by Marie Hall
When he didn’t ask why she was angry, she huffed.
“You say an eye for an eye—fine. So what should I do with the fact that for the past two weeks, you’ve completely ignored me, made me feel like I asked to be dragged down here, and then suddenly, you’re doing all this.” She waved her fingers.
Thunder, catching sight of what he must have thought was his signal to go, sped off in a dizzying rush.
Letting out a yelp, Nimue clung to the reins. Then she must have decided that wasn’t good enough and wrapped her arms tightly around his neck.
Thunder bucked immediately, nearly unseating her.
Urging Lightning to move faster, once they got to within spitting distance of them, Sircco leaned over and yanked on Thunder’s reins. “Silence!”
Immediately, the dolphin settled down.
Nimue, however, looked as though she’d just survived a hurricane. Her hair was like the wild black spray of sea urchin spines. Her eyes were wide, and her jaw trembling.
“Are you okay, Nimue?” he asked softly.
Taking several deep breaths, she blinked and nodded. “I... I think so.”
“Do not choke your steed, little pirate. Thunder hates that.”
“You think so?”
But when she started laughing, he realized immediately she wasn’t asking him a question.
“Gods, I looked like an idiot.” Groaning, she squeezed her eyes shut.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“My pride is wounded, but otherwise, yes, I’m fine.” She shoved loose strands of hair behind her small, round ears.
Grinning, he demonstrated to her how to get Thunder to obey without giving him too much free rein.
“You take the reins and shake it gently once. He’ll understand to take it easier than normal.” Then he showed her what he meant. Lightning took off at an easy glide. This was an all-day trip; he was in no hurry to return to the palace and all the demands that would entail.
Turning to glance over his shoulder, he saw her take a deep breath, lift the reins, and mimic his movement. This time, Thunder obeyed, chattering his displeasure at being forced to move so slowly, but that was a dolphin. Even the big surly ones like Thunder and Lightning were little more than pups at heart when it came down to it.
They rode in silence for a while, and as they did, his mind continually flashed to the bruises on her. Stygia knew better. Leggers, especially his personal guests, were never to be harmed by pain of retribution.
Stygia deserved a lashing, but Nimue hadn’t seemed to want retribution. Why not?
“Why do you not want her beaten?” he asked after a while.
“Huh?” She frowned, causing a tiny little line to crease her brows.
She’d done something to her face today. Sircco couldn’t quite place it, but she looked... different.
“Beaten? Stygia again? Gods, why?”
“Because she hurt you.”
Sighing, she gave him a frank look. “I understand the whole eye-for-an-eye concept. I live with pirates. I understand, believe me. But I should think it’s obvious that she’s jealous.”
“Jealous?” He frowned. “About what?”
“Me.” She huffed. “How do you not know this?”
What could Stygia possibly have to be jealous about? “Why would you think that?”
“Oh, my Gods, I may not know much about relationships, but even I can see that she loves you.”
He shook his head. “Nay, you are mistaken. Stygia does not love me. She wants me.”
She laughed. The sound reminded him of bells. “And that’s different?”
Brow twitching, he nodded. “Of course. She wants the title. To be consort. But for me, she cares naught at all.”
“You are the only male worthy of a mermaid, or so says my great-mother. Why would you believe that she doesn’t want more? Want your heart?”
“Heart?” He curled his nose, imagining an eternity with Stygia as his tailfasted mate. “The maid is a viper in lovely clothing. She is nothing like my Talia was.”
Pursing her lips, she glanced down at her feet then out at the expense of swaying kelp fronds. “My mother.”
Clenching his jaw, he kept his eyes firmly on the trail ahead, giving Lightning a long lead. He hadn’t meant to bring up Talia, and even though his passions for her were gone, she always seemed at the forefront of his mind.
They’d ridden in silence for near to an hour when the dolphins veered off the well-traveled roads and headed toward a thick patch of kelp that twisted and curled in on itself.
A lowlying fog curled sensuously up from the ground, thanks to heating vents from underwater volcanoes below.
