His lip quirked into a mischievous smile. “Can’t I?”
The door to the closet opened, and Odele swam out, interrupting my reply. We both looked her over. She’d changed into a simple day dress in a very light blue. Her hair was swept over one shoulder, the tendrils magically curling down to her chest.
She looked fabulous. And she’d managed it in less than a minute, too.
“Since I can hear everything from there, I’m going to take a turn about the palace while you two work things out.”
My heart thundered. “But—”
“I know, I know. I’ll be careful. As long as you stay in here, there shouldn’t be a problem. No one will suspect a thing.”
I was sure I looked doubtful, but she waved me off with her fingers. “Please, go back to your stimulating conversation.” With that, she went to the door, opened it, and swam out, leaving Elias and I truly alone.
I sighed, a long suffering sound. She was too much.
I looked back at Elias. He was staring at me with dark, expectant eyes.
“I’m mad at you,” I told him, though there was no anger in my words, just a bone deep tiredness.
“So I’ve gathered. What I don’t understand is why.”
“Don’t you?” I asked. “You’re great at swindling secrets, after all.”
Elias scooted closer to me and took my hand. This time, I didn’t pull away from the warmth of his touch. I let our fingers entwine, and his own fit through the spaces like it was meant to be his home.
“Talk to me, little fish.”
I sighed. Of course, he had his perfect ways of stealing my secrets. With a look, with a touch, with nothing more than the softness in his voice…
“You used me to satisfy your own amusement. Me and Captain Saber.” My fingers tightened on his, as if I could transfer the pain I’d felt in that moment to him. “You ridiculed me, despite knowing how I feel about the captain, you put me through that. You must have known how it hurt me.”
Elias, for the first time since I’d known him, looked honestly bewildered. “Little fish I didn’t…” He broke off, ran a hand through his dark tendrils of hair. “You have to know that wasn’t my intention, to humiliate you.”
“But you did.”
He winced, as if my words were slaps to the face.
“I didn’t do what I did because of you, little fish. I did it for Captain Saber. You have to know that.”
My eyebrows pulled together. “I don’t understand.”
He let loose a small breath. “I didn’t do it to ridicule either of you. I did it because I know the captain has feelings for you, and I wanted him to open his eyes. I wanted him to realize what he felt for you.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.” I frowned.
“Doesn’t it?” He smiled. “Mermen, especially one like him, like the competition, the challenge. I wanted to prove to him that he could let go of the feelings he so tightly leashes. He just needed that push.”
I shook my head, disbelieving. It was more likely he’d done it to thwart the captain. That’d he done it to infuriate and mock him. By waving me in front of his face, me the mermaid who looked like the lost love of his life.
Elias put his fingers beneath my chin, and lifted my face up to meet his gaze. “Why do you doubt his feelings for you?”
I shrugged. Because of his actions. Because he seems to despise me and push me. Because it’d be easier to accept his hatred.
Of course, Elias read every thought on my face, and he shook his head, cupping my cheek in his palm. “He doesn’t love her, little fish. I wonder if anyone ever could love her, if I’m honest. She hides what she is so tightly, and even if she didn’t, she could never compare to you. So if he chooses her over you, more the fool he is.”
I let out a breath through my nose, and found myself smiling, a slight turn of my lips. “I’m still upset with you, you know.”
“I’d be disappointed if you weren’t.” He pulled away and leaned back on his hands, smirking with that mischievous grin of his. “So tell me, how does it feel to be actual royalty?”
My whole body jolted with hyperawareness. “How—”
“Odele told me everything. Though I can say I’m not surprised.”
My eyes narrowed, distrust shamefully filling me. “Was this another secret you knew and kept from me?” I demanded.
Elias flicked his fingers across the bed casually. “A secret? No. But I did have a feeling…”
“A feeling?” I echoed.
“Tell me you didn’t have it as well, little fish? There is no possible way that you two could look so alike and not be related. And when you told me about the missing royal… well… it just solidified my belief.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
His eyes narrowed at my accusing tone, but he merely shrugged. “Would you have even believed my suspicions? Do you even believe the truth? Don’t answer, I can tell that you don’t.”
