The current installment I’d selected from my dwindling to-be-read pile was the most riveting yet. Neptune’s wife, Salacia, the goddess of salt-water who presided over the oceans, had hightailed it to earth after Neptune proposed they be bonded, hiding out in the depths of the Atlantic for months. It wasn’t so much a case of cold feet—or lack of desire—as it was her feeling totally unworthy to serve as his queen. Nonetheless, she’d made one of our two primary gods pursue her, earning her major props in my book. After almost a year, dolphins he’d enlisted to aid in the search across two worlds finally tracked her down and conveyed his heartfelt message, persuading Neptune’s reluctant bride to return. Neptune was so grateful for the assist that he spread dolphins across all the oceans of Teresolee. He even took their image on as one of his religious symbols. I guess that explained why I had a four inch dolphin tattooed across the crown of my head.
I don’t think Johnna expects you to have read all of our teachings before your first session with him. Aristos placed a feather soft kiss on my still healing cheek. You’ve been at this for hours. Come to bed with me.
I’m in bed, I teased, motioning to the large pile of furs my neck was nestled up against and the padded netting that covered my body. I’d never seen him mope before. He was like a bored nine year old. It was adorable.
Our bed.
There was nothing childlike about the wolfish look in his hungry eyes as he yanked the tablet from my hands and pressed his shimmering emerald lips against my mouth in a kiss that stole the very oxygen from my blood. Spine-tingling jolts of electricity accompanied each movement of his tongue as it teased the inside of my cheeks and pushed deeper to the back of my throat. He forced himself to pull away before my glowing soulcras could reach him and bind us together.
What’s wrong? Being reminded of how frustrating our initial flirtations had been before I’d gained control of my soulcras brought a smile to my lips. We were well past those days now, and thanks to his mega-charged kiss, I was totally in the mood.
We need to talk.
Had anything good ever followed that sentence in the history of mankind? I tried to reign in my libido—he’d picked an odd way to start a fight, the bastard—intent on dealing with the proverbial elephant who’d chosen now to come charging into the room. Guessing what he was pissed about was the easy part. Every time he glanced at my stitched together cheek I feared for Taleoek’s life. But that didn’t mean I was in any hurry to listen to a bunch of cave man ultimatums I had no intention of honoring. I swam out from underneath the bedding to face him, narrowly avoiding two piles of tablets before knocking over a third with my tail. It was like a damn minefield in here.
Aristos had shed his red ceremonial robes for the evening, leaving every inch of his toned warrior body on display. His long grey hair was free of the worn strip of canta vine that usually bound it at the base of his neck whenever it wasn’t braided. The subtle current fanned his magnificent mane out behind him like a glorious cloak. So I have a little cut on my face. We both knew that and much worse was bound to happen. You assured me you’d support my training.
And I do. Even if I have an insatiable urge to beat Taleoek to a pulp at the moment. My issue isn’t with your training. We’ve been bonded almost a week now, Cami. You have yet to share anything more about your family, what happened on Mt. Olympus, how it felt to meet our gods. When are you going to open up to me? I want to know everything about you.
My jaw hung agape as I tried to get my mind around the fact that he’d actually turned down sex so we could spend some quality time getting to know each other better. Not that I was opposed to the suggestion—he’d been equally tight-lipped about his parents, growing up in Halon’s Gate and the battles he’d fought in—I was just used to males thinking with the smaller of their two heads in these situations. As I do, you. It just feels like I haven’t had five minutes to catch my breath since this whole thing started. Now I’m in training, and if I don’t catch up on the religious studies I’ve been blowing off, I’m going to get my ass recalled to Mt. Olympus again. Christ, I’m still trying to get used to being a different species. Not to mention a queen. It’s just too much, Ris. Even if I wasn’t pregnant. Speaking of which, I got to see Vanessa for the first time today. Well, what there is of her, anyway. Damille said the gestational sac is positioned well. She gave our daughter a clean bill of health.