Unlike the manicured gardens of the palace, these were wild and overgrown, hiding more menacing creatures like razor-toothed hyena fish. Spotting the deformed face of a pink-fleshed goblin shark, he glanced over at Nimue to see how she fared.
But there was a hazy smile on her face. Fearless. The enchanted moors weren’t truly cursed, but the merfolk had dubbed them as such because of the impenetrable darkness in spots with intermittent pulses of glittering light.
The sea life in this area was also more primitive looking. There were eels thirty and forty feet long, octopus the size of a blue whale’s head, and sharks that could devour the Jolly Roger in one bite.
It was dangerous to come out here amongst such primal creatures, but none would dare harm the king or queen of the sea. He held dominion over all.
“You feared Thunder, and yet you can’t stop smiling in these dark, murky depths. You confound me, Nimue,” he admitted, not sure what had made him say it, but her silence was beginning to bother him.
Blue light coming from off the bodies of thousands of glow krill surrounded her form like a halo. True, it was rare to see leggers so deep within this part of the sea, but she seemed to attract more than her fair share of curiosity.
He wondered if she realized that not only did she carry an affinity for sea life, but they found her equally fascinating. Was it Talia’s blood that flowed through her? Was she more maiden than legger?
Nibbling her bottom lip, she looked nervous. Finally, she said, “All my life, I’ve wanted to see this. All of this.” She cupped her hand, encompassing the waters around her. “I could only imagine the wonders this world held.”
“And what is your opinion of it?”
“It is wonderful.” She shrugged. The statement was all the more powerful because of its simplicity.
Pride flowed through his veins. “But do you not miss the wonders of your home?”
The smile slowly faded. “I do. Sometimes, I get horribly lonely.” A soft sort of surprised-sounding laugh fell from her lips. “I didn’t think I’d miss it, and to be honest, I’m not sure I really miss the above as much as I miss my family.” She wrinkled her nose.
“You wish to return to them?” Not that he would let her; the arrangement with the hag was for six months. If he allowed Nimue to go to the above, he’d be breaking their pact, and the hag would be free to claim her.
There were two-way communication devices, but it wasn’t always a kindness to let one see what one could not have.
“No.” She shook her head, causing her long tresses to curl attractively around her swanlike neck. “It’s not that. It’s more that... well...” She shrugged. “Nothing, I guess.”
He frowned. “I do not believe that it is nothing.”
Lips twisting, she gave him a penetrating look. “Why are you being so nice to me, Sircco? Why now?”
Squirming on his saddle, he wanted to shrug off her question the way she’d shrugged off his, but he sensed that if he did, their conversation would end now. “Because I find myself growing curious about you.”
Lifting a brow, he waited for her to laugh or get a scheming gleam to her eyes as Stygia did when he admitted to any type of interest. But she did neither. Instead, she cocked her head, and her look was open and frank.
“It’s my mother, isn’t it? Or
rather, Talia.” Taking a deep breath, she gave him a gentle smile. “Then ask me.”
Brows gathering, he shook his head. “I don’t know if that’s such a great idea.”
“Why not? If I was in your fins—”
She grinned a private grin, as though she were in on a joke he was not, and Sircco couldn’t stop wondering what she’d done to her face this morning to make her look so... interesting.
“I’d want to know if any part of her still exited.”
Heart hammering wildly in his chest, he did want to ask. He had questions—lots of questions—but suddenly, he couldn’t remember a single one of them.
When he failed to ask anything, she did instead. “If you won’t ask me, then can I ask you some?”
“Yes.”
Talia was a topic of conversation he rarely engaged in. But Nimue was her daughter, maybe not in flesh, but in spirit. She deserved to know.
“You are the only male. What is Talia to you that you have yet to tailfast to another? Why do you continue to wait? Is it not only fair to breed and produce other males for the maidens?”
The question was so unexpected, he snorted on his laughter and gave her wide eyes. “That is a bold question, Nimue. Not one any merfolk would dare to ask me.”
