by Dee J. Stone
“They believe they are the greatest,” Zarya whispers. “Father says arrogance leads to failure.”
“Well, let’s hope their cockiness is their downfall.”
We find a gap between two large rocks. I squeeze in and hold Zarya against my chest. She doesn’t realize it, but I’m squeezing her tighter than is necessary. It’s only because I love her so much and want the best for her. While she’s not as depressed as she was when she first had her injury, she’s not the same person she was before then, either. I know I can’t expect her to heal that quickly, I just want her to be happy. She and I had a race earlier, and I let her win, hoping to lift her spirits. She saw right through me. But it did make her happier.
She puts her finger over her lips. “They are arriving.”
“How do you know?”
“Do you not sense them?”
I do, but I’m not as close to them as she is and will never sense them as well as she does.
“Do as I say, all right?” she says.
“Yes, boss.”
She puts her finger on her lips, then flicks her head toward the left and mouths, “Syndin.” She points to herself, and then to me, and nods.
I return the nod. Together, we jump out of our hiding spot and squirt ink at Syndin. He breaks away from his brother and yells, aiming his squid at us but missing. Syd tries to shoot us, but Zarya uses her little tail to push me out of the way. I just stare at her.
“We are triumphant! Cassie, we are triumphant!” She blinks at me. “Why do you stare at me like so?”
“Sweetie, did you see what you just did? You used your tail to push me out of the way, and because of that we won.”
She stares at her tail with disbelief. “I…I did not realize.”
I wrap my arms around her. “You’ll be okay, Zarya. You’ll be okay.”
***
“What shall we sing tonight?” Damarian asks as he tucks the seaweed under Zarya’s chin. I reach over to stroke the side of her head.
“I do not know. I can never decide. You choose, Dammy. And sing with us, Cassie!”
“I would. But I don’t know the words.”
“You can learn.”
I smile. “Okay.”
Damarian thinks for a few seconds before starting to sing:
“I shall tell you a tale of a courageous young fry,
Courageous yet stubborn and not an ounce shy,
She explored the sea, from high to low,
Saw many species, even fish that do glow.”
Zarya continues:
“A lesson she learned she now holds in her heart,
The more she explored, the more she grew apart,
From those whom she loved and missed every day,
So she rested her tail, and at home she promised to stay.”
Zarya beams. “Let us all sing together.”
And we do, until her eyes flutter closed. Just as Damarian and I are about to leave, Zarya says, “Cassie?”
I turn around. “Yes, sweetie?”
“You promised you would tell me what the purpose of that human object is.”
She points to a fork sitting on the floor a few feet away. The fork she found in the sunken ship when she came looking for me. The fork I used to kill my father.
“You brought it home?” I ask.
“Father discovered it.”
I swim over and sweep it off the floor, trying to block out the images of it passing through my dad. No matter how many times I relive the things I’ve done, the hurt doesn’t grow less. I hope it will soon. I won’t ever forget, but I would like to move on.
Settling down near her, I say, “It’s called a fork. And we use it to eat.”
“To eat?”
“Shall I bring a fish to demonstrate?” Damarian asks.
“Sure. Thanks.”
He smiles before leaving and returns a few seconds later with a medium-sized fish. I place it on the floor before me. “We don’t use our hands to eat,” I tell Zarya. “We use items such as this.” I dig the fork into the fish and try to cut off a piece. It’s a little hard because the fish is raw, but I manage to slice off a small chunk. “And then we eat it.” I close my mouth over the meat and chew.
Zarya giggles. “That is so strange!”
“That was my thought when I first arrived on land.” Damarian leans down to kiss her forehead. “Now, it is time you sleep. Good night, Zarya.”
I kiss her, too. “Sleep well.”
“Good night!”
Damarian and I leave to our room. As we settle down in his shell, Ryter peeks his head into the room.
“Forgive me,” he quickly says. “I will take my leave.”
“No, Grandfather. Please remain.” Damarian gestures around. “Please sit.”
Ryter looks a little hesitant before swimming in and lowering himself on one of the stones on the floor. “I wish to congratulate you on your achievement. I was positive you would succeed in your attempt to shift at will.” He gives us a small smile.
“We couldn’t have done it without you,” I say.
“We are much obliged to you,” Damarian says. “With the ability to change at will, we will no longer be limited.” Damarian caresses my cheek. “We can live properly.”
“Will you return to land?” he asks.
“Soon,” I tell him. “We want to spend some more time here because we might be on land for a while.”
He nods. “I understand.”
The room gets uncomfortably quiet.
Ryter starts to twitch in his seat, his eyes on the ground. “I have come here…” He slowly raises his head. “I have come here to offer my gratitude to the two of you. For seeking me in my solitude and convincing me to rejoin my family. After my mate perished, I did not think I could open my heart to love. I understand now that I have a lot of love to offer, to my family and my fellow children of the sea.” He gives us another small smile. “Especially to Zarya.”
Damarian smiles. “You are very good with her.”
“It is hard not to be.”
We all laugh softly.
“She has a love for exploring,” he says. “It is my hope that she and I can explore together. When your father learns to cease worrying over her.”
