by Bethany-Kris
“What if I can’t?”
“We all can mate.”
Except her.
Because she already had one.
“Have you thought of any more names for her?” her mother asked. “We should pick one and announce it soon. The colony is waiting.”
“I thought … Poe would like Lilee.”
“A perfect name for a princess.” Rosel turned her smile on Arelle, giving a wink that had her daughter smiling. “As for you …”
“What about me?”
“Your hesitance about your mating … I believe it’s nothing more than well, nerves. Once it starts, everything will be so easy. Natural, even.”
Her mother wasn’t lying.
Arelle now knew exactly how easy mating could be.
Then, Rosel gave a conspiratorial grin. “Really, you’ll see. Take a swim, hmm? Clear your head.”
That had Arelle laughing.
Bitterly.
“To where? I’m not allowed to leave the palace. And when I do get to travel within the colony, I have guards from father and from Mav.”
“And if I could help you with that?” her mother asked.
Arelle stilled. “Do you know how to get away?”
Rosel arched a brow. “Well, I wouldn’t have been able to survive in this palace all these years without a will and a way, Arelle.”
• • •
The last thing Arelle needed was fun when everything else in her life had become so very serious in a short amount of time, but as she twisted in a spiral through a school of fish that circled around her while darting toward the light at the surface of the sea … well, she couldn’t help but laugh. Their soft fins tickled her arms; their scales sparkled in the shimmery blue depths.
She hadn’t gone very far from the palace or colony. Just enough that she wouldn’t be caught or seen by someone who would report back to her father or Mav. Her mother had been right. All she needed was just a few free moments to simply be.
Not that this time had done anything to solve her current problems, but at least she hadn’t been thinking about it all while she enjoyed herself.
Wasn’t that what counted?
Arelle could go back to dying inside later.
Surely.
The school of brightly colored fish had started to circle back around to her. Turning a loop just before she would break the surface of the sea, Arelle darted for the fish once more, but the slipstream that she passed through to do it had her stopping instantly.
As though she’d turned to ice.
Water rushed into her lungs as she gulped deep, and then moved straight out of her gills. The school twisted all around her, making it impossible to see through to the rest of the clear sea. Not that it mattered. She didn’t need to see when she could taste what had stopped her right in her tracks with each and every breath.
She tried to ignore it.
Desperately wanted to stop breathing in the water.
She couldn’t.
That was the thing about the bond between mates. Once made, there was no possible way to ignore how it changed everything. When the blood was shared, they became one. When the voices were heard, they would hear each other until one could no longer speak.
It’s why she hadn’t talked.
He still had her blood, though.
That’s what she could taste with every pull of water that washed through her lungs and then slipped out of her gills on the exhale. His blood tainted the water, coloring it with the distinct call of him and just a hint of her.
As faint as it was, it still had every piece of Arelle’s body, heart, and mind spiraling into the baser urges of her instincts. The parts of her that tasted blood in the water—the blood of her mate—and thought something is wrong. She still heard the men on the ships calling his name. It sounded like an echo in her very soul.
Eryx.
And at night, when she was alone and he was … wherever he was, well, she heard him, then, too. Calling for her. Wanting the sea. Being alone.
She couldn’t pretend that she didn’t hear him, but the war of not following those calls when that’s exactly what they were meant to do—to bring her home—was maddening. It only became worse with every passing day.
How long had it been now? She didn’t even really have to think about it. Twenty days since that night. Because she’d counted each one. They reverberated in her soul.
And now …
Now.
Now this.
He was bleeding.
But from where?
Why?
The pull was impossible to ignore. His thrall was inside her.
He might not be calling for her, but spilling his blood was as good of a demand to find him as any. She twisted through the fish, uncaring that they scattered because they were frightened by her sudden movement and changed demeanor.
She couldn’t help it.
Couldn’t fight this.
Arelle was a lot of things … a princess of the sea, a daughter, and a woman.
She was also his mate.
That trumped all.
• • •
Eryx
The sting of his cut palm barely registered to Eryx as he leaned over the railing of the bow to stare over the bay. He felt like he needed a closer look. If only he could get in the water. Or that’s what his crazy thoughts kept making him think.
It wasn’t possible.
Pulling in a lungful of sea air, Eryx glanced over his shoulder, the hood of his cloak distorting part of his view, although he could still see enough. The man in the crow’s nest, the men running back and forth across the deck, and Corval in the middle of the ship watching it all unfold in his usual calm state.
Eryx imagined that he, too, appeared calm.
Inside, he was a raging storm.
At least that was just him.
His attention went back to the sky, taking in the cloudless blue and bright sun. Even the wind had died down to a bearable state for the ships to get into position inside and out of the bay. With only one entry to the bay where their ship was located on one side, and another on the other … well, there was no getting out.