Aristos lifted his left arm in silent invitation. When I obliged, nestling up against his tattooed chest, he wrapped it protectively around my shoulders, my head tucking in beneath his chin. That was quite a mouthful. Have you always kept stuff bottled up inside you like this?
I just nodded. There wasn’t much point in denying what had been my go to method for dealing with stress since grade school. Especially not when I didn’t see that changing anytime soon.
Good to know. I can’t begin to tell you how relieved I am to hear our daughter is doing well. It may not seem that important given how early on you are, but the first few days of pregnancy are critical. Almost all of the Syreni children who don’t make it to term are lost in the first week. As for feeling overwhelmed, it’s only natural given everything that’s been thrust upon you. We’ll get through it all together, I promise you. Up until now, I’ve been monopolizing your time for my own pleasure rather than helping you. I give you my oath as your compar that I will be more thoughtful in the future. Although hearing you call me Ris for the first time doesn’t make that any easier. It’s taking every ounce of my restraint to keep from picking up right where we left off.
I eased my head away from his chest just far enough for my gaze to meet with soft expressive brown eyes. Now that I thought about it, I was almost certain Pulchra would’ve called him that as well. There weren’t that many ways to shorten Aristos. If it was going to invoke her ghost every time I muttered it I’d never use the nickname again. Pulchra must have called you that. It doesn’t bother you hearing it again?
He closed his eyes for only a second before he bent down and kissed me, his lips conveying all the love he felt for me as they caressed my own with the gentleness of rose petals. She did. It doesn’t bother me, though. This might sound crazy, but I think Pulchra played a part in bringing you here. Given everything you have in common, you two would’ve been inseparable. I’m sure she would have loved to know Naome and Serienne as well. Toward the end, she didn’t have anyone her own age to hang out with. At least not any females. It weighed on her, being the last hope for our race.
I know the feeling. Given the challenges human pregnancies of Syreni young would carry, there was no guarantee Naome and Serienne would ever conceive, let alone bring a baby to term. I was the only sure bet for keeping the Syreni race from slipping into extinction.
So if I would have asked your dad for your hand in marriage, do you think he would have said yes?
I think the whole turning me into a fish and whisking me off to another planet might have been a showstopper, I teased, letting out a few chirps of laughter for good measure. When he rolled his eyes at me and shook his head—a human expression he’d adopted from hanging around me and my sisters, no doubt—I spared him from re-asking what he really wanted to know. Both of my parents would’ve loved you. You’re respectful, driven in a good way, unbelievably brave, fiercely loyal, loving, compassionate… they liked Austin, but they didn’t care for what he did for a living. And it bothered them that he was willing to hit me even though it was my idea to cross train with him, and he always made me wear padding whenever we sparred. They were worried his maniacal warrior attitude wouldn’t stay contained inside the ring forever. Honestly I think they were just being overprotective. He never showed any signs he might hit me in anger even when I provoked him. But who’s to say what might have happened when he couldn’t fight professionally any longer? Some of the things he did during his bouts—like rubbing streaks of his opponent’s blood underneath his eyes war-paint style—scared the shit out of me.
The crushing wave of guilt that overc
ame me for thinking such heinous things about the man I’d agreed to marry had me scrambling to get out of Aristos’s arms. He refused to let me go even when I beat my hands futilely against his chest. Unable to escape his embrace, I pressed his hand against my cheek and let out a series of shrill, sonic calls that echoed off the stone walls of our home until they reached a deafening pitch.
You’re not betraying his memory, Cami. Aristos repeatedly kissed the top of my head as he rubbed his left hand soothingly across my back, keeping his right hand against my cheek to comfort me. Distance has allowed you to view things more objectively than you could before. Just as I wrestle with the fact that Pulchra was cruel to my mom and despised both of my parents. It’s not easy to accept that your loved ones had shortcomings, but that doesn’t make them any different than the rest of us, and it doesn’t mean we love them any less.
I’d settled down enough to stop shrieking, which based on the way my own ears were ringing, I was sure Aristos appreciated. The thoughtful sentiment he’d muttered to comfort me was given strength by his own confession. What were your parents like? Why didn’t Pulchra like them?
