by Marie Hall
Sighing, he stared at the waters he loved just slightly less than the woman awaiting him in his cabin below.
The Sea King was soon to be his son-in-law. Snorting with mirth, he muttered, “Could be worse, I suppose.”
*
Danika smiled as the wave of powerful magic pulsed upon her flesh like a tender kiss.
“Good on you, little Nimue. Now that you’ve caught the fish, the only thing left to do is make sure you sink that hook in deep.”
“Such a mercenary bedfellow I keep.” Jericho kissed her cheek.
Winking, she pinched his bum, laughing when he jumped and swatted at her. “And don’t you forget it, dear. This fairy’s got fangs, and I won’t hesitate to bite you with them.”
Chapter 15
“The way I see it”—the shadowy form eyed Stygia with avarice—“you’ve not done a very good job of things. I handed you the keys to the Kingdom, and... what a waste.”
“Wait!” She held out a hand as the figure turned to leave. “Please. I can do better. I will do better. Only, help me get her out of the way. She is the only reason why I am not yet wearing that crown. I vow it.”
Twirling, the figure came back toward her, and Stygia cringed, turning her face to the side. She hated dealing with the shadows, but there was no other way. All she needed was a little bit of help. She’d nearly had Sircco—eliminating the threat would bring him back to her, and hopefully, this time, into her bed.
Whispers abounded in Seren that the king had taken the legger as his own. For the past month, it was all she’d heard. And she’d been unable to verify if there were any veracity to the stories since the queen and king had now taken to locking the palace gates at night.
Swallowing the bile coming up her throat at the thought of him touching that vile, noxious legger, she knew she only had one last chance at righting this wrong.
“Fine. One more token from us, but know this, Stygia of the Under, should you fail, your soul will belong to me.”
She screamed as a wave suddenly rose from the depths, covering and swallowing her, dragging her back down into the sea. But her fear soon turned to triumph when she opened her palm and stared at the vial full of liquid death.
Licking her lips, she knew what she had to do. It would be so easy, so ridiculously easy. She simply needed to figure out a way to get close enough to administer the poison.
No sooner had she thought it, than she knew how.
Turning, she flicked her powerful tail then swam for home. There were a few things she must do first.
*
Nimue grinned at Ariana as she chased the children through the thick maze of Maiven’s kelp stalks.
“Frisee, swim faster. She is nearly upon you!” She yelled at the orang-haired child, who shrieked so powerfully when Ariana tackled her from behind that even at this distance, Nimue cringed.
Breathless with laughter, the two tussled around for a moment, before Ariana finally released her.
Glancing up at the sun, Nimue asked, “Frisee, didn’t your mother want you home by the noon hour?”
“Aww.” The little maiden flicked her tail across a pebble, causing it to skitter across Maiven’s freshly swept cobblestone paths.
“Yes. Yes. Yes. Now out with you. Go, you little imp.” Maiven clapped her hands, ushering the little one through the back door with promises of sweets and a bowl of snails to take to her mother.
While they were busy inside, Ariana came and plopped down beside Nim, her features serious and stoic.
“Ari?” she asked her friend who’d been more absent than not lately, to the point that Nimue was now shy about even talking to her for fear that the skittish maid would swim off without even a farethewell to be had.
But this time, rather than flit away, the mermaid sat ramrod still, peeking at Nim from the corner of her hypnotic green eyes.
Not knowing what to say, but wishing to put Ariana at ease somehow, she asked, “Do you still have your comb, Ari? Would you like me to brush your hair?”
The mermaid’s fingers twitched, and she turned just slightly, a clear indication that she did.
Whatever Nimue had done that day with the mirror had left a lasting impression on her friend. She only wished she knew what it was.
“Yes,” Ariana finally whispered, reaching slowly into her pouch to extract the ivory comb.
Frowning as she took it, Nimue instructed Ariana to turn all the way around and tip her head back just a tad.
