Everlost (Mer Tales, Book 3)

by Brenda Pandos

  Fire lit Jacob’s blue-grey eyes. Hot. Smoldering. They darted to her lips and back again. A few short hours ago she’d mentally begged for this moment, for his lips on hers. But after seeing Azor with Xirene, knowing the power the kiss brought two souls, she wasn’t sure she wanted to jump into another promise so soon. She licked her lips, unsure what she felt anymore. Why would anyone want to bind themselves to someone when they could turn around and hurt you like this?

  Jacob’s forehead creased, new concern touching his face. “And kissing me might ease that pain, but I don’t want to be his replacement. You have to break the bond on your own first, to know for sure.”

  She startled and pulled away from him. What did he mean her strength and independence was still locked inside her? Couldn’t he see she had broken the bond? Or had her crying shone she was still weak and dependant. Swiveling her legs off the couch, she sat up and wiped away her tears. She didn’t need him, or anyone to save her. She was fine on her own.

  “Don’t worry. I don’t need your help. I’ve already broken it,” she stated plainly. “He kissed Xirene first, so I was never really bonded to him to begin with.”

  He sucked in a breath, then squeezed her thigh. “Tatiana, I didn’t mean it like that—”

  At the splash in the porthole, Tatiana pulled away from Jacob, embarrassed. And she most definitely didn’t want to look like she’d moved onto Jacob when in fact she hadn’t. She wanted to be single for a while and they’d remain strictly friends, until they parted ways in Florida. And there she could move onto a new path in life—maybe even become human so she could forget how humiliating all of this had been.

  “Finally,” she said to the three green hooded heads that had emerged at the porthole. “Nice getup.”

  All at once, they launched out of the porthole, phasing in mid-air. One landed before Tatiana, trapping her arms at her waist, while the other two apprehended Jacob.

  “Glad you approve,” the Dradux before her said with a sly smile. “You should see what’s underneath waiting for you.”

  Tatiana screamed. But the siren, trapped inside her human form, only came out as a shriek from her lips.

  “Get your hands off her!” Jacob yelled while struggling against his captors.

  “I’ll do the talking,” a fourth Dradux lisped from the porthole. Like the others, he flew up into the air and phased before touching down on the floor.

  Tatiana’s captor slid his hand over her mouth. “No biting,” he whispered in her ear. She kicked and grunted, but her assailant only held her tighter.

  “Chauncey,” Jacob growled, “I should have known.”

  “And I should have killed you earlier, traitor.” Chauncey flipped off his hood to reveal his scarred face. “What are you doing alone with the Princess anyway?”

  “My job,” he seethed.

  Chauncey’s acerbic laughter echoed off the walls. “As if you could guard Princess Tatiana in your condition. I’ll take over from here.”

  “Don’t do this, Chauncey.”

  “Or what? You’ll throw your bloody gauze at me? Sic your rebel friends on me? On the new master of the Dradux?” He waggled his new parasitic tongue. “Guess again.”

  “Let her go!”

  Chauncey snapped his fingers, and the Dradux pulled Jacob to a sitting position. He groaned, favoring his left side. Tatiana tried to lunge for Jacob, moaning in desperation.

  “As of this moment, you’re relieved of your job, Jacob.” Chauncey gestured and the two yanked Jacob to his feet. “And I’m formally arresting you for being improper with the Princess.”

  “Improper?”

  A coy smile met Chauncey’s lips. “Like we don’t know what you two were doing.”

  “You’ll regret this, Chauncey. I promise you. I will hunt you down and make you pay.” Jacob’s captors forced him toward the porthole; one grasped his hair and the other prodded his back with his scythe.

  “Not after what Azor has in store for you, rebel.” Chauncey clicked his tongue. The disgusting noise he’d made against the soft body of the parasite echoed in the room.

  Tatiana groaned, struggling in her captor’s arms. She couldn’t allow them to take Jacob. She had to stall. Badger and Grommet were returning.

  Jacob shot her a look of despair and mouthed, “I’ll come for you.”