With a powerful thrust of his powerful emerald tail Aristos carried me off toward the door—as if he was going to take us to our bedroom—before changing his mind and tucking us underneath the netting of the spare bed in our nursery, probably out of fear that I might clam up again if there was too long of a break in our conversation. I rested my head against his bare chest, my body on top of his. It was a tight fit, as the bed was really only made for one, leading to some stimulating friction between us.
My parents moved here from San Gria shortly before I was born. Bulrigaard had become general of the Ceraspian Mountain Region about a decade before. They were both teachers, and they didn’t care for the more militant style of leadership he’d issued in, including converting the university they’d both worked at into another military academy. When Queen Brenn offered them professorships at the Palace of Poseidon they jumped on the opportunity.
When I first started courting Pulchra—not long after I’d passed my ascension trials—I brought her to my parent’s home to meet them. It was the first of many times they strongly encouraged her to enroll at the university. Even though to this day I believe they meant well, Pulchra took it as an indictment of her free spirit, devil-may-care attitude, like they felt she wasn’t good enough for me in spite of her being a princess. None of the efforts they made to foster a relationship with her after we were bonded made any inroads. Whenever she couldn’t avoid seeing them altogether Pulchra was cold to them, never once referring to them as Mom and Dad.
It was my turn to offer what comfort I could, running my fingers along the layered muscles of his abdomen, even if what I was about to say wouldn’t be what he wanted to hear. My own experience with judgmental, would be mother-in-law’s made me think Pulchra’s account of their interactions was probably closer to the truth than his own biased observations. Austin’s mom belittled my Olympic career as just another of my tomboyish hobbies. She’s a prominent Hollywood stylist. She was determined to make me care about fashion and act all girly-girl. Her wedding gift to me was a going to be a head-to-toe makeover, giving me some neon-colored euro hairstyle I would’ve hated, doing my makeup the way she’d expect me to keep it, styling my brows pencil thin just like her own, and having my body waxed and buffed until I was a shiny porcelain doll worthy of hanging onto the arm of her son. She’d even picked out an entire new high-end wardrobe for me from what I heard—right down to my underwear.
On the surface that might sound nice—Austin was blown away by her offer to spend a day pampering me—but what I took away from it was that she disapproved of everything about me; how I dressed, how I wore my hair, my chosen profession. Everything. Regardless of if your parents meant well or not, by repeatedly encouraging Pulchra to enroll in college—to change a part of herself she wasn’t interested in changing—they were bound to alienate her.
Aristos traced a finger along the edge of my gill covers as I breathed. It was distracting and kind of tickled, but it was also intimate, like he was memorizing another part of my anatomy. I can see now why Pulchra interpreted things the way she did. I only wish she would’ve shared that with me at the time. I could’ve talked to them.
I never told Austin that his mother’s offer bothered me, I admitted. Even though it probably would’ve made me resent her our entire marriage. It’s easier to just stick your head in the sand than it is to confront your spouse. No son wants to hear his wife cut down his parents.
He let out a mirthless chirp of a chuckle. I suppose we don’t. Was your sister born the way she is? Was she ever able to talk?
I took hold of his hand and pressed it against my chest, squeezing his fingers until they turned white around the edges. Talking about my sister was never easy for me. Caylee was born with cerebral palsy and severe mental disabilities when I was only a year old. We grew super close in spite of her condition. I was thrilled to have a baby sister and spent every waking hour playing with her. When I got old enough I started assisting with her care, changing her diapers, feeding her, bathing her, whatever I could do to help. She’s twenty years old, and she’s never gotten to take a single step or say anything to us. She’s not even aware of her surroundings. Well, other than right before my race, when out of nowhere she muttered a garbled warning that it wasn’t safe for me to get in the pool. I was so shaken that I got sick and had to get an I.V. put in.
Did anyone else hear her?
My mom and dad. They were just as freaked out as I was. We tried to get her to keep talking but her lucidity faded in an instant. How could she have known what was going to happen? Could she be psychic?