“I fear Father will always worry,” Damarian says.
“She’s his baby,” I say.
“And due to her injury…” Ryter frowns. “I wish to do all I can for her.”
“As do we,” Damarian says.
He nods. Then he rises from the floor and puts a hand on each of our shoulders. “Thank you, for everything.”
I put my hand on his. “Thank you, for everything.”
As soon as he leaves, I snuggle on Damarian. “It kind of makes me wonder that if the sea serpents wouldn’t have entered the sea, your grandfather would still be a hermit. He wouldn’t have the pleasure of spending time with your family.”
He kisses my knuckles. “And we would not have the ability to shift at our own will.”
“Yeah. I guess some good came out of all of this, too.”
Zarya’s injury, the deaths of the merpeople, and the deaths of my dad, Sheila, and Jace enter my head. I guess in every situation, there will always be both positive and negative outcomes. We can’t do anything to change the past, but we have to do all we can to make most of the present and future.
Damarian gets out of bed. “What?” I ask.
“Come.” He holds out his hand.
We leave the cave. Fiske and Shoney move forward, but Damarian tells them we’ll be okay and don’t need them to come along with us. I kiss the top of Shoney and Fiske’s heads before following Damarian out of the colony. At first I don’t know where we’re headed, until Damarian and I dive underneath a row of rocks and come face to face with a small gap that can only fit one person at a time. I immediately know what this is—Damarian’s special place.
He gestures toward it. “You first, my love.”
As soon as I slide in, I’m face
d with a cave filled with beautiful green coral. I love the contrast between the dark blue water and green coral. It makes the place look breathtaking.
Damarian wraps an arm around me as he leads me further inside, where the cave slopes upward, like a mountain. He takes me by the waist and gently lowers me down on the coral, climbing on top of me. The coral feels so soft underneath me.
“I love your special place,” I tell him.
He lowers his forehead on mine. “I know. But it is no longer my special place. It is our special place.”
I smile as his words fill me with warmth. “Thanks.”
He takes my hand and stretches my arm over my head, fitting his fingers through mine. He stares at me with nothing but passion in his eyes. “I love you, Cassie.”
“I love you, too.”
He bends closer and sweeps his lips across mine. “When we return to land, I can search for work. I will no longer be a burden to you.”
“You were never a burden to me, Damarian. All you’ve brought me was joy and happiness. You’ve opened my eyes to new things, amazing things. Things I would never be able to experience anywhere else, with anyone else.” I touch his cheek. “I don’t only mean your world. I mean what’s going on in here.” I place my hand over my heart.
He presses his lips to mine, then says, “Your feelings match mine.”
My nails dig into his shoulders as I yank him closer to me and kiss him. His hands take hold of my face as we push our lips against each other’s. There are so many feelings burning inside me, ready to burst out. I kiss him and kiss him and kiss him, not getting enough of this merman that has changed my life forever and means the world to me. Our movements are so intense that we roll down the mountain. But that doesn’t cause our mouths to break apart. We continue kissing until our lips grow numb.
“Damarian,” I whisper as he pushes my head back and showers kisses all over my neck. “Damarian…”
“My beautiful Cassie.” His lips trail down to my chest. “My Cassie.”
“Finally,” I rasp. “We can finally live together in peace. Forever.”
His lips move back to mine. “My love for you knows no bounds or limitations. It is here to last.”
“As vast as the sea.” I moan as he softly bites on my neck.
“My love for you runs all the way to Earth’s core.” He raises his head and smiles down at me. “At last I understand what that means.”
I laugh, then gaze into his eyes. “We’ll be together forever.”
The next kiss he gives me makes all my senses go haywire. “For eternity.”
I definitely like the sound of that.
Chapter Thirty-Four
“I swear the universe has a sick sense of humor!” I yell as I watch Damarian ride his wave flawlessly. Seriously, he’s better than the best surfer on Earth.
“What?” he yells back. “Am I not doing it correctly?”
I narrow my eyes at him as I sail my own wave. “You’re lucky you look good in a bathing suit.”
He chuckles before leaping off his board and landing on mine. I yelp as I almost lose my balance and drop into the water, but Damarian locks his arms around me. “You are not going anywhere,” he whispers into my ear. He lifts one of my braids and grazes his lips against the back of my neck.
Butterflies flap around in my stomach. We’ve been together for a few months, and he still manages to make me feel the same way he did when we first met.
We finish the wave and swim back to shore, to where Ruthie and Bobby are building sandcastles. No, according to Bobby, they’re not building sandcastles but skyscrapers. Because only babies build sandcastles.
They moved back from New York last week. Mom managed to work things out with her boss, and it looks like they’ll be living here for a while. Even her new boyfriend is considering moving down here. I’m so glad to be this close to them. We sold the beach house last month. Damarian and I moved into a small apartment and Mom and the kids found a great one that accommodates all of them.
“My skyscraper totally beats your skyscraper,” Bobby says to Ruthie.
“That’s not true!” Ruthie cries. “Right mine’s better, Cassie?”
“They’re both amazing.”