  “Keep moving,” one of the Dradux said and the other pushed Jacob forward into the porthole. Together, they pulled him under the waves.

  “No!” Tatiana’s cry was muffled through the Dradux’s smelly hand.

  Chauncey moved to her and traced his finger over her cheek and down her neck between her breasts. A smile crooked on the corner of his lips. He rested his finger on the edge of her skirt waistband. “I’ve heard you’re still pure.”

  She leaned in with angry eyes and stomped on his foot with her heel. He yelped and moved away, cursing. He took his scythe and aimed it at her legs. She winced, expecting him to slice into her thigh. Instead, he took the sharp blade and lifted the corner of her skirt. She splayed her hands over the fabric to stop him.

  The two men laughed at her feeble attempts.

  “I’ll find out what’s under there soon enough.”

  “Like hell you will.” With a swift donkey kick to the Dradux’s knee, a sickening crack filled the room. The Dradux doubled over and Tatiana’s arms were free. She pulled the battle ax from the trunk and wielded the heavy object around in front of her. “Stand back, you sea sacks!”

  Her injured arm ached under the strain of the weapon, but determined, she held the ax outright.

  “Or you’ll cleave me?” Chauncey pushed up one brow. “So brave.”

  You bet your vent, I am.

  Tatiana jumped into the porthole and submerged, searching for Jacob’s scent. She had time to stop the two bastards from taking Jacob to Azor’s compound. They could still escape Natatoria together.

  She whipped her head around at the musk of rotting oysters and freshness of essence, and froze. A sea of Dradux guards were all that she could see. And just beyond the neighboring house were an entire group of mers, chained with sacks over their heads.

  She picked out Badger before they tied a sack over his head. Their eyes met briefly—angered and frustrated. She wouldn’t let the mass of enemies stop her. With her siren scream, she swung the ax around with all the courage she could muster, aiming to knock the Dradux down like bowling pins. Someone behind her plucked the weapon from her hands and another restrained her around her waist. The sack plunged her into darkness as something secured uncomfortably across her gills, making breathing difficult. She choked, her siren silenced.

  “Take her to the captain,” she heard a merman say from behind her.

  “No!” she yelled, thrashing.

  Then fire burned up her tail, the all too familiar stab from a merman’s tail barb. She cried out, heart pounding, but fell limp in the current as the merman dragged her away.

  : : :

  With a sudden rush, she was yanked into an air-filled room and dropped. Her knees clattered onto the hard stones. She winced, kneeling prone, gasping and choking, fighting to suck in gasps of oxygen through the wet bag over her head. “Do you mean to suffocate me?”

  At the silence, she straightened, trying to gain leverage with her wrists bound behind her. “I know you’re here, Azor. I can smell you.”

  Someone lifted her arms, tugging her to her feet. Then they shoved her forward. Her leg burned at the wound site where the Dradux had nicked her tail, making her foot numb. She slipped on the cold uneven tiles, unlike the palace marble. Where was she?

  After walking a few steps, she was turned and roughly shoved into a chair.

  “Remove the sack.”

  Azor.

  Tatiana grimaced at the recognition of his voice. With a quick tug of the rope around her throat, light burst around her eyes. She sucked in a breath and focused on a poster of Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night hanging on the wall in her room in her parents’
house.

  “Azor,” Tatiana said in disgust, watching his lips smirk in victory. She couldn’t believe how with each interaction, the broken promise peeled back new layers of loathing hate for him. “Really? You’re going to tie me up and treat me like a prisoner now?”

  “I don’t seem to have much choice, considering you run every time I try to talk to you.”

  Tatiana snorted. “Maybe that’s because you cheated on me , then threatened to kill me.”

  “Careful, Princess.” His nostrils flared, and he gestured to the Dradux handler next to her, dismissing him. He waited a beat then walked closer to her. “As far as I see it, in order to get what we both want, we have to work together.”

  “What I want?” Tatiana laughed. “Since when do you care?”

  Azor raised his brow, amusement playing on his face. “Oh, I care…”—he twirled a golden key on a string—“I think you should at least listen to my proposition, especially since you’ve involved Jacob in all of this.”