A part of me despised that I was so readable, but another part was relieved. I didn’t have to voice what he already knew.
“Why do you doubt so much?” Elias inquired. He held his hand up, and began ticking off on his fingers. “You doubt Captain Saber’s love for you. You doubt my honesty. You doubt you are of a royal bloodline.” He dropped his hand, raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
The hardest part of all this was explaining myself. I’d told Odele why, but I hadn’t given her the truth, at least, not entirely. I braced myself to tell Elias the truth now.
“All my life, I thought I was one thing,” I explained quietly. “Everything I thought I was has suddenly changed. Yesterday I was an orphan with no family, today I have a cousin, a father. If I accept this role, if I accept my lineage, it means accepting this…” I gestured to the room around us. “Accepting that my mother is dead.” My throat tightened, and I couldn’t seem to get through the rest of the truth.
“So?” Elias asked quietly, fiercely, though not unkindly. “You thought both of your parents were dead before. Now you discovered only one of them is. What’s the real reason behind it, little fish?”
My fingers went to the ring for strength. “I keep thinking that maybe he won’t want me. That maybe, he’ll take one look at me and I won’t be enough. I won’t be what he expected. This truth has changed me, Elias. Everything about me is different now.”
He shook his head. “That’s bullshark, Maisie.” I blinked at the ferocity in his voice. He leaned forward, so close that our noses touched. “If he didn’t want you, he wouldn’t have tried tearing this kingdom apart to find you. He will want you, all of you. I’m sure of it. As for the other bit?” He closed his eyes briefly, the shadows of his lashes swimming against the top curve of his cheek. “This information doesn’t change you. Not at all.” He pressed a hand to my chest, right over the rapid thumping of my heart. “This is still the same. Perhaps the only thing that’s changed is your knowledge of who you truly are. But deep down, you are still that mer from Lagoona. You are still the mer who wants a better Thalassar. Except now, you finally have the power to change things, if only you dared.”
“So you’re telling me to accept it,” I breathed. “To be a Princess.”
He shook his head, dark eyes piercing mine. “Accept it. Don’t accept it. That’s up to you. But don’t let anyone force you into any roles, little fish. You are you. You are Maisie and Odalaea. You were born a royal, but raised in Lagoona. You are a waitress and a Princess. And no one can take that away from you, except you.”
Was it possible, to not just be one thing? Was it possible to be a myriad of emotions and things? Wasn’t Elias here proof enough of that? A criminal who saved mer, secretive, yet honest. Dangerous, but safe.
Was I proof enough of this?
Could I accept the role as Princess of Thalassar, of Kappur and still be me?
“You’ll never know unless you try,” Elias answered my unasked question.
And maybe he was right.
CHAPTER T
WELVE
Odele
IT WAS A strange sensation, to swim so openly through the palace after so long. In the months I’d been gone, I’d gotten used to hiding and sneaking through shadows and secret passageways. Of hiding, and observing. I couldn’t quite say I missed sneaking around like a common thief. I wasn’t meant for that life, for a life of hiding.
I was meant to be seen and heard. To be worshiped and lavished. Not scuttling around like a crab, or hiding in the silt like a rockfish.
I glanced down the hallways, hoping to spot a servant I could command, just for the pure joy of it. Perhaps I’d make one of them clean the ceiling with a sponge, even if it currently appeared spotless.
Smiling to myself at the idea, I swam forward, searching for a servant that could be mine to command. Really, where were they? There should have at least been two posted in every hall and bend of the palace. Commoners, I thought with disgust, rounding the corner of the hall. They could be so stupid sometimes.
A warm body rammed into mine so suddenly, I took a staggering stroke back. I looked up with a glare, “How dare you—” I cut off when I beheld the merman before me. Dark robes flowed around his body, covering the black, orange and white koi fish pattern of his tail. His black hair was tied back with a red ribbon, exposing the sharp angles of his cheekbones and pointed chin. Warm brown eyes settled over me with familiarity.