The first swipe of the comb through her hair visibly eased the strain between Ari’s shoulders, and by the fifth stroke, she was positively trembling.
“I like this,” she said in a voice stronger than it had been before.
Smiling, Nimue nodded even though she knew the mermaid couldn’t see her. “I like it, too.” And she really did. Ari’s hair was like touching the softest velvet. After a moment she said, “I’ve missed my friend.”
Again, the shoulders tensed.
Not wanting to suffer another interminable bout of silence between them, she sighed. “Ari, please if you could just tell me what I did so that I could apologize and we could move on. It pains me that you still don’t trust me. I would never take your mirror.”
Twirling about so quickly that it nearly forced Nimue to fall off the bench in surprise, Ari gripped Nim’s wrist and held fast as her normally docile features turned hard and aggressive.
“Not you, my Nim. Not you. But you should... you shouldn’t...”
Then her face screwed up, and she looked about to cry.
Nimue felt completely flabbergasted and helpless. “Ariana, please, what is the matter?”
Covering her face with her hands and shaking her head hard, she muttered between her fingers, “Bad. Bad happened, my Nimue. I know this. You should not go there. I know this. You should not.”
“Go where, Ariana? Home?” Was the maiden upset that in a month’s time, Nim would be returning to the above? “Home is not bad. Home is just home. I can come back and visit.”
“No!” Ariana screamed, bobbing to a standing position and glowering. “You should not go. Do not go. Stay. You must stay.”
Then she was gripping Nimue’s arms and dragging her to her side, moving through the gardens at a fast clip. The maiden’s strength was so great that no matter how much she pushed and shoved at her, Nimue couldn’t force Ariana to release her.
“Maiven!” she shrieked as a last defense. “Come, please.”
Her great-mother came speeding through the door not a second later, eyes rounding as she spied Ariana snapping through her beloved kelp plants in her haste to escape with Nimue.
It took the two of them forcefully grappling against the mermaid’s monstrous strength to finally get her to release Nimue.
Gasping, teeth clenched from the throbbing pain in both her wrists, Nimue couldn’t believe what’d just happened. Fingerprints had already begun to bruise upon her delicate skin.
“Ari?” she whimpered, hugging her hands to her chest.
Upon seeing the sight, the mermaid tossed her hands up, once more covering her face, and cried great heaving sobs. “I’m sorry, my Nimue. So, so sorry. So sorry. Sorry.”
The mumbling continued on unabated, the once-more lovely mermaid trembling violently from the heavy tears raining down her cheeks.
Maiven’s eyes asked a wordless, “What happened?”
Feeling close to tears herself, Nimue shook her head. She had no idea. One minute, her friend had been fine. The next, she’d turned mindless with rage.
Heart more bruised than her flesh, Nimue whispered slowly, “Great-mother, I think I’m going to return to the palace now.”
“Yes. Yes, I think it’s best.” She nodded as she hugged Ari tight to her breast.
The girl still hadn’t stopped crying.
Throat clogged with tears, Nimue turned to go. Cook wouldn’t be receiving a batch of snails today, after all.
*
Climbing the stairs gingerly, Nimue bega
n to feel bruises in more than just her wrists. Her legs ached, too, thanks to the repetitive slapping of Ariana’s tail. She’d passed Cook and Sirenade as she’d made her way to her room, giving them a polite nod before continuing up the steps.
She wasn’t even sure what she’d agreed to, but right now, she desperately needed the safety of her room.
Once inside, she locked the door then collapsed onto the bed, heart completely shattered and broken.
A little wriggling mass zipped from out of the curtain of her hair. Jian eyed her critically before his ear fins began buzzing frantically.
“I am fine, my little friend. Only sore, is all.”
But her words weren’t good enough for him. Swimming first to her right wrist, he proceeded to nuzzle and plant a tiny row of kisses across every tender and aching part.
She sighed as, immediately, the magic of his healing worked its way through her. But he didn’t stop there. He moved to the next wrist and repeated the same process.