  “Jacob?” she parroted, nonchalant. “He was a horrible guard.”

  “Oh, don’t be so coy. I know you two were caught kissing.”

  “What—?” She blew out a noisy breath and laughed. “That’s ridiculous.”

  Azor frowned. “So it doesn’t concern you I’m charging him with treason, and he’s to be escorted to Bone Island tomorrow?”

  Her body jolted. “Treason for what?”

  “His secret loyalty to the rebellion and his inappropriate advances toward the future queen.”

  Her chest heaved as she focused to remain calm. “And what about you?”

  “Me?” He snorted.

  She leaned forward in her chair. “Do I have to state the obvious?”

  He pressed her with hard eyes. “I make the rules, Tatiana, but frankly, I’m not angry at him for kissing you. I’m relieved.”

  Relieved? Her face crinkled at his statement.

  “Yes,” he smiled as if to read her mind. “It solves your clinginess problem, though, I’d forgotten how mouthy you can be otherwise.”

  She gritted her teeth. You haven’t heard anything yet. “You’re one to talk.”

  “Yes, well…” He walked over to her dresser and uncovered a blob of something—a jellyfish?—missing its tentacles and bloated. “Time to brush up on your acting skills.”

  She shook her head, already knowing where he was going with his proposition. “Oh, no.”

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “It’s just for the week.”

  “Are you suggesting I wear that? Pretend I’m pregnant? Yes, we mermaids gestate quickly, but we’ve only been promised for a little over a week, Azor.”

  “And we were so naughty.” He smiled evilly. “Unless you have a better idea.”

  Did he not know the gossip mill at the palace? She was surprised Xirene’s bulging stomach hadn’t been detected yet.

  “Pearleza knows. She inspected me.”

  “And she knows to keep quiet, or we’ll dispose of her.”

  Tatiana gasped. “You’ll what?”

  “Like I said, if it’s for the betterment of the kingdom, then I make those tough decisions. It’s all part of being king.”

  “You are not king yet.”

  “I will be soon.”

  “How about you fall on your trident and dispose of yourself, you slippery oyster,” she said with a smirk. “I’m not wearing that… thing!”

  Azor leaned forward. “Oh, yes you will and this is why. Every minute you don’t cooperate is another Jacob will go without water. He can only last for so long before he dries up, and we wouldn’t want our hero to turn into a bag of bones, would we?”

  She sucked in a breath. “I want to see him first.”

  “You will, Love.”

  “Don’t call me that,” she said, teeth gritted, “ever.”

  “Fine. You’ll pretend you’re pregnant, give birth, then… you can see Jacob. After that, I don’t see why we can’t keep our private lives separate from our public ones… all for the sake of our kingdom, of course.”

  “What are you suggesting? We pretend we’re promised to one another, but have secret lovers on the side?” She laughed. “What happened to killing me off in childbirth?”

  “This way is less messy.” He quirked a smile. “Besides, you still need a bodyguard and I, a handmaid doubling as a nursemaid for our new merling. It solves both our problems.”

  Tatiana cringed at the lengths he’d go, all for power. Like the dreaded deep-sea angler fish, he dangled Jacob’s life like a bioluminescent lure before her, thinking she must have kissed Jacob since she clearly was free of his bond. But Azor had assumed the wrong thing. Though she cared about Jacob and would do anything to save him, Azor had underestimated her. She was free. Free to think clearly. Free to outsmart him.

  “What’s my guarantee you won’t dispose of Jacob or me when we’re no longer of use to you?” She gauged his reaction.

  “Without Jacob, I’d be stuck with your whining love-sick self, trailing me around, begging I spend more time with you. I can’t stomach that again, Tatiana. And what’s a kingdom without their jewel that is the queen?”

  Her lips pulled into a light line, angered at how cruel he was, tricking her with his kiss, then purposefully making her suffer. He had no value of life, of love, or even the promise. He only looked at the mers as objects to do what he wants.

  “Why can’t Xirene just be the queen instead?”

  “Xirene?” He laughed. “Now that’s funny. No… you’ll cooperate, or I’ll resort to using drugs, plain and simple. Your choice.”