She shrugged. “I’m not folk. I’m a legger, and up there, we’re a pretty presumptuous kind.”
Anger and fury would have been met by such a question if it’d been asked by one of his people. Whom he mated or fasted with was none of their concern. But he lacked those emotions when the questions came from her.
Nimue did not see him as a king to be revered or honored, but as a male, an equal. It was odd, but also oddly refreshing.
Inhaling deeply, he said, “I suppose because I loved her. And it was not an emotion I wished to sully merely to provide males to those of my kingdom.”
“In the above, royalty is rarely their own. Marriages are made for many reasons, mostly political. To increase wealth or gain allegiances, titles”—she rolled her wrist—“whatever it may be.”
“Yes, which is why I hold most leggers in such great disdain. We have all that we need, and I would never tailfast myself to someone I could not feel great respect and pride for. It is not my way. I’ve never understood the concept of political gain when all it brings is misery in the end.”
“You are so different from the people I know.”
He grinned. “We are not of the same species, Nimue. I’d like to believe that in the under, we are a touch more civilized.”
Snorting, she nodded. “Okay, I’ll remember to thank Stygia next time I see her for my ‘civilized’ bruises.”
Chuckling, he dipped his head. “Well, I suppose there can be pettiness, even among the enlightened.”
“But you are right. In many ways, the folk are infinitely better than my peers.”
Now cleared of the twisted maze of kelp, they entered into a broader, flatter clearing of land full of jagged volcanic rock. Here the waters smelled richer, cleaner. They’d entered the more wild parts of Seren, parts rarely seen even by the folk, save for his sister and himself.
But life abounded in the deep. Crabs with shells as thick as dragon-plated armor were ghostly apparitions that scuttled haphazardly through crags and crevices. Long creatures that looked more like floating particles of sand than fish with glowing tracts of light winked in and out of focus continuously.
They were drawing close to the tiger’s encroachment, as evidenced by the scattered bones and fresh kills in abundance.
“She was always so curious,” he said softly, so quietly that he was sure she wouldn’t have heard him.
“Who?” She turned her owl eyes upon him. The glow krill had still not left her side. Their light added shadows to the hollows of her features, making her appear ghostly, yet still he found himself captivated.
“Talia.” Pressing his front teeth together, he forced his memories out, knowing that if there were anyone in the under who would appreciate the stories, it would be Nimue.
She smiled. “So is mother. Always curious about everything. Anytime Father finds a treasure, she’s the first to open it.” She laughed. “It has become something of a game between them.”
He nodded. “I can believe that. No matter how many times Maiven told Talia to stay away from the above, she always managed to sneak off. We weren’t sure how she did it, but...”
“The stairwell in the garden.”
Chuckling, he grinned. “You know about that, eh? Yes, it is true. We discovered it sometime later. She’d paid a witch a thousand galleons to have it fashioned.”
Nimue sat forward animatedly, but this time, she didn’t wrap her arms around Thunder’s neck. “I’m not surprised. You know, for years, mother lamented the fact that she had no memories of the mermaid. But sometimes, I’d see this twinkle enter her eyes, and she’d say something in a voice that was soft and breathy and not her own—”
“Talia had a voice that haunted the soul. She could sing.”
“Well then, we finally have our first difference, because mother cannot. Sounds like a dying harpy, though father denies it and swears she has the voice of an angel.”
“Good gods.” He shared in her chuckle.
“Yes, and I fear I’ve inherited the trait. My screeching would make your ears bleed.”
Spotting the shadowy figures of twenty-foot-long tiger’s in the distance, Sircco tugged on Lightning’s reins, twisting in his saddle so that he could look at her head on.
As dark as it was down here, and with the way the glow krill’s light reflected, bouncing shadows off Thunder’s tail, for just a moment, he could imagine her as a mermaid. He could see what she might have been had Talia chosen him.