Relieved beyond measure that she no longer felt as though there were crystal shards floating freely through her bloodstream, she nodded. “Thank you, Jian.”
He gave a quick, short burst of a neigh—a “you’re welcome, and is there more?” She was just about to answer when there was a pounding at her door.
“Nimue, let me in!” Sircco’s voice thundered, full of fear.
Cringing as she stood to her still-tender feet, she made her way slowly toward the door, unlocked it and was immediately enveloped in his warm arms.
He trembled as he held her, and she clung to him like a lifeline. She’d never felt more safe than she did now. Tenderly, he kissed her brow before pulling back so that he could get a good look at her. Bronze eyes snapped with thunderclouds.
“What has happened to you? Sirenade came to me saying you looked unwell.”
“I’m... I’m fine now.” She shook her head, not wanting Ariana to come to any harm.
She still couldn’t understand why her friend had done what she’d done, but she also knew it wasn’t her fault.
“Nim,” he growled, sweeping her into his arms. He swam to her bed and gently deposited her on the mattress. His fingers glided soothingly along her thighs. “I know when you are upset. You are trembling like a twig. If you do not tell me what’s happened, I will demand Maiven do so, as I am her king.”
Glowering at his implied threat, she punched his arm. Not hard. With no intention of hurting him. But because she hated when he used that trump card against her.
“I am fine, beluga.”
He narrowed his eyes.
“Argh, you insufferable beast. Ariana snapped at me today. I don’t know why, and I doubt she does, either. We were fine one moment, and then the next, she was dragging me through great-mother’s garden and slapping me with her fin.”
“Why?” he barked, grabbing her wrists and turning them this way and that as he studied the now-smooth flesh.
Jian, whom she’d forgotten about till just now, harrumphed at Sircco when the king swatted him away.
Punching him just a bit harder this time, she snatched her precious little pet away from the frightening Sea King and settled him once more into the nest of her hair. He cooed before wrapping his tail around a thick lock of hair then promptly resumed snoring.
“You be nice to my dragon before I knock you silly, you whale. He was only trying to help.”
He closed his eyes, and her anger dissipated under the weight of his obvious strain.
“Nimue, if anything were to ever happen to you, I do not think I could—”
“Shush,” she placed a finger against his lips, silencing his words. “Like I said, I am fine.”
“Thank the Goddess.” Then his hands were rubbing her arms, and she melted into his touch, as she always did. “Did Jian see to all your healing?”
She should say yes, so that the lumbering oaf would leave her be, but that would simply be petty. Truthfully, Nimue liked having him here with her and liked feeling cosseted and pampered.
“Nay. He missed my legs.” Her lips turned into a hint of a smile. She knew very well how her beluga loved to play with her legs.
His eyes danced. “Then perhaps”—he slid his palms beneath her skirt, and she sighed at the delicious sensations coursing through her, turning her body molten and weak—“I could help you with that.”
Being the Sea King’s favorite toy had its perks—like the fact that he could do much more with his mouth and tongue than simply give her air. She spread her legs as his lips replaced his hand, giving her a slow trail of teasing kisses along the inside of her thigh.
But there was no healing in this kiss; she’d been injured at her shins, though she certainly wouldn’t tell him so. Just yet.
“Here?” he rumbled, laving his tongue along the tip of her knee.
“A little...higher, I think,” she answered, breathless.
His laughter caused her flesh to tickle and made her fidget, but his grip was fast—the king was feasting and not to be disturbed.
It crossed her mind that her door was still open and that should anyone wish to, they’d be able to spot their king on bended tail, giving glory to a legger.
Drugged half out of her mind with need, she had just enough breath in her to mumble, “Door, beluga. Shut the door.”
Snapping his fingers, it slammed shut. The lock clicked into place an instant later.
She gasped, arching her spine when his devilish tongue licked the spot where her leg and center met.