Nets pulled along the seafloor promised that.
And a ship outside the mouth of the bay would do its job, too.
For now, he waited.
Watched the calm skies to search for a storm. Waiting for that split-second change that always seemed to ruin every single one of his plans, even when he couldn’t afford for that to happen. Inhaled the sea air and willed the racing beats of his heart to settle so he could feel anything but this anticipation that promised nothing.
Yet, it was still there.
Hopeful.
Or was it something else?
He wasn’t quite sure when it changed—this feeling inside that he couldn’t describe. This hopeful mess that things were right now. Because from the moment the mermaid had darted off the island, everything had seemed entirely wrong.
Did that mean she was coming?
How could he possibly just know that?
Eryx’s grip around the railing of the bow tightened when the ship rocked with the waves. He heard the footsteps approaching behind him, but he didn’t bother to turn away from his current position when he didn’t care at all if he seemed approachable.
He was a prince.
He didn’t have to be approachable.
Eryx released his grip on the railing. Corval’s chuckles reached his spot with the man’s final footsteps before they, too, came to a stop. “The wait is always the worst,” Corval said.
“I’m enjoying the weather, actually.”
“Yes, another rare event. You’re bleeding.”
Eryx glanced down at his hand, which he’d simply left hanging over the railing. The last few droplets of blood from his cut palm fell to the water below. Almost instantly, the red-purple stain disappeared with the waves that lapped against the ship’s bow. He’d even run his bleeding hand along the railings, wanting that
scent to carry as far as it could on the wind.
Because if he could smell it …
She could, too.
It smelled like them.
Him and her.
“Caught my hand on a splinter earlier,” Eryx murmured. “Nothing to be concerned—”
Boom.
Boom.
Eryx’s head lifted high at the sounds of the cannons.
Not one.
Two.
Which meant the ship from outside the bay caught sight of activity that could possibly be a mermaid. The second cannon firing, however, meant the mermaid was close enough to the surface of the sea that they could see her swimming.
Eryx didn’t need to be told.
Didn’t need to see her to know …
He could feel it in his chest; in the way his heart slowed, and his breathing came a bit easier. How his mind finally started to settle, and everything came into sharp focus.
She was here.
Here.
It’d worked.
“Aye! Get the fucking ropes—on the nets, you assholes! I want them pulled as soon as she’s passed them!” Corval’s shouts echoed over the suddenly silent ship. From across the mouth of the opening to the bay, Eryx could hear the man’s partner yelling the same sentiments to his men. “And you, Prince … do us all a favor, and stay put for the next little bit, yes?”
Eryx didn’t reply.
He was too busy watching the water … waiting.
The wait wasn’t for long.
The red hair and olive-toned skin kissed by the sun could have been any mermaid swimming a foot beneath the surface of the water, but it was her fin that he looked for. Those black markings on her fin that was so distinct, they could only be her.
Her tail and fin moved like waves—steady, fast and sure.
Straight into the bay.
“Pull the nets!”
Eryx no longer cared to watch the ships or the men work. They knew what they had to do. She continued swimming farther into the bay, never once coming up for a breath of air or even to lift her head and look around. Foolish, maybe … or it could be something else.
Something she was chasing.
Like him.
The scent of him.
Despite being told to stay put, not to mention the many men running from one side of the ship to the other, and the line of them pulling back the nets to close the bay in time with the ship on the other side, Eryx followed the railing. The wind picked up. Just a bit, but not enough to be concerning.
Enough to make his cloak billow out behind him as his steps quickened along the deck of the ship while he followed alongside where she swam in the water. Until he was damn near at the end of the ship where the captain steered the vessel.
Finally, she came up for air.
Except she didn’t even breathe.
She just stared at him.
Instantly.
Eyes on him.
Eryx stared back.
She had to know it was a trap; there would be no way out of this, but he looked forward to the final moments of this hunt when they were able to pull her from the water and dump her at his feet.
This mermaid …
This woman he believed to have killed his mother.
This soul who haunted his dreams. Because that was the thing … they’d stopped being nightmares. He wasn’t sure if he liked that or not.
Two men of Corval’s came up on either side of Eryx, bows drawn and ready to fire should they need to injure her in order to get her out of the water. Just in case she tried to run.
Eryx dragged in a shuddering breath.
He wanted them to do anything.
Everything to get her in a net.
Even if that meant hurting her.
Still, he told the men, “Hold fire.”
FOURTEEN
Mav, Prince of the Emerald Lands
“HAVE YOU considered, Prince, that your intended won’t want to leave the Blu Sea, due to her new status and how that … impacts your plans?”