But then another, more-powerful thought eclipsed that one. If Talia had chosen him, Nimue would be altogether different. She’d not be this brave, sensitive, and funny legger. Her hair wouldn’t be the dark of the endless deep, or her skin the pale of a shimmering pearl. Her upturned breasts tucked into that crimson-stained bodice wouldn’t make his pulse thunder or scramble his mind.
“Did you enjoy Daniel’s company?” he asked in a voice grown scratchy, not sure why he’d even mentioned the legger’s name. “Do you need more legger interaction, Nimue?”
He held his breath, awaiting her answer, which was swift to come.
“No. I think I enjoy this type of interaction much more.”
Chapter 8
It’d been a month since her journey to the moors, and Nimue couldn’t stop smiling into the vanity mirror.
Things had changed between her and Sircco lately—not quickly, and not easily—but rather than ignore her, he now seemed to seek her out. He asked her questions and, even on occasion, offered up tidbits on Talia’s life.
And even though Stygia’s snarly attitude hadn’t let up in the slightest, only a blind fool would not have seen that Sircco, King of the Seren Seas, was intrigued by his little captive.
Fluffing out her hair, she twirled, running her hands down the silky fabric of her slitted gown. Showing off such an expanse of thigh felt naughty, especially here, where the folk viewed her legs as a repulsive piece of flesh, but it’d not escaped her notice that Sircco glanced down at them more and more often.
She had great legs, muscular but not too much so. They were solidly built and yet femininely delicate. She was proud of who she was, and whether any of them down here felt as she did, it mattered naught to her.
Pinching her cheeks to bring out the pink in her pale, washed-out flesh, she inhaled deeply. Maiven had invited her over to harvest more snails this morning.
Not that Maiven really needed the help, but Nimue suspected her great-mother enjoyed her company as much as Nimue enjoyed hers. Grabbing a shawl, as the waters had become cooler as of late, she then wrapped it snugly about her shoulders and headed out of the door. She immediately bumped into a hard, firm chest. Sircco’s fingers latched onto her biceps, curling around them. Not exactly gentle, he wasn’t hur
ting her, either. His thumbs traced idly down the crosshatch pattern of her annelid-silk shawl.
“You are up.” His baritone voice made her want to squirm. It made her breasts tingle and her knees go weak.
His hair had grown slightly longer in the time since she’d been below the water. And there was always one annoying curl he kept slapping out of his eyes. If she were braver, she would have reached up to push it aside.
But she wasn’t brave, so she curled her hand into a fist and gave him a tight smile, hating that her stomach suddenly felt twisted with knots.
“Yes, I am up.”
A bright gleam entered his exotic bronze eyes full of rolling waves. “Good. I have a surprise for you in my study, I’d like for you to see it.”
She felt slightly breathless when his warm palm crept an inch higher upon her arm as one of his fingers accidentally grazed her left breast. Clearing her throat, she attempted to speak through the muddle her brain had become.
“I would love to see it. But,” she said when he began dragging her toward the staircase, “I promised great-mother I’d spend time with her this morning. Can I see it after dinner, perhaps?”
The waves suddenly swelled and thick clouds full of dancing light filled his gaze. “Yes, of course,” he said, but she heard the disappointment in those words.
A hermit crab scuttled off his crown, down his arm, and onto hers. It had freaked her out a little the first time one of them had done that. Jian had been none too pleased to share his legger with another and had hissed a violent stream of bubbles at it. But this time, her little sea dragon merely vibrated his ear fins at the interloper climbing up the side of her neck. Its chitinous little feet tapped a discordant rhythm as it climbed up before settling against her cheek and giving her a rub with its shell.
Sircco grinned. “Orion likes you.”
Thinning her lips as she tried to refrain from laughing so hard that she knocked the little beastie off, she nodded. “I’m not sure what it is about yours and Sirenade’s elementals, but they do seem to like my smell.”
A secret light filled his gaze, calming the choppy waves. Then his fingers brushed gently against her cheek. Orion jumped back onto his master’s arm but not before giving her chin a gentle brush with his antennae.