally never happened to her before.
“These gods, they have many secrets,” I remind her. “There could be many reasons why he isn’t asking you out on a dolphin date yet. Be patient. Play hard to get. That’s what I did.”
She smiles wanly, turns, and goes back to the house. I don’t like to see my sister sad. Now that I am happily partnered, I want the same for her. I decide to ask Tanuk for his help, but before I can, I am pleasantly interrupted by the arrival of an old friend.
“Raine!”
“Magellan?”
He comes striding down the beach toward me. He looks like he always has, but there's something different about him. Those two thoughts shouldn’t be able to co-exist, but they do.
“Are you taller?”
“Slightly,” he says, smiling with a hint of embarrassment. He's not slightly taller. He is at least a foot taller, and he was not short to begin with. He’s almost at the same scale as a god himself now. I notice that many of the scars he sustained in battles against Entity seem to have healed. The deepest ones remain, reminders of all he was before being lifted up to Okeanus.
“What happened to you?”
“Tanuk gave me his gift. Made me his priest. Restored what Entity took from me.”
“Everything Entity took?”
Magellan’s smile could not be broader. “Everything.”
I throw my arms around him. I could not be happier for him. If there was a man who deserved his manhood, it was Magellan.
“I’m going to ask Cerise if she’d like to try it out,” he winks.
“I’m thinking she will,” I laugh. Cerise was one of our shard who was always sweet on Magellan, and I believe he was on her too. They did everything they could besides consummate their relationship the traditional way. Now there is nothing to stop them experiencing all the pleasure they want for as long as they wish.
And there’s nothing to stop me either.
I find Tanuk in the shade of an apple tree. He is content these days. He looks up at me under lidded eyes as I sink down beside him.
“What is it, my love?”
“Does it have to be something?”
“I always know when it is something,” he reminds me gently.
“Well. I was thinking, perhaps you could speak to Triton.”
“About what?”
“Ask him, delicately, diplomatically, why he isn’t interested in Lucy. She’s desperate for him. Head over heels, completely in love with him.”
Tanuk shakes his head and smiles that slow, deviant smile he smiles when he knows something I do not. “You do not want your sister with Triton.”
“Why not? He’s grumpy sometimes, but never without cause. She’s attracted to him. Her instincts are good.”
“Do you recall what I did to you the very first night we met?”
“Spanked me?” The two words make my cheeks flare with heat. That was such a long time ago, but his reminder puts me right back in the mindset of the spoiled eighteen year old I once was. That night, I thought he was a brute. Now I don’t blame him one bit.
“Triton likes to inflict pain with his pleasure. Why do you think the weed of his sea binds the limbs of those who swim in it? Why do you think so many of the creatures of the deep have long tentacles to restrain their prey? Keep Lucy far from the water,” he advises me. “Triton will not restrain himself forever if she keeps tempting him, lying out on the shores practically begging to be swept away.”
I bite my lower lip, knowing that what Tanuk just told me will not make one bit of difference to Lucy’s interest. If I tell her that Triton is dangerous, she’ll be flinging herself into the water every chance she gets.
“That was a good thing you did,” I say, changing the subject.
“What have I done?”
“Giving back to Magellan what was taken from him. I think you might be starting to care for some of these people.”
“I think I owed him for helping keep you alive all those years. I would do anything for you, Raine. Anything at all.”
“Anything?”
“Anything,” he vows.
“Then talk to Triton about Lucy. It’s killing her being ignored by him.”
“Anything but that, brat. You are still a very bad little goddess, you know that? Trying to get your sister ravaged by a sea god.”
“I am not,” I deny indignantly, but only for a moment as Tanuk gathers me in his arms and kisses me thoroughly. He is the god of tricks, lies, and deceit, but I trust him with my everything. With my life. With my daughter. With the people who were once all I had in the world, and who are now the world to me.
I melt into his embrace. I feel him wrap himself around me, claim me with all that primal animal lust which drew me from the moment we met.
“Mama!
“Later,” I tell him as Sapphire comes bolting through the trees. She’s been up to no good, I’m certain of that.
“Later,” he promises me.
We will have many laters. Endless laters. We have found our eternal bliss, our happily ever after, and nothing can take that from us. Ever.
The Tied - Possessive Gods Book Three
Coming soon! Lucy and Triton’s love story. See what the ancient and ever so powerful ocean god does with Okeanus’ most spoiled princess.
She is bound to be tied.
War has come to our world, and a wayward young goddess is given to me to keep safe beneath my waters. She does not want my protection. She wishes to join the war effort, and every time I turn my back she is trying another means of escape. How is an ocean god to keep such a rebellious spitfire from getting into trouble?
Ties. A lot of them.
Wound from seaweed, blessed with charms, they're practically inescapable.
At first I tie her out of practical need, but every time I bind her, my hidden appetites grow stronger and my darkest desires become harder to suppress.
Will I be able to protect her?
Or does she need to be protected from me?
Order The Tied Now!
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If you’re in the mood for more immediate Loki Renard Possessive Romance, may I recommend the Possessive Aliens series, in order of publication:
Mine: A Possessive Alien Romance
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Loki Renard