My betrothed was attractive, if one found disgusting dragon half-breeds to be that. His feminine good looks had absolutely no effect on me, and were entirely too unimpressive.
“My gem.” His eyes warmed to entirely impossible temperatures. His gaze roamed over me, a slice of blue cutting through the brown as he took me in, in a way that made me feel too exposed, too naked.
“You—”
He cut me off, gripping my arm tightly and pulling me towards a wall that he pressed me up against. His body slid over mine, and I felt his every pane and joint poking into my delicate skin. Gross.
“Don’t say anything,” he whispered. He bent down close. Too close. I tensed. “Please just listen. I do not understand why you are so upset about the marriage. You know I love you, and want to be with you. I assumed you felt the same way. If you do not, then tell me now. I do not want to keep believing that we have a future together if we don’t. You have to know, that I came back to you despite being duty bound to another, because I want you. All of you.”
My head whirled at the tenacious confessions. He hardly breathed as he spoke, and his eyes were wide and frantic with worry. Long fingers skimmed down my arms, and made goosebumps rise over my flesh.
Not the good kind, either.
I couldn’t speak for a long while, I was so stunned.
My silence seemed to fill him with hope. “So you’ll marry me?”
I blinked rapidly. “I—”
“Say yes,” he nearly begged. Pathetic Draconian lizard. “Please say yes. I will give you love, and…” He broke off, hand reaching up to stroke the side of my breast. I jerked. “I can give you pleasure, too.” And then his eyes flashed a violent shade of blue, right before he bent down and kissed me.
I gasped in surprise, and he shoved his tongue in my mouth.
It would likely take me weeks to get the taste of reptile out.
Closing my hand into a fist, I brought it up and punched him on the side of his face.
Startled by the force of the blow, he jerked back, cupping his cheek in his palm. He took me in, the blue fading back to brown.
I spit and gagged. “That was the most disgusting thing I’ve ever had to endure.” I swiped the back of my hand against my mouth. “Oh gods, I think I’m going to be sick.” I cut him a vicious glare. “How dare you touch a Princess of Thalassar you disgusting lizard?”
He blinked his surprise. “Wha—Odele?”
Oh, silt.
“Duh,” I snapped imperiously. “Who else would I be? Years of breeding with beasts have obviously made you as brutish and as dumb as one. Oh, ugh.” I gagged and whirled away from him.
Silt, silt, silt.
If he’d kissed me, if he was spewing nonsense about weddings and love, it could only mean that he was involved with my cousin.
And he’d just kissed me.
It felt like a betrayal to the blood of my blood. Yet I couldn’t think about that right now. All that whirled through my mind was the fact that he’d kissed me, and it was disgusting, and I felt like I was going to toss up my breakfast.
“Oh, gods,” I muttered, slapping a hand to my mouth.
“Odele?” Prince Kai still sounded incredulous behind me.
But I didn’t have time to float around and wait for his miniscule brain to catch up to the facts.
I was about to be sick.
So I swam, hard and fast, all the way back to my room.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Kai
STUNNED, I COULD do nothing but float there, and stare at the spot she’d vacated.
Odele.
Odele Malabella, Princess of Thalassar was here.
And if she was here, then where was Maisie? Panic seized me in an iron fist, and every worst possible scenario swam through my mind. Had I pushed her away with my insistence? Or had Odele showed up of her own volition after all this time?
Oh, Dragon Gods, had Maisie left?
No, my gem, my mate couldn’t be gone.
She couldn’t be.
I darted after Odele, as if the Great Dragon himself were snapping at my fins and prayed I wasn’t too late.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Maisie
ODELE BURST through the room, startling both Elias and I. We looked sharply to her, and I got up, worry weighing in my stomach as I saw her heaving and gagging over her palm.