“Good Gods,” she moaned, clutching at his skull with her nails as she tried to force him closer.
Chuckling, he nuzzled the side of her thigh. “Such meaty, delicious things these legs of yours. I think I should want them as my nightly snack. What say you, barracuda. Can I feast on them always?”
“Gah.” She wasn’t exactly sure what sound she’d just made. A mixture between a grunt and a groan, it seemed to tickle his fancy.
“No underwear,” he said. Then his finger slid down her wet heat, and she jumped. “Expecting me, were you?”
He glanced up at her, and seeing the big, powerful male who ruled all of the seas with an iron fist kneeling before her with his mouth mere inches from the very center of her, she spoke the words into being—the very ones that had hammered away in her heart these past many months. “I love you.”
Simply.
Easily.
Three words.
But they encompassed a wealth of meaning and devotion. And even if he didn’t say it back, she could not regret it, because they’d flowed from her heart.
He jerked, sitting up, his lips shimmering from his kisses, and awe reflected in the cool waters of his metallic eyes.
Framing her face, he held her as though she were precious and all things to him.
She melted into his touch, knowing that in all of Kingdom, she would never find another like him. Nimue knew of his great love for Talia and that he could probably never give her back what she’d given him. But her love was a gift with no strings attached.
“Nimue”—he breathed her name like a benediction—“do not leave me. When the six months are gone, stay with me always. Choose me.”
Her heart fluttered in her throat. Could he possibly mean that? Covering her mouth with nerveless fingers, she was lost for words.
He could do that—he was king. She’d never known a legger to choose to stay. Even her father hadn’t been able to stay for Talia; instead, she’d chosen to leave her people for his.
But Sircco could never leave.
His jaw tightened, and his fingers grew lax.
“Wait.” She clamped her hand to his. “Do you mean it? You want me to stay here? You will not grow bored of me? Regret my intrusion after a time?”
Each of her questions was met by a hard shake of his head.
The last part, she did not want to say, but she had to because it was the only way she could decide.
“I cannot stay for anything less than love.”
“Hagfish, do you mean to say that you really don’t know?”
Tears caught in the corners of her eyes, and she nipped on her bottom lip, knowing in her heart that he felt it, too. But she needed to hear it all the same. “Then say it, beluga.”
“I wish you to my bride and consort. I love you with all my heart and soul, you prideful, stubborn—”
She punched his chest. “Mind your manners, whale,” she said between happy sobs.
“Beautiful legger,” he finished, bringing her hand to his lips and planting a kiss onto the center of her palm.
Feeling as though her heart might soon burst from her chest, she smiled as he swiped the tears from off her face with the pads of his thumbs. “I will not shame you? My legs?”
“Shame me? Oh, my pirate, don’t you know your legs are the best part about you?”
It took many hugs, kisses, and rapturous words of adoration before they settled down enough to remember the task at hand—namely, pleasuring her pains away.
She should have probably told him she’d long since stopped feeling anything other than joy, but then... he may not have finished, and everyone knew that pirates were a greedy lot.
Chapter 16
Stygia swam out from behind a row of swaying kelp, startling Cook so that she screamed, dropping her basket full of sea grass and clutching at her ample chest.
“Goddess blast it, woman!” she snarled then shook her head. “I am sorry. Only you frightened me. What on Seren are you doing in the queen’s garden at this early hour, Stygia?”
Stygia had timed her visit just so. Brushing her hand down her fin, to clean the sand off her tail. Patting her hair into place, she gave Cook a remorseful nod.
“I am sorry, Cook. Only...” Sighing heavily, she whipped the basket she’d held behind her back before her and pointed to the twin loaves of sea cake. “I wished to bring Nimue a peace offering. I acted poorly with her, and I can see now the error of my ways.”
Word had spread quickly through Seren that the legger had been spotted wearing a crown jewel. Specifically a ring made up of fire pearls—rare and precious jewels that were only worn by royalty or future consorts.