King of the Sea

by Elizabeth Frost

  King of the Sea

  Seasons of Fae 4

  Elizabeth Frost

  Copyright © 2020 by Emma Hamm as Elizabeth Frost

  Cover by : Covers by Combs

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  To all the readers who fell in love with faerie men. This one’s for you.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Afterword

  About the Author

  1

  River’s fingers were covered with charcoal, smudged up to the knuckle and staining everything she touched. She spread her fingers wide and sighed. The only difference between her hands and those of a million other people was the webbing.

  River had been born with the webs between her fingers and toes. The membrane glistened in the sunlight sometimes, iridescent and delicate. But the oddity often made people uncomfortable.

  She pressed a charcoal nub to her sketchbook pages and swiped a stroke up and around a rather beloved face. The seal who sat a distance away, shifted in his sleep. He was one of the larger males who came and visited this area with his harem of female seals.

  He was also the perfect model. He never moved an inch.

  She scribbled in a corner of the page, trying to ground her drawing. Backgrounds were important, but they were also difficult. She never could portray the hardness of rocks in her portraits. Nor could she make the ocean waves appear to be moving.

  And she wanted to. Desperately. A part of her soul needed to capture the ocean on the page so she could bring it home with her.

  River huffed out an angry breath and stared down at the drawing. Sure, anyone with an untrained eye would say it was pleasing to look at. The seal was nearly picture perfect, although one of his whiskers was comically long. His flippers were soft enough to touch. But it wasn’t good enough.

  She didn’t know if any of her drawings would ever be good enough.

  She closed the sketch book, savoring the knowledge that once she closed the pages, the drawing would be smudged. Ruined, essentially.

  Her art was fleeting.

  And private.

  She tucked her sketchbook back into the bag she always carried with her. River had sewed it herself, back when she thought maybe a sewing machine would capture her artistic abilities. The fabric was made to look like pages of Pride and Prejudice.

  But Mr. Darcy wasn’t a real-life hero. She’d found that out rather quickly the older she got.

  She leaned back on her hands, rocks biting into her palms. She tilted her head back and let the sunlight play across her face. The crash of waves soothed the ache of imperfection, but she couldn’t stay here forever.

  The ocean called to her. It sang a song deep in the currents that crashed upon the shore.

  “Come home, River,” it crooned. “Come and bask in the waves.”

  She couldn’t. No one wanted her in the ocean where her mother’s people had come from.

  Well, if anyone believed her father’s ridiculous story about a woman who walked out of the waves with open arms. A woman who had stayed with him for just long enough to birth a child and then warned both him and her only daughter to stay as far away from the ocean as possible.

  Neither she, nor her father, took orders well. He’d bought a house at the edge of the sea, and River liked to visit it as often as possible.

  She just didn’t let the waves touch her. Ever.

  Dad didn’t know she came down here alone. If he did, he’d probably have a heart attack and lock her up in her room forever. Like some kind of fairytale princess.

  He didn’t understand her need to be around the ocean. All he saw was that it could take her away from him, even though he wanted to be close to the waves and the salt spray himself. He said the smell made him think of her mother. And he’d miss her forever.

  River thought that was all rather disgusting. She’d never even met the woman! Not exactly a mother figure anyone wanted, let alone someone a man should spend the rest of his life pining over.

  And he had. Her father had remained single for her entire life.

  It made leaving him rather difficult. He needed someone to take care of the house while he was gone, or at least listen to him when he came home from work. If she wasn’t there, who would help him? Support him? Hell, just be his friend?

  River sighed and rolled to her feet. She curled her bare toes around the rocks and carefully picked her path. The seals wouldn’t look up if she was quiet. Sometimes they complained if she got too loud.

  They were used to her, though. After years coming down here and sketching them, they had an understanding. She’d be quiet. She wouldn’t interrupt their sunbathing. And they let her draw them without barking at her too much.

  Good enough.

  River hopped down onto the sand from the rocky outcropping and heaved her bag over her shoulder.

  Wet sand squeezed between her toes and caught on the webbing. The water trapped between the grains was fine to touch. She was still here and alive, after all. But if she stepped foot in the ocean, supposedly her life would no longer be her own. That’s what Dad said.

  She’d only tried to touch it once. Her father had sprinted after her and tackled her into the sand. The tears in his eyes, the panic, the sheer fear had made his entire frame shudder. River had never tried to touch the sea again.

  Even if he was maybe a little crazy, he still didn’t want her there. For good reason, she supposed, even if it wasn’t because her mother’s people would drag her beneath the waves.

  She lifted a hand and saluted the ocean. “Bye mum. Thanks for another amazing afternoon.”