“What’s the matter?” I asked quickly. “Were you poisoned?” Gods, no. Not poison again. If she’d been poisoned, I had no idea how I’d handle that. I wasn’t a doctor. I wouldn’t be able to heal her.
“No—” She heaved, gagged. “Not… poison…”
I went over to her, placing my hand on the small of her back. Where she’d seemed like such an extravagant impossibility before, it was strange how touching her now was as easy and as comfortable as breathing. “Deep breaths,” I suggested calmly. “Breathe through the nose.”
Of course, she didn’t take my advice. She gagged, shook me off, and turned to glare at me. “How many are you involved with?” she accused.
“What are you talking about?”
She started forward, her body moving jerkily as if she really had been poisoned. She went over to the foodstuffs and trays she’d left that morning. She picked up the pitcher of frothy tea, and poured it into her mouth. I watched with astonishment as she gargled her mouth and spat it back into the pitcher.
“Gods, that was disgusting…” She shivered. “Just thinking about it makes me—” Odele broke off on a gag. “Oh gods, I need to brush my teeth.” She started to turn around.
“What is going on?” I asked.
A suffering sigh escaped her. “We’re busted, cousin. Your Lizard Prince discovered me and—” She gagged. “Oh, gods, I can’t even say it out loud, it’s so vile.” She disappeared into the bathing room. The next few moments were filled with the sounds of Odele vigorously brushing her teeth.
I shared an exasperated look with Elias, both of us clearly unsure as to what, exactly, was happening. She emerged a moment later, swiping at her mouth, as if she scrubbed it hard enough, it would fall off.
I opened my mouth to comment on her odd behavior when the door to the room suddenly burst open, and Kai swam through, closing it behind him.
There was a look of absolute panic on his face, a panic that surely I was now mirroring. The Prince froze, looking back and forth between Odele and I with obvious astonishment, while all I wanted to do was screech at Odele for foolishly leaving the door unlocked.
“Maisie…” he breathed, looking towards me.
Odele scoffed. “Oh, now you can tell us apart, Liz
ard Prince? You should have used your beastly instincts to figure that out earlier before you kissed me!” She slapped a hand over her mouth, whether it was because she wanted to take the words back, or because she wanted to gag I wasn’t sure.
Not when shock rippled through me entirely.
“You—you kissed her?” My heart thumped and cracked against my ribs. My chest lurched painfully and my stomach roiled. Kai and Odele had kissed. I suddenly felt like I was far away, and everything that had suddenly been so close and in my grasp, was unattainable once more.
“I thought she was you!” Kai explained, eyes pleading mine.
“You can’t tell them apart?” asked Elias. I could hear the smile in his voice, and it wasn’t helping the situation. It felt like a blow to the stomach.
“I’m sorry my gem!” Kai swam over and took my stiff fingers in his hands. “It was a momentary lapse in judgment. I was desperate to speak with you, and she was there and I thought…”
“Do you like her? Did you enjoy the kiss?” Elias asked mischievously.
Kai glared at the Black Blade, a threat swiping over his features. Elias laughed in reply.
“My gem…” Kai’s fingers swept over my cheeks.
“Helloooo, is anyone listening to me?” Odele’s voice broke through my haze of pain. We all turned to look at her, to find her glaring, and rather formidably. “I don’t know what kind of sick, weird and twisted relationships you have, cousin, but please note that the kiss? It was the most disgusting thing I’ve had to go through in my life. It was worse than sleeping on mossy floors.” She shuddered.
Kai’s eyes narrowed on her, clearly offended. A moment later, they widened, and he turned to look at me inquiringly. “Cousin?” he echoed.
We all went suddenly still. I felt like ice had suddenly dribbled down the length of my back in slow, torturous movements. Kai obviously tried to process this information; I was trying to process it.
This secret knowledge was difficult to fathom, and now Kai knew. Could I bear to recount the events? No, I didn’t think I could get through the story. My heart felt like it would suddenly burst into thousands of irreplaceable pieces despite Elias’s earlier words of encouragement.
Death Beyond the Waves Page 8