  She cringed. “You wouldn’t.”

  “Oh, I would. But you have my word; I’ll return Jacob unharmed after we pull this off, My Queen. Freedom for your mere cooperation.”

  His word? She wanted to spit in his face. His word was worthless “It doesn’t bother you that it won’t be my child? Or Xirene?”

  “Does that really matter? It’s mine, and he’ll be of royal blood, so the question of his mother won’t need to be discussed. And Xirene will still raise him.”

  Tatiana tilted her head to the side. How could Xirene be okay with this?

  “And what if you have a girl?”

  The curl on his lips faded to a frown. “It’ll be a boy.”

  “Confident much?” Her jaw tightened.

  He leaned forward and stared her down. “I always get what I want.”

  She glowered at him until he turned to leave the room, letting out a short whistle. She jumped off the chair when her leg—still throbbing over the merman’s sting—convulsed in a spasm of pain, tripping her to the floor.

  “Aren’t you going to cut me free?”

  Instead, two Dradux appeared with an iron gate. They fastened the monstrous thing over the doorway with homemade hinges, locking her in place. She rolled over and peered down the hall.

  “Let my hands free at least, Azor! Azor?”

  She slumped against her side and wiggled her wrists against the ropes. Your word, my fin! She knew better than to trust him, and she refused to be drugged. Her only hope was to pretend the promise paralyzed her, and once free, she’d find Jacob and high-tail it out of Natatoria. She just had to wait for the right moment, but first she had to get her wrists free.

  32

  : : :

  Bondage

  Jacob struggled against the chains binding his hands above his head. Darkness enveloped the air-filled cave, forcing him to remain finned. Only his tail had found solace in a nearby puddle. The water covered just below his lower fins, the amount adequate to keep him alive, just barely—but not enough to quench his thirst.

  His eyes fluttered open to the sweet, soft voice.

  “Tatiana?” he asked, voice raspy.

  “I’m here,” she whispered, her arm extended just out of reach. Her body shimmered against the black obsidian wall, flickering in and out of existence.

  He pulled on the chains in attempts to get closer to her. “Tatiana.”

&n
bsp; “I’m here…” In a fleeting wisp, her image disappeared. “Fight for me, Jacob. I do want you.”

  Jacob groaned, slumping into the wall, his mind floating in and out of clarity. What happened? Where was she? How long had he been here?

  On his torso, the wet gauze no longer held the blue iridescent liquid. Only his blood, red and bright, dripped from his wound down his chest. If he survived, he’d have to depend on his own healing.

  His thoughts fell back to Tatiana, the fullness of her lips, her beautiful smile, Chauncey and his goons taking him from her. Had he missed his only chance to kiss her? Why did he wait? He’d insulted her instead and assumed otherwise, when she’d already figured out how to break the bond on her own. I’m so sorry, Tatiana.

  His eyes slipped shut, his heart racing again. He had no idea where she was, what Azor had planned, or if she was even alive. He had to remain hopeful, and somehow outsmart the chains than bound him to the rocks. Where was Grommet? Did anyone see?

  A throbbing ache radiated from his brow. They’d bludgeoned his skull before covering his head with the sack. After that, he’d blacked-out from the pain.

  “Ah… the lucky bastard lives.” Azor emerged from the watery pool, a smile plastered on his face.

  Jacob snarled in response. “What is this?”

  “Justice.”

  “For?”

  “For kissing my mate.”

  “What?” Jacob threw his head back and laughed. “Yeah, right.”

  “You can deny it all you want, but within a week, all will know for sure. That is if you survive that long.”

  Jacob groaned. “Don’t look too closely for a tattoo because when I get my hands free—”

  “You’ll what?” He leaned in aggressively. “Murder the King?”

  “Among other things,” Jacob grunted.

  “Brave coming from a man whom I could finish off right now.”

  Jacob snorted, curious why he hadn’t brought a weapon with him. “You’re too much of a coward to do your own dirty work.”

  “Ha!” Azor glowered. “You know nothing about me.”