Aristos brushed the storm grey hair out of his face as he carefully considered my question. If she was, it seems like a huge coincidence that the one and only time her gift ever manifested itself was right before you were taken to another world. It’s more likely that someone was attempting to communicate with you through her, using her as a medium. The mentally challenged offer less resistance to intrusive acts like compulsion than those with normal brain activity. Most of the Syreni knew of our plans to bring you here, but only a couple dozen of them have access to our looking glass. Even fewer have the requisite knowledge to compel a human while using it. Someone who was not in favor of bringing the three of you here was actively trying to undermine our plan. They may still be plotting to kill you. We need to take this to the king.
I wasn’t aware it was possible to speak to people through a looking glass, let alone control their minds. Given that enlightening information, his theory made sense. I no doubt had countless enemies among the Syreni who viewed a converted human queen as sacrilege in spite of me having been transformed by the very gods they worshipped. But something still seemed off about it. The warning itself was geared toward me alone. Caylee hadn’t blurted out “stop the race” or “don’t let anyone get in the water”. If a Syreni adversary only cared that I not be brought here, rather than trying to prevent any human females from being taken, they’d have to have known I’d become the next queen. Only the gods had that knowledge. And given that Neptune and Poseidon had selected me for the throne, it wouldn’t make much sense for them to have warned me, especially since they’d made it explicitly clear I was critical to the future of both of our worlds. A far more likely culprit suddenly came to me—the band of Snow Elves who planned to assassinate their king. If they’d somehow learned of the role I was to play in quashing their uprising they’d have plenty of motive to keep me tucked away on earth. Although how they would’ve discovered such a thing before even the fates had seen it was beyond me.
Unable to keep what I’d been told to myself any longer, I shared my theory with Aristos along with everything I’d learned about the future elvin uprising, their alliance with the Water Fae, what could happen to both of our worlds if I failed, and that, according to our gods, I was our only hope for survival. By the time I finished it felt li
ke a thousand pound albatross had been lifted from my aching neck. The dire situation I faced may not have become any less imposing, but I no longer had to face it alone.
Aristos pressed himself even tighter against me, as if he could protect me from my uncertain future if he only held me more securely in his arms. His heart-wrenching kiss conveyed everything he was incapable of putting into words. All of his fear, love, anger and pain. What exactly do you need to do?
I have no idea. I’m supposed to get visions from Athena with the details. What really sucks is they have no idea when this all will unfold. It could be tomorrow or decades from now. I accept my fate—it’s our god’s will, and I’m their faithful servant—but not knowing when I’ll need to act makes it hard to focus on anything else. Not that worrying about it does any good. There’s not much I can do right now.
He gently lifted my chin with his fingers until our eyes met again. I would never question the will of our gods, or blame you for obeying their commands. You are their servant above all else. But I’d ask that you share what you can with me. Let me help you try to piece things together, Cami. And when the time does come for you to act, unless it’s expressly forbidden by the gods, keep me by your side to protect you.
I promise. The dubious prophecy the gods had shared with me—insinuating I’d be required to betray the Syreni race—made it seem doubtful Aristos would be allowed to accompany me until the very end. That didn’t undermine my oath to him. I’d tell him everything I was permitted to, and would keep him by my side as long as I possibly could.
Our candid exchange had caused something paramount to shift inside me. My soul felt different. At harmony with my body. More at peace than it had been since the moment I’d been transformed into a Syreni female and gained the ability to sense such things. I no longer pined for the human life I’d left behind or felt the need to wall off those memories for fear that they’d cripple me. Were Poseidon himself to offer me the chance to return to my former life, creating an alternate destiny where I went on to win the gold in Tokyo, have a house full of adorable children with Austin and start my own Olympic training facility—like I’d long dreamed of doing—I’d decline his offer on the spot. My place was at Aristos’s side as his compar, the queen of Teresolee, a Syreni warrior, a loving mother and a humble servant to the gods.
Kerrigan's Race (The Syreni Book 1) Page 23