Ruthie sticks her tongue out at her brother. Then she looks at me. “When are you going to teach us how to surf?”
“As soon as my mom gives me the okay.” I ruffle her hair when she frowns. “Don’t worry, it won’t be too long.” Mom’s still a little cautious when it comes to surfing, but I’m sure I can talk her into it.
Ruthie and Bobby smile, though I can’t help seeing the grief in their eyes. They took the deaths of their parents pretty hard. They see a therapist twice a week, and she’s really helping them. I have no idea if Mom and I will tell them the truth one day when they’re older. I don’t want their feelings toward their parents to change.
I sit down near the tide and let it wash over my feet. It feels amazing. I still can’t believe Damarian and I have the ability to shift from human to merperson on our own. It almost feels like a dream. Actually, my whole life feels like a dream. Damarian got a job as a whale trainer at the aquarium. The people there were so blown away by how the whales—actually, all the sea life—responded to Damarian. He was hired on the spot. He and I sometimes laugh when he tells me stories of how his coworkers gape at him every time the whales do exactly what he tells them. I’m so glad he has a job he loves and that reminds him of home. We travel back to the ocean as often as we can, though it’s a little difficult because I’m at school and work as a teaching assistant. Mom’s friend, the assistant principal for an elementary school, was willing to give me another chance, and thankfully I didn’t blow my second interview. I love being a teaching assistant. I’m positive I’m meant to be a teacher one day.
Damarian launches himself at me, throwing me to the ground and splattering kisses all over my face. I hear Ruthie yell, “Gross!” We ignore her as we continue to make out. When I feel like we’re heading past PG territory, I gently push him back and wink. “To be continued later.”
He grins. “I shall look forward to it.”
I feel my face heat up. Damarian and I discussed sleeping together in different forms, he as a merman and me as a human. It’s something we’ve both wondered about for a while. There’s still so much to learn about each other. I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life discovering it all.
We sit with our toes buried in the sand, letting the waves crash over our feet, the wind blowing through our hair. Damarian moans. “I did not know the wind can feel this good.” He faces me, tucking some loose strands of hair behind my hair. “Cassie, may I read to you a passage from my journal?”
“Sure, but you didn’t bring it with you.”
He beams. “I shall return shortly.”
He races to the bag he brought with him and rummages around until he pulls out something wrapped in a plastic bag. He’s still smiling when he returns to me. “I was concerned you or the fry would discover it. That is why I hid it well.” He unwraps the journal. “I wished to read it to you last night, but I believe it shall be more special on the beach. More romantic.”
“I’d love to hear.”
He looks a bit nervous, which is so adorable. I would grab him and kiss him like crazy if we weren’t in front of the kids, not to mention I can’t right now because Damarian is about to share some of his private thoughts with me.
“This is written in human tongue,” he says. “I hope it is not terrible.”
I lay my hand on his thigh. “I know it won’t be.”
“Thank you, my love.” He takes a deep breath. “I’ve been through some things in my life, maybe not more than the average human or merperson, but I suppose each of us has our share. I…I sometimes lay—forgive me, lie—in bed next to the love of my life, the one I hold dearest in my heart, and wonder why I deserve to have such happiness. I mean, why do I deserve to be so happy? I’m not a better person than my fellow human. Or child of
the sea. Why do I get the happily ever after when those around me are left with broken hearts?”
I lower my head on Damarian’s shoulder.
“Sometimes I feel that I will wake up one morning and learn it was all false—fake. That it was all a dream. My beautiful Cassie will not be lying next to me. Or worse, she would be dead like all the other sea serpents—or even worse, one of them.” He shakes his head. “I need to convince myself I deserve to be happy, that I deserve to have her in my life. Because if I spend the rest of my life questioning and in disbelief, I will never have the chance to enjoy what is most important in my life.” He leans forward to kiss my lips. “I am sorry if I hurt you.”
“Not at all. I feel that way, too.”
“You do? That makes me feel better.” He brushes his lips across my nose. “Zarya expects us to journey to the sea tonight.” His face lights up. “Has Syd informed you she swims faster than her peers?”
I nod as pride passes through me. “She’s a little ball of fire. A force to be reckoned with.”
“I no longer feel as apprehensive as I used to. I am certain she will be all right. That she will be happy and enjoy her life.”
“She’ll have to, if she’ll be an aunt.”
Damarian’s eyes widen. “You are aware Doria and Kytero are to have fry?”
I roll my eyes. “You didn’t think she’d tell me?”
“She has not told me! I guessed it.”
I laugh.
Damarian’s eyes circle mine. He cups my cheek. “Cassie…”
“Maybe one day,” I tell him. “I mean, hopefully one day. It’s not as scary anymore, now that we’re not tied down to land or sea.”
He nods, then kisses my forehead. “And one day soon, we shall be mated. The human way.”
I stare into his eyes. “You mean married?”
“Yes.”
I fasten my arms around the back of his neck and press my cheek against his. We remain like this for a few minutes, until Damarian pulls back and says, “I believe Leah waits for you.”
I give him another kiss before heading over. We lock our arms and start strolling around the beach. “So I have no idea what I’m doing with my life,” she says.