Mav only half listened to the advisor his father seemed to think he must keep at his son’s side at all possible times. As if he couldn’t possibly think, plan, or make any decisions for himself. Instead, his father had to be constantly in his ear, even when the man couldn’t physically be there to speak directly.
His advisor made sure of that.
Mav, however, had become so accustomed to tuning out the advisor, even when it was most important, that a lot of the time he just nodded and made appropriate noises during a conversation to make the merman think he was responding.
“Mmm,” Mav said.
“Including her staying here, and you returning?”
“Pardon?”
He had managed to hear just enough of that to turn his attention away from the women dancing in the courtyard to the advisor who always stayed a good fin-length away from Mav. Even when they walked and conversed, as was the advisor’s favorite way to chat, the man never forgot to give the Emerald prince his proper respect.
Including space.
He wasn’t sure how it worked here—a lot about the customs of the Blu Sea royals seemed different than theirs upon first glance—but back home, never would someone who didn’t share royal blood stand directly beside or walk ahead of someone in line to the throne. Never mind someone who sat upon it.
Mav had adjusted his own expectations while being here. Not that he particularly wanted to. Soon enough, he would be back in his own lands where everything was exactly as it should be.
Mav had certainly been given prominence and recognition of his status while in the Blu Sea colony, and he appreciated that. But he was just about finished with his time here and looked forward to the next storm so that he could complete his mating with the princess. Then, he could take Arelle home.
With him.
Where she belonged.
Of course, he’d not considered a lot of factors about the abrupt changes happening within the ranks of royals within the Blu Sea kingdom. His advisor’s decision to remind him of the fact that now Arelle was the only remaining daughter in the Sea that could take her father’s place had Mav’s attention.
Unfortunately.
“Why would she not return with me?” he demanded. “Such a thing hasn’t been suggested.”
The advisor—Vane—sighed and tipped his head to the side in that way of his that always managed to annoy Mav to no end. He only did that when he was readying himself to speak like the prince was still a child with little to no mind of his own. That time in his life had long passed, and he didn’t intend to return to it.
His twenty-two years may not have been any match for the other man’s over forty, but he was neither foolish nor stupid. And he hated to be spoken to like he was, but especially by someone who wasn’t even fit to dress him, frankly.
“The last sister that left the colony with a mate—Sarha, I believe her name is—never returned. Not even for a visit. Not even when demanded. From what I understand, the woman has a handful of children now, quite likes her new place, and has told anyone who would listen that she would rather eat her tail than come home to her father.”
Harsh, he thought.
But unimportant.
“What does that have to do with my mate?”
“She isn’t your mate yet,” Vane pointed out, although carefully.
They were all careful with Mav.
Sometimes too careful.
If he were honest, though, he’d say he preferred them careful than careless. One required less work and violence from him. Not that he minded getting his hands a bit bloody for his personal cause.
“Explain your point,” Mav demanded, his gaze cutting back to the dancing merwomen who were now spiraling higher in the courtyard with colorful strips of cloth twisting through the water with them. “And then I can get back to my day, yes?”
“My point is—the people of the colony, they’re not going to want to see their last princess leave. Certainly not wh
en the other one won’t even return. Seems their father is even more … difficult than yours is on his good days.”
“As I have been told, kings earn their right to be however they please.”
“And you will have your day soon, Prince.”
Right.
He tended not to forget that.
“From whispers I have heard, it seems the king of this sea is going to demand that his daughter remain here with the colony. Although, he’s suggested differently to us.”
Mav scowled. “That was not the original agreement.”
Not that Mav had been in total agreement with the original terms. He hadn’t been pleased at his father picking a mate from a decimated kingdom where their kind were hunted regularly by people on the land. He assumed she would be weak, perhaps even worthless, given her place as the third princess in her sea. He’d decided he rather liked her, after laying eyes on her when he’d first arrived.
At least, she was beautiful.
A royal, nonetheless.
What good did any of that do him, however, if she would remain here while he was across the world in his own kingdom? It would have been far different for Arelle to see how she should live while controlling the land and the sea in tandem. Not hiding away beneath calm waters and only getting the land when storms came along.
“Things have clearly changed,” Vane replied. “Circumstances are—”
“It is not my problem the king here cannot protect his people from those on land. If he were smart, he’d have done what we did many moons ago and taken back the land. Instead, they hide in the water as though land is a death sentence. Utter non—”
“Pardon me,” the advisor said calmly, “but people are going to hear you, and we don’t want it getting back, do we?”
Gods.
“And how long would she remain here after I go back?”
“The king is still relatively young and healthy. You’re well aware of how long he could live. Your own father is nearing his ninetieth passing on the throne and will have many more before you take his place.”
“Hmm.”
“Zale has plenty of time to produce more young with his wife—once, or if, he does, I suspect the conversation about Arelle leaving the kingdom will be reintroduced.”