  Sarcasm.

  On her way back home, she planned her afternoon accordingly. Dad would get back from work at five, so she needed to have dinner ready by then. He refused to hire a chef, not because he didn’t have the money, because he said she needed to learn the skills to live on her own.

  He’d buy her a house when she wanted to leave. Probably the one next door, if she was thinking realistically.

  What was it the kids at school had called her? “Spoiled Princess River,” she muttered, kicking the sand with her foot for good measure.

  She was. That was the most frustrating thing about the nickname. She couldn’t argue with anyone who called her spoiled or a princess, because she was. Her father had made it so, even without her demanding materialistic things.

  All River wanted was a normal life. A way to escape from all the money and banquets and the name attached to her own. Every time she went in town, it was like everyone held their breath. What would she do? Would she follow in her father’s footsteps and become a successful business woman? Would she change the world with her father’s money at her beck and call?

  River didn’t know! She hadn’t even gone to college because her father needed her here. Besides, he didn’t believe in an institution where she
had to pay money to learn things she could learn in practice instead of lecture.

  She might have liked college. She might have enjoyed escaping this insignificant town by the sea and finding her own way. But that didn’t match her father’s opinion, and no one else’s mattered.

  Though her thoughts wandered, she still found her eyes on the ocean. A turtle crawled pitifully out of the sea, shoving its body through the sand and breathing hard. It fiercely made its way past the heavy slaps of waves. Every movement was labored. River imagined everything was more difficult with a net tangled all over its body, dragging behind it.

  “Oh no,” she whispered. River dropped the bag on her shoulder and sprinted across the beach.

  Just as she reached the turtle, the ocean waves reached for her. She flinched away from them, dancing back, too far from the turtle to help.

  Damn the waves. Damn her father’s superstition that had created her fear in the first place.

  River dropped to her knees and opened her arms wide. “Come on,” she said, waving her hands as if that might make the creature hurry. “Come to me. I can help. You just have to get close enough.”

  Every lumbered movement was a struggle for the poor turtle. The net was easily fifteen feet long, and every wave sucked it back. But the turtle made it to her.

  River hooked her hands underneath its flippers and dragged it up the beach. When she was finally a safe distance away, she started her work freeing the poor thing.

  The net had dug into all the turtle’s flesh, creating ragged wounds that bled over her fingers. It flapped, trying to get away from her, or maybe just trying to help.

  “I’m sorry,” she muttered as she worked on another loop that had worn away at the turtle’s shell. The webbing between her fingers made it difficult to untie the creature. “I’m so sorry, I know this must hurt.”

  The creature didn’t respond, although she hardly expected it to. If only animals could speak, maybe they could ask for help.

  Finally, she untangled the turtle and released it from her hold. It shuffled along through the sand, only pausing when it reached a destination fifteen feet from River.

  Then it started scratching. Pushing and digging in the sand.

  “Oh,” she sighed. “You’re going to lay eggs, aren’t you?”

  What luck! She was so thankful to be here when the turtle needed help, but also that in a few short months she could assist the babies in joining their mother at sea.

  River sprinted back to her bag and pulled out her notebook. The first page was reserved for reminders. She scratched them out with a pen once they were completed. All she had to do was write this one down as well.

  Pen cap in her mouth, she garbled, “June eighteenth. Turtle eggs.” For good measure, she also drew a few tiny baby turtles around the words before capping the pen and sliding the sketchbook back into her bag.

  “A job well done, mama,” she called out to the turtle. The creature didn’t even look at her, nor did it thank her for the help. But that was all right. Sometimes helping other people was a thankless job.

  She doffed an imaginary hat, shoved the net into her backpack, and then rushed back to her home. Freeing the turtle had taken some time, and her father would expect her to at least be home when he arrived. Dinner didn’t have to be on the table, but she would still feel guilty if it wasn’t.

  The house appeared on the rise above the ocean. It was built on the edge of a cliff with a large porch stretching out over the stone. One story and mostly windows, the building was a work of modern art.

  Behind the porch was a pool, grill, outdoor kitchen, and a fireplace made of stone and sea glass. Her father had spared no expense in making the house a paradise.

  White stairs carved into the side of the cliff met the beach where River stood. She placed her hand on the railing and stared up at the few remaining stairs.

  Back to the dungeon. Back to a home most people would have been honored to live in. They’d consider themselves lucky to even have a chance at the life she led.

  So why did it feel so suffocating sometimes?

  Ungrateful, that’s what she was.

  River made her way up the stairs, curling her webbed fingers into her palms.

  2

  Archer strode out of the sea, waves licking at his hips and crashing at his back. The ocean equally pulled and pushed him away. That was the way of the ocean, though.

  She was a fickle woman who didn’t know what she wanted. Only a faerie king could ever put up with a bride like that.

  Snorting out a breath at his own thoughts, he snagged a floating piece of plastic and put it in the bag at his waist. Every day he did this. Every day he left his throne room just to gather as much trash as he could.

  Now, the question was where to put it. Archer had tried leaving it at the humans’ feet. He’d pile it neatly next to their homes and hope they’d find somewhere else to put their plastic trash other than the ocean.

  But it always ended right back in the water. The same things. Beer bottles, plastic containers, nets, threads, all the things that killed creatures in the ocean. They didn’t care. As long as their trash was out of sight, the humans ignored its existence.

  Archer was running out of ideas. He’d taken some of it to the farthest stretches of the ocean, but the currents would only bring it back. He couldn’t ask the humans to stop doing what they were doing.

  Humans didn’t listen. They didn’t care what other people thought or how to fix their own planet. They just threw away whatever didn’t serve them well.

  Sighing, he meandered along the nearest beach. This one was cleaner than most, although he could see bits of paper drifting across the sand.

  Why weren’t humans capable of picking up after themselves? He could! Archer knew how to clean off his plate and ensure everything he owned had its own place. He didn’t need someone to remind him to put his toys away, even as a child.

  Grumbling, he strode past a pod of seals. The largest male lifted its head and stared at him as he walked.

  Archer paused and bowed. “Good morrow to you, lord of the seals.”

  The male coughed out a quick reply. “And to you, King of the Sea.”

  And wasn’t it wonderful to hear his title on the lips of a seal? Any creature, really. Archer very much enjoyed his occupation as king.

  Where some of the faerie kings had become reluctant leaders, he had always wanted to lead the sea. Even as a child, before the elemental had chosen its host, he had begged his parents to let him speak with the blue magic. He was powerful enough to contain it. He knew he could lead the sea and help the creatures within it.

  He’d done little of that in his position, it appeared. The sea still festered with human cast offs and only grew worse every year as their numbers multiplied.

  No matter what he did, Archer was in a losing battle. And he knew this.

  Blowing out a breath, he leaned down and picked up a piece of paper that rolled by him. He moved to throw it into his bag, but something caught his attention.

  Black marks all over the page. Made with such wild abandon it was rather remarkable.

  He frowned and opened the page up further. There was a smudged seal on it. A few spots were ruined by the sand, wind, and what looked like a careless hand wiping over the beautiful drawing. Someone had captured the essence of the seal on a page.

  Archer turned with the drawing held up, comparing the page to the real seal in his vision. “Well, old chap. I do believe she made you look a little thinner.”

  The seal snorted and rolled over onto his other side. “Thin doesn’t win mates.”

  He was right in that, at least. Seal females hated a thin male. They got too cold and demanded cuddles when all the females wanted was to be left alone while sunbathing.

  Archer should leave the seals to their own devices. They clearly wanted to enjoy their basking without the King of the Sea bothering them. But there were a few more questions he wanted answered. Mostly about the drawing i
n his hand.

  “Who drew this?” he asked, walking around the stone outcropping so he was back in the vision of the male seal.

  The creature grumbled, harrumphing and snorting out his displeasure. “The girl.”

  “What girl?” Archer hadn’t heard of a woman on this beach. He usually knew when humans were causing trouble with his people. But no one had mentioned anyone who liked to walk on the beach. In fact, they hadn’t mentioned anything about this place at all.

  Why hadn’t they mentioned the girl?

  The seal didn’t respond. Instead, the blubbery creature closed his eyes and appeared to drift off to sleep.

  Archer sighed, then snapped his fingers. “What girl?” he repeated, voice much harsher than before.

  “The little one,” the seal mumbled. “She comes down here with paper pieces and stares at us for hours. We’ve gotten used to her.”

  “Stares at you? Why?” He could only imagine she was planning something horrendous. Humans used to hunt seals for their fat and skins. The seals could be in danger.

  “Don’t know,” the male grunted. “She rubs rocks on the paper and then makes images of us. We like her. She’s small.”

  Small? Well, that didn’t fit his impression of a huntress stalking the seals for their meat. It also threw a bit of a rock into his plan of stalking this woman and ensuring she never bothered his people again.

  “Hm,” he hummed deep in his throat. “You like her then?”

  “As much as one can like a human. She’s odd though. Doesn’t smell like her people.” The seal rolled over again, turning away from him once again.

  Archer supposed that was his warning that the seal was done with him. Dismissing a king wasn’t a smart decision, but seals differed from the other creatures of the ocean.